Behold, A Sideblog!

what the fuck was wrong with people that Labyrinth was originally a flop. How could they take any aspect of it so for granted. How could they fucking do that to Jim Henson. Newspapers were calling it boring and even ugly. I want to go back in time and beat their asses.

Something that’s been very interesting to me, in this new wave of post-miniseries Good Omens fandom, is the apparent fannish consensus that Crowley is, in fact, bad at his job.  That he’s actually quite nice.  That he’s been skating by hiding his general goodness from hell by taking credit for human evil and doling out a smattering of tiny benign inconveniences that he calls bad.

I get the urge towards that headcanon, and I do think the Crowley in the miniseries comes off as nicer than the one in the book.  (I think miniseries Crowley and Aziraphale are both a little nicer, a little more toothless, than the versions of themselves in the book.)  But maybe it’s because I was a book fan first, or maybe it’s because I just find him infinitely more interesting this way–I think Crowley, even show!Crowley, has the capacity to be very good at his job of sowing evil.  And I think that matters to the story as a whole.

A demon’s job on Earth, and specifically Crowley’s job on Earth, isn’t to make people suffer.  It’s to make people sin.  And the handful of ‘evil’ things we see Crowley do over the course of the series are effective at that, even if the show itself doesn’t explore them a lot.

Take the cell phone network thing, for instance.  This gets a paragraph in the book that’s largely brushed off in the conversation with Hastur and Ligur, and I think it’s really telling: 

What could he tell them?  That twenty thousand people got bloody furious?  That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city?  And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people?  In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves.  For the rest of the day.  The pass-along effects were incalculable.  Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.

In essence, without any great expenditure of effort (look, I’d never say Crowley isn’t slothful, but that just makes him efficient), he’s managed to put half of London in a mental and emotional state that Crowley knows will make them more inclined to sin.  He’s given twenty thousand or a hundred thousand or half a million people a Bad Day.  Which, okay, it’s just a bad day–but bad days are exhausting.  Bad days make you snap, make you fail at things, make you feel guiltier and more stressed out in the aftermath when you wake up the next day, makes everything a little worse.  Bad days matter.

Maybe it’s because I’m a believer in the ripple effect of small kindnesses, and that means I have to believe in its opposite.  Maybe it’s just that I, personally, have had enough days that were bad enough that a downed cell network (or an angry coworker because of a downed cell network) would honestly have mattered.  But somebody who deliberately moves through the world doing their best to make everyone’s lives harder, with the aim of encouraging everybody around them to be just a little crueler, just a little angrier, just a little less empathetic–you know what, yes.  I do call that successful evil.

It’s subtle, is the thing.  That’s why Hastur and Ligur don’t get it, don’t approve of it.  Not because Crowley isn’t good at his job, but because we’ve seen from the beginning that Hastur and Ligur are extremely out of touch with humanity and the modern world and just plain aren’t smart enough to get it.  It’s a strategy that relies on understanding how humans work, what our buttons are and how to press them.  It’s also a strategy that’s remarkably advanced in terms of free will.  Hastur and Ligur deliberately tempt and coerce and entrap individuals into sinning, but Crowley never even gets close.  We never see him say to a single person, ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for you, why don’t you go do this bad thing?’  He sets up conditions to encourage humans to actually do the bad things they’re already thinking of themselves.  He creates a situation and opens it up to the results of free choice.  Every single thing a person does after Crowley’s messed with them is their own decision, without any demonic coercion to blame for any of it.

You see it again in the paintball match.  “They wanted real guns, I gave them what they wanted.”  In this case, Crowley didn’t need to irritate anybody into wanting to do evil–the desire to shoot and hurt and maybe even kill their own coworkers was already present in every combatant on that paintball field.  Crowley just so happened to be there at exactly the right time to give them the opportunity to turn that fleeting, kind-of-bad-but-never-acted-upon desire into real, concrete, attempted murder.  Sure, nobody died–where would be the fun in a pile of corpses?  But now forty-odd people who may never have committed a real act of violence in their entire lives, caught in a moment of weakness with real live weapons in their hands, will get to spend the rest of their lives knowing that given the opportunity and the tiniest smidgen of plausible deniability, they are absolutely the sort of people who could and would kill another human being they see every single day over a string of petty annoyances.

Crowley understands the path between bad thought and evil action.  He knows it gets shorter when somebody is upset or irritated, and that it gets shorter when people practice turning one into the other.  He understands that sometimes, removing a couple of practical obstacles is the only nudge a person needs–no demonic pressure or circumvention of free will required.

I love this interpretation, because I love the idea that Crowley, who’s been living on Earth for six thousand years, actually gets people in a way no other demon can.  I love the idea that Crowley, the very first tempter, who was there when free will was invented, understands how it works and how to use it better than maybe anyone else.  And I really love the idea that Crowley our hero, who loves Aziraphale and saves the world, isn’t necessarily a good guy.

There’s a narrative fandom’s been telling that, at its core, is centered around the idea that Crowley is good, and loves and cares and is nice, and always has been.  Heaven and its rigid ideas of Right and Wrong is itself the bad thing.  Crowley is too good for Heaven, and was punished for it, but under all the angst and pain and feelings of hurt and betrayal, he’s the best of all of them after all.

That’s a compelling story.  There’s a reason we keep telling it.  The conflict between kindness and Moral Authority, the idea that maybe the people in charge are the ones who’re wrong and the people they’ve rejected are both victim and hero all at once–yeah.  There’s a lot there to connect with, and I wouldn’t want to take it away from anyone.  But the compelling story I want, for me, is different.

I look at Crowley and I want a story about someone who absolutely has the capacity for cruelty and disseminating evil into the world.  Somebody who’s actually really skilled at it, even if all he does is create opportunities, and humans themselves just keep living down to and even surpassing his expectations.  Somebody who enjoys it, even.  Maybe he was unfairly labeled and tossed out of heaven to begin with, but he’s embraced what he was given.  He’s thrived.  He is, legitimately, a bad person.

And he tries to save the world anyway.

He loves Aziraphale.  He helps save the entire world.  Scared and desperate and determined and devoted, he drives through a wall of fire for the sake of something other than himself.  He likes humans, their cleverness, their complexities, the talent they have for doing the same sort of evil he does himself, the talent they have for doing the exact opposite.  He cares.

It’s not a story about someone who was always secretly good even though they tried to convince the whole world and themself that they weren’t.  It’s a story about someone who, despite being legitimately bad in so many ways, still has the capacity to be good anyway.  It’s not about redemption, or about what Heaven thinks or judges or wants.  It’s about free will.  However terrible you are or were or have the ability to be, you can still choose to do a good thing.  You can still love.  You can still be loved in return.

And I think that matters.

A second note prompted by something else, but is a wider issue I see people missing a lot: 

Oppression and suffering/harm are not actually the same thing. Which is not to say that oppression doesn’t cause harm - it pretty reliably does! - but rather that oppression is not the only thing that causes suffering, even suffering that we “should” care about. 

(I mean I’m of the opinion that misery, harm and so on are pretty bad and we should look for ways to alleviate them in all people, but I’m talking here in a “you’re concerned about how society works? Ok look over here.”) 

Oppression is a commentary on power-dynamics and organization - specifically, systemic abusive power-dynamics and organization. But many things are bad and cause significant human harm and suffering even without being a matter of systemic abusive power-dynamics. 

For instance: due to how society works, chronic depressive disorder does in fact fit within the ambit of the systemic abusive power-dynamic called “ablism”. 

However, even if it weren’t, it would still cause significant suffering and probably death, because that’s literally what the disease is. 

(This, btw, is often a source of contention between disabled people whose problems would significantly be solved by society not being an ablist piece of shit, vs those whose conditions are inherently, fundamentally harmful. Chronic pain will still hurt a lot even if society has no abusive power-dynamics: the only way to stop chronic pain hurting is to, well, adequately treat and solve chronic pain. Conversely there is absolutely no need to “cure” hearing problems or neurodivergence in order to solve the primary problem of society’s shit power-dynamics. Because Intersectionality Is Hard, we fight about this a lot.) 

This is important, because observing that a particular group suffers because of this, that or the other, is not actually the same as saying that the same group is oppressed in any given system. 

So for instance, on the axis of “gender”, cis men are not “oppressed”: that is to say, the fucked-up power dynamics do not target and disenfranchise them. 

That doesn’t mean it’s not harming them, or even killing them. It is. In fact toxic masculinity kills men continually. It just means that in terms of the power dynamic, they’re on the top of it. 

Likewise, on the economic axis, the wealth-class are by definition not an oppressed group! AT ALL. EVEN REMOTELY. They are the top of the fucking heap. They have all the power and all the structural bullshit to the nth degree. 

They are not oppressed. 

However, they do still suffer and die from it. It still harms them. Because oppression is not the only form of harm. 

This, for me, is perhaps part of the biggest reason understanding that systems don’t have to actually benefit anyone is important.  

We have a tendency to look at groups and go “you’re not oppressed, ergo your reports of the suffering you’re experiencing are unimportant/made up.” Which doesn’t get very far, because humans as an entire species react badly to being told “you’re not actually suffering”. 

But because we synonymise “suffering” and “being oppressed”, it also means that a person who knows (because they experience it) that they are suffering - that pain, harm and damage are occurring to them - will in turn either need to deny their own reality, or they will have to reinvent reality so that they are oppressed. 

This?

This is what allows radical groups to recruit. Regardless of their focus and ideology. They can go: yes, we totally get that you’re suffering! And you know why you’re suffering? Because you don’t have enough power! And you know why you don’t have enough power? Because [whatever target group] actually has it! And any time they ask you do to something that’s difficult or uncomfortable or annoying, that’s them using their power over you, and oppressing you. 

And bob’s your uncle. 

Don’t get me wrong: oppression is absofuckinglutely a major cause of suffering. But it’s not the only cause, and it is not necessary for suffering, and suffering still matters even when it’s not caused by systemic power-imbalances. Hell, even when it’s causing same, because weirdly enough sometimes solving the suffering is a necessary part of solving the systemic power-imbalance. 

(It is rarely sufficient: you usually have to do a shitload of stuff along with it. But it is often necessary, which is to say that if it’s not solved, all the other stuff won’t do it - at most it will just … flip who has the systematically imbalanced power.) 

And because there are many ways in which power works in a society, it may be an abusive imbalance on one axis (like, say, economic class) that is causing significant suffering which is then misidentified as being caused by a different axis that the person is actually on the top of! And this is how you get the MADDENINGLY ILLOGICAL PERSISTENCE of violent white supremacy among the rural poor* so that they’re constantly working to maintain the power of landlords and members of the wealth-class who are directly exploiting them, because those landlords/etc are successful at convincing them that the actual problem here is that White People Are Oppressed. 

Because humans are complicated and difficult. 

And very very bad at thinking clearly when we’re miserable and suffering. 

So that’s another thing that I think it is useful to understand, when trying to take the steps necessary to stop this world from being a miserable hellpit. 

*(y: being inculcated with racism by society from birth helps a lot for sure. But have you ever been frustrated by the fact that white rural poor will, in fact, often ACT AGAINST THEIR OWN SELF INTEREST IN EVERY WAY? *points* Welp.) 

This is potentially life saving information everyone should know.

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

Wait, so you said that you can learn to trust others by building friendships, but how does one go about doing that? Wouldn't someone I don't know be creeped out or annoyed if I suddenly walked up and started talking to them?

Friendships are built of repeated low-stakes interactions and returned bids for attention with slowly increasing intimacy over time.

It takes a long time to make friends as an adult. People will probably think you're weird if you just walk up and start talking to them as though you are already their friend (people think it's weird when I do this, I try not to do this) but people won't think it's weird if you're someone they've seen a few times who says "hey" and then gradually has more conversations (consisting of more words) with them.

I cheat at forming adult friendships by joining groups where people meet regularly. If you're part of a radio club that meets once a week and you just join up to talk about radios, eventually those will be your radio friends.

If there's a hiking meetup near you and you go regularly, you will eventually have hiking friends.

Deeper friendships are formed with people from those kinds of groups when you do things with them outside of the context of the original interaction; if you go camping with your radio friend, that person is probably more friend than acquaintance. If you go to the movies with a hiking friend who likes the same horror movies as you do, that is deepening the friendship.

In, like 2011 Large Bastard decided he wanted more friends to do stuff with so he started a local radio meetup. These people started as strangers who shared an interest. Now they are people who give each other rides after surgery and help each other move and have started businesses together and have gone on many radio-based camping trips and have worked on each other's cars.

Finding a meetup or starting a meetup is genuinely the cheat-code for making friends.

This is also how making friendships at schools works - you're around a group of people very regularly and eventually you get to know them better and you start figuring out who you get along with and you start spending more time with those people.

If you want to do this in the most fast and dramatic way possible, join a band.

In 2020 I wrote something of a primer on how to turn low-stakes interactions with neighbors and acquaintances into more meaningful relationships; check the notes of this post over the next couple days, I'll dig up the link and share it in a reblog.

There is one particular scene in Monstrous Regiment that I love that isn't being talked about enough so I figured...maybe I should talk about it.

'Then go!', shouted Polly. 'Desert! We won't stop you, because I'm sick of your...your bullshit! But you make up your mind, right now, understand? Because when we meet the enemy I don't want to think you're there to stab me in the back!'

The words flew out before she could stop them, and there was no power in the world that could snatch them back.

Tonker went pale, and a certain life drained out of her face like water from a funnel. 'What was that you said?'

The words 'You heard me!' lined up to spring from Polly's tongue, but she hesitated. She told herself: it doesn't have to go this way. You don't have to let a pair of socks do the talking.

'Words that were stupid', she said. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.'

It is such an incredibly powerful scene. I've read the book dozens of times and every time I low-key expect there to be a fight even though I know there won't be because that's how it goes, right? But Pterry is showing us, it doesn't have to. Right here, right now it's in your hands. You can choose not to. You can back down when you are wrong or even when you're right. Polly has good reason to be mad at Tonker but so does Tonker for her actions and Polly chooses not to escalate. They're in this together. Fighting amongst themselves accomplishes nothing and backing down doesn't make her weak. On the contrary, it's a strength because anger is easy. Polly isn't wrong to be angry, but there is a time and a place and she has the wisdom to recognise that this isn't it.

You're allowed to be angry! But you don't have to get swept up by it, you can choose a different path. And hell, that just goes right to the most important thing Discworld taught me. Through Vimes and Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany and occasionally even Rincewind.

Being good isn't something you are, it's something you do. It's something you have to choose to be, over and over again, every single day, every single decision. And it's hard. It's not some nebulous quality you either possess or you don't it's something you have to decide to be and work at hard at all your life but it's up to you. You can always choose to do better, to be kinder, to apologise, to say something, to not say anything, to do the right thing even when it's hard or unpleasant or inconvenient for you. Your anger isn't wrong or misplaced and sometimes being angry is the only right reaction to have, but it's a weapon too and you decide where you aim it.

You don't have to let a pair of socks do the talking.

imma have a lil rant now

“you can’t say crippled it’s a slur” fuck off with that stigmatizing bullshit! i know what crippled means.

when i was going to the gym in my wheelchair, that wasn’t crippled. when i was fiercely sweating my way through agonizing medical procedures, that wasn’t crippled. when i was laughing through my tears because my spine was so on fire it was funny, that wasn’t crippled.

the days when that meant i couldn’t DO anything? THAT was crippled. it happened, i got through it, i’m proud. i don’t need some officious little shit telling me i can’t use the most apt term to describe the event of my disability keeping me from acting. crippling pain is crippling. crippling executive dysfunction is crippling. don’t try to force me to minimize my experience just because you’re uncomfortable with the english language.

say it until it loses all meaning if you have to. cripple cripple cripple. it starts to sound like an english beverage involving nutmeg and whiskey. mmm, hot cripple.

When I was a child, I knew that boys grew up and married girls, and vice versa. And this was simply the way the universe worked. 

By the time I was six I knew the basic mechanics of sex, the progression of pregnancy. The former sounded uncomfortable, messy and embarrassing, and I couldn’t figure out why anyone would do it, except that it was apparently necessary for the second. And the second was fascinating and magical, so I supposed that made sense. 

(When I was ten, I was probably in love with my “best” friend, inasmuch as a ten year old can be in love with anyone. I worshipped the ground she walked on; her attention or lack thereof devastated me. In every cute little kid “so in love” story you’ve ever heard of, I was in the role given to the little boy, hearts-in-eyes, blindly devoted, absolutely in love.) 

When I was eleven, I encountered the idea that men could marry men, and women could marry women, and it seemed entirely pointless to me, and also I couldn’t figure out how two women could have sex. How did that even work? Men I could sort of figure out although it seemed even more uncomfortable and messy than men-and-women. It was weird. But I supposed if that was what people wanted, that’s what they wanted. 

(When I was thirteen I fell in love with one of the ladies in my father’s community choir. It was full on courtly love, and I languished silently. I wanted to sit near her and I wanted her to talk to me and I wanted to carry her bag and I wanted to help her do things and I wanted to beat up her good-for-nothing husband who made her sad and insisted they get the cat she loved declawed as the only way to not get rid of it at all, and I wanted to find some way to show her that the expectations that their Mormonism were heaping on her were so unfair and so messed up and so keeping her from realizing how amazing and smart and pretty and funny and clever she was. I would have gone on quests against dragons for that woman.) 

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