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Come forth and look at stuff

@whispsofwind

Sideblog for fandom stuff! Mainly Good Omens at the moment, but I have the attention span of a very drunk mosquito, so there will be other fandoms mixed in. Apparently I am doing meta now. Please feel free to correct my grammar and syntax, my English could use the help. Main: thewhiteandblackpencils.tumblr.com
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irispurpurea

The journey from “god was wrong to cast out Crowley” to “god was wrong to cast out anyone” to “god can’t be wrong or right because wrong and right don’t come from god, they come from us” to “we were wrong to just accept the Fall of our brethren without questioning or challenging it” to “we can make it all anew, make it right, together

(to maybe what god wanted all along was for us to question and to challenge)(but that isn’t for us to know and it never will be)(to all we can do in the face of divine ineffability is define our own Purpose, who we are and what we value, and hold to it and to each other as tightly as we can)

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flameraven

This reminds me of a really excellent meta:

One of the reasons that Crowley is such a sympathetic character is that he asks the same questions that any person who has both faith and compassion would ask. (The idea that a demon is the moral center of the story is a think for another post.) If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why is there so much suffering in the world? Is God actively causing the suffering? Why? Does she just not care? Why doesn’t she make it stop? Ah, you say, but God has a plan! All these things are happening for a reason; we just don’t know why. But here’s the thing. A God with a secret plan, a vindictive God who wants us to suffer, and no God at all…they’re all functionally indistinguishable from down here on Earth. The result is the same. We suffer and we don’t know why. By definition, we cannot know why, if there is a reason at all. […] While the narrative of Good Omens leaves itself open to the “actually God planned it this way all along” interpretation, I don’t, personally, think it’s the most interesting one. I think the more interesting questions are along the lines of: What kind of life would you lead if you believed God had forsaken you? (Not if you didn’t think God was there, but if you knew God would not help you or clarify anything for you.) What then becomes important? What sort of person do you decide to be, when you don’t have any choice but to be on your own side? And who do you want on that side with you?

I highly recommend reading the full meta post, but I think this gets at some core themes of Good Omens that will be very important in S3, and I think you summed it up perfectly. “(to all we can do in the face of divine ineffability is define our own Purpose, who we are and what we value, and hold to it and to each other as tightly as we can)” What God wants, whatever Ineffable Plan She has… we (and the characters) can’t know it– and so it doesn’t matter. The core theme of Good Omens S1/the book is about the freedom to be who you are, not who you are told you are supposed to be. I think we’re going to see that again in S3 on an even broader scale, extending to Heaven and Hell, and dismantling the Sides entirely. Angels and Demons deserve the freedom to decide their own Purpose.

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Thinking of the larger context of LOTR and like, the fellowship swapping old war stories and shit and Sam just says “Yeah I killed a huge spider…Shelob, I think?”

And Gandalf just blinks and is like, “You what now?”

“Yeah, killed it. Had to save Frodo”

Gandalf elects not to tell Sam that he killed the spawn of a primordial demon.

the daughter of the embodiment of darkness which ate the original sun and moon and almost ate the devil.

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matrixdragon

That's not important. What is important is that it was a danger to Mister Frodo.

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alispangles

“Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.” -- Discworld (Snuff)

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palant1r

not proshipper not anti but a secret third thing (person who has a career in the media and, through covering legislative politics, has watched "associating with problematic fiction or entertainment is an indicator of moral degeneracy" rapidly become a mainstream GOP position that they are encoding in legislation to target the queer community under the guise of protecting children, thus coming to the conclusion that positioning the "can people enjoy things that would be immoral IRL in their fiction" debate as a proship v anti fandom debate is akin to pretending that "should we have the death penalty" is a discussion that only matters in Death Note discourse — the extent and manner to which fiction affects reality is an issue that is immediately relevant to today's US politics, and to summarize my opinions on the matter in fandom terms would be to diminish the ways this debate is affecting america Right The Fuck Now. and i have stopped taking "this person is bad for shipping the wrong anime thing and being horny about it" in any sort of good faith ever since I saw it literally used as part of a GOP smear campaign against a transgender state legislator in an attempt to defend the right from backlash after they used their supermajority in the Montana house to prevent her from speaking on the floor. Anyway I think everyone on this site, especially Americans, could benefit from ceasing to think in proship v anti vocabulary and instead developing coherent political positions on the nature of fiction that do not directly align with current fascist political tactics)

and yes, this does pretty much align with the "proshipper" position — to be clear, i'm firmly in the camp that it's literally fine to ship whatever and engage in fiction however you want and people are not morally wrong for making art that engages, even gleefully or pornographically, in dark topics. the reason i still choose to not call myself a proshipper is for a few reasons:

-there are so many different implications under that umbrella, and i resent the dichotomy that reduces so many different positions on so many different aspects of media studies to two different labels. such a framing actively stifles discussion and prevents people from having tough and thorny conversations about media with people they mostly agree with

-i think "proshipper" is only a useful positional label for people whos primary mode of engagement with media is through fandom. but as a journalist and queer person, the main ways in which the "does fiction affect reality and how" issue interfaces with my life have nothing to do with fandom, so it feels backwards to me to define my opinions regarding media in relation to the area that has the least relevance to my life

-i want my actual opinions to be the most visible part of how i engage with fandom, rather than a label that will cause everyone to draw nuance-stripped conclusions that vary depending on which "side" they fall on. i want people to listen to me, not project their expectations onto me and listen to a phantom of me they've created

-why should i? if people are willing to engage with me regarding media discussion, it shouldn't matter whether i choose to identify as a proshipper or not — they should treat my ideas on their own merits. and if people think that i'm a sick freak for "condoning" whatever is problematic these days, they're not going to care what i call myself, they're going to call me a sick freak anyways. and im kinda petty and want them to actually have to read my posts and rub two braincells together to interpret things and think critically about how to label me instead of seeing "proship" and slamming the cancel button

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CROWLEY’S LAMENT!!!

At long last, it’s here! My eight minute Good Omens-inspired rock opera/character study Crowley’s Lament is out TODAY. This has been such a labor of love for the better part of a year, and I am unbelievably proud to finally present it to all of you. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll headbang. You’ll squeal. I hope you enjoy my music, lyrics, and Walmart David Tennant voice. To the World, everyone!!!

Special thanks to @holmee for the GORGEOUS thumbnail art- I asked for Crowley dramatically sprawled out on a piano and she couldn’t have possibly delivered finer results.

I know this song premiered less than two weeks ago, but HOW it's not all over tumblr?! Good Omens fandom, please don't sleep on it, go and listen to this masterpiece right freaking now.

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s-u-w-i

as every year at the beginning of school year I draw Crowley and Aziraphale (this year it’s a bit late though >< sorry ^^; )

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eirian

i watched one (1) video on how to draw hands that changed my life forever. like. i can suddenly draw hands again

these were all drawn without reference btw. i can just. Understand Hands now (for the most part, im sure theres definitely inaccuracies). im a little baffled

for those of u asking for the vid!

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erynies

My dear friend Jonathan Harker is going to embark on his first work trip in 6 days. I hope it goes well!

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I feel the need to periodically remind people that Idiocracy is a eugenics movie.

One of the things that eugenicists believe is that it is bad for society when the “wrong people” breed.

The entire premise of the movie is that “stupid people” kept having kids while “smart people” didn’t have kids, and it ruined society because stupid genes propagated while smart genes died out. This is eugenics propaganda.

I know people will read this and their response will be “actually it’s satire” but the movie isn’t satirizing eugenics. It’s satirizing anti-intellectualism, and consumerism, and it proposes eugenics as a solution.

When eugenics was first conceived, it was used as a way to justify inequality. The idea was that people who held privilege were able to do so because they were smarter and genetically superior to lazy and stupid people who don’t have privilege. Obviously this is bad and wrong, but it is also the core lesson of Idiocracy.

The movie literally ends with the main character becoming president and having “the smartest children in the world.” Because he and his wife have smarter genes than everyone else. The proposed solution for the things that Idiocracy is satirizing is for the smart people to have children that can be in charge of the world.

I know it’s fun to use this movie to dunk on anti-intellectualism and the MAGA movement, but we need to stop. When you quote and reference this movie you are spreading eugenics propaganda.

This is such an important addition. It’s wild how often people accidentally stumble their way into eugenics, and it’s vitally important that people are educated and aware of eugenics and the problems with it.

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