As A Mental Health Provider Working With Gender Diverse Teens And Adults, I Want To Thank You From The

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As a mental health provider working with Gender Diverse teens and adults, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the Good Omens TV series. It's more meaningful than just representation, although that alone has made such a difference. The varied ways all of the characters interface with gender presentation and identity have proven to be such a useful tool to help people talk about and explore what these things mean to them, and to find their way to a more comfortable and authentic understanding of themselves.

It's effective in a way reality isn't, because it's so openly permissive of experimentation and change. So many of my clients feel enormous pressure to "get it right" the first time when trying out new gender expressions. Whether it be a name, pronouns, clothing style, haircut, etc. so many folks are too intimidated to make any moves toward their own comfort for fear they'll "get it wrong" and be seen as somehow less valid if they decide it didn't work for them as well as they initially thought. I love how all of the eldrich beings - but especially Crowley - make changes to their presentation over time or between earth and their respective head offices. And no-one bats an eye. No one even comments on it, they just automatically accept roll with it. That is so monumental and permission-granting for my clients!

So thank you, so very much!!

…also… as a fan and a therapist I would give anything for the opportunity to do couples counseling for Aziraphale and Crowley! This isn't a request or anything, it obviously doesn't fit in-universe. I just giggle every time it crosses my mind.

Much love to you for all your work! (I also adore your novels and short stories. )

I’m so glad. I hadn’t thought of Good Omens as a therapeutic tool.

Neil Gaiman Tumblr FAQ: Good Omens

Tumblr questions that Neil Gaiman has already answered. Yes, it does have some Neil-provided info of S2. But, it is spoiler leak-free! (It also does not have spoilers from early screenings of S2.)

Docs Version: Here Spreadsheet Version: Here

I’m excited about Good Omens 2 and I was already going through Neil Gaiman's blog ( @neil-gaiman ). I initially made it for me and my friends for reference, but then decided to go ahead and throw it out into the Tumblr void, too. I hope it helps.

I made my own FAQ about this here (please check it before messaging me): OrpiKnight's FAQ FAQ

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nessicaa

1 year ago

I think Crowley falls into two of the classic pitfalls of people who see that the problems are systemic long before anyone else around them does: impatience and despair.

(Yes yes I know, “Crowley was an optimist.” Book Crowley is an optimist. I don’t think that line is particularly useful for analyzing TV Crowley. Stay with me here.)

Let it be said that 95% of the time, Crowley has the patience of a fucking saint (ssh don’t tell him) around Aziraphale. He knows that Aziraphale needs to build his little plausible deniability rationales in order to do something that they both know he wants to do (because it’s right or simply because he would enjoy it) but Heaven wouldn’t approve of. And most of the time, Crowley is happy to help Aziraphale get there, asking the questions Aziraphale is afraid to ask, offering excuses and justifications until Aziraphale finds one he can accept. He does a lot of work of parsing out when “no” means “you haven’t convinced me yet, keep trying” and pushing through all the “I’m an angel, you’re a demon, we’re on opposite sides and mine is the good one” talk that Aziraphale gets up to all the way through s1. Because he knows that Aziraphale doesn’t really believe that stuff, right? He just needs some time to talk himself around his own cognitive dissonance, and most of the time Crowley is not only happy to facilitate that but sees it as part of his role in their relationship.

But then when the chips are down and Aziraphale is still dithering, that’s when he gets frustrated, because HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE what’s been blindingly obvious to Crowley for millennia, that Heaven is just as cruel as Hell and no one is going to step in and fix it because the system is working as intended. And that’s when he says things like “how can someone as clever as you be so stupid?” Which is a surefire way not to convince the person you’re arguing with of anything.

And then there’s the despair. I really think the running away thing is not about cowardice or selfishness or some kind of unhealthy level of avoidance of hard or scary things, but about hopelessness. They’ve spent their lives avoiding very very real danger, and of the two of them Crowley is much more constantly aware of the danger that they are in from both sides. Yes he’s hypervigilant but he is also almost always right about the amount of danger they are in. Trying to get as far away from danger as possible is not an irrational response, even if it’s not always the correct one for a given situation.

When you feel like you’re the only person who sees how rotten the system is, how it needs to be dismantled entirely, but you are also VERY aware of how strong the people in power are and how ruthless they are about crushing dissent because you experienced it personally…well that gets fucking depressing after a while. Because even if you think the whole system needs to go, that feels like a completely unattainable goal when it seems like no one else even sees the problem, or if they see it, they are too afraid to do anything about it. And can you blame them? You know exactly what happens to people who speak up.

So it’s very easy for your goals to shrink from systemic change to just taking yourself and the people you love and finding somewhere for them to be as safe as possible, for as long as the system will let you exist. Because reforming the system is a fool’s errand, and dismantling it entirely seems impossible. I think this is where Crowley is at. Even if on some level he knows it’s an imperfect solution, because both of them have enough compassion that they would feel guilty abandoning Earth and humans to save themselves, and because Heaven and Hell really can find them anywhere in the universe. He just doesn’t see another option.

And look, I think Aziraphale is 100% wrong that Heaven can be reformed. But he is not wrong to want to stay and fight to make things better, even if it means sacrificing the Earthly comforts he loves so much, and even if it means doing it without Crowley by his side.

Ultimately they both need each other. Aziraphale needs Crowley for his willingness to ask questions and to see the scale of the problem, even if it’s terrifying. But Crowley needs Aziraphale for his hope, his stubborn determination to believe things can and should be better, and to fight for that. In the right hands, hope is an enormously powerful weapon.

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