Lavendersourphantom - Meh

So I found Aaron Bushnell's reddit and went through his comments/posts. That young man was well read and stable as they can be. Nothing in his writings pointed to someone who was "unstable" or "brainwashed".

He held leftist and anarchist ideals. He belong to the ACAB subreddit. He recognized the evil of the US Military even though he himself was a part of it. He hated TERFS and called out fatphobia. He understood the dangers of white supremecy and the evils of capitalism.

He had a cat. He liked the show fleabag and played elden ring.

Apparently in his will he wants to leave any money in his name to palestinian relief funds. He was trying to find a new owner for his cat.

Rest in peace Aaron Bushnell. The world won't forget & we sure as fuck won't let the media paint you out to be some crazy conspiracy theorist who had no idea what he was doing.

snow queen Betty au where she puts on the crown instead of Simon, but instead of chasing her beloved away and having him jump through to the future a thousand years later, she freezes him in a spire of ice.

she doesn’t remember freezing him. Betty thinks that Simon ran away because he finally realised that she was too gung-ho, too reckless, too much. she never considers that maybe, he’s still here.

somewhere over the course of the mushroom war and onwards, Betty becomes the Snow Queen and the Snow Queen only retains one single purpose: rather than the Ice King’s goal of finding a princess to love him, the Snow Queen is looking for her Prince, and this time, she knows he’s out there somewhere. she doesn’t want a prince, she wants her Prince. she’s broken into countless castles, searched all across the land, kidnapped countless people to interrogate, but the answer always comes up the same: no Prince anywhere to be found.

he isn’t dead, and she knows he isn’t. the Snow Queen would know if something happened to her Prince. right?

and somewhere in a deep cave, hidden amongst the ruins of what used to be a human city, sunk deep beneath the earth after its fall, a spire of ice is waiting, with a single man still standing inside.

———————————————————————

A thousand years after its creation, the spire is broken by a human boy, a yellow dog, and a vampire queen wandering through the nearby dungeons for fun, and for the first time in a millennium, Simon Petrikov is awake.

When I was younger I hated romantic comedies. But it just occurred to me that what I actually hated was films/shows with sexist stereotypes and heteronormative bullshit. Turns out I actually fucking love romantic comedies now that I've figured out they can be queer and/or not full of toxic patriarchal nonsense.

Sitting here watching s2xe5 and it’s the scene where Crowley is asking Aziraphale why his French is so bad and he says “I went to Monsieur Rossignol’s night classes in 1760”.

I decided to Google if this was a real person since the name wasn’t familiar to me, and instead I had my giant gay heart stomped on by Neil Gaiman once again.

The French word for nightingale: Rossignol

It’s the language of romance and Aziraphale took night classes with a Mr. Nightingale. I CAN’T BREATHE.

We are witnessing the grotesque reality of the martyred Palestinians and thousands of their massacred children being written off as mere afterthoughts. The way western media outlets steadfastly refuse to call the Israeli aggression and onslaught for what it is, which is genocide and ethnic cleansing, is just another way of dehumanizing Palestinians. 

Simon Petrikov is truly the fucking character of all time. He’s autistic. He’s a wifeguy. He collects antiques. He survived a nuclear war. He’s a single father. He turned himself into the truman show. He’s a USB drive that stores fanfiction for a god. He’s a butch lesbian. He’s suicidal. He spent 1000 years isolated in a cursed state of existence that robbed him of his agency his autonomy his sanity and when he was finally freed he learned that everyone preferred him when he was like that. He’s nonbinary. He was keeping a primordial god of destruction as a pet and didn’t even realise. He smokes weed. He’s tearing the space-time continuum asunder to see the love of his life one last time. He has a massive bubble butt. He made a little girl cry. Everyone he cares about is living their own lives and he doesn’t want to inconvenience them. He’s transgender. He once cucked a separate god and then beat the shit out of him and threw him into space. He only drinks warm alcohol. He’s into femdom. Peace and love on the planet girl

Your daily dose of cat memes

their argument over Gabriel and how they "resolved" it set up the Final Fifteen of ep6 and is a microcosm of their relationship issues

The fight between Aziraphale and Crowley about Gabriel goes like this:

Aziraphale believes that it's Safest for them to deal with the gabriel situation by being involved and solving it together.

Crowley believes that it's Safest for them to get as far away from the Gabriel situation as possible, either by removing gabriel from them or themselves from him.

Aziraphale also believes that it's Right to help Gabriel, because Aziraphale believes in the innate goodness of everyone and everything.

Crowley believes that it's Right to not help Gabriel or frankly to care about him at all, because Gabriel hurt Aziraphale repeatedly over millennia and then tried to destroy him.

They approach this issue with such a difference in their core beliefs and values that they have to disagree, it's inevitable. And that would be fine. Except that the way they resolve this argument is utter bullshit.

First off, Aziraphale responds to Crowley with an ultimatum: do it my way or leave. (Which, hello, trauma from being cast out of heaven? Wtf Aziraphale. )

Crowley responds by telling Aziraphale he'll have to do this alone, and then predictably leaving.

Crowley only changes his mind and returns because he learns that Aziraphale is in real existential peril. Then they do a series of Things, none of which actually revolve their big disagreement.

Crowley offers a sort-of apology ("can we take it as stated?") but doesn't say what he's apologizing for. He doesn't tell Aziraphale what he thinks he got wrong (spoiler: because he absolutely doesn't think he Was wrong, and his belief is reinforced by the threat of destruction hanging over Aziraphale's head). It's "I'm sorry for whatever I said, get in the car" all over again.

Aziraphale doesn't even apologize lmao, and why should he? He must be right, because Crowley's back! And Crowley's doing their ritualistic "apology" dance that they use in place of actual fucking conversation. So Aziraphale doesnt need to acknowledge anything about his line of reasoning or his belief system, they can just carry on.

Especially because, crucially, Aziraphale doesn't know that Crowley was actually right! And helping Gabriel will put them both in extreme danger! And he doesn't know this, because Crowley didn't tell him!

Crowley didnt tell Aziraphale about the Book of Life punishment because he believes Aziraphale is Safest not worrying about that, and that it's Right for him to protect Aziraphale from that hurtful, harmful knowledge.

They literally do. not. discuss this issue ever again. They have no idea, or none that we're textually shown anyway, why the other reacted the way they did to Gabriel. They simply move forward with the problem, without even an iota of enlightenment about each other's points of view. They think they already know each other perfectly, right? They've been talking for millions of years, Crowley loves rescuing Aziraphale, etc.

So then we get to ep6. And it's really the same fundamental disagreement:

Aziraphale believes they will be Safest with their hands in the game.

Aziraphale believes it's Right to force Heaven, through what he has been manipulated into thinking is his new authority, to do Good (actual moral good, like he and Crowley do).

Crowley believes it's Safest for them both to stay as far away from the machinations of heaven, and by extension hell, as possible.

Crowley believes it's Right for him to reject Heaven as they once rejected him, to reject their whole dichotomous system in fact. He believes it's Right for Aziraphale to reject Heaven too, because Heaven tried to destroy Aziraphale.

And once again, Crowley doesn't tell Aziraphale of the danger they're in - Armageddon the Sequel, plus Archangels being demoted and having their memory wiped.

They still do not and cannot understand one another's motives and beliefs here. Because they have never had this freedom of choice before these last few years, and in that time they have never talked about this openly. Weirdly, Gabriel's arrival gave them a chance to hash all this out. In another world, maybe they knew exactly what the other wanted, and could therefore choose each other at this critical juncture.

But that's not what happened.

(cue my "the irony of the serpent of Eden protecting someone he loves from knowledge" tag).

Edit to say, I have Thoughts about Why they communicate like this, which I'm trying to gather for another post.

"Will you free my Palestine"

Sticker spotted in Brunswick, Victoria