queer is literally a slur. like you’ve never been called that in a derogatory context like most lgbt people? you think your experiences escaping homophobia make it okay to justify the use of a homophobic slur?
queer is an identity.
it has also been used as a slur. there is no denying that. but using a word as a slur does not make it a slur. because before queer is a slur it is an identity. before it is derogatory it is a label. the use of queer as an identity is infinitely more important than the use of queer as a slur because the people who identify as queer are infinitely more important than the people who use queer as a slur.
say a lot of people decided they hated me. despised me. were disgusted by me to the point where my own name became a slur. would you tell me not to say it? would you tell me i could no longer be helena, and instead must come up with a euphemism for the name that belonged to me decades before it belonged in the mouths of bigots?
because that would make you an enabler.
you would tell me i can’t say my name anymore because some lowlife decided he could use it to insult me?
you would tell a gay man that he can’t be gay anymore because some teens in the early 2000’s started calling everything they didn’t like “gay”, and now he has to say “same sex oriented male identifying individual”?
does that enrage you? because it should. that’s exactly how you sound.
you are telling me i cannot use my label. you are telling me that when my great-uncle shouted until his face was red and he spat tobacco and the word queer at my feet, he was right. he was right to insult me, and i was wrong to say my name.
you are shitting on every single one of our predecessors. you are slandering every person who fought for their rights to exist and and be tolerated and be celebrated in their countries, every person who was lost to the aids epidemic, every person whose country criminalizes love and gender expression, every child whose parents abandoned them for straying from the norm, every person who was born and will die in the closet longing to be themselves. the queer umbrella is a safety net, a security blanket, the comfort of being known without being pressured to tell. it is near and dear and important as fuck to every member of the lgbt+ community and you are a blight upon the earth you walk.
how dare you speak upon my experiences with homophobia. how dare you disguise your own homophobia as activism. and how fucking dare you have the audacity to come to my blog and hide behind an anonymous ask and preach to me about how i’m oppressing myself. go look at the fucking wikipedia page for queer and read about how 1980s lgbt+ activists, especially lgbt+ people of color, fought to call themselves queer in a world that still hates peculiar things. and here you are forty years later spitting queer back at their feet.
i don’t give a fuck if people start using my name as a slur. my name is still helena. i will not change it. i chose it, i like it, and it belongs to me. it does not belong to bigots no matter how badly they want it. your discomfort with my identity is not my fucking problem.
i am helena. i am queer. die mad & go fuck yourself
we DO grow old and happy. btw.
"Men would come. Men would threaten. Aziraphale would nod and smile and say that he’d think about [their suggestions]. And then they’d go away. And they’d never come back. Just because you’re an angel doesn’t mean you have to be a fool.”
Masterpost here.
Crowley here.
Book!Aziraphale was the one to suggest killing Adam. He did not bother reviving the dead dove in his sleeve, so Crowley did. He does have some inner conflict regarding his beliefs, but more subtle. Regularly spends evenings talking human nature, God, Divine Plan with Crowley. He is practical to the point of cruelty.
TV!Aziraphale always seemed softer, more manipulative than direct, and more nervous. He looks so soft and smitten towards Crowley, or thirsty af, that the image of softness stays. But what is there really? Besides that visceral feeling when he did not restrain himself, and devoured an ox.
We got stern Aziraphale when he made Crowley dance for him. And like shown at the top of this post. His demeanor opposing Furfur was a bit nervous at times, but he refused to back down even a little.
He was willing to protect Gabriel the Asshole. I wouldn't have blamed him if he had shoved Gabriel in the trunk and dumped him somewhere. But Aziraphale is a Guardian.
He is not close with humans. He couldn't give a shit about the people in the shops around him on a personal level. He'll protect them, but only really socialises with them when he has to. Or needs them as set dressing during an Eldritch Ball. I love that about him, he protects because it is the right thing to do.
He is more direct. Season 1 he'd play coy so Crowley would miracle away paint stains. Now he claims the Bentley for a roadtrip. I can't find a good gif, but we see him having trouble restraining himself at times when he's standing between the humans inside and the demons outside.
The Job minisode showed us he's been having doubts for a very long time. Not only about Heaven, about God. "I don't think God wants you to do this." Only to later hear God give a demeaning lecture to Job. Those seeds of doubt will blossom in Heaven.
We see Crowley taking pride in seeing his angel silencing a room of angels and demons. We see Crowley impressed when he heard Aziraphale did the thing with the halo. We saw how he looked when Aziraphale was gorging on flesh unrestrained.
How will he look when he sees Aziraphale, standing between Heaven/Hell and humanity? Determined fury in his eyes and blade in hand. Aziraphale guarding his world. His bookshop. His demon.
Crowley seeing his angel, completely prepared to kill God if that's what it takes to keep them safe.
Okay i might be a little pissed off. Expect typos, im on my phone.
Aziraphale and Crowley are not gay men.
They are played by male actors. They present male most of the time. But that means nothing, because gender presentation =/= gender identity or sex.
Neil has said multiple times that angels and demons are sexless. It's on the book. It's on several of his tweets and answers to asks. This implies that angels and demons are non-binary by default. Gabriel isn't a man, Michael isn't a woman, Beelzebub isn't a woman, Furfur isn't a man.
And now, you could argue that a genderless creature isn't necessarily queer and I agree! Several animals are genderless irl.
But here's what makes them queer: it's not that they don't have a gender, it's that they don't give a fuck about it. Crowley presents female i believe up to three times in the show, Neil was planning a minisode where both he and Aziraphale are fem-presenting in the 60s; Michael is a male angel name and he's played by an actress and (At least in the portuguese dub? Correct me if im wrong) still called "he". Same for Beelzebub, who I think is also reffered to with they/them in english. Hell, God has a female voice and is still called God (the male version of the word!!!) and even Her pronouns are a bit flexible in certain dubs.
What makes them queer is that their genderless aspect isn't just biological, it's their identity, too. These characters are all non-binary, they know it, and they don't mind it.
"But they present male and call each other 'he'!"
As I said, gender presentation does not equal identity and neither does pronouns. It's words: words that get often associated with a certain gender but are, in the end, just words.
Not only that, but this argument also comes from the expectation that non-binary people cannot present themselves in a binary way, which is an absurd thing to expect. People irl have all kinds of different hormonal balances and many enby folk may be hypermasculine or hyperfeminine due to high testosterone or estrogen respectively. And you know what? They might not want to change that, and that is completely fine.
Non binary people do not owe you androginy.
Being trans isn't about appearances, isn't about transitioning, it's about identity. Thinking otherwise is borderline transmedicalist ideology.
Good Omens breaks gender norms all the fucking time in both seasons, something many shows are afraid to do, and it's not just for comedy reasons, which tends to be the norm when shows do it. They do it because it's fun, it's fine, and because they acknowledge that gender norms are stupid.
That's queer as hell.
My second point, no need for labels. Just like angels and demons don't need gender labels, they don't need sexuality labels. At all. Especially since they're often intertwined.
Just because two characters don't have their specific labels revealed doens't mean they aren't queer or, fuck's sake, don't love each other.
In A League Of Their Own, no characters get specific labels, what they are is simply implied. Greta is very implied to be lesbian but they never say the exact word. Does that mean she isn't queer?
In The Song Of Achilles, no characters get specific labels because hell, the labels didn't exist at the time the story takes place in. Both main characters are implied to be bi/pansexual but it's obviously never told in the text. Does that mean they aren't queer?
In Undertale and Deltarune, no characters get specific labels, but in both games the main protagonist is nonbinary (and is in both cases a human being!) and both games have several mlm and wlw couples and several more nonbinary characters across the storyline, but it's never specifically labeled. Does that mean it doesn't have queer rep?
Neil has said several times that Good Omens is a love story, that Aziraphale and Crowley love each other, that even if they're not 'gay male humans' they still feel love for one another. That's the entire point of season two.
And now, I get it, okay? I don't like authors tip-toeing around labeling their characters either, especially since in most places we are past the age of having to code characters instead of just make them openly queer. I get the fear and uncertainty that often came from some sort of trauma from bbc's Sherlock, I felt it too. I get that for some it may seem as if it's queerbaiting, or pink money, or simply being too scared to say a character is queer.
But that's just not the case with Good Omens. The point is not to avoid labels because they're scary. The point is that, for Good Omens, and aziracrow, labels are useless. They're not humans, they don't have a gender, they don't need the labels.
And you know what?
That's also queer as hell.
Society has to put people into boxes, has to separate folk, has to label everyone. No one can be different, and id you are you need to fit this specific box of different. If you go out, you're too much, you're too rebellious, you're a freak. If they just let people do whatever they wanted it would be hard to marginalize them and keep the system going.
A quote I once heard feels important for this occasion:
"To define yourself is to restrain yourself."
When you define something in strict terms you're putting rules to it. Rules that can be broken. Rules that should be broken. And the rulebreakers get insulted, hated, violated, killed.
Aziraphale and Crowley are breaking these rules by 'existing' as who they are. They're not gay men, they're not lesbian women, they're not bisexual agenders, but at the same time they are all of those things at the same time, whenever they want to, whenever YOU want them to, as Neil himself put it. Because fuck labels. And you're hating them for it, hating them because they're refusing to enter those boxes.
Humans are weird and complex. Let the angels and demons be weird and complex too.
Lastly, queer relationships don't need sex - nor kisses.
There's this expectation that romantic love is only true love if they kiss, if they live together, if they sleep on the same bed, if they go on dates, if they marry, if they have kids, if they have sex. Break one of these and people will raise an eyebrow. Break two and they look at you weird. Break three and everyone judges you. Break all of them and, suddenly, you and your partner have been declared "just friends" by outsiders who don't know you in the slightest.
Welcome to amatonormativity.
Or, better saying, another stupid box, another set of rules.
There's this headcanon that Crowley kisses Aziraphale as a last resort not because it's a gesture if love (even Neil said it wasn't out of love) but because he's seen it in human movies and, in movies, kissing someone in despair is a cliché that often ends in the other person not leaving.
This wasn't a love kiss. But Crowley still loves Aziraphale. Do you know why?
Because angels and demons, most likely, do not need human gestures to show love. They, most likely, comprehend love in an entirely different light.
Maybe Aziraphale is touchy with Crowley because he likes it and that is a good enough reason, but it's an individual reason, just like a person irl might be more fond of hugging their partner than kissing them, and that's fine. Nothing wrong with it. There's no right or wrong way to have a relationship. Acting like there is is reinforcing the rules set by amatonormativity, and it is also completely disregarding the experiences of asexual and aromantic folk. The entire spectrums btw.
Now think about the rules I mentioned earlier. Must kiss, must fuck, must marry etc.
Aziracrow also breaks almost all of them.
That's also queer as hell!!!
Being queer and celebrating pride isn't about having labels. It's about breaking societal norms: heteronormativity, cisnormativity, mononormativity, amatonormativity, etc. Norms that are used to opress us, to put us in boxes, to separate us, to marginalize us, and to kill us.
A show that gives the middle finger to all of these and just tells its story however way it likes, not caring about labeling the characters or having a long monologue about homophobia or showing a explicit sex scene between the two characters or following any of those stupid rules imposed by society, a society ran by cishet folk, is as queer as a show can ever be.
To deny that is to reinforce a narrative that is literally used to opress us.
That's all, bye.
Also, some of you guys are giving "I call beez she/her because of the actress" and that's cringe, but not surprising, ngl.
I need to have an it/its weekend
when it’s really bad again and it’s still way better than it used to be but it’s still really bad. and you do all the right stuff and you try and try and it still really hurts but it’s working but it still hurts and you go see the beautiful majesty of nature and your soul is so close to being at peace but your mind is still in pain. and it’s better but it’s still bad. and the sun is setting.
Probably preaching to the choir here since the spn people who follow my tumblr already know this, but for anyone who needs to hear it, no, Jensen was not "blindsided by the confession." He was filled in months in advance. He had months to ponder it. He and Misha talked about it. Misha and Jensen talked about it with Bobo. They all talked about. We've been told this, in bits and pieces, from various sources. The reason Bobo told Misha first was because by necessity, Misha needed to adjust how he played Cas in the final season to make it a bit more overt. On things that previously had been an undercurrent, and there in the performance, but when they realized that the confession was going to be greenlit, they realized they could lean on it more instead of treading carefully. Misha himself, fyi, said for years, he thought Cas was kinda into Dean and he put a bit of that into his performance, but Misha also was surprised they were permitted to go so far in openly acknowledging that feeling with 15.18, finally.
The reason Jensen wasn't told right off is that Dean couldn't know how Cas felt, and Jensen's method isn't to read ahead, he's told us many times, he doesn't read ahead because he wants Dean's reactions to be as organic as possible. So that was by necessity so Jensen would be playing Dean oblivious to just how far Cas's feelings towards him went. This was an actual plot point of Dean doubting their bond even. He was still informed well ahead of time, with plenty of time for discussion and processing and nothing we have ever heard has indicated he had any negative feeling whatsoever or wariness about Cas's confession.
Jensen in fact was visibly and openly pleased with 15.18 and the confession, as evidenced in PR interviews and all this has been heavily documented already. He has repeatedly praised the episode, and every time he sounds so proud of it and so excited, and he indicated on repeat occasions how excited he was for fans to see it.
In his post-spn comments, Jensen has said he wants to do a follow up where Dean and Cas get to talk about the goodbye scene and Jensen expressed that Dean was devastated, and that Dean wishes he'd told Cas I love you too and hugged him back. There's other examples I could cite.
Make-believe wankbaiting games from bitter anti-shippers is not ever going to make it so that Jensen was snuck up on, conspired against, stabbed in the back, or "blindsided" by the 15.18 confession. Once he was filled in he immediately held Misha's cape and supported Misha and Cas expressing himself.
allison and kate is crazzzzyyy like she’s your cool aunt and she’s your dads sister but sometimes it feels she’s kind of like yours instead. she gets you when no one else does. she’s the only one who Knows you and maybe you wanna be like her when you grow up because god forbid you end up like your parents. your parents who think you can’t handle the truth when kate will tell it to your face and you love her for that because you’re not a little girl who needs to be protected. not anymore. you’d follow her anywhere. this is what you always wanted. or that’s what you thought or at least that’s what she thought or maybe that’s the same thing you’re not sure anymore but either way it’s looking more and more like all those times you thought she saw you, it turns out she was just looking for her own reflection in your eyes.
being reckless and young is not how the damage got done!!!
thought about Maddie for a second and wanted to hug someone. this woman had the worst first marriage possible with someone she once believed she loved and thought loved her back. she fought her way out of that and met her freedom. found a friend in the gentlest man, loved him and allowed him to love her in return, so much that she proposed marriage because it was worth celebrating. she had the most heartbreaking time as a child, swallowing her own grief and trying to makeup for her parents' grief to make sure her remaining brother would survive. would feel loved. then she had to stay away from him in the worst way possible, twice even, and chose to come back. chose to let him love her bigger than postcards, listen to her stories about the brother they both shared. her heartbreak in her parents became her distrust in herself and she had a beautiful baby girl who needed to be protected and cherished. of course she deserved only the good in life but what if Maddie wasn't seeing herself as good. fought an ocean, ran across states, all so she could find the good in her reflection again and hold her baby girl with the warmth that was always theirs. helped people as a nurse, watching lives saved and lost every day for years, and didn't want to be seen that way but she found newer ways to help. protected her team. protected herself. lost herself. found herself even more. there's a brilliance to her that holds the ship steady. there's a strength to her clarity to her that lowers the anchors to get off the grief's waves and walk home to hope. there's anger and joy and fatigue and beauty - all wrapped up in every day she chooses. and she's choosing to live. with it all, for it all, she chooses to live.