unpopular opinion (?) and maybe i'm losing my mind and maybe this has been talked about already, but i feel like aziraphale s3 (and somewhat s2) is, like, the characterization of a female love interest from people who can't write women for their life?
like, they see this gay (??) couple, and they decided crowley is the "man" and aziraphale is the "woman", because that's how deep they understand queer relationships (don't even get me started on what it means to take the female expression out of crowley). So, automatically, crowley as the man becomes the ProtagonistTM, the long-suffering victim, always right, rational and pragmatic, while aziraphale, as the woman, is the vain, silly, hysterical love interest. You know when in a show the love interest says something irrational and impossibly stupid to generate misunderstanding and/or cheaply drive conflict in the story? THAT. It's never the man. It's always the woman being unreasonable and emotional and childish and whatnot. and generally mean, too, because that's what women do, right?
to be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with aziraphale playing damsel in distress with crowley, like he did for example in s1, and that's specifically because it's a play. because he IS a competent and intelligent and relatively powerful being, and you know that he is in fact perfectly in control all the time.
in s3 (and s2), it's not like that! the narrative takes his choices seriously, treats him as actually stupid, and crowley as actually the only reason he thrives at all.
that's the s3 (and s2) ship dynamic. that's how they see our beloved aziraphale. that's why he doesn't get to choose. that's why "why give me crowley?" is his most pressing question, TO FUCKING GOD, because he has no identity anymore besides being Crowley's love interest. no matter that this is an angel, an archangel at some point (yuck), that their sexualities and genders are amongst the most fascinating and complex aspects of the show, they're treating him as the "woman" in a gay relationship.
somehow his characterization is both homophobic and misogynistic. i'm disgusted. i hope this makes sense, but honestly it does
So, does this make Aziraphale the opposite of a manic pixie dream girl? Repressed angel nightmare gay?
Omg, OP, thank you! This has been hurting me far more than the erasure itself since the funfair aired! Aziraphale's character misstatement and cementing that the whole story revolved around Crowley after all, that Crowley was the sole hero and Aziraphale was there just to recognise that and be awed by him.
I will never forgive that.
