qwilanikan I choose you!

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as we loved writing it! 🪽

It’s been a week and I’ve done a lot of processing.

I am devastated that the Aziraphale and Crowley we know never got their happy ending. Never got to hold each other without fear. Never got to see the new world they created.

I also feel immense joy. Their love and sacrifice is built into the fabric of every universe. They will find each other again and again throughout history and throughout dimensions. They are soulmates.

I feel both of these emotions. I am an enigma. I am a contradiction. Anyone else the entire bus too, not just one side?

Good omens animation/Do I wana know

OK let's talk thematics.

Because one of the reasons Good Omens resonated with so many of us is that Crowley and Aziraphale were like us, people who've been traumatized by oppressive systems that forced us into corners and destroyed our sense of self, ability to love, our free will, everything about us.

Good Omens taught us that we can find healing and bravery to overcome that trauma by bonding with other traumatized souls and DEFYING those systems of oppression.

Adam in GO1 wanted to destroy the world to remake it better, but that's not an option for us, is it? We can't eliminate homophobia or transphobia, we can't eliminate the abusers in our lives, we can't eliminate corporations that pollute our environment and we can't eliminate religious institutions or political corruption or fascism or racism and every other awful thing out there.

But we CAN take their power away from controlling us, by banding together and declaring NO. YOU will not define me. That is what Aziraphale and Crowley represent.

As angels and demons, they represent revolting against the systems that birthed them and telling those systems that they REJECT the identity foisted upon them.

That is why Good Omens 3 doesn't make sense thematically. Because it takes this metaphor and says instead that the only solution is to eliminate the entire system and start again. Something that is virtually impossible to do without mass destruction on a global scale (for example, an extinction event that takes us back to before civilization and the patriarchy began). This is exactly what Adam thought:

Adam: “We'll get rid of everything stupid and start all over again.”

But Good Omens 1 tells us that this thinking is wrong. It is wrong to nuke the world to forge a better one, because individual lives matter and we can try to fix it.

Brian: “You're going to burn all this away. Why? Because some adults mucked things up? That's a reason to fix it, not destroy it.”

Good Omens was always optimistic about how, despite the fact that humans can destroy the world, we can also make it better.

Everyone in Good Omens 1 made choices, created their own free will, by defying god. Not eliminating god. Defying god. Adam, by rejecting his birth and parentage. Anathema, by rejecting her inherited role. Crowley and Aziraphale, by choosing to love one another (and what a queer metaphor that is, to choose to love as your form of rebellion 🏳️‍🌈).

This works beautifully as a metaphor because we in the real world can also choose to make our own free will, despite the oppressive systems we live under. Even if it's difficult, even if maybe we need therapy and support to do so, we can choose to reject the abusive systems in our lives and forge our own identities outside of them.

So when Good Omens 3 comes along saying the only solution is to remake the world entirely because apparently there is no hope under ANY oppressive system?? It's basically a pessimistic outlook. It's saying, no matter how much support and love we find, we will never have freedom from those abusive systems. (and maybe that's true on a social level, but on an individual level?)

Saying the only solution is to remake the world entirely removes the power WE have to do something within the broken systems we live under.

I get how Good Omens 3 works (sorta) from an atheistic perspective, and I fully believe it's the ending Terry would have wanted, but it just does not work from a Good Omens (or a realistic) perspective.

About the atheistic POV, just to say briefly: Does removing god actually fix all the problems in the world? Well, Good Omens already told us that humans are the primary drivers of evil. So god wasn't even responsible for that. And plus, it is humans who created god, and what we imagine god wants, and why we fight religious wars.

It's not god's existence that ruins society, it's the idea of god, and that's all humanity's creation.

So, no, eliminating god does not create a perfect world.

But!! Having free will to defy the oppressive systems that will invariably plague humanity is how you find freedom. Not a perfect world but free will, and the ability to act on it, is still how you define Who you are, that is how you defeat everything society wants you to be, how you CHOOSE who YOU want to be.

That is why Good Omens is so inspiring, because it speaks to all of us who feel oppressed and traumatized. It tells us there is hope despite what happened (and is happening) to us.

They said they’re all scared and tired. The amount of anxiety is through the roof and asked for fan art of Aziraphale and Crowley protecting the kids to help boost morale.

So I did. It’s the very least I can do right now. To all the #goodomens fans across America fighting the good fight, thank you! You are the REAL patriots.

Call your reps. Donate. March. But most importantly, keep showing up whether it’s art, music, baking, writing, coffee with friends, reading books to kindergartners.

KEEP SHOWING UP.

Share this with any good omens fans who need it.

Fuck ICE

Written by @canadiankazz (Aziraphale) & @dbacklot99 (Crowley) with amazing art by @qwilanikan

Rated T Summary: Aziraphale finds himself in Australia writing letters to Crowley back in London, wherein the angel accidentally starts a gold rush and obsesses over commas. Oh, dear!

Set in the 1850's and modern times.

No wombats were harmed in the writing of this fic.

Excerpt: I could continue on writing this letter to you for ages, but it is a lovely autumn day here (the seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere!) I am going to treat myself to a picnic lunch. I will have to be a bit careful, though. During my last picnic, an enormous bird called an emu came out from a bank of trees and stole my sandwich right out of my hand! When I attempted to retrieve it, the bird swallowed it whole in one gulp! The gall of that bird! 

Read more here!

Thanks to @brenna,  @moderndayklutz & Kuri_Risu for betaing!

It is all posted now, so please check it out!

EDIT: THIS IS A CARRD NOW! it's updated and organized!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox or librewolf (open-source fork of firefox) instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega instead of google drive

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

get free stuff with the help of r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH, r/piracy and r/roms

use trakt (for shows and movies), letterboxd (just movies), or TMB instead of IMDB (owned by amazon).

use storygraph instead of goodreads (owned by amazon).

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause, ecosia, or ocean hero to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, or tuta instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

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use project gutenberg for free public domain books, and librivox for public domain books and audiobooks

use the seal app (android only) to download video and audio

use ellipsus instead of microsoft word or google docs

use mastodon instead of twitter

use peertube to create a network of small video hosting providers (disclaimer: not a 1:1 alternative to youtube)

use threema and signal for encrypted communication, on mobile and desktop

use qwant and startpage for secure internet browsers

use syncthing to securely transfer files between devices

learn how to jailbreak your kindle/ereader if you have one (wiki and video walkthrough)

use riseup’s email and VPN for secure communication (aimed towards activists)

use cryptpad and collabora instead of the microsoft office suite

use google takeout to export the data on your google account

use library extension to look for books on online stores and find them at your library

remove paywalls with removepaywalls

install the open-source adblocker ublock origin

install sponsorblock to skip sponsored segments on youtube videos

use bookfinder to look for the cheapest available listings of books, including textbooks

learn a language through mango (duolingo laid off some of its employees and now relies on AI translations) for free with a library card or through your school

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for android tv, use smarttube and cloudstream (ad-free, open-source)

change your OS to linux

The Most Complete Collection of Available Clips (in order)

FINALLY. After 4 days, hours of searching, cutting, and editing, 64 clips, and way too many sleepless nights spent in front of a screen... The compilation (complete and in order) of clips from the Good Omens Musical is OUT.

Or how I would also call it: The perfect use of my free time driven by my hyperfixation.

I heard about the Good Omens musical quite a while ago and was, like many of us in the fandom, a little sad that there was no official release yet nor full filming available.

But earlier this week, I watched every little clip I could find of the show on the website, the musical's Instagram, the interview...

And since I have too much free time on my hands, I decided I must abuse of my free will and therefore dig up all the clips from the Good Omens Musical to make a big edit and reconstruct the show as much as possible, IN ORDER. (Because why not)

And after too many hours cutting, mixing, editing and [REDACTED] program crashes... It's done.

I had so much fun (and one or two ragequit trying to figure out their timeline. No regret tho, but please, never again.) I really liked assembling all the small pieces at the end.

The comedy is gold, Musical!Aziracrow are awesome, funny and so sassy and gay-

And the songs are sooo good aswell. I'm glad I managed to reconstruct some of them almost completely, I hope you will love them as much as I do

(And trust me, I've watched and rewatched the whole edit enough times to have memorized every scene and every lyric BY HEART... I need the CD.)

Thanks to my amazing beta-watcher: @hyperfixating-rn-brb

People who wanted to be tagged: @kitcat-italica , @firelikestars , @so-phist , @golden-scarlet , @goodomensovertookmymain

About the Musical :

This Australian musical was originally scheduled for release in 2020 but was put on hold due to COVID. It is currently still in development for an official release (hopefully) very soon.

In the meantime, you can enjoy the musical clips released from the test performance, and support the project by joining their Instagram and visiting the Musical's official website.

Disclaimer :

The full edit is 22 minutes long, don't expect the full show but it has the key elements. Also, there may be some inconsistencies between the sound and the image on some extracts; this is due to the fact that the clips come from different sources with a different edit that mixed scenes but with a same audio. I did what I could to preserve as much as possible the audio and images. Same reason as for the potential changes in image size, I prioritized the best quality and keeping all the scenes.

Do NOT repost

Feel free to share the link on tumblr, twitter, reddit, bluesky... but please do NOT repload the video elsewhere (even with credits), it can put the current production of the musical at risk (and we clearly dont want that). However, we all can obviously talk about it and share the link wherever we want (I would even appreciate it a lot actually), just do not repload the video.

Ok ! Enough talking, here's the video ✨️

I hope you will enjoy

I can finally go to sleep now