Happenstances of Wonderment

Standing before the one thing in the universe that could actually destroy him, Crowley’s Aziraphale is resolute, unflinching, gracious to the very end. He talks about the greater good and how angels are meant to be the champions of that greater good even when it goes against how the Great Plan was written. He stands up and speaks his truth even in the face of total opposition. And when the Archangel Michael, the person Aziraphale has always tried to emulate, tried to impress, tells him in no uncertain terms that this is what heaven does to the people who fight for the right thing, Aziraphale straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin and says, “It’s been lovely knowing you all. May we meet on a better occasion.” And then he steps into the flames. 

But… you know it has always been like this and I would love to see them in a different role. Give me War, who talks to veterans, who helps them get over the terrors they’ve seen. Give me a war who is fed up with the way humans are at war with themselves all the time, who doesn’t stand for the war crimes that still happen.

Give me Pollution, who fights against the thing she is named after. Just because she is named after it doesn’t mean she has to like it. Give me Pollution who just wants to scream at the humans for what they do to their planet. They don’t need the Apocalypse, they destroy their planet alone. Give me Pollution who demonstrates with thousands of humans, who cries over the animals who died because of the pollution.

Give me Famine, who helps to feed the hungry people all over the world. Give me Famine who speaks in front of cameras, trying to make the people see, trying to make them help their own race. Give me Famine who just can’t help himself and takes starved orphans away and raises them himself.

Give me Death, who cries over every extinct race. Give me Death who cannot understand why you would hunt animals down until they don’t exist anymore. Give me Death who tries to stop the fate of young people, people who would’ve lost their lives far too early. Give me Death who is as fed up by war as war herself, who hates that so many people have to die before their time.

Crowley-as-aziraphale:

also me, seeing the third post today describing aziraphale as “nice”:

Neil Gaiman refusing to confirm your ship because his co-author is no longer with us is NOT queerbaiting.

It’s nowhere near the same as JKR telling us Dumbledore & Grindelwald were totes gay, but then refusing to depict it ever.  It’s not the same as the makers of BBC Sherlock (just as an example) giving heavy queer subtext and then saying Sherlock & John are definitely both straight.

I still felt queerbaited by this show. I watched it and loved 89% of all its minutes, but I was sitting here thinking cannot believe that despite it all I am being queer baited in 2019. More under the cut (including spoilers) as this did run out far further than I expected.

This is a serious question, and a good one, and… a complicated one. And I appreciate that you value my opinion here, but I cannot answer for anyone other than myself. Everything I say here is just how I personally respond to their relationship and the portrayal of it. I, too, have seen discussions about this and understand being frustrated that the relationship isn’t explicitly romantic. In my ideal version of Good Omens, Aziraphale and Crowley would kiss or outright say they love each other and it would be absolutely, concretely, unmistakably romantic. That didn’t happen in the series, and nor, based on the book, did I expect it to. Overall, the series is actually a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel; there’s added material, and a somewhat different take on the characterizations of both Aziraphale and Crowley, but the major beats and the overall tone of their relationship are the same. So if nothing else, I would say that the series is no more guilty than the novel.

And one of the things both the series and the novel feature are some instances of other characters assuming that Az and/or Crowley are gay or a couple. These are the moments that, to me, come closest to queerbaiting. They do feel a bit teasing. They make a delighted part of me say, “See, everyone can see they’re in love!” and another, far more frustrated part say, “Oh, but how I wish the story itself would actually confirm that.” 

But although they never kiss or explicitly say they’re in love… Nor does the book or the series ever bother to assure us that they’re not in love. It never “corrects” these other characters by assuring us that Az and Crowley are not attracted to each other / to men, and it never gives them any other love interests. It never suddenly backtracks on their relationship and tries to pretend that they’re not as intimate or important to one another as they were earlier in the story. Their relationship might not be portrayed as explicitly romantic, but I think it is portrayed as deeply, unmistakably intimate and loving, with no confirmation or denial of whether that intimacy is only purely platonic/spiritual or could possibly become romantic.

I don’t want to dismiss the frustrations of anyone who wishes that their relationship were explicitly romantic. I, too, hunger for more outright LGBT rep in media and don’t appreciate being baited. And I should point out that I really didn’t follow the promotion/marketing of the GO series, so I don’t know how their relationship was handled in those extratextual channels. (Which I bring up because, with other shows, I’ve seen marketing/social media be HUGELY guilty of queerbaiting.) It’s a worthwhile discussion to have and I understand why people have strong and differing opinions on it, especially since there are different opinions about how the term is even best defined.

But for me, personally? I don’t think of Aziraphale/Crowley as queerbaiting. I think of it as a very, very, VERY slow burn. I think the series really emphasized how fragmented Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship has been over their 6k years on earth. They haven’t been constant companions; between their times together, there have been years when they were apart. But they always find each other again. They are drawn to one another, from the beginning of the world to the end, and have spent millennia tentatively building up an acquaintanceship, then a truce, then an Arrangement… Even by the beginning of GO, they can barely admit that they’re friends, even though it’s obvious how close they are. And then GO itself features them confronting the idea of losing each other and the world they share. It’s a SLOWWWWW burn. And we do not, in canon, get to see it get all the way to lighting the fire, so to speak. But I think that by the end of GO, their relationship is more loving and intimate than ever, and in my mind, the slow burn continues even after the story of GO itself ends.

automobile

changing coolant

changing oil

changing tire

jumping a car

plumbing

toilet running

basement flooding

replace a faucet

clogged drain

electrical

replacing light switches

blew a fuse

installing overhead light

earth vs. neutral vs. live wires

home

patching drywall

finding studs

like i recently had to change my car battery and freaked out cause i thought id electrocute myself but turns out new batteries come with directions and its the easiest shit in the world so long as you can lift the damn thing.