vicks

old-ish collab with my friend ! they drew crowley , i drew aziraphale , and we just made a magma for the background and did it together .

Well, joke's on you, show runners: we will always have our own version of the story, and our own art, and we will always find joy in it, and in what we want to keep close to our heart, and with the people we connect with through it.

Let’s estimate how heavy is the rock that Aziraphale is lifting in the garden of eden’ scene. Based on the footage we have, I will approximate its shape to a trapezoidal base prism (more specifically, its base is a trapezoid rectangle).

To discover the base measurements, I will use this scene (because is the one where he is closer to the stone, minimizing camera effects)  and Mr. Sheen height (1,78m) to do some pixel measurements.

Some math later and using the fact that two edges of the rock accompanies the junction of the larger stones I managed to get the height and smaller base of the rock, but I still needed the other side and the bigger  base.

For this, I measured the angle shown. With these informations and trigonometry, I concluded these are the base’s measurements. Now, for its depth (this one was hard and probably the source of possible errors), we need some considerations. 

Based on other scenes from the wall, we can safely say that this stone does not represent its thickness. However, we can see the inside of the wall, which is made of three to five layers of pre cut blocks. 

I am assuming, now, that Aziraphale’s stone has the depth equivalent of the first outside layer that we see, since antique stone constructions don’t use mortar and the piece could fairly “break” in that spot. 

Thanks to our adorable Eve, we have a scene to make some pixel measurement using her hand as reference (an average woman hand has a length of 17,27cm) and I concluded that the stone’s length is 28cm.

Using the right volume formula, the result is V=0,03087m^3.

Now, we need to estimate its density. According to some proposed locations, the garden of eden is  in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Based on the book “Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence”-Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, the primary construction stones of this region is limestone and gypsum. 

The density of limestone (the most probable one) is 2711kg/m^3, which results in a weight of 83,69kg for our little angel to lift.

storyboard:

... Meaning, I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman did it ON PURPOSE, knowing how much it would upset the fans.

Neil knew how badly we wanted Aziraphale and Crowley (OUR version of Aziraphale and Crowley---the specific version of them we met in Season 1) to be together. He knew we wanted to see them resolve their issues and ultimately choose to be with each other in the end.

Instead, Aziraphale and Crowley forgo that emotional journey in favor of unnecessary pain. Neither of them experience real character growth in the finale; they are shown to be the worst and unhappiest versions of themselves, without getting a real shot at redemption. They never fix their communication issues. They don't express their true, authentic feelings for one another (don't @ me with that bullshit hand kiss thing). They never manage to get on the same page emotionally---even when they both agree to commit suicide (which I'm pretty sure was not the "one thing" Aziraphale wanted).

"Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?"

EMOTIONAL WITHHOLDING is a common abuse tactic utilized by men like Neil. They enjoy creating ATTACHMENT in their victims and then "TAKING IT AWAY".

It's easy to see how much Neil enjoyed frustrating his fans in retrospect. He actively taunted us on social media with the catchphrase "WAIT AND SEE" and threatened to make Aziraphale and Crowley kiss---but in a way we "wouldn't like". He loved dangling the implied promise of a happy ending over our heads, which we now know he never planned to deliver on.

Neil was unkind to his audience. He was also unkind to his characters. Aziraphale and Crowley are treated as punching bags throughout the entire series---shown to be "messy" for the sake of entertainment, but not as a real obstacle for either of them to overcome. God herself says she enjoys seeing how much Aziraphale values his relationship with Crowley. And this turns out to be her justification for "taking it away". (Tell me THAT isn't some fucked up shit.) Aziraphale and Crowley experience real emotional pain as the result of her actions---and this is demonstrated by the incredible acting of Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

Neil explicitly sold this as "a love story" when he created the show. Based on the tone of the book, an eventual union between Aziraphale and Crowley would have made the most narrative sense. It would have emphasized the overarching themes of love, agency, and the futility of "choosing sides". But that would have required Neil to possess the same ethos as Terry Pratchett---meaning LOVE AND RESPECT FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS.

We were never going to get a good love story out of Neil. Men like Neil get off on "PUNISHING" people for no apparent reason; he obviously did this with our beloved characters, to disastrous result. Nonetheless, we still manage to ascribe deeper meaning to Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to the phenomenal acting team and the dedication of this fandom. Aziraphale and Crowley remain the greatest love story of all time, not because of anything Neil actually wrote, but because of everything that was projected onto them by the people who cared. We assigned their relationship a depth "Neil himself" never could have imagined---one that exemplifies our maximalist ideals of love and the decision to choose it again and again, in spite of everything. It is never going to "end" on Neil's preferred terms. In this rare instance, fan interpretation STILL MANAGES TO ECLIPSE THE SOURCE MATERIAL---and that is because LOVE is always a more powerful story than ABUSE.

People think abuse is *all* simple abuse. That it looks awful from the outside. Really, by the time it gets to that point it's been hidden in so many different layers of manipulation.

That manipulation looks like:

*Why can't you take a joke?

*No, you misunderstood me

*This is your fault, why couldn't you do xyz?

*Of course I care, that's why I'm "helping" you

*You don't want people to assume that bad thing about you, do you?

*I am humouring you in your silly little antics because I care

*Only bad things can happen if you defy me

*It's your fault you can't see that I love you

Power games aren't always easy to see from the inside. Especially if its someone you admire or love. You haven't done anything wrong if you've been manipulated. You trusted someone, and they took advantage of that trust.

With every one of my abusers, when it was me being hurt it was hard to see. And every relationship shattered when they hurt someone else and I said "Wait, no, don't do that."

God's little power trip in GO3 got to me because it echoed all the abuse I'd faced over the years. And I wanted, and needed, our beloved Ineffables to see that and truly fight back rather than give in to her will.

Because despite all the people saying otherwise, that's how canon appears. Not only did they allow her to win and simply unexist a universe with billions of people, but she did that and then didn't respect their wishes and continued to watch her favorite little soap opera. Even getting all the characters into the same pub and interacting again, something that would have never happened without some interference.

She made a prediction about how their "silly" love would play out, and she was right. Her destruction happened. And the world is no different for it, because we always had free will.

It's an abusers dream. Don't those silly beings learn?

And that moment makes me feel sick. Because they deserved to do more. To defy God and remind her that love could beat her out in the end. They won. They found the Lady. And instead of folding their cards and calling it a night, they should have played their hand.

In case anyone needs to hear this: this writing is wrong. You can and should have hope. You can not only escape, but find people who aren't abusers and manipulators. I know it because I have. And if my messy, anxiety, AuDHD self can do it so can you. There is hope.

Crowley x looking at Aziraphale