The new-TV-GoodOmens fanon tendency to take Aziraphale’s very-soft presentation as unadorned truth is be/amusing to me.
He was the angel left to guard one of the Gates to Eden and he did in fact have a flaming sword. He is also the one who WOULD have shot Adam, had Madame Tracy not intervened.
He is also the angel who’s response to “wait I need to get back to Earth to stop Armageddon” is to do something that clearly SCARED THE SHIT out of the other angels who watched him do it, with a malicious-glee-glint in his eye, who hopped disembodied down to earth, and then floated around to try to find the right place.
He also, well. Fucked around with Heaven at all. There’s such a thread of comic corporate-absurd involved that it can be easy to miss, but what we’re shown is that the hierarchy of Heaven is just as happy as that of Hell to murder, torture, restrain, make captive and otherwise punish its own in the most horrible ways possible and in fact they’re far more effective at it. They just have a lot of Rules they follow, whereas Hell acts on a whim.
And there’s Aziraphale running around lying to them and pulling the wool over their eyes and so on. Something which, very clearly, none of those other angels are interested in doing.
Fundamentally Aziraphale is a stone cold agent of divine wroth.
He just doesn’t want to be.
He doesn’t like being like that. He doesn’t like suffering, his own or other people’s. All those times Crowley saves him, it’s important to keep in mind that Aziraphale’s in no more fundamental danger than he is when he loses his corporal form in the bookshop fire: if Crowley hadn’t shown up to save him in the church, for example, all that would have happened is that either a) he would have been discorporated and had to wait in line for a new body (or risk being reassigned) or b) Aziraphale would have had to do something Nasty to the Nazis there in order to save himself that trouble.
He doesn’t like either of those options! Those are both crappy options. But they’re not existential threats.
I’m the nice one he snaps when Crowley’s too busy having his Moment over his Bentley to take care of dealing with the soldier.
Aziraphale doesn’t like having to be cruel, or mean, or scary, or stone cold. He doesn’t enjoy it and given the choice he will in fact choose not to be.
What Crowley saves him from, over and over again, isn’t actually being killed.
Because what interests Crowley in him, and we see that, all the way back, is that very first instance of Aziraphale choosing not to be that person. That first time when what Aziraphale was supposed to be was Stern and Frightening and Judgemental and Harsh and Terrifying … . and instead he chose to court potential punishment (and actual existential threat) to give the people he was supposed to Terrify a way to protect themselves from all the scary things.
Aziraphale doesn’t want to be an instrument of judgement and wrath and what Crowley keeps saving him from is having to be. Crowley condemns the bloodthirsty executioner, so that Aziraphale doesn’t have to; blows up the Nazis so Aziraphale doesn’t have to.
Lets Aziraphale be the nice one, in fact.
Which I think is frankly far more fucking adorable.
But never let it make you think that Aziraphale is the safe one, or the helpless one.
He’s the one who, when faced with the apparent choice between killing a child and the end of the world, chooses to kill the child. Actually chooses to do it - not just plan, not just talk about, not just contemplate, but do it - and is only saved from having done it by sharing the body of someone who won’t let him.
Aziraphale is soft and slightly silly and gentle and non-confrontational and all of those things because that’s what he wants to be. He has fought for a long time to get to be that.
This is important.
😂😂😂
Emma Woodhouse: Who doesn’t
Eleanor Dashwood: I know
Marriane Dashwood: Thanks!
Jane Eyre: A horrible decision, really
Lizzie Bennet: *laughs nervously*
Catherine Morland: *laughs hysterically*
Margaret Hale: YEET
Fanny Price: I’m sorry
Anne Elliot: *finger guns*
Catherine Earnshaw: If only there was someone out there who loved you
In 2009, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania stated that Australian wallabies had been found creating crop circles in fields of opium poppies, which are grown legally for medicinal use, after consuming some of the opiate-laden poppies and running in circles
In case anyone is wondering, here is what said crop circles look like.
(Fact Source)
Follow Ultrafacts for more facts
your condom breaks
you feel a lump on your breast
your friends are ignoring you
you’re stranded on an island
you got rejected by a crush
you get into a car accident
you got stung by a bee/wasp
you got fired from your job
you’re in an earthquake
your tattoo gets infected
your house is on fire
you’re lost in the woods
you get arrested abroad
you get robbed
your partner cheated on you
you’re on a ship that’s sinking
you fall into ice
you’re stuck in an elevator
you hit a deer with your car
you have food poisoning
your pet passed away
you fall off of a horse
you or your friend has alcohol poisoning
you have toxic shock syndrome
your house has a gas leak
Yudhishtira and Duryodhana for the Swap headcannon.
“Yudhishtira is relieved that the path of dharma runs so straight and broad. A king’s son becomes king, and his own father has only ever been Regent, holding the throne for the next heir. The eldest son in the family becomes King, and Suyodhana is a full year older.
Yudhishtira wishes the path of dharma were not so crooked and full of traps for an unseasoned walker. A king’s son becomes king, and his own father was king, and his uncle though the elder only ever Regent. The eldest son in the family becomes King, and Suyodhana is a full year older.
Suyodhana says, “Mother, look what a bride our Arjuna has won with his valour,” and hands Draupadi forth as Pritha comes wondering out from her cottage. All too soon there will be Panchal to sit in counsel with, but it is good to see his mother pull his new sister into an embrace.
Suyodhana says, “I will gamble no further, I cannot wage my family,” overlapping withYudhishtira saying, “This is only a friendly game, I would not take your lands.”
“You are my brother,” he tells Karna. “We are bound together, that remains as true as ever it was. I pray you, forget my delusions about the nature of our tie, and remember only its affection. Let me crown you again, but King of Hastinapura now, and Emperor in Indraprastha.”
G for Krishna?
Grass
His mother despairs of the stains it leaves on his clothes, but Krishna knows there is no more wonderful smell in the world, nothing better to feel against his fingertips.
Gentle
Calves’ hearts are won by kindness rather than cruelty, and so are those of men: ministers exclaim at his skill at diplomacy, and Krishna thinks that it is only common sense.
Guile
Red-blooded warriors may mock his cunning and cowardice, calling him Ranchod; but if one man more will survive for it, he cannot bring himself to mind.
Guide
He leads the way for Arjuna, for Yudhisthira, for Parikshit after him–and there are none to lead the way for him.
Green
Yellow is the color he loves best, but when he closes his eyes, it is green he sees: the grasslands of Vrindavan, open to him once more.
good omens + richard siken quotes
“and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and touches you like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t have a name for”
227 posts