#dinkywinks

Also somebody who’s watched Good Omens needs to...

All he did was ask some questions and hang around with the wrong crowd, but he’s still so fucking certain that he’s unforgivable.

Yes!!!  And I have like seventy-three different responses to that, because:

Okay in the book “sauntered vaguely downwards” is an objective statement by the text, but in the show we have only Crowley’s own word on it, and so what would it mean if he’s exaggerating/underxaggerating? (yes I know, not a word, not the point)  What if he really was truly a rebel at one point, was truly evil?  Should that change the fact that we the audience look at Crowley and mostly see the actions of someone who, at the time the story takes place, is not that bad of a guy, and makes sure nobody dies when he gives real guns to the paintballers, and cares more about saving the world than the actual good guys?

The actual system as written says he’s unforgivable, says that a demon cannot be redeemed, says that there’s no such thing as redemption for a fallen angel.  Heaven and Hell and all the forces among them say so (and God doesn’t say a god-damned thing, God lets the angels war and damn as they like, God plays games with the universe and smiles all the time).  So if it’s wrong for Crowley to be considered irredeemably damned, then all the hosts of Heaven and Hell and divine judgment itself is wrong.

"Asking questions,” suggesting that divine judgment itself could be wrong, daring to doubt, is probably what got Crowley damned in the first place.

If Crowley could be redeemed then maybe he’d have to try seeking redemption.  And that’s an impossible game, a losing game, a fixed game all around, because any good deeds you do to earn redemption are by definition selfish and therefore can’t count anyway.  And maybe it would cost too much to try and fail.

And if he were redeemed, if he were an angel again, he’d have to follow those rules, those fixed rules, those unfair rules, where there’s no room for doubt or error and maybe it’s better to be damned anyway.  If you’ve already been cast out of everything for breaking the laws, at least you don’t have to follow them any more.  Maybe he doesn’t want to be a part of any system that’s so fixed and broken in the first place.  Maybe he damn well knows better than God.

Maybe the hubris of thinking he knows better about what’s fair and what’s not fair and what’s kind and what’s merciful than God is the sin that damned him in the first place.  The sin of doubt is right there bound up in the sin of pride, the sin of thinking you should to have the answers or things ought to make sense.

Angels and demons aren’t supposed to have free will.  That’s supposed to be the whole point.  Humans ate the apple and gained the knowledge to choose, but angels are meant to be automatons, to be as they were created, to do as they’re told.  (But demons are fallen angels and demons rebelled in the first place, and if they had enough free will to rebel and be damned for it then they must all have the capacity for both good and evil, demons and angels both, all of them.  And if they don’t, if rebellion from Heaven was itself an act of creatures who never had a choice, then Crowley was damned just like every other demon for actions that were not even his own fault, and we’re back to where is the justice in that?)

So maybe Good Omens isn’t the story of an angel and a demon developing free will, it’s the story of them discovering, after six thousand years of exercising it in tiny ways again and again, that they actually have it.  They always had it.  They just didn’t know.

(And maybe all the hosts of Heaven and Hell have it too, but without the apple to show it to them, none of them realize.  They act as they’re told they have to act because nobody ever gave them the knowledge that they’re able not to.  Six thousand years of grapes and oysters and crepes and sushi, of eating and acting and bargaining, and Crowley and Aziraphale both are so much more human than anybody ever realized they all have the capacity to be.)

the book is like thirty years old, don't worry about it lol

I wrote a lot of fic for TFTBL and I put like.... oh my god. 336 hours into Borderlands 2, 182 hours into BL: The Pre-Sequel, and 90 hours into TFTBL. Like they were such a fucking shock, how good they were. The story, the humor, and universe, the fucking heart of the franchise, it’s fantastic. I’ve been aware of Borderlands for years obviously, but only TFTBL made me give the wider series a shot and I’m so goddamn glad. I fucking love these games. Imperfect, of course, but honestly like...

I feel like I see more of a place for myself and my worldview in the BL series than I do for a lot of media. Which is a buck wild thing to say about a series with a villain who boasts about his wealth by buying a diamond unicorn named Butt Stallion.

I just wrapped recording up to just before the race in Episode One, and man. Man. Man. It stands up. It really stands up.

i think the watch was the one that aelwyn used to stop time during the house party battle! although i have no idea when aelwyn would have stolen it from the principal. what a cool little trick that she shared aguefort’s initials, so they probably assumed the watch was custom-made for her. i wish they’d drawn more attention to it or done an investigation check or smth because i totally forgot they had it too

OH, duh! Right, right, right!

I would feel dumber about forgetting that if the players hadn’t also super forgotten it. I mean, it’s a time stop watch! You think that would have been useful and notable and def on their list of items to make use of in fights (sidenote, I wonder if Brennan was going to have the watch break or something if they used it too much because I would have ABUSED that in all future battles if given the chance). But they also constantly forgot about Adaine’s jacket except to do shenanigans so, on brand.

Also, they got a lot of information after that fight at the same time so I see how they would have forgotten about the watch in the moment. 

I wish they would have noticed the A.A. puzzle because I’m confident Siobhan would have gotten it--she did also solve the KVX puzzle so that seems to be her wheelhouse. 

They really didn’t have a lot of chance to question Aelwen before the cops showed up. They did have Fig as Penelope ask her some roundabout questions but they also didn’t follow up on that! I was sure they were gonna start looking into her after that. (Also, in that scene, they were talking about “him” being upset, presumably KVX, but now I’m wondering how much of their memory they modified if they remembered that--or did they modify it after that moment?, but then Penelope knew what she was doing at the end so did they re-mod it? Or mod it and then they knew what was what from the tapes? Lots of questions.)

Anyway, yeah that was a cool puzzle that could have led to a cool aha moment. And the bad kids need to take better inventory in the future because Kristen unknowingly had a key plot element hanging around her neck as an accessory for several episodes which is honestly wild. If they have TPK’d with that in their possession, it would have been heartbreaking.

be sure to play Sunless Skies at some point, because it’s just as amazing! (and maybe A House of Many Doors, which is technically written by different people I think, but is very much in the same vein)

House of Many Doors is sitting neglected in my Steam library at the moment, bahaha! And I’ve played a bit of Skies- not least for the Incautious Driver- but Seas is my first dark, dank, and dismal love. *clenches my fist* I’ll always end up coming back to her.

I just.... There’s something that hits different about the claustrophobic weirdness of a subterranean cave system. The crushing embrace of the zee will always win me over faster than the vast and vacuous expanse of space. Skies is a beautiful game, but I find it to be less... hm. Personal? Personable? Than Seas. 

What I’ve seen of it anyway. I am fucking incapable of getting anywhere near the midgame. Aaaaauuugh.

things are as deep as you make ‘em. who cares

that's the only movie actually

she has nearly drowned that poor weasel so many times. i’m convinced that it’s gaining experience points every time she nearly kills it. by the end of the campaign it’s gonna be as powerful as the full-grown pet bear she had in the last campaign