I Dreamt Of Good Omens Again. Aziraphale And Crowley Were Humans And They Met After Crowley Caused A

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but in the pub scene when aziraphale tells Criwley he told tge angel's he made Nina and Maggie fall in love- criwley suggests he just do a miracle to fix it. Aziraphale says it doesn't work that way. To me this implies that criwley has never tried to make someone fall in love but aziraphale HAS.

Btw, I find it extremely ironic how Gi-hun became the scapegoat of the fandom, who blames him for literally anything instead of blaming the system.

Just like in real life people blame and fight each other instead of fighting the system that makes our lives shitty.

I guess it's because it's easier.

translate:

gi-hun: sometimes i think i can still hear his voice

sang-woo: gi-hun, you gayass idiot, the frontman is standing next to you!!!

It's a pity he didn't get through

See, the thing about Hizashi that compels me is that he is a man of so much rage who is expected to put up an act. He has multiple jobs and has a duty to present himself as an outgoing and charismatic figure.

But he's more complex than that. He feels so many things. He's angry. He's grieving. He is traumatized. He has seen and continues to see horrors that would break most people.

And he has to act like it isn't suffocating from it all because his friends need him to be there for him. His students need him. Everyone needs him. And so he just buries it all and never allows himself to feel.

The day that man finally crumbles will be an agonizing day

someone smarter than me who knows more abt psychology needs to write abt gi-hun and the learned helplessness that the games instilled in him. i find the last episode of s1 so interesting bc i KNOW that pre-games gi-hun would've gone down to the street and helped out that homeless guy himself. bc pre-games gi-hun, despite his many flaws, was proactive and impulsive and deeply caring towards others. but post-games gi-hun just stays put and waits for someone else to do help the guy. bc the games taught him that even when he tries to help people, he won't succeed. and that trying to help people never works. i don't think it's something he would consciously believe but it got ingrained in him on a subconscious level.

i think by s2 he's started to find his will and strength to help others again, as evidenced by him trying so hard to end the games and by him helping that one eliminated player in red light green light. but i'm worried that him standing up and starting a rebellion only to watch his best friend die is gonna put him right back in that mindset of believing that he can't (and shouldn't) do anything or help anyone.

i also think it's so interesting how even though he has such a distaste for the games, he still mostly follows the rules. even the rebellion itself could be seen as part of the game. but i'm mostly thinking about how he could have saved that homeless man, or how he could have refused to play russian roulette with the recruiter, but he didn't. he thinks he proved il-nam wrong, but in a way he just proved him right by standing so high above that man on the verge of death, literally betting on whether he'd live or not while doing nothing to help him. he was a vip in that moment and he didn't even realise it

As someone who lives in a Christian household but rejected the idea of Christianity a long time ago, this hits hard. Constantly being told by the people you love that if you don't accept their ideas, you'll be going to hell has such an impact on you. Even when you've tried to convince yourself it's not true and even if it were, you could care less, it stays in the back of your mind. Feeling like a supernatural being is judging your every move keeps you from actually enjoying life.

Biggest reason I sympathize with Aziraphale.

The Jewish Pain of Crowley in Good Omens 2

Spoilers. Spoilers everywhere. S p o i l e r s.

Alright let's dive in. So, it's even clearer in s2 that Crowley is the Jewish Representative in the Christian World ->

remember that Good Omens is essentially a world where Christianity is, with some modification, True. Classic Christianity. With the 7 days of creation and the hierarchy of angels and everything. (the exceptions are that its not patriarchal or queerphobic, but I digress)

in christianity, Jews are one of two things: - misguided fools (bc they don't realize Jesus is the messiah) - evil liars (bc they keep saying Jesus isn't the messiah)

-> making it obvious why the Jewish Rep, Crowley, is a demon. In Christianity, Jews and Judaism are at best treated like ignorant children, at worse treated like the agents of Satan.

All Crowley ever did was ask questions. Question the internal lack of logic within Christianity. Why make everything for it to end in 6k years? Why make people just to have them die in an apocalyptic battle? Etc. That is Crowley's Jewishness in action. Not only because he's asking questions, the Big Thing Jews Love Doing ->

-> but also Because Judaism is, essentially, a religion of celebrating life and humanity. Our books start with the creation of everything, not just Jewish people (which, at the time of writing, was extremely novel). We are a "nation of priests" in order to show the world a lifestyle of goodness we can all strive for. Not everyone has to be Jewish to have a good life or afterlife, we do not proselytize.

And, as such, Crowley - the token Jew - celebrates the world and humanity for what it is. His temptations are usually just encouraging humans to be human. He sees the beauty in the world they all created and he wants that beauty to continue.

Now, because Jews don't proselytize, he never really tries to get Aziraphale to join him in the questioning everything thing. He knows that asking questions would give Aziraphale the anxiety sweats. He doesn't really push him into do that.

All he does - throughout both seasons - is gently nudge Aziraphale into seeing how beautiful this world is. From the food and drink to appreciating humans, and then their art, and nature around them. Gentle nudges into realizing that this is a wonderful world worth preserving.

Which makes Aziraphale reject the Death Cult that is the Christian World (I'm reminded of the statement by Beezlebub "All my demons live for armageddon... if you can call that living") but not the hierarchy and fucked up toxic power structure that inevitably leads to that death cult

so Crowley thinks he's managed to persuade his Christian Friend to see the error of his ways, the error of Christianity. Aziraphale doesn't believe in the death cult anymore! perfect! now crowley and aziraphale can coexist and be a couple. Now they can be an "us".

That's where we leave off at the end of s1.

In s2, we see how still believing in that hierarchy (constantly referring to heaven as the "good guys" is a big key) holds Aziraphale back. Crowley, however, is blind to that, because he's singularly focused on making sure that his fragile peace with Aziraphale is protected.

He thinks that convincing Aziraphale that the death cult was bad would be enough for Aziraphale to realize that the Toxic Hierarchy is *also* bad.

But the Toxic Hierarchy keeps its hold on people the same way Christianity does in our world - by convincing people it has a monopoly on holiness, goodness, and right action. And Aziraphale is still convinced of that.

To those of us outside that system, its obvious that a Death Cult could not *possibly* have a monopoly on goodness/holiness/whatever. But inside of it, it's impossible to tell, because they've convinced you that they have that monopoly, and if you reject them you'll be doomed forever, and no one wants to risk being doomed.

This is where the Jewish Grief of Crowley comes in. Because Crowley, like many of us, is in a friendship with a Christian, who - because they are Christian, and you are Jewish - still thinks of you as a "demon", or a "foolish misguided". They're just polite about it.

(note, not all demons are Jewish in Good Omens - in fact, I'd argue that most of them are just as Christian as the angels, because they believe in the hierarchy and the death cult. I digress.)

When Jewish People are friends with Christians, we know that there is a potential bomb on the friendship. At any point, the Christian could reveal that the whole time, they were just trying to convert us to Christianity, because they see us as the "foolish misguided" Jew instead of the "demon" Jew. Yes, there are the isolated Christians in the real world who are able to see Jewish folks as something separate and worth preserving, but they are the minority; and in the world of Good Omens, they just can't exist, because the physical proof shows the Christian world as Real. At the very least, Aziraphale could never be that person.

Crowley was hoping he had managed to convince Aziraphale that Christianity is bogus, so they could remain friends without Aziraphale trying to turn him into something he's not. Aziraphale thinks that he's doomed, because he rejected the Hierarchy, and is constantly doubting himself and his own worth without his codependent relationship with the hierarchy

This brings us to the end of the season. When Crowley sees that Aziraphale never really left Christianity at all, that he was just waiting to come back to it, that is a grief that many Jewish people have felt in their life when a friendship with a Christian comes to a head. Aziraphale offering Crowley a second chance at angel-hood, and to be his "second in command", is essentially Aziraphale trying to convert Crowley to Christianity.

Trying to Erase Crowley the Jew.

In real life, when this happens, Jewish people become heartbroken regardless of the nature of the friendship. The person they thought was their friend was, this whole time, someone who saw them as foolish and misguided, someone who saw them as damned and thus lesser. It was never a friendship. It was a trap.

And for this to happen between Crowley and Aziraphale, not only leads to the deep grief of losing a friend, but the deep grief off realizing that friendship - and the love that Crowley so desperately wished to finally access - was all a lie. A trick. A trap.

It's not just that Aziraphale didn't understand, or that he went back to the toxic relationship. It's that all of Crowley's memories - all of his time with Aziraphale - is poisoned now. Because he can't see it as anything other than Aziraphale trying to turn Crowley into someone he's not.

They talk so much about temptation, but in the end, Aziraphale was the one trying to tempt Crowley into self-destruction, and not the other way around. And realizing that broke Crowley's heart more than anything else could.

The kiss? A last ditch attempt to try to get Aziraphale to realize what he was doing. What he was giving up by buying into the toxicity and the hierarchy. But toxic relationships brainwash you. It was never going to work.

The only way they can come back together now is for Aziraphale to realize that Crowley was right all along. He has a lot of growth to do. And Crowley has a lot of pain that is definitely going to get in the way. He spent 6k years thinking that Aziraphale saw him as an equal, when he never once did.

How could Crowley ever trust Aziraphale again?

I just finished reading it and omg I LOVE IT AHHHHHHHHHH IT’S SO SILLY I WAS GIGGLING LIKE CRAZY UGHHHHHHHH EVERYONE GO READ THIS ITS SO PEAK!!!

the irony of in-ho having fish as pets and gi-hun being a cat person is so funny to me. especially when it's canon.

457 (crack) fic where in-ho and gi-hun fought because gi-hun's cat ate in-ho's fish 😭

yall i think he loves his husband...

A computer science student named Priyanjali Gupta, studying in her third year at Vellore Institute of Technology, has developed an AI-based model that can translate sign language into English.

oh my liege i like this one a lot i think