Too old for a teenage crush? Apparently not!!

Since you motherfuckers are as thirsty as me, here’s every single frame of Aziraphale feeling indulgent relief in the beginning of the time-bubble at the end of the world. I sliced it TO THE INDIVIDUAL FRAME on either side.

Like, okay, there's a level where I'm trying to be like "I have to engage with the baseline of what the story was clearly attempting to convey via it's framing and directorial choices and basic narrative structure. And the story that Good Omens Season 3 is trying to tell is that Crowley and Aziraphale have defeated God by convincing Her to make a Godless Universe. This is them wrestling some sort of agency out of God's rigged game, breaking the Ineffable Plan, and giving all of us free will"...

But also the thing is that it is so so easy, temptingly easy even, to make the argument that they never truly outplayed God, that everything that happened was exactly according to Her plan, that the Ineffable Plan was to get these two to sacrifice their lives to create a Godless Universe, that Crowley and Aziraphale just lost one final time in the Ineffable Poker Game for infinite stakes.

After all, why DID the Metatron think Aziraphale would be a good candidate for replacement Supreme Archangel? (and not any other of the 10 million Angels out there, or, say, one of the 4+ perfectly good actual Archangels hanging around Heaven who haven't repeatedly committed acts of treasons?) We never got any sort of decent explanation for that…

And how come Hell only bothered to revoke Crowley's access to Miracles just now, after letting him get away with it for years?

Well, a potential explanation would be that God was the one who actually told Metatron to promote Aziraphale and that God pulled the strings to finally suspend Crowley's Miracle Account, to get Crowley to his lowest point, to make him miserable and pessimistic and waste years gambling on rigged games, all to make him give up on Free Will and give up on his life…

Meanwhile, Aziraphale goes along with his decision out of Love, the same Love that God has already said is 'Predictable'. So… wouldn't They have predicted that Aziraphale would agree to Crowley's 'Heroic Sacrifice' right at that moment?

And how come Crowley and Aziraphale even survived after the entire Book of Life burned? Well, what was the explanation for how Satan survived? It made for a 'Good Story' for God.

So is that why Crowley and Aziraphale survived? Because God wanted Her favorite little ship around for the final round of the Universe? Why, what is the Story She was trying to 'tell' with this ending? Maybe the Story was just… GO3?

And why did She even entertain Crowley and Aziraphale's questions and requests? She had no reason too, if She truly wanted to end the Universe once and for all, She could've just done it. She didn't have any obligation to follow Crowley's request for a new universe either? Maybe because this what She planned all along?

When Crowley and Aziraphale made their request, they didn't actually specify they wanted an Earth and Humans in that new Universe, God tossed it in (even though you'd think Predetermining Evolution like that would go against some sort of Free Will..), maybe because that was already in the Plan?

After all, the World was destroyed, exactly as the Great Plan said it would…

If they actually restored that old world, you can say the Great Plan has been defied or broken. But is making a new Universe breaking it, or just continuing on the part that no one but God has ever seen?

Like, the thing is that we already introduced the concept of "actually, what if you just THINK what is happening now is going against the Plan but since the Plan is Ineffable and Nothing Can Be Against God's Will, so is just what She Planned All Along!"

Originally, it was presented jovially, with an optimistic, or at least ambivalent tone. Well, if anything you do is part of God's Plan, then you can do whatever you feel like! Maybe God wants Adam to choose his destiny, maybe God doesn't want the Universe to end, maybe God just wants Humans to have Free Will?

But then GO3 decided that, no, God is a straightforward antagonist that wants the world to end, and the existence of Her and Her Ineffability means that there is no Free Will and this world is not "real". It even emphasized the point of how someone might seem like and even think they are rebelling against God but they are actually only following Her will with Satan.

So… how the hell do we know that Crowley and Aziraphale aren't following God's will as well? That they aren't doing their jobs as characters in Her story? How do we know that this isn't also part of the greater ineffability?

I think the actual answer is just Bad, Rushed writing. The story put itself in a very difficult position, going up against an Ineffable God whose machinations invalidate the Free Will of the entire universe, and then never really establishing how or why our protagonists apparently have Free Will to defy Her this time. Even though the intent is for it to be the case.

BUT, they do exist. Sure. Okay. Whatever. let's just suspend our disbelief for that. when they look at the books inside the shop, it makes sense that the books are all empty because none of those authors existed.

but you know what other books are in the bookshop? AZIRAPHALE'S DIARIES. aziraphale exists so surely his diaries exist as well. and if every book in the shop is the book of life then.... his diaries are the book of life. literally their entire history as he remembers it of earth and the humans and everything.

Let's talk - Part 3

Continuation of this

-Part 1-

-Part 2-

Basically I re-read The One True Copy and Honestly I Can’t Believe The Nerve Of This Man Would You Just Look At What He’s Done To Our Story

I’ve talked about this so many times at this point. The book and seasons 1 + 2 stated that humans always had free will to begin with. They literally come up with things beyond and original to anything from heaven and hell. The whole idea of there being Good and Evil is literally what creates the concept of free will in the first place. The reason some humans can’t do as well as others is because there is inequality of the humans’ own making, therefore some are born in castles while others are born in poverty. Please tell me how God has had any kind of a negative impact on any of this???

I’m willing to bet my life Terry Pratchett wrote this one

Certainly not giving Depressed-And-Suicidal “God will always stack the deck against me” Crowley here, is it???

***For context for the next one: Adam is talking about getting rid of both The Them and The Johnsonites gangs as a metaphor/allegory for Heaven and Hell going to war to try and get rid of each other

While they mainly suggest that either gang coming out as the sole winner is as undesirable as either heaven or hell winning for eternity, I think this serves to make a point about how getting rid of both sides entirely is also a bad idea. The neighbors, the bystanders, the rest of humanity, may see it as “a plaque on both your houses,” But “it’d be a jolly sight less interestin’ if we all weren’t here.”

And remember, Terry Pratchett was responsible for The Them scenes in the book.

“That’s because the people trying to sort it out were men [Gaiman]”

*cue vague sounds of frustration as I tear my hair out in the background*

NG deserves jail time for taking this quote from Adam and giving it to Crowley to serve as his Righteous Hero Speech. Also, they didn’t sort anything out while any of the humans were alive and only declared that they had ‘sorted it’ after the entire universe was dead 💀

I cannot believe this line. It is literally presented as sarcasm, as satire, and yet the finale unironically adopts this entire philosophy in the end.

*cue somewhat louder sounds of frustration as I tear out what little hair I have left in the background*

*Me crossing out every single line in the finale script I just printed* 

Hastur: think you're gonna get across that (the road on fire)? There's nowhere to go.

Crowley: let's find out.

Hastut; wh- why are you driving? What- stop this thing.

Crowley: you know the thing I like best about time? Is that every day it takes us further away from 14th century. I really didn't like 14th century. You'd have loved it then. They didn't have any cars back in the 14th century. Lovely, clever human people inventing cars,and motorways, and... Windscreen wipers. You got to hand it to them, haven't you?

Hastur: stop this! It's over! You're doomed! You hear me, Crowley?! You're doomed! Whatever happens, doomed!

Crowley: see? This day's already got better!

[...]

Crowley: you are my car, I've had you from new. You are not going to burn. Don't even think of it!

This scene is so symbolic and revealing. Hastur says, "You're doomed", " There's nowhere to go". He tells Crowley that he won't make it across the road of fire, a symbol of a long, painful, impossible path. He tells him that he's doomed, that he should give up.

But Crowley doesn't give up.

He puts his foot down on the gas pedal and says, "Let's find out."

Even though he's terrified (his snake eyes taking up almost all of his eyes, showing just how stressed and afraid he is), he refuses to surrender. He keeps going. His faith is stronger than the fire, stronger than the burning Bentley, stronger than the risk of discorporation itself.

That faith comes from knowing that Aziraphale is alive and waiting for him. In many ways, Aziraphale is the embodiment of Crowley's faith and hope. And alongside that is Crowley's love for humanity (his speech about how clever humans are, inventing cars, motorways, and windscreen wipers)

That belief and love will always be stronger than the voices telling us we're doomed, that there's no way out, that we should just give up. We have to keep fighting, no matter who tells us that all the bridges have been burned and nothing can be fixed anymore. Even if we don't succeed perfectly, we tried. We didn't surrender. We kept going until the very end.

To me, this scene captures one of the central ideas of Good Omens perfectly: even if you're driving a burning car down a highway consumed by fire with only a few hours left until the end of the world, that doesn't mean you should give up and say, "To hell with it, let everything burn down. Maybe another world would be better anyway." (Yes, Good Omens 3, I'm looking at you.)

Just because the writing is shit, doesn't mean everyone is now free to hate on Aziraphale and collectively decide that Aziraphale always wanted to change Crowley or only cared about him as an angel and similar bullshit.

Aziraphale didn't even know angel Crowley. He met him ONCE. And when he met him again it was the war, Crowley joined the losing side and he DID NOT SMITE him. And Crowley knew he wouldn't.

Aziraphale spent 6000 years not smiting Crowley and not trying to harm him and not undermining his work and not reporting his lies to his head office.

He spent the time making sure Crowley doesn't get into trouble. From Flood onwards he had his eye on who might be listening. Even if it broke his heart he put breaks on when Crowley was going too fast. However much he wanted a picnic and all the dinners wanted by them.

Even when it DID break his heart he left for Heaven after S2 because they were still not safe and never could be with Heaven and Hell as they were. He saved Crowley from a terrifying eternity (and all the other demons) by delaying Second Coming.

And at the end when he gets insulted by GOD, he tries to (even with shitty writing) turn it into a compliment for Crowley, who he has always seen as different from them all. The one he always loved.

AND ALL I SEE IS AWFUL TAKES ON HOW HE SHOULD HAVE WORDED IT BETTER.

Don't we have enough negativity in the fandom? Fix the dialogue yourself. Get them away from God. Give them time. Take them upstairs.

what if they end up in the shop after everything has been erased, only this time crowley thinks: was the place always this big? it’s more of a maze than he remembers, now that he’s properly looking. rows and rows of shelves twisting and turning in a dozen labyrinthine directions. staircases spiraling up to nowhere. hallways branching off the foyer like tree roots, that’s new.

aziraphale emerges from the bowels of the shop, successful in his quest for cocoa. a warm drink at the end of all things, how painfully british. as far as crowley can tell, nothing has survived; not the earth, or alpha centauri, or any distant stars and nebulas clinging to the skin of the universe. not even light, the fastest, most fundamental thing in all of creation. but somehow, fortnum & mason has. somehow, aziraphale’s chintzy mug embossed with the words HOT STUFF in blazing cherry red above a little cartoon devil has.

“don’t ask,” he says, pushing it into crowley’s hands.

crowley opens his mouth, several questions and a taunt or two already lined up in the wings— and that's when he sees it.

oh. 

that’s definitely new.