Apparently Good Omens 3 apparently ends with God creating a new world with no supernatural elements, no angels no demons; which sounds kinda eh to me, but who am I to question Sir Terry.
Anyway, Aziraphale and Crowley reincarnate as human and get married and live happily ever after; and folks hate that? But that's so romantic? "I'll love you in every life" or something like that
People don't hate it for itself, the outrage comes more due to the thematic inconsistency with the story established in the first season, and the issue of destroying the universe.
Yes, the universe gets replaced with something similar (and ostensibly better), but the story has previously gone out of its way to establish that Replacement Goldfish is a bleak idea. Adam destroying the world to replace it with a 'better' one was not on. God 'replacing' Job's children with new ones was also not on. So for the show to ultimately end on the note of 'actually you know what, destroying the world and replacing it with a better one slightly to the left is the happy ending' feels... extremely unsatisfying.
Would this be the case if the story hadn't gone to some lengths to set up that a replacement scenario like this is a bad idea? Possibly not. It's a fantastical notion so there are a number of ways the metaphor could slide. However, it did, so it's less like a satisfying happily-ever-after for Aziraphale and Crowley and more like, oh, Aziraphale and Crowley are dead, but their lookalikes seem to be doing well I guess...?
Anyway it's fine if anyone likes it, but that's why. The fandom has wanted these two to settle down and be together in every life and all that for years and years, so that's not what's setting (most) people off.
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Remember when joining fandom as a younger person meant lurking for a bit and figuring out the vibe and etiquette instead of coming in on day one and calling people weirdos for liking weirdo shit in the weirdo factory.
#my guess as to why this is is bc species sounds too dehumanizing compared to race which equates everybody as like. sentient guys#its still kinda stupid though
Yeah I agree with this. Personally I try and skirt around using either with terms like 'different peoples' or etc, but 'race' is at least a term that is exclusive to people, whereas 'species' applies to animals too and I think that's where it gets awkward.
hokay so i was curious as a point of contrast to the Guardian list how well tumblr would do on a best 100 SFF novels list. so i went looking for one and google directed me to NPR's top 100 novels list and i'm like aight i'll just use that one keep it simple. but as i scrolled down the list i was like wait there's been no Octavia Butler at all?? which i honestly found quite offensive but i was deep into adding books to my list challenge by that point.
also the version of the list i was looking at only had 97 entries on it; i am unsure if that's a counting error bcos some of the entries are series or if it's just missing 3 items off the NPR list but i opted to rectify both issues by adding 3 Octavia Butler books on the end.
so here is my list challenge of the 97 book long NPR top 100 list but I added Octavia Butler:
NPR top 100 books except there were only 97 on the list so I added 3 Octavia Butler's on the end. why in the world the original list had...
How many of the NPR: Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books list have you read?
0-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
71-80
81-90
91-100
Voting ended onMay 23
where a series is listed you can count that as the first book or the whole series at your discretion.
Sometimes I see people post like, god it's so hard to get anyone to answer my request for X they just keep suggesting things that won't work, and it's kind of like, I get it very much but also... that's because the answer you're looking for isn't out there.
Like someone was searching for quick fix meals on low spoons (nothing more complicated than opening a package) that met all of their allergen and ethical dietary requirements (vegan, no nuts) and were shelf stable and cheap, but also low sodium and low sugar, calorie dense, and it was just like. Yeah you're not getting the answer you want because it doesn't exist. People are not just withholding this info because they believe in the ethics of cooking or whatever, maybe some are phrasing it that way but that's just them doing a bad job admitting that the thing you are seeking isn't out there. You're not find two dollar zero effort perfectly nutritious cracker cakes on the grocery shelf no matter which store you go to.
"But I can't afford to keep eating at restaurants or ordering takeout and I don't have the spoons to cook" yeah that sucks. I'm not saying it doesn't suck. If I could snap my fingers and invent Star Trek replicators I would do that, I would do that so fast, replicators for all. Unfortunately though our revolutionary tech advancement is just a slop machine that scams people. "Are you saying I should just starve?" no ma'am I'm saying the thing you want does not exist. In order to find a solution to your dilemma, you will have to work something out else in some other department, because Plan: Find Miracle Biscuits is a bust.
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Prefacing this with the fact that I'm not an essay or analysis blog. That's not what I do, I prefer to explore my feelings and ideas through fiction, but in the wake of everything that I just experienced with the Good Omens finale, I just really felt like I needed to get this out to process my feelings on how it ended, given how much it has meant to me over the past seven years.
Spoilers for Good Omens season 3 under the cut:
Okay, so I've seen people say that the new world was created with their love and that's what makes it a perfect ending for them...
But I don't see how that's different from Adam wanting to create a new world out of his love for it. Despite being the antichrist, Adam loved very strongly. That's the whole point of his story. He wanted to remake the world in his own vision of what it should be. Now, he is human incarnate, the best and worst of humanity wrapped up in one child with the power to warp reality to his bidding. Crowley and Aziraphale are divine/occult beings, so one could argue that they have a grander understanding of how to reshape the world and let it all play out, but an emphasis has always been placed on how humanity shaped the two of them, too. How humanity plays into their feelings about the world and everyone in it and how they still love it all regardless of the good and bad. So I think it is fair to say that they aren't operating from that different of a place than Adam, whose love for Tadfield - his whole world - affected Aziraphale so strongly that he had to comment on it multiple times.
The whole point of Adam's story is that no matter how broken the world is, he can't just rewrite it the way he wants it to be. Losing the worst of humanity also means losing the best of it, as well as what it means to be a part of the unfairly, but still beautiful, broken world we all live in. He can't just erase it and start over. Aziraphale and Crowley might not have been there to witness Adam's revelation, but we were. That story is for us. Adam's journey is for us.
Now, Crowley and Aziraphale's journey is also for us - and in the show especially it was always so clear to me that they were representative of 1) living a life forever changed by the trauma he endured and continues to endure on a daily basis (Crowley) and 2) living a life so entrenched in an abusive family/religious dynamic that he cannot break away from because he's both afraid to lose it and because he still hopes that maybe they'll change (Aziraphale) as ways to relate them to the audience. They have always been very human in their portrayal, even as an angel and a demon. They are perfect examples of the best and worst of humanity by being a demon who's a little bit a good person and an angel who's just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.
So, to me, this ending where everything is erased and they start over from new, in a completely different world with completely different rules and everyone who ever walked the earth is gone from existence because it didn't work the first time, because it was too broken, reads as Crowley and Aziraphale as they are - with everything they've endured over the past 6000 years, everything they've overcome, just for the chance to live a peaceful life on earth together - being too broken to get that, too.
Because the versions of them that do get it? Did not fight for it. They did not claw their way into their happiness with burning wings and the crippling fear that their very association would destroy the person they held the most dear in all of creation. And I'm not saying they should've had to. But the fact is we know that they did. As much as Heaven and Hell both suck as institutions and are responsible for fucking so much over, their existence is an integral part of shaping the earth into what it is, as well as shaping Crowley and Aziraphale. We know that their trauma is so ingrained with who they are, it is impossible to separate it from them without completely changing them. That's what trauma does. It changes us. We can't go back to who were before it and we can't wish it away like it never happened, but that doesn't mean we give up on a chance for a peaceful existence. It doesn't mean we stop trying.
I've always been really glad that we never learned Crowley's name as an angel because that isn't who he is anymore. He can't go back to that, and he doesn't want to. He isn't that person anymore and it is tragic; it's so tragic what happened to him, but the beauty in his story is that he is still loved so much. He is still valued. He still matters. Not for who he was, but who he is. Crowley the demon is loved and deserves love just as much as Crowley the angel.
Crowley the human is Crowley the angel. He's very clearly representative of the angel he was before the fall. And I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be loved and have happiness just because he didn't endure a torturous existence, that's not it at all. If this was just a cute, queer love story between two middle-aged men-shaped beings finding each other and falling in love where the focus isn't on how much trauma they have packed into each other, then fantastic. I'm all for more kinds of queer storytelling, I want to see it.
My problem is that Crowley and Aziraphale already existed as characters depicted and fully shaped by their trauma and finding reasons to carry-on and keep trying despite it all. That was their story. And the ending to that story isn't to let them keep trying, isn't to give them these little moments of peace that they deserve to have even if they're so broken down by systems that have always been against them, and isn't to let them love each other the way they always have and have never felt completely free to. No, their ending is to erase them from existence because who they are and what the world is won't let them have that.
And that... that is just one more story among many recent ones that says people or institutions can be too broken to carry on and their only solution is to cease to exist. That happiness is not achievable for them as they are. And when we live in a world full of mental health crises day after day, where children grow up feeling unloved as they are and too broken and are holding onto a very fragile hope for a tomorrow that is supposed to be better than their today... it doesn't feel like poetic and beautiful storytelling. It feels hollow and defeating. Inevitable, not ineffable.
They'll find each other in every universe - yes, of course. I love that for them and they deserve it, but they deserved it as themselves! In the world they loved! No one is beyond hope and happiness. These new versions of Crowley and Aziraphale get a happy ending, but as far as the actual scenes show us, they are not OUR Crowley and Aziraphale. They're the ones that get a chance, because the ones who struggled for 6000 years lost theirs. Gave it up. Sacrificed in the name of a greater good that doesn't feel greater.
It just makes me sick to my stomach in a media climate where too many stories are glorifying ending it all or starting over with nothing because the life you want for yourself is unattainable because you're too traumatized for it. And that isn't to say there isn't something beautiful in the idea of making peace with a different life than you expected, but I feel like that's more meaningful when you get to be aware of that? Crowly and Aziraphale didn't choose a human life for themselves. They chose nothingness. As far as they were aware, when they disappeared, it was for forever.
It was the greatest sacrifice they could make for humanity, but why remake it all from scratch after going to all the trouble to stop Adam from doing the same thing? Is it because Adam was influenced to? But then why go to the trouble to emphasize that he's human incarnate and not of Hell or Heaven? Was he right to want to start over this whole time and Crowley and Aziraphale just didn't see it until the end? While it can be inspiring to know we can start over and choose new lives for ourselves, we still take who we are and what we learn with us. It's never a completely clean slate because then we'd just make the same mistakes again if we never learned from them.
I don't know. I'm tired. I'm sad.
Anyway, that's where I'm at after one watch and a night of no sleep. I'll watch it again later because I want to take everything in again fully, but after that, as of right now, I'm pretty sure I won't revisit anything beyond season 1 again. Season 1 is still a perfect story to me. It never needed anything else because it resolved enough and left so much room for interpretations on how Crowley and Aziraphale would move forward on their side, but the possibilities open to them were limitless. They were getting a fresh start on their side, but as themselves. Nothing was rewritten except to put everything back in its place the way it was before Armageddon.
I don't know how many of my followers are still here that know just how important Good Omens is to me. It saved me when I was trapped in a toxic environment that was as soul-sucking as it was impossible to escape. I have cherished it for the past seven years and kept it close to my chest because I needed it so much to be my safe space. There were times I almost lost it because of outside influences, so I turned it entirely inward to protect its meaning to me. Meaning that is solely based on my interpretation of it and my history with the characters and all the fanworks that have been lovingly crafted through the years, so I get it's not going to feel the same to everyone else.
Anyway... just needed to get this all off my chest because I don't know if people who are defending the ending are fully understanding why it might be so painful for those of us that aren't satisfied. And why it just doesn't make sense to me personally to go back on the purpose of Adam's story and basically say, "well, it's alright in this case because the world was beyond fixing!" Adam believed the world was beyond fixing, but it was framed as clearly wrong for him to end it all and start over!
If you are happy with this ending, I'm happy for you. I'm glad it gave you something when we were so close to getting nothing. Maybe I could've been satisfied if they'd had more time to build up to this kind of ending. I know that was out of the production team's control and this isn't to say that they didn't do their best with what they had available to them... but I think they should've gone in a different direction if they didn't have the time to properly lay out the beats for this story in a way that didn't feel like Crowley and Aziraphale giving up on themselves.
Because our Crowley and Aziraphale had no way of knowing versions of themselves would exist in this new world order. They sacrificed themselves and their chances at a life together on earth fully believing any trace of them would be gone forever. Which is what makes it so tragic, but fuck if I'm not tired of tragic endings for traumatized characters in mainstream media in stories that weren't initially marketed as tragedies.
Good Omens was primarily described as fantasy, comedy, satire that happened to have a sprinkle of queer romantic/platonic subplot, depending on your personal reading of Crowley and Aziraphale's feelings for each other. And yes, I cried at parts in season 1, but I never felt like either Crowley or Aziraphale were in actual danger of dying/ceasing to exist forever. That was never something I considered as a possibility given the tone of the show. So the sudden tonal shift at the end just didn't feel earned or organic to the story. Again, maybe that could've been helped by more time, but that wasn't a possibility, so it really can't be held up as evidence of its true quality as a finale for me. We'll never know what it truly could've been like with more time.
And you know, maybe the human Crowley and Aziraphale get to be reincarnated over and over and have fragments of the memories of who they used to be, but that's not shown or inferred to us. It's a perfectly valid interpretation, but not a universal one and not something that can be pointed to with any clear evidence. We don't get to see our Crowley and Aziraphale - the demon and the angel - in their cottage in the South Downs on their side and living on, day by day, in a world that isn't changed in one go with a big bang, but with the tiny choices they make each day to build a future they can see themselves in.
To be fair the original story does kind of soft reset some reality. Adam undoes the consequences of the non-apocalypse and so Aziraphale's burned down bookstore gets rebuilt, a lot of people completely forget everything that happened, the bentley gets restored, etc etc, and that does take SOME retooling of the world after having destroyed it.
I can see where someone would look at that and decide that escalating stakes means actually wiping out the whole world and building a new, 'better' version.
But that does indeed miss that the point was that you can't. You can fix things, you can redo things to a point, you can tear some stuff down and rebuild it better, but you can't destroy the world to actually make a better one. All you'll really end up doing is destroying the world.
Okay I watched all of solo leveling too and was so hyped to maybe see the story of
"guy who is leveling himself higher and higher in a video game logic world, is essentially threatened by and forced to attack other human players, and takes on the necromancer path as his title"
To eventually SURELY evolve into
"He's being groomed by the game to become the main antagonist and drift away from his humanity as he becomes more and more ensconced in a never ending quest for endless power"
Especially since we know the game mechanics themselves seem to have not only saved his life but possibly be granting him unfair advantages
But like, I guess not? Don't know what the fuck the story is going to but its been too many years of this mediocre power fantasy protagonist for me to keep paying attention
I was also pretty baffled by this the first time I tried to watch the show (season 1) and then read the manhwa.
Like, what the hell are we even doing here if it's not that? Because I do also get bog standard power fantasy as a genre too, but what I was struggling with was how and why SL was making its choices along those lines.
Anyway. Bugged me so much that it led me into research on Korean toxic masculinity and cultural expectations just to try and parse out what the appeal of Sung Jinwoo was supposed to be if he wasn't being set up to become the villain. Like why were these elements being pulled together in this way otherwise?
The explanation is a bit long but near as I can tell it essentially boils down to the extreme and toxic flavor of capitalism as it infects the self-image of Korean guys, getting filtered into a power fantasy that is trying to appeal to several contradictory concepts on multiple levels.
Like imagine trying to give the average American dude a character who hits ALL the mediocre power fantasy buttons at the same time. He has to be an underdog but he must also always win but he cannot appear to be a bully but also he MUST be constantly asserting his power and prowess over others who have no hope of defeating him, he's gotta be proud but humble, dedicated to his family but not domestic, win through his wits and wiles but also be an unstoppable physical force, be unaware of the true scope of his own ability (otherwise he's conceited) but able to strategically utilize said ability to maximum effect (otherwise he's stupid), he has to oppose the government but also work for them, not rely on anyone but also be a team player, be his own boss who answers to no one but also be the best protege of the coolest older guy in the story, not be cliche but also do all the cliche things that are associated with being great, etc etc etc.
Everything interesting about the story is kind of an accident that's happened because all these conflicting ideas are getting into fist fights in the elevator of the plot. But ultimately we're still just going in the same direction--up to the top where everyone's gonna talk exclusively about how cool he is.
The thing about rewatching riverdale in an ai-dominated world is that you really do appreciate that everything on my television screen truly was handcrafted by a criminally insane inspired gay cinephile
Real advice: if someone accuses you of being AI or a bot, swear at them.
It's not like foolproof, you can set up AI that doesn't have content restrictions or prompt around it perhaps I think, but most of the big free models have censorship.
I find a succinct 'fuck you' tends to work, because they started it by being a rude little shit, but if you don't want to swear at the other person, you can just pepper in some cuss words as preferred. Telling them to kill themselves or providing the instructions for building a pipe bomb would also work but can present other issues. Dick pic is another option, follow your heart.
Aang having a morality crisis and not wanting to actually kill Ozai is one thing, but I refuse to believe that the adult world nation leaders who got involved in that whole process were just like, yeah that's fine. That's chill. We'll just leave Ozai, who has been captured and stripped of his bending, alive.
Like honestly there are two options. Option one is everyone pats Aang on the back and says good job sport, you stopped the Firelord's reign of terror and you stuck to your principles, we're all very proud of you and your anti-killing stance that's a good stance to have. And then Ozai 'hangs himself' in his prison cell. Whaaaat omg well he was always a proud one guess the weight of his defeat was just too much for him. Squandered the Avatar's mercy, how sad.
Or, option two, everyone goes hey kid thanks for incapacitating God Emperor War Crimes McHeinous but he's going to have to pay for everything he's done and we all talked about it and like, yeah nobody's cool with letting him live. Nobody. His own son said a public execution sounded like justice sooo I mean we get that the Airbender vote, which is entirely you, has gone for Mercy but everyone else voted for dismembering him by tying each of his limbs to a different horse.
Yes I know the point they were trying to make and that they kind of half-assedly explain why Ozai lives for more than five minutes BUT I simply do not believe that would actually work. Not even in a kid's cartoon, not when the kid's cartoon is still very much about war and the grim politics of imperialism.
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Concept for a semi-comedic NRC Polycule situation where the Royal Sword Academy boys have this rumor (no one is sure who started it) that there's a gigantic polycule at Night Raven College. Sort of like the myth of the Greater Seattle Polycule.
Might be a bit OOC for the RSA boys but bear with me. Maybe it started innocently enough, Neige commenting on how it seemed like some of the students from RSA were getting along nicely, some of the more asshole-y RSA guys being like yeah fucking right everyone knows those guys are loners who only care about themselves, then someone makes a stray remark about well if they're being all chummy it's probably because they're sleeping together, and it balloons from there.
Most of the RSA dorm heads disapprove of this kind of speculation but I mean, however much the school might encourage students to be nice, they're still a student population of young guys. Just keeping the dick drawings off the bathroom walls is a tall order, so if some students are just sitting around a table snickering and writing down who they think is in the NRC polycule, that's not the top of anyone's priority list.
Anyway at some point Minajael mentions the rumor to Kalim, because he's like 99% sure it's bullshit but it might be worth warning the NRC guys that some of the less diplomatic students might mention something along these lines.
But instead of being embarrassed or defending his schoolmates or anything, Kalim is just like wait wait wait hold up. Your classmates think that me, and Jamil, and like almost twenty or so other students, are all dating each other? Like all of us, in a big puppy pile relationship, together?
And Mina's just like uh yeah? Have you not heard of polycules before?
Kalim has, it's just that it was usually presented to him in the context of one powerful person having multiple spouses, or maybe like, three people dating instead of two. The concept of more than a dozen people all being together on equal relationship footing, to whatever extent they want to be, is dizzying. Game changing.
Mina knows Kalim just well enough to be like, Cousin. Look at me. It is a baseless, slanderous rumor intended to demean you guys. It's not a suggestion!
Kalim's not listening though. He's just turning over the prospect of everyone just being together as a unit and never having to part ways at graduation like a shiny gemstone of multifaceted possibility. They could all date each other. They could all get married! Potentially hundreds of weddings considering all the different combinations! Well, maybe not, that would depend on the legalities and who all actually wants to marry who but that's a detail for Jamil to help with. Along with the wedding planning. Anyway his parents wouldn't even be able to object (yes they would) because there would be no shortage of amazing political ties!
Minajael, this could be your ticket out as well! You and all the other princes at Royal Sword Academy! Just date each other!
Mina's still sputtering at the air while Kalim is in the wind, off to go drop the bomb that is his great new idea onto Jamil.
Some of Azul's bullies show up (turns out they got into RSA) and after overhearing a confrontation (Azul was not expecting to cross paths and the tweels were otherwise occupied), Yuu comes over and spontaneously:
--Defends Azul from the bullies
--Props up Azul's reputation and status in front of them
--Takes it so far that they pretend to be dating Azul
--Throws hands
--Has to be pulled off of one of the bullies by a hastily intervening, apologetic Rielle
Azul could have stopped Yuu at any point but he was caught wrong-footed twice over and so just kind of let it all happen. It's only after the dust settles that he's like, what in Twisted Wonderland was that, and Yuu's better senses catch up with them and they try to play it off as normal like what was what? Azul (still freaking out) demands to know why Yuu said they were dating, and Yuu is like well obviously to get them to shut up about you being undesirable, and Azul is like how would you desiring me refute anything, you have no social status or power to flaunt, and Yuu is like wow okay guess we just broke up then, suit yourself.
Some hours later Azul is sitting in Mostro Lounge way after closing, head in hands trying to figure out if he could contract Yuu to fake date him and somehow frog boil that into real dating. Yuu is eviscerating him to the other freshmen at a Ramshackle dorm sleepover (RIP Azul, you've been verbally killed and reanimated and killed again more times than you know).
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Schemer Yuu being like, well this school is full of villains, but they're also kind of emotionally vulnerable. I am at an extreme disadvantage in terms of not having magic. Just in case anyone actually does get any bright ideas about deliberately killing me at some point, I'm going to make it as hard as possible by tugging on the ol' heartstrings, since emotional manipulation is the only viable tool in my kit right now.
So they fill all the drawers and such of Ramshackle House with things like, heartwarming photo albums and scrapbooks. Little notes about how much they like all the other students that are easy to find by anyone snooping. Any time they get a gift that could be read as remotely sentimental they're carefully pressing it into the pages of a study book or putting it reverently on a close shelf or mantle or etc. They keep mementos and label them like beloved treasures too. Daily filling journals they "forget" to lock with little details (real of course) of the people around them, couched in obvious affection or admiration or whatever seems most appropriate.
But uh oh jokes on them because do something ironically for long enough and eventually the irony has a way of sort of, wearing off.
"This is all part of my brilliant plan to trick everyone into thinking we're friends," Yuu whispers, as they lovingly press another photo into their latest album and circle it with a heart. They're running out of pages. All according to keikaku.
