Really Not Sure What I Was Expecting From Kristen “chaos Isn’t Cute Anymore” Applebees But It Definitely

“Violent in their impassiveness” is such a good line

Can’t wait for the interactions with that Helio cleric teacher next episode. Kristen explaining that Sol officiated a gay wedding, explaining that her god is queer. The passive aggressiveness radiating off both of them. Hopefully we’ll get another “permanent disadvantage on insight checks” moment.

In a more real sense, if Kristen goes down (3 death save fails, not just unconscious), does Cassandra die? Bobby Dawn is supposed to bring them back up but it would be pretty easy for him to say he’s not able to do it. Even if he does bring her back, she was dead for a time and Cassandra had no followers left in the material plane. Fig and Fabian probably both have revivify though

Identity is complicated, especially in the world we live in. Every time you try to make a generalization, it will fail.

"queer spaces are for everyone but cis men! safe spaces include everyone but cis men!"

okay

that will require stealth trans men to out themselves in order to receive help

that will require closeted trans women to out themselves in order to receive help

that will require nonbinary people who don't ""look nonbinary"" because they look too masculine to out themselves in order to receive help

it will also alienate transfems & trans people who were AMAB who haven't realized they're trans yet from spaces that could provide them a safe place to explore gender & sexuality and be introduced to the idea of being trans

trans people are eventually going to get uncomfortable with your hatred for cis men, because people who were AMAB are gonna wonder if you secretly hate them for being "actually men" and trans mascs are gonna wonder if you hate them for being men at all

people attracted to cis men are going to feel uncomfortable when they try and bring up their love for men including cis men or bring their cis boyfriends/partners/friends to your spaces

there are cis queer men & queer men who blur the lines between cis and trans and they have just as much a right to queer spaces as you do

^ intersex men also exist including intersex cis men

there is never going to be a group of people who it is alright to blindly hate just because of circumstances of their birth or identity and every time you try you are going to end up hurting people. embrace compassion and nuance

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

I did mostly have nightmares last night but I also dreamt of a Psych - Leverage crossover where they were also Scooby Doo. They were chasing various mythical monsters through the suburbs. I cannot tell you how it ended because I woke up. Shawn was Freddie

Zac is not only in Crit City. He has a permanent residence. He’s taken his citizenship test and passed

Fuck it I'm bored so here's a ranking of different Peter Parkers by how Jewish they are

Dead last, obviously, is MCU!Peter Parker. This version of Peter is the farthest from comic canon to the point of being almost unrecognizable at times. Also, Tom Holland answered the question "is peter parker Jewish" in a Wired Autocomplete Interview a while back with a very baffled "no", cementing him forever as my sworn enemy. So he's actually the only peter parker who, at least by word of God, is canonically NOT Jewish. -1000000/10

Next up is Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker. I think this Peter is... fine, at least he's much closer to comic canon than MCU!Peter, but honestly that's not saying much considering how far the MCU strayed from comic canon or even the spirit of comic canon. But like overall, Sam Raimi's movies just aren't particularly interested in presenting Peter as Jewish, so, eh. 1/10

By far the most Jewish of live action Peters is TASM!Peter, also by far the most comic accurate of live action Peters. I'd be remiss not to mention the fact that Andrew Garfield is Jewish, and he understands the character so fucking well. He stated on record that he played Peter as Jewish and that he sees Spider-Man as an inherently Jewish character:

However, the Webb movies still do not textually define him as Jewish, and the best parts of Andrew's Peter's Jewish subtext are better when viewed in light of the comics. Overall, 6.5/10

Next up is the original, our beloved comic book Peter, pictured here saying Happy Hanukkah in a panel from Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. Comic Peter is one of the most heavily Jewish coded comics characters of all time, which is saying something considering how Jewish comic books are as a medium. Obviously he was created and often written and drawn by Jewish writers and artists, but beyond that his driving ethos and values are incredibly Jewish, and as a bonus he's constantly sprinkling Yiddish and Jewish phrases into his speech, alongside things like the above panel where he outright acknowledges Jewish culture in a scene where everyone else is saying merry Christmas. However, despite the extremely heavy coding, Marvel Comics are fucking cowards, and he has yet to be confirmed Jewish, so I must give him a measly 8/10.

Finally, the cream of the crop, the most Jewish of all Peter Parkers, Into the Spider-Verse's Peter B. Parker my beloved!!! Peter B. is voiced by Jake Johnson, himself a Jewish actor, and is a phenomenally accurate representation of comic book canon - but he also has the unique quality of being canonically, textually, in the actual movie Jewish! It's a bit of a blink and you'll miss it scene, but when we get introduced to Peter B. in his "one more time" segment, we see his wedding to MJ, where he steps on a glass. This is a Jewish minhag - custom - meant to represent the destruction of our Temple and Jerusalem, as well as remind us that sorrow and joy come intertwined, and is one of my personal favorite Jewish customs. It's a phenomenal moment in the best Spider-Man movie, and while this version of Peter would have been my favorite film version regardless, his Jewishness absolutely pushes him even further up. 13/10, no complaints

Me: crying at the beautiful story of a father and daughter that echoes my own feelings.

My dad, next to me: where are the zombies? Kill some zombies!

That moment when you qualify for Mensa but have a 9th grade reading level