I suspect that I’m about to step into something I would be wisest to keep well away from. But what the hell, it’s that time between Christmas and New Year’s. And nobody’s yelled at me over the internet since I said that the TV Aziraphale doesn’t use a cell phone. *
Canonically, which is to say using the text in the book, you don’t get any description of Crowley’s sex life. The only thing the book says is “angels are sexless unless they specifically make an effort”. You can infer, and (more to the point) you can imagine, and lots of people have chosen, not unreasonably, to ship him with Aziraphale, but you are still Making Stuff Up. It could be Making Stuff Up that happens between paragraphs, or Making Stuff Up that isn’t mentioned at all, but it’s still Making Stuff Up.** (And using the kind of eagle-eyed textual analysis that Bible scholars used to decide exactly what a piece of four thousand year old verse definitely meant also counts here as Making Stuff Up.)
Which is the fun of fanfiction, and part of the tradition of fanfiction. As is, I’m afraid, grumbling at people who do not see that your ship is the only true ship, and choose to ship anyone else with anyone else.
If anyone decides that The Relationships in Their Fanfiction Are the Only True Fanfiction, it seems to me they are missing the point. The point is Fanfiction exists so that you can imagine, enjoy and fill in the gaps. The point is that you can change things and have fun with them. And the stories are absolutely true… for you.
The TV series gets deeper into Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship. It’ll be canonical for the TV series, and not canonical for the book.***
If I were to Pronounce on things that are not explicitly stated in the book, I still wouldn’t be telling you if Crowley was Canonically Gay. I would be telling you what I think, because it’s not canon unless it’s in the book. It won’t be TV canon unless it’s on the screen.
So, do not worry what other people think, and do not worry about what they say. These are not things on which people can be right or wrong, or on which anything can be “settled”.
Make fun fanfiction. Enjoy yourself. Make things up. Share them. That’s the point.
*People would only bother him on it. And if anyone gave him one as a present, it would be still be in its box, on the same shelf as the still-unboxed Kindle.
**Which was what Terry and I did when we wrote the book. And what I had to do for the TV scripts when I needed to take the story into places the book hadn’t covered.
***They don’t contradict each other, but there is territory covered by the TV series that isn’t covered by the book, particularly about Crowley and Aziraphale in bygone years. Also the Present Day in the book is probably the early 1990s, and the Present Day in the TV series is 2019ish, although 11 years ago in the book wasn’t particularly 1978, and 11 years ago on TV is post-ubiquitous cellphones but pre-smartphones.
Then again, Good Omens is just Black Books fanfiction and there’s no denying it.
Not just fanfiction, but the special magic kind of fanfiction you can only make happen when you write it over a decade before the thing that it’s fanfiction of exists. That’s what makes it so special.
Tag: perfect
Aaron made good on his promise of getting me a cheetah for Christmas. She’s adorable and I love her and I’m calling her Marie, TY be damned! Ahhhh baby cheetah!
Meanwhile, the presents are all wrapped, I’ve boiled and peeled the eggs for Aaron to turn into devilled eggs for tonight’s family party, and brother has made sugar cookies, which are now cooling… We are on track for Christmas Eve!
I may take a nap!
A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life.
Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.this fucks me up every single time
I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.
After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.
She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.
Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.
The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.
The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.
Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.
I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.
ふりーわんこlog || ろにすけ [pixiv] || Twitter
※Permission to upload this was given by the artist
**Please, rate and/or bookmark her works on Pixiv too**
[Please do not repost, edit or remove credits]
Whenever my parrot flips out and gets angry, I say, “Hey,” in this soft, comforting voice and then talk to him gently. He calms down within seconds.
I just got frustrated enough at something that I went, “ARGH.” My parrot said, “Hey,” all softly and sweetly like a dozen times over the next minute. It made me feel better instantly.
My parrot is better at conflict de-escalation than most people.