she dealt with asian family drama like no one else did and all the fanbase did was hate her

Good Omens Fanfic Friday (05 Apr 2024)

Almost everything this week is canon-compliant/adjacent. For a change there's only one human AU.

Nice And Ominous: a reluctant eschatology of the Second Attempt (series) (84K currently; Rated T/E)

Every so often there comes along a week where I'm absolutely ecstatic to recommend something. I spend all week in anticipation of sharing it with everyone in the hopes they'll love it as much as I do. This week, it's this series, a three-part post-S2 that definitely deserves way more kudos and attention than it currently has.

Part I (rated T) is from Crowley's POV and focuses on him slowly healing from the heartache of losing his angel. He learns to be friends with Maggie and Nina, becomes like a big brother to Muriel, and even gains an almost-friendship with Eric. The story isn't as angsty as it sounds, though Crowley doesn't always have the healthiest coping mechanisms (a tendency to drink and drive across the world). The author does a great job of not putting all the breakup blame on Aziraphale. You can always tell the difference between Crowley blaming Aziraphale in a story and the author blaming him.

Part II (rated T) is from Aziraphale's POV. This story is definitely more angsty that Part I. Aziraphale's up there doing is best, but with only one real (human) friend back on Earth to rely on and trust, he's mostly on his own. Just as with Part I, the author doesn't put the entirety of the blame for the breakup on Crowley any more than he does Aziraphale. Be warned that it ends in a cliffhanger.

Part III (mostly rated T but some E) is still incomplete, but the author posts weekly and the story is already written, so I feel confident we'll see the end. I can't say much about the plot of this one without serious spoilers, but if you read the first two parts you'll definitely want to read Part III. It hurts at times. A lot. If you need mostly fluff right now, this isn't the one for you. (The rest of today's list is pure fluff, though, because I needed it after obsessing over this story).

If you don't like to be left hanging on a story, read Part I, but hold off on Part II until Part III is complete. It won't be too long; the author has already released two chapters since I started writing this note (7 of 14).

This series is incredibly well-written. It's almost certain to make my year-end best-of list, as it's easily one of the best "what happens next" after Aziraphale leaves for Heaven. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all week.

***

Break the Rules (1.4K; Rated G)

Aziraphale has a beard. Crowley loses his mind.

***

In Love We Rise (11K; Rated E)

One of two AJ_Constantine stories on my list this week filled with fluff and gorgeous writing. It's Easter Sunday and Aziraphale is feeling a little down about the holiday. Crowley decides to cheer him up.

***

Bad Communications (series) (15K; Rated T)

Funny post-S2 three-part series where Crowley and Aziraphale are made to realize (by Nina/Maggie and Muriel respectively) that they might not have communicated with each other as clearly as they thought during the Final 15. I particularly love how Muriel is written here.

***

Heaven On Wheels (3K; Rated M)

Aziraphale buys a Scoopy moped and convinces Crowley to go for a ride. The author, CopperBeech, describes it as "a sappy, happy, old-fashioned s1-compliant (and s2-defiant) post-Nopocalypse getting-together fic."

***

Caramel Delight (16K; Rated E)

Human AU. Another wonderful bit of fluff from AJ_Constantine. Crowley is delighted when his terrible neighbors move out and even more delighted when he sees his new neighbor is a gorgeous blond man. The neighborly thing to do would be to bring over a jar of his Nan's caramel sauce as a welcome to the neighborhood gift, of course. Crowley is really dense here; hilariously so. The "they share one brain cell" tag would be appropriate, but Aziraphale is the only one using it.

2x11 The Witch's Quickening

Hey Arthur, remember last time you were on a manhunt in Camelot and it led you to Morgana's chambers, and she talked you out of searching them and later admitted that she'd been hiding a fugitive in there? Have you learned NOTHING

And Merlin too, he doesn't like, double back and confront Morgana or suggest Arthur do that?

Why is Arthur yelling at Merlin so much in this? Who wrote this episode.

::Coin watch the show instead of playing on her phone challenge::

Morgana being manipulated by a nine year old

Why is Arthur insulting the food as if Merlin cooked it himself? Every other meal he brings up is from the palace kitchens but on this occasion Merlin cooked himself? Ok.

Even the fkin dragon is OOC in this ep

Morgana is so much more intelligent than this.

Gaius needs to bring this to Uther in the throne room like a member of the public? He couldn't get a private audience with the king? Ok.

I really don't remember this episode being so terrible, maybe I'm in a bad mood.

You know, not for nothing, but from Mordred's perspective Merlin is being an absolute dick, not only siding with the oppressor but actively working to sabotage their plans and hurt their people. As we, the audience, are privy to the reasons behind this, WE don't necessarily questions Merlin's actions, WE know he's after the crystal because he's trying to prevent Mordred and Morgana from teaming up and bringing harm to Arthur - that's all good and well but like... Merlin could never bring himself to kill Mordred because he's just a boy, but yet he's allowed the boy to go off and become somewhat radicalized (I say 'somewhat' because honestly, it's not all that radical to plot to overthrow the king that has been waging a genocidal war against your people for twenty fucking years) without ever trying to bring him into the fold. If Merlin had explained his and Arthur's destinies to the boy, made an argument for waiting out Uther's reign in the hope that Arthur's reign will bring peace and magic back to Camelot, but which may not happen if he sees his father killed by sorcerers, and explained his reasons for hiding who he is from Morgana, regardless of Mordred's ultimate destiny to be Arthur's doom, Merlin would've at least had a shot at cultivating an alliance or at very least an understanding between them. Instead, all Mordred sees is this supremely powerful sorcerer who isn't even a druid, serving the very people that would bring an end to their entire race if they could. Although, it seems as tho Mordred has forgotten who exactly snuck him out of the castle and back to the druid camp in three first place. Makes you wonder if Morgana never explained to him that she was believed to have been kidnapped when they found her with the druids last time, and that she went along with that lie for her own safety.

Tl;dr: communication is important kids!

Do I even need to point out how much sense Morgana's little tiff with Uther did not make? Or her sudden distrust of Gwen? If anything she should think Gwen would be an ally considering a) her father was killed by Uther, as an innocent victim of Uther's war on magic, b) Gwen was party to Morgana's previous involvement in aiding and abetting a druid fugitive, c) Gwen L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y sacrificed herself to save Morgana from Hengist's men, the is zero reason to question Guinevere's loyalty to Morgana, and d) Gwen has never said a WORD against sorcery or hinted at any kind of prejudice against druids or anyone with magic.

I looked up the writing credit for this, it's Jake Michie who is also credited with some fantastic episodes like Lancelot, Beauty and the beast, and the Lamia to name a few. It was directed by Alice Troughton who has also done some good eps, including other eps written by Jake Michie, so like I really don't understand what went wrong here.

Oh God there's a commentary track on this episode. I don't wannnnnaaaaaa but maybe I'll learn something, like why it turned out the way it did.

Commentary by Julian Murphy, Alice Troughton, and Katie. I do not have high hopes.

Katie right off the bat explaining shit that's important to note, God I love her on these tracks. Apparently, this was one of the last things to be shot (Merlin films everything out of order and films several episodes concurrently, depending on filming location.) and it was being shot while three other episodes were being wrapped up - so they had FOUR episodes filming concurrently and a lot of THIS episode was directed by Julian Murphy, and Jeremy shot some of it as well. This COULD explain a lot of the inconsistency, but I question how much since Julian seems to be involved in filming lots of scenes in lots of episodes. But I guess it's possible that just that on top of the rush to finish and the pressure of so many spinning plates in the air right at the end. They've just said that for this episode they had the least amount of days to shoot it out of all the episodes they've done, which is partly why they had so much going at once. It's as good a reason as any to explain it being so off, but I don't really see that explaining the wildly off characterization.

Katie going on the whole thing about Alvarr-as-revolutionary and Alice picks up on Morgana's sort of desire to be in that position and they're having a quite meaningful discussion then Julian:I think she just thinks he's hot 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Katie says the script changed a lot even as it was filming, and that things were being changed as it was filmed so I'm kind of thinking for whatever reason this entire thing was a mess and that's why it came across looking so disjointed to me.

At least Julian realize the soup scene was terrible.

Idk why they're ganging up on Katie over the chemistry between her and Alvarr. She says she wasn't playing it that way and that she wasn't feeling it and they're just like "yea uh huh sure."

They're talking about having two units filming like a few feet away from each other in the forest, while there is another two units going in France.

Julian says they had added Alvarr's girlfriend in because they wanted to dramatize his charisma and calculation... but it's not manipulation - ?????????? Someone get the man a dictionary. 'We added a random blonde in four him to kiss so that the audience knows he's got a girl already, who sees him working his charm on Morgana and comments on it 'you played her well', but Alvarr isn't actually manipulative' ??????????

They've just pointed out two entire significant beats within a sequence that was constructed on set and off script. Arthur's confrontation with Alvarr in the forest and Merlin's slow motion tracking the crystal to show its got a powerful draw. The more they describe the specifics of filming the more it sounds like an utter disaster which kind of makes me feel bad for being so harsh on the episode.

I keep having to rewind to focus on what they're saying and I feel like I've been watching this episode for about 4 hours.

Awkward bit of prop-exposure there. Trying to work out what LK could even stand for.

Idk everyone's really happy with this scene between Morgana and Uther and I'm still sitting here thinking the dialogue was utterly ridiculous.

They talked about changing that final scene, where Uther clearly knows/suspects it was Morgana who helped Alvarr escape, so that it doesn't prematurely push the story too far ahead. They cut a look Morgana gives Merlin which, rightfully so, because it would've been too much too soon. The ending to this episode still feels wholly unsatisfying to me. I understand the little tag with the dragon yelling for Merlin to release him, I don't mean that, but the ending to the main story where Alvarr just escapes and Uther not only accepts that but also accepts that Morgana must've helped him. Overall Uther's been entirely sort of neutered throughout this episode, which I understand that partially has to do with it being Morgana, but like, in previous episodes when she's been so defiant against him, he's had her by the throat and locked her in a dungeon overnight. So I just doubt understand him being so subdued here, especially since he directly threatened her when he found pr Mordred escaped, and now another druid's escaped and he essentially knows she was involved given how she spoke to him, yet he doesn't do anything? Just wildly inconsistent behavior.

Anyway apologies for overanalyzing this episode, I realize I tore it apart pretty thoroughly during the commentary and the post became quite long. I wish there was a way to add a cut on mobile but there isn't. I'll have the S2 finale post up in a few hours - I might hold off on posting until I've watched the extras, I didn't do that for S1 but then I felt the extras didn't quite warrant a whole post on their own, so I might just tack on any thoughts I have to the 2x12 post. We'll see.

about Britta Perry

characters I’d like for her to interact with: mostly just the study group? at least for now, and especially after the show ends.  

icons: only from Ibiza for now, not made by me

about community and this muse: she’s a test muse, I can't promise to pick the perfect phrasing she'd use. I didn’t memorize Community episodes but I did watch it several times and can google if needed. 

page in construction and important to read due to trigger-y themes and my own take on her. Keep in mind that Britta's actions aren't always right and I do NOT consider them okay. The most important things are bolded, it’s up to you whether to read the rest or not. 

She will definitely do 'woke' things just for brownie points or mean well but not research enough to discuss a topic, sometimes actually defending the wrong side because she listened to a loud vocal minority.

I consider her straight because I believe that if Britta had felt even the slightest attraction to women she’d have used it to win arguments in every way possible, being the person she is, and made it a constant topic of conversation. That and she said so (and denied Annie a kiss)

Very important: Britta has been molested as a child by a man in a dinosaur costume, specifically at her 11th birthday party, and told her father, who didn't believe her and took his side after she told the restaurant owner. This was both mentioned in the show, albeit subtly, and confirmed in the official website and confirmed by Dan Harmon. That is an important part of Britta to me, and explains some of her issues. There will be references to it in threads with tags such as "rape tw" and "abuse tw" since we don't know how far it went and it tends to be the most common blocked tag for people who can be triggered by it, and if requested 'pedophilia tw', just in case. Please do tell me if you’d rather avoid this topic completely, I can’t always ask everyone beforehand and I promise you I will not as questions about it nor be upset. Your comfort comes before my roleplaying. I would love if she got to share this and vent to a few important friends while she works on it through therapy, which I headcanon was an on and off secret thing during the serie, especially after she decided to study psychology, and became permanent at the end of the season while she worked as bartender.

This also means that what her parents did to her, not believing her, drug testing her as a child because she laughed too much and so on, will be portrayed as the abuse it was, not a laughing matter, and I'm in favor of Britta never rekindling their relationship and being angrier for a longer time with her friends for talking to them behind her back, even if she never told them just how bad they were with examples, but eventually lets it go because of that very reason. We can write canon divergent threads where she’s more forceful about not wanting their friends to interact with them in a more serious way, or even tell them what they did, but otherwise canon isn’t that different if we have just Britta cut them off her life. 

CANON “DIVERGENCES”

This may be an odd choice but I can't write Britta in a cartoonish way*, so in the present, as in after the show, I'd like to write her a bit more like she was in s1, capable of having an adult conversation (it’s a process but she’s getting back to that), the Britta who had the ability to be 'more' reasonable than in later reasons, and to have her behave more realistically even if still messing up a lot and with her ridiculous moments. She's still overdoing it with activism and going about it in often inappropriate/incorrect ways in her desperate attempt to be a woke and good person. She still says things she shouldn't say and gets needlessly defiant too. What happened in canon happened here too, except her forgiving her parents or talking to them again like I wrote above, or joking about them paying for her. She works hard to return all the borrowed money, especially after the show is over and she moves to a new and extra cheap place.

To keep the show canon the way it was, since her decay works in a tvshow but it’s not doable for me as ‘Britta simply opened up and was always that way’, I headcanon many of her behaviors around the middle of the serie -between s2-s3 until more or less the last season- as both a bit of a breakdown (when excessive; after all saying that she was always drunk/high doesn’t sounds as her being okay) and as her being a lost woman trying to find herself, and even playing up some of the 'dumbness' to fit in with her new persona and to shield herself from pain, because she would hide her real self to keep it from getting hurt. She becomes a bit more well-adjusted after the end of the serie, also because she puts an effort into not being high or drunk, and the therapy is starting to work, while still trying to heal from her past and still having trouble being a fully responsible adult - still the woman who postpones laundry and has weird cats. She joins her canonically unnamed brother (that I’ll name Walter) who works with disabled children after she gets her psychology degree - not actually as therapist, she becomes more of a helper who can give them advice while still working at the bar too.

*She went from being able to read Pierce's actions in the second episode correctly and say "He offered me a 100 dollars to switch cards with him just so he could be partners with Jeff. I think he thought getting closer to Jeff would bring him respect in the group. I think he spent his whole life looking out for himself, and he would trade it all for a shot at some kind of family" and invoke the freedom of information act to request copies of Annie’s notes 

to being so dumb she didn't know it was weird to say to Jeff and his own father that "I just want to acknowledge there are a lot of emotions flowing right now. You two are probably feeling a strong impulse to sleep with each other, and hey, that's normal." when applying psychology notions, talk about 'edible complex' or "what, I have 3d vision now?" and I just can’t see that happening, the person she ‘really’ was in later seasons couldn’t have pretended to be actually smart for a year and a half. Nor forget how people speak or even move normally, there is a difference between opening up and showing your dumb side and that.

RELATIONSHIPS - not necessary to read, just my take on them

To be clear, when it comes to the study group, I’d die to actually have Britta bond more, in a more genuine way, with everyone and straighten things up when they don’t work, and just really feel close to them all, more than canon showed, so what I’m writing here is just the way I see things right after the end of the show and they can be made better later.  Jeff is the closest person to her in terms of being a peer that she understands and that seems to understand her, whether it's written in a romantic or completely platonic way (I’m okay with both, but Britta may slightly resent Annie if in threads she’s portrayed as back together with Jeff, since she never seemed completely okay with that to me). She does care about his opinion in particular, while she is a little more able to shrug off the mocking from the rest of the group (see the concert she tried to pull off so he wouldn't win). Abed is also particularly special to her, since she considers him one of her first real friends ever and there was never a romantic or sexual interaction to mess that up. I don't ship her with Troy but I recognize her past feelings for him, even if ultimately they didn't fit. Her relationship with Annie may bring up some defensiveness, I’d love for them to be friends but during the show there was more constant disagreement than bonding (though living together helped), so I’d like for them to become friends instead of assuming they support each other. Shirley was possibly the closest female friend to her, who taught her more about how to be ‘socially girly’, with things such as bathroom breaks together and comforting Annie. Even there were plenty problems with the two disrespecting each other’s beliefs so often. Pierce was, well, Pierce, and she tried to be nice to him mostly out of ‘duty’ because that’s how people should behave. She’s less close to Frankie and Elroy because most of that school year she was drunk or high or in her own world but I like to think things got better after the show, especially with Frankie who gives her such a good vibe..