#I will not be providing additional context at this time

[janitor-figure-a]

I can't believe the value of the fatt patreon. in bluff city movie club streets of fire theyre talking about some guys leather overalls and before I can even think about looking for an image to say Brnine wore this Austin with his human mouth says shout outs to the strap knocking me to a different spiritual plain, I can't COPE

[sateurn]

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

These sobs really limited my tags?????

I have so many more thoughts this is so so much less than 1/2. Broski. Big dislike

[fairuzfan]

Also re:necropolitics of israel (click)

A few days ago there were reports of Israeli soldiers "returning" bodies of martyrs they took like just straight up from Gaza. Here is a report about bodies being stolen from al-Shifa (click).

The director of Al-Shifa had reported the bodies being stolen back in November (click) before his arrest. The hospital workers mentioned not knowing why the soldiers would do that. The speculation of the photo-op arose because the photo-op of October 7th within Israel happened a month and a half after October 7th, after the Al-Shifa raid. People (Palestinians) noted that the level of violence done to the bodies seemed similar to what they had been seeing with the bombs in Gaza, and found it hard to believe that Hamas could inflict that much damage. There was a thread that was examining this idea but I haven't found it as it's been a bit. If I find it, I'll comment on this post.

But even then, Israel routinely makes corpses serve out their sentences or even outright steals them for the sake of enacting psychological torture onto the relatives of the martyr (click). The burial process is an essential step in mourning and grief, which means by withholding the bodies, they ensure that the family is unable to recover emotionally from the death of their loved one nor are they allowed to move on. This is essentially a form of ensuring that people are unable to resist as the emotional toll this takes on them is quite high.

A variety of reports and testimonies are linked in this article regarding the harvesting and removal of organs throughout the years by Israel (click). The most damning of the evidence is a testimony by Dr. Meira Weiss in her book "Over Their Dead Bodies." The article has a translated passage from Hebrew about the period at the turn of the century and their practices then (roughly 1996-2002):

“They would take corneas, skin, and heart valves, while noting that non-professionals would not notice the absence of these organs as they would place something plastic in place of the corneas and ‘take’ the skin from the back so that the family wouldn’t see it. In addition, the bodies of detained martyrs are used in medical colleges at Israeli universities for research purposes.” Weiss confirmed that “in the first Intifada, the army effectively allowed the institute to extract organs from Palestinians under a military procedure that required the autopsy of a Palestinian prisoner. The autopsy procedure was accompanied by organ removal, which was used by the Israeli Skin Bank established in 1985 to treat burns suffered by Israeli soldiers. This was after the Chief Rabbinate Council issued a ruling legitimizing it, which led to saving the lives of many Israelis who were injured during attacks on Palestinian citizens, continuous assaults, and wars — at the expense of Palestinian martyrs, according to specialized Israeli medical sources for burn treatment.”

It's worthy to note: as an occupying force especially, Israel should not be doing ANYTHING with these bodies and just returning them to the families. I've seen some people say "they didn't JUST harvest Palestinians' organs, they also harvested Israeli organs." It doesn't matter. They are an occupying force that enacts systematic violence on Palestinians especially and within this context, anything Israel does towards Palestinians is a targeted, racialized violence. It is widely known that Israel denies crimes it has committed until many, many years, especially from during the Nakba, such as well poisoning.

People provide evidence that organs can't be used after a certain point in time.... in this context (October 2023-December 2023), it's not about whether or not the organs were used for anything. It is specifically for the purpose of body desecration which Israeli soldiers especially have not been shy about. Here is a report during the bulldozer massacre in which people report that Israeli soldiers run over bodies for no other reason than desecration (click).

Also, remember the grave desecration that happened a few days ago? It was reported that they had stolen bodies believed to belong to young Palestinian activists then (click). This is widely known as 'necroviolence' on Palestinian bodies in order to humiliate them (click).

You cannot remove the context of an oppressive force (Israel) that is documented to have disrespected graves and bodies. You must analyze it within this context, not any others. Withholding bodies of Palestinians, no matter what they did while they were alive, is a form of disrespect and oppression on a subjugated population. To deny that this happens and to attribute it to antisemitism is not only disrespectful of Palestinians' mourning rights, but also an effort to remold the narrative into one of "Jewish people against Palestinians" by emphasizing the Jewishness of the occupying force rather than focusing on... you know... the fact that they're an occupying force known to enact violence on Palestinian martyrs.

[batfluffs]

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the base price for a character model is £45 !

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more info/full order form below "keep reading/read more" !!

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[nothorses]

Let's Talk About Baeddels.

An (updated) retrospective on Tumblr's movement to make gender essentialism trans-friendly.

This post contains excepts from a longer article on Medium. If you have the time, please read the full article! I also request that you link the longer article if you use this as a source.

All links have been updated with archived versions of posts that have since been deleted (and otherwise might be deleted or lost sometime in the future). I have revised some sections, and included more context and examples, in order to clarify and strengthen arguments.

Disclaimer

Transmisogyny is real, and requires much more acknowledgement than it currently receives. The trans community is very much capable of transmisogyny, and often does enact or enable it; likewise, trans people also often enact and enable transphobia against other parts of the trans community. Trans women suffer at least as much as the rest of us, and trans women — as a class — are not privileged, and do not hold the power to oppress anyone else.

If you take only one thing away from this post, take this:

Trans people all need to work on being better allies to each other. None of us can gain anything without the rest of us.

Establishing an Ideology

The first post on Baeddelism was by Tumblr user @unobject, on October 2nd, 2013:

The post was quickly liked by @lezzyharpy, also one of the first to call themselves “Baeddels”.

This post first provided the name and defining ideology of the Baeddel movement. The implication of the post was, essentially, that because the root of the word “bad” was “baeddel”, and because “baeddel” referred to intersex people and “womanish men”, this old English slur was proof that transmisogyny was the worst form of bigotry; and even, perhaps, the root of all bigotry. (It’s worth noting that this interpretation of the etymology has been problematized.)

While @unobject was the first person to make this connection, @autogynephile (“Eve”) eventually became, in essence, the figurehead of the movement. Of the other Baeddels, some of them were explicitly aware and supportive of the ideology behind Baeddelism, some of them were young or newly-out trans women seduced by the personalities involved, and some of them were tangential enough to the movement that their understanding of it was wholly different from the understanding those at the core of the movement held and promoted. Baeddelism was a sort of trend, for a time, and many participants wore the name without entirely knowing what it meant.

It’s important to acknowledge that as much as there were dedicated members of Baeddelism, and as much as there was a unified ideology behind it, there were also individual Baeddels who did not understand — let alone support — the ideology.

The Ideology

Baeddels essentially built upon the foundation of @monetizeyourcat’s ideology that had been gaining traction on Tumblr in the years prior, with some additions that ultimately defined their movement:

Transmisogyny is the form of oppression from which all (or most) other forms of oppression stem.

Privilege is granted on the basis of assigned sex. (“AFAB” or “Assigned Female at Birth” vs. “AMAB” or “Assigned Male at Birth”)

These fundamentals of Baeddelism were essentially a rebranded form of Radical Feminism. In particular, they drew from the Radical Feminist idea that misogyny was the “primary” form of oppression; that which all other oppression stemmed from. Baeddels only tweaked this idea to replace “misogyny” with “transmisogyny”, which led to the rest of the conclusions Baeddels drew:

There is no “transphobia”

All “transphobia” stems from transmisogyny first, and transphobia as it impacts non-trans-women (or, sometimes, non-transfeminine people) is incidental.

There is no “Trans”

If “transphobia” isn’t real, what else is left of the transgender identity?

While this is by no means the dominant understanding of transgender identity or community, the equivocation of oppression to identity is, in many ways, core to Baeddel ideology (and we see the lasting impact of this in still-widely-used “TME/TMA” termingology). By this logic, if transphobia doesn’t exist, neither does trans identity or trans community (though they obviously believed that transmisogyny, and subsequently trans women, do). Therefore, there are no “trans men”, and belief in the existence of “nonbinary people” is highly contingent on whether an individual believes in the oppression of nonbinary people.

“AFAB Privilege”

The idea that within the queer and/or trans community, people who were AFAB/CAFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) receive unique privilege and positions of power that people who were AMAB/CAMAB (Assigned Male at Birth, a counterpart to “AFAB” and “CAFAB”) do not.

Trans Lesbian Separatism

… was what the movement was ultimately defined by, as the logical conclusion of their other beliefs (much like Lesbian Separatism was the logical conclusion of Radical Feminist beliefs).

Baeddels believed that only trans women can understand, or be truly safe for, other trans women; therefore, contact with anyone who was not a trans woman was deemed “dangerous” and highly discouraged.

Trans Men

… also played an important role in Baeddel ideology, and the resulting treatment of trans men is what is often remembered today. Baeddels generally believed the following, either explicitly or implictly:

Trans men are not oppressed, or experience so little oppression that it hardly matters.

Trans men do not experience misogyny, even prior to transition.

Trans men have access to male privilege, or trans men have an easier time passing, and frequently go “stealth”; thus benefiting from male privilege as well as cis privilege.

Trans men are often (or always) misogynistic and transmisogynistic, and are not held accountable for this.

Trans men oppress cis women.

Trans women enacting violence on trans men is “punching up” at oppressors, and therefore not only permitted, but encouraged.

Trans men are inherently violent, or become aggressive and violent when they go on testosterone HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy)

The impact of this ideology is often discussed among transmasculine people because of the depth of harm it caused, directly and indirectly — and it was very much intended to. Harm caused to transmascs was not only permitted or excused, it was often actively celebrated.

Nonbinary People

… are often overlooked when summarizing Baeddelism, but Baeddels did have plenty to say about them. Baeddel ideology relied on the idea that privilege was granted on the bases of assigned sex, and nonbinary people’s genders were thus treated as irrelevent; they essentially did not believe nonbinary people truly existed.

CAFAB nonbinary people are either trans men attempting to invade women’s spaces, or cis women pretending to be trans.

CAMAB nonbinary people are actually just trans women who haven’t accepted it yet. They must transition, or they are transmisogynistic.

Intersex People

Intersex experiences, and intersex history, were often co-opted and erased by Baeddelism. This was often more a byproduct of their beliefs than an overtly-stated idea, but most notably, the term “Baeddel” itself is likely more applicable- if not exclusively applicable- to intersex people, rather than trans women. Making their reclamation of it as a “transmisogynistic slur”, or their claim that the word’s existence means that “transmisogyny is the root of all oppression”, incredibly ignorant- if not actively harmful misinformation.

Notably, Baeddels also believed that intersex people- being “more androgynous” (a harmful misonception)- were able to pass more easily as the opposite assigned sex, and that intersex people (even within transfemme spaces) had “intersex privilege”. Some even believed, and openly claimed, that intersex people were “hermaphroditic”; a slur against intersex people, and typically implying that the individual has both sets of reproductive systems simultaneously.

Trans Women

… did not receive universally positive treatment, either. Baeddelism was very much a cult-like group built around the firmly-held conviction that they were absolutely correct, and that anyone who disagreed with them was The Enemy. Trans women who disagreed with them were generally seen as brainwashed and self-hating, and trans women who did agree with them were expected to subjugate themselves to the ringleaders of the movement.

Within Baeddel circles, trans women were most frequently victimized by the abusers allowed to run rampant because “trans women do not, and cannot, harm anyone else.” — including, apparently, each other.

“They were also bad shitty abusive people in general. “… a bunch of them passed around a pile of smear campaigns and false rumors about virtually any trans woman that they had a even the slightest animosity for. Including the victim of the kinkster rapist. They’ve done other fucked stuff, like chased two twoc off this site for trying to make a zine, but yeah. That’s like, just some of it. I’m not up for going over the messy details of the whole shitparade. “Full disclosure, I made a lot of excuses for these sacks of crap, even while they were out there spreading false crap about me […] I wasn’t aware of the worst shit they were doing until much much later.” - @punlich

Inside the Movement

Though individual Baeddels often existed in vastly different social circles from each other- particularly offline- those who lived through the movement highlight commonalities in their experiences.

One interviewee recounts the manipulation present in their initial involvement with the movement:

“It came to me at a point where I was very quick to weaponize anything anyone told me about their experiences, because I was always a fighter. I’ve been an activist for a long time, you know, and when these trans women would come to me with their experiences I would believe them. I wanted to. But the way they acted didn’t add up when compared to what they were saying. I felt really lonely there, and stupid all the time. I felt like I was being a bad trans person.” […] “Online they were more willing to say things that were, for lack of a better word, stupid. They would say things that lacked any kind of logical sense. But in person, they would go into this kind of toxic femininity- this weaponization of weakness. And I think that’s because online they were often in these echochambers, but in person they had to rely on much more subtle manipulation.” - Vera

It seems at points that the environment created within this movement- and the social circles that composed it- was almost cult-like in nature and in need for control.

“It was very isolating. I didn’t see my friends for a while, I was kind of just living with them, cooking and cleaning for them, starving myself, and slowly growing crazy. I was just being consumed by this weird academia and theory that had no basis, because everything was online and Tumblr-based.” - Vera

Perhaps most chilling, however, are the patterns in their attitudes toward sexual assault. One interviewer recounts being subject to sexual assault, and upon posting about their experience to a Facebook group, being met with hostility from Baeddels present in the group- who quickly used their social influence to have them banned from some of their only support systems at the time.

“I ended up with pretty much no one to talk to about the experience at a time when I was already really, really struggling, and it’s one of several factors that led to me dropping out. “The Baeddel who got me banned also messaged me directly at some point during all of this, and I tried to get her to understand the pain she was causing me. She basically laughed it offand said it was my fault. She seemed to find a lot of joy in how much it hurt me, and blocked me soon after.” - Anonymous

Another recounts sexual consent violations from a friend-turned-Baeddel:

“[My ex-friend] had previously been fetish-mining me for her mommy kink. I was freshly estranged from my own mum, and she stepped in to be like, “I’m your new mum now,” and would pester me to call her “mum” in Welsh- as at that point she was going by a Welsh name. I played along, but it transpired that she was basically using that to get off, and she had a thing for infantilising transmascs and being this mum/mom figure.” - Luke

And yet another interviewee discusses verbal sexual harassment during interactions with another Baeddel:

“I had one [Baeddel] directly tell me that I’m beneath her as a trans man, and that I should “Shut my smelly cooch up” and only use my voice to uplift trans women. I was a minor at the time. “She then sicced her followers on me, and they bombarded me with messages telling me I’d “never be a real man”, that I needed to “sit on the side and allow them to have the spotlight”, and even telling me to kill myself- because I was inherently toxic to them. I was 16 years old, pre everything, and I couldn’t even pass at the time. They didn’t seem to care that I was a minor, or a newly hatched egg.” - Anonymous

While Baeddel ideology itself does not explicitly condone or excuse sexual assault, it’s striking how common these stories are; especially considering how small in numbers actual Baeddels were.

It was, in fact, this exact problem that would eventually cause the movement to dissolve.

The Downfall of Baeddelism

Sometime between the group’s formation in 2013 and their downfall near the end of 2014, @autogynephile (also “Eve”), the defacto “ringleader” of the Baeddel movement, began what Baeddels referred to as a “transbian safehouse”.

This was apparently intended as a place for unhoused trans woman lesbians and trans women who, in general, had sworn off contact with men; the ultimate goal of the lesbian separatist ideology at the core of the Baeddel movement. It was thus also referred to as a “commune” by some, and as a “cult” by others.

One occupant of the “safehouse”- Elle- later posted to Tumblr that they had been raped by Eve during their stay, and detailed their experiences.

The Baeddels, rather than believing the victim and ousting the rapist from their movement, chose to close ranks around Eve instead.

Various reasons were given for this:

The victim must be lying

The victim- and anyone who believed them- was simply transmisogynistic.

Anyone who disagrees with the Baeddels is an Enemy Of The Movement, a “carceral thinker”, and a danger to trans women as a whole.

Trans women are incapable of sexually abusing anyone.

“Standing with Eve” was the ultimate sign of loyalty to the movement, and thus a mark of pride and honor.

It was okay to keep being a Baeddel no matter what, because Rape Accusations Should Be A Personal Matter.

(You can read more about Eve’s own denial of these events here and here.)

Years later, even people involved in the initial group have spoken out against the movement and actions of those involved:

“I was in ~the Baeddels~ for years and like… we straight up did horrible shit. “We harassed anyone that disagreed for any reason, our politics were terrible, our isolationism made an environmental ripe for abuse that I have firsthand experience of, there is nothing in that group worth salvaging or defending. “Also acting like people are just bringing this up out of the blue is silly like… it’s being brought up because people are still trying to defend the shit we did instead of fucking recognizing that it was wrong. “Creating this myth that hate on the Baeddels is just a way of keeping trans women in line is a tacit defense of the horrid shit we did.” - @lezzyharpy

“like I’m sorry but I served my time in shitty awful Baeddel group in early mid 2012s and it fucking sucked ass.” “… Like it’s straight up cult-like the way you build this self-reinforcing network wherein ayone on the outside looking in with any criticism is unsafe, not to be trusted, only there to hurt trans women, and the only people you can trust is this self-selected group of trans women.” - @lezzyharpy

Why It Matters, and Why Baeddelism Never Really Fell

Baeddelism itself has seen multiple attempts at resurgences by various individuals, including documented experiences with self-proclaimed Baeddels as recently as 2018- well after the movement first “fell” in 2014.

Most proponents of “Baeddelism 2.0”, a revival of the original movement, argue that the abuse that occurred within the original movement was either completely fabricated by detractors (sound familiar?) or, at minimum, not actually inherent to the ideology.

And, of course, there are some original Baeddels still active on Tumblr today.

Baeddelism never actually went away.

“Baeddelism” was only one name for a set of beliefs that existed long before the specific term did, and hasn’t gone anywhere since the original Baeddel movement died down.

What the Baeddels did was put a name to the ideology @monetizeyourcat was cultivating before them, and what Cat did was popularize, centralize, and justify a way of thinking that had existed before she ever made her blog.

This ideology has since been referred to, loosely, as “TIRF-ism”: Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminism.

It is rare that anyone actually refers to themselves as a “TIRF”, and there is no real centralized TIRF movement; rather, a loose collection of radical feminist beliefs circulates various transgender spaces. The validity of these beliefs is generally taken for granted: of course (trans) women are The Most Oppressed People; of course (trans) women are Inherently and Unequivocally Victims In All Situations; of course (trans) men are Inherently Oppressors; of course (trans) men are Dangerous and Evil… and so on.

Like Radical Feminism, and subsequently Trans-Exlcusive Radical Feminism (TERF-ism), those ideas are fundamentally dangerous.

The defining tenants of radical feminism are that misogyny is the root of all oppression, and that rather than misogyny being an issue of power and control on a society-wide level, it is instead, or also, a matter of oppression and privilege on an individual level: men are always oppressors, and women are always victims.

These beliefs fundamentally exclude and erase the experiences of other marginalized people.

Namely, people of color and indigenous people, who’s experiences with and concepts of gender do not fall within the strict and rigid lines that white, western, colonialist people’s do.

Radical feminism is not a redeemable ideology. It cannot be reshaped into something good. It is fundamentally broken, and the movements born from it- lesbian separatism, political lesbianism, TERF-ism, TIRF-ism, and Baeddelism- are proof enough of that. They each promote only surface-level variations of what is fundamentally cult-like thinking: only the in-group can be victimized. Only the in-group is safe; the out-group is inherently and universally dangerous. Only the in-group understands you. All members of the in-group are, fundamentally, incapable of abuse.

We cannot allow these ideas to be perpetuated within or without the trans community.

Learn the Signs & Prevent Harm

Here’s what we can do to prevent this from happening again:

Learn what Baeddel ideology and TIRFism look like, even detached from the name.

Learn what radical feminism looks like, even detached from the name. Even from people who claim to oppose radical feminism.

Act on dogwhistles. Call them what they are.

Do not allow people to downplay the harm all forms of Radical Feminism have caused. Remind each other that Radical Feminism is not a redeemable ideology, and seek out other branches of feminism instead.

Remember the harm that has been caused. Remember that it will be caused again if these things are allowed to go unchecked.

Listen to and uplift marginalized people. Allow them to speak to their own experiences, identify their own needs, and name their own oppression.

Remember who the real oppressors are, and do not pit marginalized people against each other. The people perpetuating and benefiting from transphobia are cis people- and more specifically, cis people in power.

Build solidarity with other marginalized people. One group of trans people cannot gain liberation without liberating all trans people, and one group of trans people cannot be targeted without the rest of us suffering as well.

Remember that there is no group or identity incapable of enacting abuse, violence, harassment, or other harm against another. Victimhood should not be determined based solely on an individual’s identity.

Remember that there are no acceptable targets for violence, cruelty, harassment, and abuse.

For more context and a list of red flags, read the rest of the article here:

[vidavalor]

Crepes: The 1.01 sex meta thing

Alright, my romantic and horny murder hornet friends...

...come and get your very requested 1.01-scene(s)-that-shows-that-Crowley-and-Aziraphale-are-lovers sex meta thing.

We'll be getting a bit blush-inducing NSFW under the cut so keep that in mind...

As Fraulein Maria suggests: Let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start... when you read, you begin with: A, B, C...

...when you speak Ineffable Husbands, the show tells us, you begin with: lunch, alcohol, and crepes...

We're going to do this semi-glossary-style, since those have proven popular and it works well for this. There are some very brief mentions of Satan's attacks on Crowley, for those that would like to know of that ahead of time. Other than that, I don't think any other trigger warnings apply.

"Gentlemen, in your role as the audience, could you, perhaps, give us more to work with?" -- William Shakespeare, 1601, meta-ing for the writers and performers of Good Omens, requesting us to dive a little deeper.

Temptation accomplished.

~~~

Secret language. A language spoken by secret agents for the purpose of keeping the full, true meaning of their conversation hidden by those who might be observing them. Comprised of code words and phrases that contain other layers of meaning beneath the more easily understood surface layer. Difficult-- and, at times, impossible-- for those who do not speak the language to understand it without a key that unlocks at least one word of the language, revealing the hidden conversation beneath the surface.

Key. Additional context that reveals hidden meaning in a secret language by providing understanding of other layers of meaning beneath the surface in a conversation between secret agents.

Example: some bleating goats in 2500 B.C. illustrating for Aziraphale via additional information and context the true meaning of Crowley's words in the scene. Most keys in Good Omens are separate scenes; this one is an exception because it's the origins of their secret language in the first place. This is also a partner scene to the "no nightingales" moment in 2.06.

Partner scene(s). In Good Omens, a scene or scenes which act as keys to other scene or scenes, providing information and context necessary to fully understand the initial scene, which is usually one we saw earlier in the story.

Example: The Bullet Catch scenes in The Blitz, Part 2 in S2 adding layers of context and meaning to both Crowley and Aziraphale with the paintball gun and Crowley giving the office workers miraculous escapes from death at Tadfield Manor in S1.

Crowley and Aziraphale. Supernatural secret agents of sorts, introduced to us that way by our narrator, God, who points out their penchant for meeting alongside human secret agents in St. James Park. They speak in a secret language that we'll call in this meta Ineffable Husbands Speak that only they-- and God-- speak fluently... but for which Good Omens has been slowing giving us enough information to learn how to speak as well.

Code words. Often neutral-sounding and very common words--by design-- in order to keep the hidden meanings of the secret language secret from outside observers by making it sound like everyday conversation. As a result, code words have dual layers of meaning: they refer to a literal thing on the surface level but also have a secondary meaning beneath that within the secret language.

Example, in Ineffable Husbands Speak: "dining at The Ritz."

To "dine at The Ritz" (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Surface, literal level: to eat a meal at the restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, London. Hidden level: to take steps towards being less secretive about their relationship and to live more of a life that is theirs together.

Code phrase/cypher. A phrase that sounds as if it has a single, understood meaning on the surface but is comprised of code words put together to convey a meaning that is hidden from anyone who might hear the phrase but does not speak the secret language. Impossible to understand unless you either created the language or were given instructions on how to speak it... unless you can come into possession of a key that can unlock it.

If spoken to someone who does not have a key to understanding it, they might possibly be able to recognize that you are speaking in a kind of code... but they will not have the understanding of the double meanings of the keywords, nor the context required, to figure out just what the hell you're talking about.

Example: "The clarinet can make beautiful music."

Good Omens included this scene right near the start of the season in 2.01 in which both Crowley and we the audience have no idea what Agent Fuzuli is *really* saying, even if his sentence makes technical, if not really contextual, sense. We can recognize from his over-the-top obvious spy-speak that he is speaking in code. They did so to highlight the existence of hidden language in the show and how important it is to unlocking more layers of meaning in the story.

Neither we nor Crowley expressly need to decode this particular sentence to understand what's happening in the story of Good Omens because Good Omens is not about the romance of Agent Fuzuli and his new paramour, the Azerbaijani Sector Chief. (Cupid!Crowley really out here matchmaking everyone in sight in S2 lol.) If it were, we would be needing to figure out what this clarinet and its beautiful music are all about. Instead, though, the show is suggesting that hidden language and decoding it is paramount-- but we should focus a bit more on the secret language of our main characters Crowley and Aziraphale instead.

Sexual innuendo/sexual euphemism: A kind of secret language in which something that is not inherently sexual is given a sexual connotation. Relies heavily on suggestive tone and context. Often full of in-jokes. Often done to soften talk of sex-- and, just as often, paradoxically, tends to make things actually a bit sexier. Relies on a sense of humor and so increases a sense of playfulness and fun between partners. Is flirting by way of creating a secret language out of innuendo.

Example: To "mend his shirt" in the (code-named) Mrs. Sandwich's sexually euphemistic speak, as brought on by Aziraphale's 19th century-era magic during The Ball, is to give a blowj-- well, actually, here: Crowley will define the innuendo for us through the use of partner scenes...

"Fine *stable* of ladies"... the horse statue where Crowley keeps his glasses in the bookshop... mending Aziraphale's shirt in a way evocative of mending Aziraphale's shirt...

Mrs. Sandwich. A "seamstress." Not her real name. A walking, talking intersection of secret language, innuendo and sex in Good Omens, whose name and the content of her scenes help us confirm we're on the right track in decoding Ineffable Husbands Speak.

Sandwiches. Popular, common food that can be eaten anytime during the day but are most commonly associated with lunch.

Lunch. Midday meal. What Aziraphale offers to buy Crowley in thanks for Crowley rescuing him from The Bastille in the Paris, 1793 scene.

Paris, 1793/The Bastille. Partner scene that acts as the key to the 1.01 scene-- and its subsequent scenes-- that shows the nature of Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship through their use of secret language.

Let's Have Lunch. The 1.01 scene that, when unlocked using its partner scene of 1.03's Paris, 1793 scene, reveals that Crowley and Aziraphale are lovers. How so? Read on. :)

Armageddon: Round One. The end of the world and what Crowley and Aziraphale both separately learn is in motion in 2008 in 1.01. They meet the following day to discuss it and the show tells us then, at the start of the story, exactly one bullet point on their shared timeline-- the very first thing we ever learn about the entire 6,004 years that they have been living on Earth together since the last time we saw them together in Eden. Something important enough that it received its own partner scene in the 1.03 Cold Open basically entirely to help decode this scene in 1.01-- and re-contextualize the 2008 minisode (and a lot more) as a result.

What is this single, very important bullet point?

A lunch they had together in Paris in 1793.

As Crowley & Aziraphale head through the park and argue over whether or not to stop Armageddon, they eventually reach the spot on the side street where Crowley has parked The Bentley. This brings them to not just a conversational impasse but a physical one-- there's nowhere left to walk because they're now at the car and this is when Crowley says:

"Well, let's have lunch, hmm? I still owe you one from..." At this point, we're too busy being charmed by this vintage-y angel and this rock star demon who lunch together on Earth arguing over Armageddon to barely notice the content of this scene and that might be by design. It is sandwiched between two other scenes, both of which understandably get a lot more attention: the "celestial harmonies" conversation on the bench in St. James Park and the kinky lunch at what we'll later learn is The Ritz. ("Lunch" in Ineffable Husbands Speak is not *just* the food kinky lunch, as we'll get into below.)

We also don't yet have the key the first time we watch this scene to decode it because we aren't given that by Good Omens until the 1.03 Cold Open and its Paris, 1793 scene. We can pick up on some vibes in this scene in 1.01 but unless we use the Paris, 1793 scene to fully decode Let's Have Lunch in 1.01, we aren't actually understanding what they are saying and, as Fraulein Greta Kleinschmidt would say, we must know what they are saying... (since we're all not Nazi Zombies, we'll be able to actually figure it out...) :)

...but we do now have the 1.03 Paris, 1793 scene so now, let's check out the moment this scene becomes, um, important-- and that is Aziraphale's response to Crowley's invitation to lunch:

Oh, what's this now...? Crowley owes you lunch from *when,* Aziraphale? From "Paris, 1793", did you say...?!

You mean from the time that you dragged Crowley to The Bastille to save you from a situation you put yourself in and could get yourself out of the entire time because you have a Neil Gaiman-Ask-confirmed, canonical thing for him rescuing you (and because, as a fun S2 partner scene suggests, rescuing you always does make him so happy) and you were so very grateful for the rescue that you offered *to buy him lunch*?! A lunch that this scene in 2008 will confirm you went and had together? A lunch that we had *an entire, separate scene about* in the middle of the 1.03 Cold Open-- alongside The Arrangement and the 1862 breakup and 1941 and the 1967 holy water scene, in terms of importance to understanding this relationship from the show's perspective? THAT LUNCH?! lol

Paris, 1793. The ONE TIME IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THIS RELATIONSHIP lol that it can be safely said that Crowley absolutely, 150%, *most definitely does not owe Aziraphale lunch*. The time we had a whole extra scene over, just to confirm how much Crowley does not owe Aziraphale lunch from this one time in Paris in 1793...

Well, well, well... seems we have ourselves a key. :)

Lunch. Code word in Ineffable Husbands Speak. A code word that, when unlocked, helps to unlock additional language, as we will see.

If Aziraphale's reply to Crowley's lunch invitation is to say the one time in history from which we know Crowley doesn't owe Aziraphale lunch, then Aziraphale's reply is really in response to the hidden, second layer of meaning beneath the lunch invitation, which means that Crowley isn't just asking Aziraphale if he wants to go grab the midday meal together and Aziraphale is more than aware of that. As we will see from the dialogue below, this suggestion that they have lunch on the surface level is also, on the hidden language level, a suggestion that they have sex.

So, ok, let's try this 1.01 scene again, now that we've started to factor in the information we have from its 'Paris, 1793' partner scene from 1.03...

What Aziraphale Is *Not* Saying When He Replies "Paris, 1793" to Crowley's Lunch Invitation in 2008: That he would like to time travel to The French Revolution for lunch; that he would like to go to Paris in the present for lunch; that he wants to go to their favorite creperie; that he wants to go get himself locked up in a maximum security prison so Crowley can come rescue him...

What Aziraphale *Is* Saying When He Replies "Paris, 1793" to Crowley's Lunch Invitation in 2008: That he would like to go to lunch and also that he would like to go to *lunch*-- which is to say that he's in agreement that sex sounds perfect-- and that what he "wants for lunch" is a repeat of how they made love in Paris in 1793.

Let's repeat that because mmhmm lol...

Sitting there in the middle of the second half of Crowley and Aziraphale's second scene in person together, in the middle of the first episode of the show, is Aziraphale recounting sex he and Crowley had over 200 years prior to when this scene is taking place in response to Crowley's suggestion that they shake off the Armageddon blues by sexy lunching their way to spending the night in Aziraphale's bed.

This conversation on the surface is about going to lunch and they are very funny with the literal part of their secret language, as they will actually go to lunch, as we know-- and during that lunch, Crowley will make a joke about the dual layers of meaning of their language when defining the next word in their language for us, which we will get to in a moment. For now, though, let's just go back to the "let's have lunch" scene here and look at the rest of it now that we can understand it on both levels of meaning...

"Well, let's have lunch, hmm? I still owe you one from..." Crowley does not actually owe Aziraphale lunch; this is a way to throw the decisions to him, keeping it sounding like they are just talking about eating lunch-the-midday-meal on the surface when we now know that it's more than that. He trails off and both verbally and non-verbally indicates a whole "you tell me" attitude, having offered up the idea and now giving the choice to Aziraphale. (It's not a magical influence "you tell me" like he did with Sitis, just a verbal ellipsis/non-verbal head shake that hands the conversation over to Aziraphale.) As a result of this and their responses in the rest of the scene, this becomes:

"Well, let's have lunch, hmm? I still owe you one from..." Well, let's have sex, hmm? Let's do our kinky lunch thing. Tell me what you want for later and we'll do that. Whatever you want. Armageddon already fucked up our lunchy dinner that we were supposed to sneak out to have at the fascinating little sushi restaurant where they know you last night-- it can go fuck itself for the afternoon. We're both depressed and tired. Eleven years left. We're almost out of time. I just want to be close to you. Let's have lunch.

"Paris. 1793." I could eat. I never can resist you, you know that. Remember Paris? After The Bastille? I'd like that.

Does Crowley remember The Bastille?

Oh, Crowley remembers The Bastille...

Someone had a very nice time in Paris in 1793 if that little smile and that look and the little "yessss" are any indication. Crowley is down with revisiting The French Revolution and after this, they're both just heading to The Bentley as they continue talking because lunch is on. But why are we even talking about Paris 1793 when we have all seen this episode and know they aren't about to instantly drive back to the bookshop and get their Bastille on?

Anticipatory kink. When partners arrange to have sex in the short term but not immediately and spend the interim time discussing the sex they plan to have as a way of arousing one another over anticipation of the future lovemaking. A form of psychological edging/delayed pleasure. Fancy way of saying 'teasing the fuck out of each other' lol.

The first part of lunch for Crowley and Aziraphale is deciding what's for lunch-- before they go to have lunch-as-in-some-food-- even if part of lunching is that they aren't going to have sex for hours still to come. In addition to the anticipatory element, it's just fun to talk to your partner about sex and the way they do so also has them euphemistically refer back to past times they made love as a way of turning each other on with the memories of those past encounters-- so, doubly fun.

"Yessss. The Reign of Terror. Was that one of ours or one of yours?" Crowley's response to "Paris, 1793." He says 'The Reign of Terror' a little sarcastically, implying that while that is the historical name for the era, he and Aziraphale were actually pretty happy during it, which goes along with what we saw in The Bastille scene. On the surface, though, Crowley and Aziraphale are still attempting to make it sound like they're talking about The Reign of Terror so, technically, "was that one of ours or one of yours?" is a question that is supposed to be about who (Heaven? Hell?) was responsible for The French Revolution but oh, that Paris, 1793 scene is a good partner scene as we know the answer to this question, too...

The French Revolution. Not Crowley's demonic work. The humans thought it up themselves. Established in the Paris, 1793 scene, to help us better understand this bit of the Let's Have Lunch scene.

"Was that one of ours or one of yours?" Look at the wording of that. By definition, since Crowley is speaking to Aziraphale, the "ours" has to include Aziraphale. It's a subtle but present indicator that this isn't entirely smooth language on the surface here because it's accounting for two layers of meaning at once. If it is just about who is responsible for The French Revolution, the sentence doesn't actually make sense but that's because it's designed to sound like something of a casual reply to the surface question about The French Revolution but this conversation is now happening more on the second, hidden level and there, it really means:

We had all the sex in Paris in 1793, angel. Talk to me more about what's got you all hot for The Bastille. I remember all of it but want to know what's lighting you up here so to keep us talking about it, I'll start throwing out some options from Paris under the guise of pretending I'm talking about who is responsible for The French Revolution. Was that one of ours or one of yours? Meaning: do you want to fuck each other later or am I fucking you? By tossing these both out as options I'm obviously also saying that, if you're up for it, I'm in the mood for "ours". I currently have both the need to be inside you *and* the need to get done into next Thursday right now...

"Can't recall." Aziraphale's response to "one of ours or one of yours?" A blatant lie on every level lol. He remembers that the humans were responsible for The French Revolution and, based on how quickly he reached for it when asked what he wanted for lunch on an especially harrowing day, Aziraphale remembers every damn minute of the two of them in bed in Paris in 1793. He knows as much as Crowley what they got up to. "Can't recall" is a reply designed to sound like he can't remember who is responsible for The French Revolution on the surface level but answers Crowley's question on the hidden language level by using "can't recall" to signal that he doesn't have a preference. It's whatever you would like is fine with me. He's definitely noted the "ours" request, though, as we'll see later on.

But Aziraphale also still needs to answer Crowley's underlying question of what's he's wanting that's got him all hot and he keeps the euphemistic, hidden sex chat going by telling Crowley what he's picturing from Paris exactly that he wants later on:

"We had crepes."

Did Crowley and Aziraphale go to lunch-the-midday-meal in Paris after Crowley rescued Aziraphale from The Bastille and have crepes-the-food for lunch? They absolutely did. Lunch-the-midday-meal (or, really, *any* food/meal that is probably not breakfast, which they seem to had yet to sort out by S2 because of Crowley not staying the night) is part of lunch. But we know that this conversation in this scene in 2008 is not really about lunch-the-meal so crepes is our next bit of Ineffable Husbands vocabulary. We can tell at this point that this is a sexual euphemism. That The Guardian of the Eastern Gate and The Serpent of Eden use types of food as euphemisms for types of sex because of course they do lol...

Does the show get into what, exactly, "crepes" are in Ineffable Husbands Speak? Oh yeah. They do lol. But it's mostly on the other side of kinky lunch so we're going to come back to it...

Off of Aziraphale's crepes declaration, they get into The Bentley and peel off and the next time we see them, we're at...

The Ritz-Carlton, London. One of the finest restaurants in the world; known for their famed afternoon tea and world-class service. The origins of the word 'ritzy.' Where Crowley and Aziraphale have lunch in 2008, for what we will learn in the subsequent scene between them is the first time. We won't know that this restaurant is The Ritz until the S1 finale, when they return there after specifying that it's where they are going. We won't begin to understand fully what it means to them in their language to do so until then. The first hint happens around midway through S1 in the 1967 scene, when it becomes apparent that they are speaking to one another in a coded way-- even while alone, as they are just used to their own language by this point-- and that Aziraphale's "dine at The Ritz" aspiration was something tied to the idea of them taking some more steps towards being more openly and fully together.

In 2008, Crowley and Aziraphale decided to go to The Ritz while in The Bentley after the "let's have lunch" scene, in a scene we aren't shown, likely because the decision to do so would include directly referencing their relationship in a way the show has avoided doing so far but, as the 2.06 kiss showed us, won't be doing forever. (We also are never shown them past a certain point at night-- the show choosing to leave them in 2008 after the "godfathers" conversation in the bookshop and again in 2019 after we last see them holding hands during the ride back to Crowley's flat in London from Tadfield. This seems likely to change in S3, especially because there is almost certainly a The Blitz, Part 3 and we last left them late at night drinking wine alone in the bookshop making eyes at one another.)

Right, so, back to The Ritz in 2008 and the kinky lunch part of lunch...

Foreplay. Activities between partners-- physical, psychological, emotional, or all of the above-- that are designed to stimulate sexual arousal, in order to put the mind and the body in the mood for sex.

Kinky lunch is a form of foreplay, as Aziraphale is into the pleasure of being watched by Crowley as he enjoys the pleasure of his food and Crowley is into watching Aziraphale enjoy himself. This is also where the anticipatory kink starts to make even more sense as if they've already decided a bit of what they're going to get up to in bed later on, then they know what each other is thinking about all afternoon-- but especially during kinky lunch.

First date. There's also something of a romantic element to this, which a partner scene in S2 provided, which is that kinky lunch is essentially repeating what first happened thousands of years earlier in Job's cellar in 2500 B.C.. That night was, more or less, Crowley and Aziraphale's first date. Not all the sex they have is tied to lunching but part of lunching is, essentially, weaving their first date into these little sexy dates they're going on throughout different periods in history. Pretty romantic stuff for these two who also literally cannot say the word 'couple' but are basically married.

Biblical "fruits of knowledge." In Good Omens, what happened in The Garden of Eden is canonically known and it's that our Serpent of Eden Crowley tempted Eve into eating an apple from The Tree of Knowledge, which she then shared with Adam. The two of them then followed up the pleasure of eating with exploration into other sensual pleasures, discovered sex, and Eve-- whose biology really is something-- was basically eight months pregnant about two days later when Aziraphale snuck them out of Eden, jumpstarting humanity. Humans, though, have had ongoing debate over Genesis in The Bible as to what, exactly, the "fruits of knowledge" were that Adam and Eve consumed.

One argument is over what kind of food it was that Eve actually ate. In Good Omens, it is the most commonly thought food-- an apple-- but arguments have been made for everything from grapes to different berries to figs to even wheat. While Crowley does eat and different things than this, most of what we've been shown that he's consumed is humorous because it's almost all things related to speculated foods of the Biblical fruits of knowledge (wine-- grapes/berries; whisky-- wheat; an apple-looking tea in the S1 finale at The Ritz, etc..)

The other argument that is made is whether "ate fruit from The Tree of Knowledge" is actually just a metaphor for having sex. In Good Omens, the answer to this question is the opening of its story and it's not an either/or. It's both, with one leading to the other. Crowley and Aziraphale are more than aware of this and of the parallels with Adam and Eve to their own relationship and, like with everything else, they're very dryly funny about it. The two who are responsible for all sensual and sexual pleasure for all of humanity since the literal beginning of time have kinky lunch and a language full of food euphemisms for sex and flirty innuendo mixing the pleasures of eating with the pleasures of sex ("constitution of an ox!") because they're witty and playful like that.

Scrumptious. How Aziraphale describes his dessert at The Ritz. Means both "delicious" and "attractive/sexy enough to eat." Is basically the foremost adjective that describes human, physical beauty in terms of taste. It's kinky lunch-- a mix of the the sensual pleasures of eating food with sexual desire-- in a word.

Scrummy. Shortened version of 'scrumptious.' How Aziraphale describes the grapes he buys at The Globe Theatre in 1601, which he then spends the scene eating in front of Crowley, who flits around him like the horny little murder hornet he is, trying to flirt his way into Aziraphale's bed. 192 years before The Bastille.

Affirmative consent. Verbalized, informed and positive consent to participate in a sexual act. Needs to be direct and clear-- the more explicit and enthusiastic, the better. Good sexual practice is checking in with your partner before and periodically during to ensure that you're both still on the same page and having a positive experience. True of every relationship-- but especially true if one or more partners has had their autonomy violated in any way in the past, as Crowley has (and as Crowley had again the night before in 2008, when attacked by Satan in The Bentley, which was one of his many motivations for wanting to lunch with Aziraphale the next day.)

A cleverly-worded partner check in need not break the mood but is still equally important to do, even if everything seems to be fine. A sense of safety brings about trust and trust is sexy, after all.

"So, what are you in the mood for now?" Aziraphale's pitch-perfect partner check-in after he finishes dessert at The Ritz. He knows Crowley well enough to know that he's alright so this is flirtier than it might have otherwise been had Crowley not been. Still, it's presenting an opportunity to stop and giving Crowley the same sense of control and choice that he gave Aziraphale at the start of their lunch date. It's all done with a practiced ease and a subtle, sexy confidence that highlights that Aziraphale is very good at this and probably undid Crowley even more than watching Aziraphale eat lunch did.

Alcohol. Fermented fruit, wheat/grains or the like. Consumption of alcohol can lower inhibitions and the ability to be fully in control of yourself. To drink with someone then is to let them experience your most vulnerable self and to trust them to keep you safe and unharmed while you're not in a state of full control. It's intimate. It's sex, in food/beverage euphemistic terms, and we already know that Crowley and Aziraphale have a whole food-related sexual vocabulary... which Crowley jokes about in this scene.

When Aziraphale asks Crowley what he's in the mood for now that they've finished their dessert course, the point of the initial shot of the scene comes into focus-- the way the camera swoops a little over the surface of the table before settling back to show us Crowley and Aziraphale. The swooping shot illuminates what's on the table. It shows us that they've already eaten lunch, as Aziraphale is on the last forkful of his dessert. The key bits, though, are the beverages-- the coffee and the wine glasses.

Aziraphale has a larger, cappuccino-sized mug of some form of coffee drink while Crowley's dessert was a dessert coffee, based on the size and shape of the mug he's drinking it from. This is also where it's fun to point out that Mr. Six Shots of Espresso in a Big Cup has drunk half of what would be less than two shots of coffee, in a normal-for-the-drink-sized cup, and that the coffee is light in color, suggesting that it's cut with cream. But while the coffee and its symbolic freedom tied to S2 is fun to look at, the point here is that Crowley's coffee looks to be a dessert coffee, most of which frequently contain alcohol and, even more prominent in the shot, are two, empty wine glasses-- one in front of each of them-- that each have a little hint of red wine stuck in the spot above the stem in each glass, confirming that they both had at least one glass of a red wine with lunch.

The point is that they had wine with lunch and Crowley's likely been sipping an alcoholic coffee with dessert, and they're literally surrounded by bottles of wine behind them, as they're in a restaurant lol-- they're at The Ritz, which is known for their service and isn't exactly rushing them out. They could sit there for hours drinking more alcohol, should they want to... so, when Aziraphale asks Crowley what he's in the mood for now and Crowley-- who has spent this scene looking like he's considering freezing time and throwing Aziraphale over the table-- picks up the spoon from his likely Irish coffee and uses it to ding his wine glass-- that is empty of the alcohol he already drank out of it--to get the check lololol and says he wants "alcohol-- quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol", well...

Alcohol (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Literal, surface level: Alcohol. Hidden language level: Sex.

"Alcohol. Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol." "Sex. Quite extraordinary amounts of sex." Enthusiastic, affirmative consent from Crowley over here. He loves kinky lunch and he's glad you asked, Aziraphale, but he's very, very okay at the moment and wants to go to the bookshop now for more alcohol and, later, for quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol.

"An extremely alcoholic breakfast at The Ritz." A complete sentence in Ineffable Husbands Speak in S2 that Muriel doesn't understand but that we can by this point. Muriel not being able to speak Ineffable Husbands is the point of the moment-- it's to highlight that Muriel is missing information because they don't have the information needed to decode what Crowley is saying or to even realize that there is something to be decoded. It's to point out to us that we have this information and that's why we can understand what Crowley is saying. It, along with "no nightingales", is a moment designed to point out the language and how we can't interpret what we're seeing without being able to understand it. The context of the "us time" scene in S2 helps to reinforce that we have this language correct then also makes it an additional partner scene to the 2008 minisode, as it reinforces this interpretation of the language and the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale that suggests.

Why does Muriel need to leave the bookshop in 2.06 if Crowley and Aziraphale are going for breakfast at The Ritz? We know it's because breakfast is the latest step they want to take when it comes to dining at The Ritz and alcohol is also sex so the Inspector Constable needs to leave because Crowley is out to have some lunch for breakfast.

Right, so, after kinky lunch at The Ritz back in 2008, we then catch up to Crowley and Aziraphale as they are walking up Whickber Street towards the bookshop.

Romantic stroll. They seem to like to go for a little walk together as part of lunch, if they can swing it. In 2008, they're caring a little less because they've just dined at The Ritz for the first time and they have 11 years left until the end of the world, so they're taking some moderate more risks. This might not be always typical of lunch but it is in 2008. They did this on their first date in the Land of Uz, sneaking out of the cellar to take a walk under the cover of night after the storm stopped. They also take a little stroll from the park to The Ritz in 2019 at the end of S1. All three of these times are possible exceptions-- it was night in 2500 B.C. on their first date and 2008 and 2019 are examples of not just lunching but dining at The Ritz, in the sense that they are in an era of being a little less guarded, if still cautious enough to maintain a sense of secrecy. There is a practical reason for the walk, though, as well as well as a romantic one, and that's related to:

The Bentley. Parked nowhere near the bookshop. On a side street somewhere, like we see Crowley has been doing ahead of S2 and is doing during S2 (including the night before the season began.) Crowley staying in the bookshop late into the evening is a given since they're lunching and have already planned to have some alcohol after their alcohol. The Bentley cannot be parked for hours in the evening in front of the bookshop without them running the risk of being caught so, even if they are coming back to the bookshop during the daylight of the mid-afternoon, The Bentley is already parked away from the shop because lunching comes with an understanding that Crowley will be staying in the shop well into the night.

This all seems routine for them at this point. As speculated in another post, this is probably how Crowley became friends with Mrs. Sandwich, whose work has her outside a bit in the early morning hours just outside the side door to the bookshop. Either way, the car is away from the bookshop so Crowley can stay most of the night with Aziraphale.

1921. The year in which Aziraphale bought a dozen cases (144 bottles) of Chateauneuf-de-Pape "for special occasions", as he either tells or reminds Crowley on their walk up Whickber Street. Twenty years before The Blitz.

This is an interesting comment for this exact moment here because one of the two pretty large gaps of time in the last few hundred years in their history is 1862-1941, right? We don't know much about what transpired between their whole breakup mess in St. James Park in 1862 and The Blitz. One of the flashbacks that was cut from S2 might have illuminated some of this, as it was the one set during The Gold Rush in America, which means it would have had to have taken place before about 1893. We know about Aziraphale learning to gavotte in The Hundred Guineas Club in Portland Place in the 1880s, we know that Maggie's great-grandmother started The Small Back Room with Aziraphale's help in the 1920s and we know that Crowley bought The Bentley sometime around 1933. In the midst of all of that, though, there's this one reference to 1921 here in the 2008 minisode that is pretty interesting when you consider why Aziraphale might be bringing it up in this moment.

Aziraphale is saying that he made an investment in the idea of them having a future of special occasions to celebrate together-- in whatever way they could manage to do so-- in 1921, which is a year in which, as far as we can tell so far, he might not have had a lot of hope that this would be possible. They do seem relatively incapable of breaking up for very long but it's also evident that they don't really fully start to get beyond 1862 until 1941 from what we've seen so far so it might have been a bit slow to heal. We do know that they were in contact and not just from the deleted America flashback but from the canonical reveal that Aziraphale got his driver's licence in the early 1930s, after Crowley bought The Bentley. But Aziraphale might be trying to say to Crowley that things didn't seem especially hopeful for them in the early 1920s, either, but Aziraphale has always held out hope.

1941. A special occasion, as that is Chateauneuf-de-Pape that they are drinking in The Blitz, Part 2.

2008. Year in which this minisode about lunching is taking place, when Aziraphale says that there "are a few bottles left" of the Chateauneuf-de-Pape he bought 87 years earlier, implying that they've drunk their way through almost 144 bottles worth of *just* "special occasion" wine *alone* in the last just under 90 years.

"For special occasions." Would be a truly insane way to refer to learning that the world was ending so safe to assume that Aziraphale is wanting to bust out the Chateauneuf-de-Pape in 2008 because what we see in 1.01 is the first time they dined at The Ritz. It was maybe not the most ideal way they'd ever wanted to as it was largely reactionary to learning they were almost out of time but they did it so time for the Chateauneuf-de-Pape.

Chateauneuf-de-Pape. Wine with quite the holy history. Translated from French, means "The Pope's New Castle". The Catholic papacy in early 1300s were big fans of the Burgundy wines in the area, spearheaded their popularity, and used the church to help spur the economic growth of the Avignon viticulture in that area. They drank the wine exclusively themselves and the papacy had been relocated to Avignon so, to an extent, Chateauneuf-de-Pape is something of a "holy water", symbolically. Maybe the antithesis of it-- holy water (water blessed through the power of Heaven) can kill Crowley, Chateauneuf-de-Pape (wine made by humans; symbolic of sex and love and a lifetime of special occasions with Aziraphale) is the stuff worth living for.

Wine is alcohol is, therefore, in Ineffable Husbands Speak, sex.

"Not very big on wine in Heaven, are they?" What Crowley says on their walk to the bookshop, in response to Aziraphale's suggestion that they break out the Chateauneuf-de-Pape.

A very funny line made even funnier by this partner scene in S2:

Well, you'd better pop off and get it then, haven't you, Aziraphale? lol

What, exactly, was going on between these two Influencer Brats of Job and their usual angels-- do we even want to ask? Probably not. The way Keziah says "they haven't brought the wine" with that little emphasis makes it feel like it's possible that their usual angels bring some Heaven-blessed wine as a pretense but that 'bringing the wine' is sexually euphemistic. Ennon hitting on Aziraphale adds to that sense by giving us the feeling that Job being God's favorite human means that, prior to the bet, Heaven was sending angels to see to the needs of the family and the elder two siblings have a pair of usual angels who service their, uh, beverage needs. All of which is, objectively-speaking, against what Heaven says it disapproves of (sex, alcohol/drunkenness, etc.), emphasizing the hypocrisy of the fascist state of Heaven.

The Job minisode then serves to reiterate the wine/alcohol = sex throughout the series and makes even funnier the fact that Crowley then drank the rest of the house's existing wine in revenge for these older kids being such brats and Ennon treating Aziraphale like a whore.

What it shows, though, is that maybe the only consumable beverage that Heaven *is* very big on-- if not on drunkenness-- is wine, like many big religions on Earth, right? As a result, Crowley's "not very big on wine in Heaven" line is then emphasized to really be "not very big on sex in Heaven, are they?"

Ok, back to 2008...

"Not very big on wine in Heaven, are they? Or Chateauneuf-de-Papes... Or single-malt scotch... Or frou frou cocktails with little umbrellas..." Crowley's full response to Aziraphale's Chateauneuf-de-Pape discussion on their walk. Translated from the Ineffable Husbands Speak below.

"Not very big on wine in Heaven, are they? Or Chateauneuf-de-Papes..." Not very big on sex in Heaven, are they? Forget music and food and books and our life here with our human things and our special occasions and spending time together, you are going to spend an eternity trapped in a open-floor-plan office building in the clouds with a bunch of prudish religious zealots. Forever and ever and ever... We have, potentially, eleven years until we'll never make love again. You *love* sex and if we don't stop Armageddon somehow, you're never going to come again...

"...Or single malt scotch..." Scotch is whiskey made in Scotland. Talisker, Crowley's favorite whiskey and recurring drink order, is a single malt scotch. So, this is: Not very big on *me*, either. Not exactly like I can just ride the elevator up for a visit... if I even survive Armageddon. You might have noticed Heaven is not tagging everything on their Tumblr #bildaddy. In case it wasn't obvious that this entire time, I've been listing other things you like about life on Earth while under the surface basically screaming "WE WON'T BE ABLE TO BE TOGETHER, ANGEL..."

"...Or frou frou cocktails with little umbrellas..."

Frou frou. American slang for "fancy", sometimes overly so. The American English sister word/answer word to "ritzy". Spoken by Crowley after they've just left The Ritz and as they walk past what will be the American-themed Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death in S2. Comes from America's longest allies--the French-- where it means the rustling sound made by skirts as they move and is onomatopoeia (words derived from the sound they make, rather than rooted in a language.) To reference Scotland, the United States and France within two sentences while bashing Heaven is very Crowley, who doesn't see Heaven as The British Empire or anything lol.

Cocktails. Mixed drinks. What you get when you combine alcohols. Also ties to the scene in S2 with Mr. Brown of Brown's World of Carpets in The Dirty Donkey, which is now a partner scene to this as well. Crowley's "a sherry for you, a whisky for me." It's another example of alcohol as symbolic of sex as Crowley bringing Aziraphale his preferred drink is their attempt at getting Mr. Brown to get the hint that they are a thing and they like now to keep the alcohol just to the two of them.

A cocktail, though, being a mixed drink, can refer in the context of discussion of Heaven and their relationship to the fact that they are an angel and a demon and Heaven is not very big on that particular cocktail.

Frou frou cocktails with little...

Umbrellas. Canopies.

Canopies. The essential setting component of Crowley's Vavoom in S2, as we heard him talking about (while having a drink) with Aziraphale in S2: "You mean like a sudden rainstorm forces them together beneath a canopy... and they look into each other's eyes and realize they were made for each other."

Vavoom. Alternatively: va-va-voom. Voluptuously sexy. Of or portending to sensual pleasure. How Crowley described his hypothetical-for-Maggie-and-Nina erotic-gazing-into-a-passionate-kiss-while-sheltering-from-rain-together-under-a-canopy thing that is absolutely not Crowley and Aziraphale's first kiss recounted back to Aziraphale by Crowley as his definition of romance. Not at all. Crowley just has a thing about tree canopies and their modern rain-sheltering cousins, umbrellas, ok? We didn't just spot The Vavoom hidden there in 1.01 a bit, too. Absolutely not. ;)

"Or frou frou cocktails with little umbrellas" (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Heaven is definitely not very big on opulent mixed angel-demon drinks like us and our little romance... We're never going to kiss again, angel. Do you really want to spend *eternity* without ever kissing one another again?

According to S2, the answer to that question is that Aziraphale cannot handle the thought to a point of having a complete breakdown of 'what if you were an angel again so we never had to worry?' desperation, so this is probably why Aziraphale's downward hands of 'argh, not right now-- I can't handle this' show up at this point in 2008, as they finish crossing the street and arrive at the entrance to the bookshop.

This is when Aziraphale starts in on his whole "I'm an angel; you're a demon" stuff again but the tone of it is pretty soft and he adds this bit into it:

"We're hereditary enemies." Something which is hereditary is something which you've inherited through no fault of your own and without your agreement. Often, something foisted upon you that you would not have chosen. Aziraphale's comparing their situation to things like hereditary disease-- they didn't ask for it. It's not their fault. The reality of it, though, is still present. This is a way of reassuring Crowley that, even though Crowley could see through the Yay, Heaven! from the earlier St. James Park scene, that Aziraphale doesn't see him as the enemy and would never have chosen this whole mess. He's not yet agreeing to help Crowley stop Armageddon-- the odds are good that he never was going to while they were outside of the bookshop anyway and Crowley knows that. Everything Crowley has said so far is preamble to his argument for stopping Armageddon later on, when they're inside, sobered up, and Aziraphale is ready to work on a potential plan with him.

After "hereditary enemies"...

"Get thee behind me, foul fiend." Blasphemous Bible-speak delivered flirtatiously as a sexual invitation. Not the only scene in the series with blasphemous innuendo but this one line alone could be its own meta so, in an effort to keep this at under 4 billion words lol, we're just going to look at how this is relevant to lunching.

Foul fiend is just Biblical speak for wicked demon. "Wicked" and "demon" are words in the same vein as "wily", "thwart" and "smitten"--words with dual layers of contradictory meanings that Crowley and Aziraphale love to use in their language. To be "wicked" is to be evil in the sense of in line with Satan, yes, but it's also to be playfully mischievous and is a positive adjective used in place of "excellent" at times. To be a "demon" is to be a familiar of the Devil, yes, but it's also to be extremely skillful and talented at a particular thing.

Aziraphale does the whole "I'm an angel. You're a demon. We're hereditary enemies" thing but then turns around and uses "foul fiend"/"wicked demon" in the non-satanic definitions of it through his fond and suggestive tone. He's not calling Crowley evil-- he's calling Crowley playfully mischievous. He's calling him trouble in a light and fun way. He's not calling him a demon in a derogatory sense but in the skillful sense. The same words that mean "evil ally of Satan" also mean "playful and talented"-- Aziraphale has added context by situation and tone of voice/delivery to essentially turn "foul fiend" into calling Crowley "a demon" in bed, in the "skillful" sense of the word. It becomes fuck me, my very wicked demon by use of a suggestive tone.

But it's the use of "get thee behind me" that is most relevant to 2008 here because remember when I told you we'd come back to crepes?

Crepes. Thin, French pancakes. Can be had almost anytime of the day because they are quite versatile-- savory, sweet, for lunch, for dessert, you name it lol. As sexual euphemism, though, we are really looking at how 'pancakes' have been used traditionally by people using food as euphemisms for sex and that is, unsurprisingly, in relation to how a pancake is cooked. I think we've all probably made actual-pancakes-the-food before or at least have seen it done so it probably will not come as a surprise to you that you have to turn a pancake over to griddle it on both sides for it to be done.

As a result, any sexual euphemism involving pancakes is referring to sex that involves a switch from an initial position to a second position that is literally just the receptive partner turning over. So, in order to fully get Aziraphale's love of his romantic French pancakes here, we'd have to have the starting position of crepes and that is something the show actually gives us because why not at this point lol.

"Get thee behind me" after they've spent the afternoon setting up this 1793-inspired crepe-a-palooza indicates that the starting position of crepes is Aziraphale getting done from behind but he'll turn over because he likes to finish his French pancakes facing Crowley.

Vavavoom Yellow. The color of Crowley's eyes and the actual name of the actual paint the actual people involved with this show painted the actual walls of the bookshop. The color Aziraphale turned The Bentley after making it take off its black and silver sunglasses. Crowley's only out here trying to seduce Aziraphale in every other scene by looking at him over his glasses or taking them off or going on about their tantric eye sex into their first kiss... Seems possible Aziraphale might have a thing for Crowley's eyes, no?

"After you." Aziraphale wants crepes for dessert, though. After "get thee behind me, foul fiend", he gestures Crowley into the bookshop with a very witty "after you", which is both politely letting him go first into the bookshop and insisting he is in bed later as well.

Inviting Crowley inside the bookshop with the "after you" in tandem with inviting him inside with the "get thee behind me" is also then using the fact that Crowley is allowed into the bookshop as sexual metaphor for being allowed inside, well, Aziraphale. This gives it a partner scene in S2, when Aziraphale turns The Bentley into a sexual metaphor and is going for the innuendo gold when he then again uses the bookshop to euphemistically refer to himself with "... just as that bookshop is, technically, my shop... but we both get *plenty* of use out of it, don't we?"

God. The only other character on Good Omens aside from Crowley and Aziraphale themselves who speaks Ineffable Husbands Speak. Character responsible for teaching us one of its most important code words-- "nightingales"-- and who ships it so hard that She had a literal nightingale singing as a joke on their dual-meaning-happy language in the S1 finale. Our narrator in S1.

"...while, in London SoHo, an angel and a demon had been drinking solidly for the last six of them." As we cut away from Crowley & Aziraphale's scenes in 2008 to see The Youngs leave the satanic nunnery with their new baby, God points out-- with a hilarious 'oh my stupid children, scared of a baby' tone-- that "The Antichrist had been on Earth for 24 hours." If we can assume that The Youngs were not sent home from the hospital with a new baby in the middle of the night and that it's closer to the more civilized option of a dinner hour, then that would also go with the fact that Aziraphale was having dinner during all of this the night prior, right? Which means it's dinner time, if we're at 24 hours later. Which means that if, in London SoHo, an angel and a demon have been "drinking solidly" for the last six hours, then God is counting the entire afternoon since Crowley and Aziraphale met up for lunch as "drinking solidly" and that's because "drinking" in Ineffable Husbands Speak isn't just alcohol but sex. Yes, that's God making a sex joke. (She has a few more in S1, too.)

"Baby." Term of endearment for a romantic and/or sexual partner that has been documented as having been in existence since at least around the 1830s but was mainstreamed by American jazz, soul and rock 'n roll music and cinema.

While Crowley and Aziraphale are in the alcohol stage of their alcohol, they get plastered on Chateauneuf-de-Pape and Crowley, in a drunken ramble that we will realize by S2 is inspired by Aziraphale's magic words and their conversation in 1941, is going on about what is going to happen to the creatures of Earth when the world ends. He begins to try to say that the fish will be "turned into bouillabaisse" but that word is too difficult for him to say while drunk. While attempting to, he gets distracted gazing at Aziraphale and calls him "baby" in a low voice and then we get their hilarious very drunk kissy faces. Crowley manages to translate "bouillabaisse" in his mind enough to "fish stew-- anyway!" and they sober up soon afterwards to have an actually semi-coherent conversation and some actual alcohol.

In the context of lunching, this becomes getting drunk and distracted by thoughts of later in the middle of trying to talk-- and we know now thanks to S2 that Crowley is also distracted by thoughts of 1941 here at the same time, as he's going on about bananas, fish, and gorillas. We've never heard him call Aziraphale anything but his name or "angel" with the exception of this scene, when they're alone in the bookshop with alcohol on the brain. Aziraphale is drunk but he also doesn't react like it's unusual-- if he heard it, to be honest, as he seemed a bit devoted to stringing together his thoughts related to The Kraken... that great, bigggg bugger, as Aziraphale described him, not at all thinking about the quite extraordinary amounts of buggery they were going to get up to later on.

But, anyway, there's the scene where Crowley calls Aziraphale "baby" in 2008 and that might suggest that he does if they're alone and there's no risk of anyone overhearing it. (As "angel", at least, is theoretically meant to be calling Aziraphale by what he is in a semi-derogatory way but Crowley's honestly never made that work a day in his life lol.)

Thwarting. See: separate meta on my blog on "wily", "thwart" and "smitten" as examples of words with contradictory, dual meanings that Crowley and Aziraphale like to use in the 'angel-and-demon' sense on the surface but in their 'sexy/romantic' connotations in their hidden language. While talking about a plan to stop Armageddon, Crowley uses "wiles"-- the enticing and feminine-leaning-in-connotation definition of "wily"-- in a dry joke where the surface level is about how it's the role of an angel to stop the Evil One (his demon counterpart) at every turn but is really using "wiles" in its seductive definition. He also uses "thwarting" in a way that is substituting it in a sentence for "fucking" on the hidden language level: "You can't be certain that thwarting me isn't part of The Divine Plan, too."

Indeed, Crowley. Indeed.

"...at every turn." Ha. Crowley has crepes jokes. Think of all the French pancakes we can have for eternity if we thwart Armageddon, angel...

Godfathers. The 2008 minisode scenes end with them deciding to have a baby. Crowley's like I have a plan to stop the end of the world and it's that we crash this mansion and live together raising a kid like a little family and I've thought of a way you can sell it to Heaven-- whaddya say? And Aziraphale melts into a puddle of sparkly-eyed joy and they have some quippy lines about being damned that feel like foreshadowing for Aziraphale something fierce but this is where we leave 2008. Right here.

After alcohol, but before alcohol, ya dig?

Lunch (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). A recurring date of kinky lunch and spending time together that is pre-determined to end hours later with sex that is at least somewhat decided upon at the start of lunch, often euphemistically through discussion of " lunch food" and/or their romantic encounters in their shared past.

Off of this, let's go look at our partner scene of The Bastille again, now using 2008 to illuminate parts of it.

Paris, 1793. Crowley and Aziraphale playing 'damsel in distress and dashing hero rescuer' in The Bastille. Seven years before Aziraphale opens the bookshop; thirty years before Crowley's dragged to Hell in Edinburgh. They've been getting away with this forever at this point, to a point that while they're still overall cautious and terrified of getting caught, they're starting to think it's possible they never will because they've managed to keep it a secret this long. Aziraphale is dry and arch when referencing the recent "strongly-worded note" he apparently received from Gabriel about doing "frivolous miracles". Even though the note might not exist as this whole scene is, basically, a roleplay game, the attitude there is that they're getting one over on Heaven & Hell and are taking advantage of it.

We all know things like Aziraphale lighting up when Crowley shows up and the "oh, good Lord" while raking his eyes over him-- we're just going to look at some bits here that have more significance in Ineffable Husbands Speak.

As a side note here: the buttons on the black part of Crowley's outfit in Paris also are very similar in style to the jacket he's wearing in the Let's Have Lunch scene in 2008, in a fun bit of visual paralleling between the partner scenes via the costuming. This scene is also a great one for the consistent thing in the series where Aziraphale will casually reference God and Satan ("oh, good Lord"/"luck of the devil" in the Tadfield Manor scene) but Crowley will not ("what the deuce are you doing locked up in The Bastille?").

So, Crowley does his whole haughty and faux-put-upon thing upon arriving and S2 actually makes how he arrives even funnier because he spends the first half of the scene lounging on the floor across the room, which has real Job's cellar vibes. Later in the scene, we get the "well, you're lucky I was in the area" and Aziraphale's reply of "I was", both lines of which are arch as all fuck. They ring with a kind of knowing playfulness that honestly signals the whole thing is not exactly an organic situation. Crowley has come to Aziraphale's rescue out of nowhere before and odds are solid that led to Aziraphale's whole rescue kink awakening here lol but this scene in 1793 is not that. Crowley was absolutely "in the area" with his calendar cleared for whatever sexual hijinks the angel wanted to get up to that afternoon. He's committed to the bit and asks near the start: "what the deuce are you doing locked up in The Bastille?", prompting Aziraphale's response of "I got peckish."

"Peckish", meaning "slightly hungry", but you don't wade through a revolution because you could use a snack so Aziraphale's downplaying it for humor-- he's fucking starving. And not really for food. They have food in England. Aziraphale has intentionally got himself locked up in The Bastille because he's horny, which he's expressing using food terms because of course he is. Ineffable Husbands Speak was created by this dry-humored and self-deprecating duo, one of whom is the Serpent of Eden and the other of whom is a bit of a raging gourmand and, together, they've never met anything consumable that they can't make into sexual innuendo.

To learning that Aziraphale on the surface needed a snack and, in Ineffable Husbands Speak, needs a snack, Crowley has this hilarious response:

Go on, Crowley, keep pretending like you're offended that this is all just because Aziraphale is horny and like you think it's not specific to you, like you wouldn't let him nibble on you whenever he wants lol.

Tell him he's special, Aziraphale, and not just one of your favorite toys. You dragged him to a prison cell feet away from a guillotine for this.

"Well, if you must know, it was the crepes. And the brioche. Can't get decent ones anywhere outside of Paris." is Aziraphale's quite illuminating reply.

Paris is France and anything Parisian or French is coded as romantic and as related to love to them, even if we know how much they speak around those words. We know what crepes are now from the 2008 scene and we'll look at brioche in a moment but we can already see that this sentence, translated from Ineffable Husbands Speak, is Aziraphale saying that he can fuck his way around the world (and we know it's suggested that he has at times) but he feels that it's never as good for him as it is with Crowley because the crepes and the brioche are better when they're had in Paris-- because sex with Crowley is better for Aziraphale than with anyone else because of how they feel about each other.

Probably also worth mentioning that crepes and brioche both originated in France (many societies around the world have versions of crepes but the crepe itself is French) so this is also really saying it's just always been Crowley for Aziraphale since the start and Aziraphale was alluding to that to Crowley in the Paris, 1793 scene.

Brioche. A bit of a bread, a bit of a cake, it is a bit sweet and rich like a pastry and falls mostly somewhere there on the French deliciousness spectrum between the two and treated by chefs and bakers as a bit of both. As a result, can wind up in many different meals throughout the day, in different ways. Brioche = Crowley, in food form. Can be used to make sandwiches (ha) but is most well-known as the signature bread used to make French toast. French toast is traditionally made the same way as crepes-- involving turning, like pancakes.

Brioche (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Both Crowley himself, in food form (bread is necessary for sandwiches, after all) and crepes-as-sex reversed between them with Crowley as the receptive partner.

[Crowley is also suggested to be black bread, according to God's narration, in the St. James Park scene, leading me to believe that he's just every kind of bread Aziraphale likes, which is probably most of them.]

Aziraphale invites Crowley to lunch and we know now that lunching was already a thing for them then. True to form, the scene ends with their first step of lunch-- the anticipatory part-- with Crowley asking "what's for lunch?", which we now understand to mean the same thing as "I still owe you one from..." in 2008. He's asking Aziraphale what he would like for lunch and we know already from 2008 that they went out for crepes and had a whole French buffet.

Armageddon: Round One. 2019. Averted. Afterwards, they meet up in a park and swap bodies back unnoticed because we didn't have enough secret sexual relationship stuff already happening on this show lol so yay metaphor and now there's a full-circle back to the bench at St. James Park in 1.01 but now with them having survived and at least temporarily halted Armageddon. Then, as they start to adjust to the whirlwind being over, it's Crowley with:

"Time to leave The Garden." Crowley likening Aziraphale and himself to Adam and Eve-- and just prior to proposing that he and Aziraphale go get their Garden on with a little lunch. Shows that Crowley and Aziraphale are more than aware of how much they parallel the first humans and reinforces that all of the Eden references and related humor in their romantic relationship that we've seen is not coincidental but intentional.

To ask Aziraphale if you can "tempt him to a spot of lunchchch" while opening up your hip to spread your thighs and angle yourself to suggest that your body is also on the menu. Complete with the 'wanna go to bed?' head tilt of 1601 and 2008 fame. I mean...

Meanwhile, Aziraphale's barely conscious of the fact that he's rubbing his thighs and looking at Crowley's lips...

To reply "Temptation accomplished." with a cutely dorky little laugh to Crowley's invitation to lunch. To never be one to say no to a spot of lunch and accept the invitation, while joking around about how neither of you ever actually tempt each other, you just find each other tempting, in the 'attractive' sense of the word.

Anticipatory kink. The first part of lunch.

To say that a table at The Ritz has miraculously come free. To suggest that you have 2008/Eleven Years Ago for lunch, coming full circle back to 1.01 in the S1 finale. 2019 is 2008 is 1793 is...

Champagne tea/high tea. The meal that Crowley and Aziraphale are actually eating when they go to lunch in the S1 finale. Features champagne and macarons, both of which are French, adding to the romance and the ties to 1793. There also appears to be an apple-hued tea on the table, nodding to Eden.

PTSD. What causes Crowley to sometimes go quiet and zone out. In 2008, we came in on the end of their meal at The Ritz and Crowley was in the moment. In 2019, we see the start of their lunch part of lunch and Crowley is not at all present. He's facing ahead and staring into space at nothing, exhausted and not in the moment. Aziraphale's partner check-in is different this time, as he can tell that Crowley is not with him. He draws him back to the now with a bit of romance.

"...if you weren't, at heart, just a little bit of a good person." I love you, you know.

"And if you weren't just enough of a bastard worth to be worth knowing." I love you, too.

"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." Romantic 1940 song containing the lyric "angels were dining at The Ritz" that formed the basis for Aziraphale creating "dining at The Ritz" as a code phrase meaning a more acknowledged and somewhat more open relationship in the future... which they then celebrate agreeing to try by literally dining at The Ritz, in line with their dual layers of meaning-happy language. We're still awaiting the origins of the song as their song but it is to a point that one of them has the pianist playing an instrumental version of it during this afternoon tea lunch in 2019. We also get Tori Amos' cover playing over the scene because dual layers of everything.

Literal nightingale singing. God showing only us the bird that Crowley and Aziraphale don't know is actually singing is the show acknowledging that our perspective is, like God's, on the outside of the relationship but we are now able to understand it. To see the literal nightingale but know what it means both symbolically and in Ineffable Husbands Speak is to see that there are different levels of meaning beneath the surface of what we've been watching.

Nightingales (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Romantic love. Specifically, Crowley and Aziraphale's word for their love for one another.

[windvexer]

Linking cards does not mean creating "combo meanings" out of 2 cards. It means drawing a map that shows the roads between 2 cards.

Potentially hot tarot take, but linking tarot cards is not mashing 2 cards together and coming up with "third definition."

I believe that tarot readings are deeply contextual. The question at hand provides context (which is why 'general' readings can be a struggle), and cards link together to create a narrative that is anchored to the question.

"Sun + 8/Cups means wish fulfilled" isn't tarot. That's like, Lenormand.

Tarot is a craft beyond deck structure. Tarot also speaks with its own language (like lenormand or runes) and being able to read tarot requires an understanding of that language beyond memorization of cards.

A major part of the language of tarot is being able to describe how cards relate to each other.

Linking cards together means discovering the flow of information between cards, as they relate to the question at hand.

That flow is not necessarily a combination of meanings.

It is probably better understood as drawing a map that explains how you get from one card to another, and what one card does to another without necessarily transforming the basic nature of either.

"The happiness in the Sun card slows down when it reaches the 8/Cups, which is surrounded by cards that relate to contemplation and meditation. Here, the Sun + 8/Cups link together to show hope shining on ideas that you have not yet decided to carry out."

But that all must be grounded into the context of a question.

Advice spread: "The Sun + 8/Cups show that there is hope, but nothing will happen until you stop contemplating and choose to take action."

Spirit contact spread: "The Sun + 8/Cups show this spirit's strong support for you thinking things through on your own."

Future prediction spread: "The Sun + 8/Cups shows that a joyous event will bring you to a place of contemplation."

If you fail to link the cards, the readings instead might look like:

Advice: "The Sun says to be positive, and the 8/Cups says think about your options."

Spirit contact: "The Sun shows the spirit is happy with your relationship, and the 8/Cups says opportunity is at hand. Maybe it's time for your relationship to grow."

Future prediction: "The Sun shows something really good happening, maybe related to money. After that, you will have a lot of options open up to you."

Even if we examine the future predictions side-by-side, they are not as similar as they seem.

With flow, "the Sun + 8/Cups shows a joyous event will bring you to a place of contemplation." Will bring is the clause that shows how these two cards relate to each other.

Because of how we link the Sun, we have additional knowledge about the 8/Cups.

The Sun card provides context, explanation, or modification of the 8/Cups. Now, we know how the 8/Cups starts, and what events it is related to. The points on a map (Sun, 8/Cups) are now linked together by a road that shows a journey from one to another.

The presence of the 8/Cups provides context, explanation, or modification of the Sun.

Because of the 8/Cups, we are able to predict where the Sun is going. We understand its role in the story (it brings contemplation). The Sun gains lore in the story of the spread; it is not just "a good event," but now also a progenitor and a necessary waypoint in the map of the future.

Without flow, "the Sun shows something really good happening. After that, you will have a lot of options open up to you."

Without flow, neither card modifies the other. The Sun is not understood to be something that causes options to open up. This would be like saying, "first your dishwasher warranty comes through. Then, you get a coupon book with a lot of fast food options." Just because one happens before the other does not mean there is flow between the two things.

Without flow, we do not know where the options described by the 8/Cups come from. We do not know what other events they relate to.

Without flow, we don't know what good things the Sun card relates to. We don't know where things go from there. We don't know if there is any link at all between the Sun and the 8/Cups.

Card linking is more like forging links in a chain that describe how things are related. It is less like melding 2 cards into a 3rd meaning.

There are tarot exercises, which are very useful, that involve melding 2 cards together into a 3rd meaning. This can help stretch the brain and play with concepts of "picture reading" and creatively brainstorming meaning.

But this does not mean that card linking is card melding.

[kurophiliac]

Hello, It's Plato. I am making this post to provide additional context on the accusations for those who do not use Twitter. As you saw from @bezierballad 's apology, the screenshots were all faked. But there's more proof I wanted to add that they did not include. I'm sure many of you have already heard this on Twitter, so my apologies for the repetition. These are just the main points I want to get out.

Zex, the creator of the screenshots, has been caught in several lies.

According to the time stamps in the fake screenshots, it would have been impossible for the messages to have come from the server where they claimed the conversation took place. Charlie left in 2023, Zex joined in 2024, and the screenshots were all marked "today." They also can't be old screenshots because Zex and Charlie were not on the server at the same time.

When asked to provide message IDs, Zex said that they had already left the server (where they claimed to have obtained the screenshots from). However, as of right now, they are still on the server. They will be promptly removed once a moderator wakes up.

Charlie and I's nicknames from the screenshots are not nicknames or pfps we ever had in the server they supposedly came from. These nicknames were exclusive to a 7-person group chat. The only reason Zex knew of them was because of a screenshot I posted a month or two ago. It would have been much more believable if they had used our actual usernames.

(Edit) Something I forgot to add- when Zex was questioned about how they got onto the server, they said they pretended to be a proshipper and DMd me for the link to the server where they took the screenshots. However, I haven't been active in that server lately, and I never sent anyone any server links within the past 6 months.

How were the screenshots faked?

There are two likely scenarios. One being that they were generated by a bot. There are *many* services out there that will generate fake discord texts. OR they used an alt account or friend to "roleplay" Charlie and I thirsting over Charlie's non-existent 5yo cousin. Which is infinitely worse.

So, who really is Zex, and what was their motive?

The easiest explanation regarding motive is just that they wanted to make proshippers look bad. This is pretty typical anti behavior. Charlie and I could have been selected at "random" as we are two bigger sebaciel accounts. But there might actually be more to it.

Now, from this point forward, we are stepping outside the realm of fact and inside the realm of educated guesses. There exists a person who has serious grudges against me, Charlie, and Bezier. Only one person who we are aware of. This individual is a proshipper with a history of going undercover as an anti to stir up trouble and a history of faking screenshots to make antis look bad.

This person was also in the server where the original confession/accusation was made.

They had deleted their account prior to the confession. Zex is actually a new account that only joined the anti server (where the confession was made) yesterday. They basically came into the server just to make this accusation. Pretty suspicious. It's likely that Zex, in an attempt to ruin Charlie and I's reputation as revenge for us ruining theirs, created these screenshots. As seen in the posts by Bezier, Zex asked them to make a post because they didn't want to deal with the repercussions. Zex knows these screenshots are fake, and they also know that people will eventually figure it out. So, if their attempt to frame us didn't work, at least they'd be able to ruin Beziers reputation. Or perhaps even all three, if people were more divided and hadn't come to a consensus. Please keep in mind that there is no evidence that the individual with the grudge and history of faked screenshots and causing drama is actually Zex. However, it is seeming more and more likely.

Anyway. This has been a very tiring day. I am grateful to Bezier for taking down the OP and writing an apology. And as for Zex- I will likely be taking legal action against them.

[kuwdora]

A Vidding Primer

A guide written for @wren-of-the-woods who asked for advice about how to start vidding! This is far from comprehensive and I tried not to make it too dense because it's a big subject. I still wanted to share a variety of topics about getting into vidding because it's a hobby and art that is near and dear to my heart.

First Piece of Advice

watch a lot of vids and rewatch vids multiple times. Seek out vids on YouTube, AO3, Watch the TikTok and Twitter/X vids that show up on tumblr or wherever you’re browsing. They all have distinct styles and tools/techniques they use to make their vids and edits. Rewatch the vids and ask yourself what you like or dislike about them. The song, the editing, the source. That can give you a good starting point about how you might want to approach making your own fanvids. The TikTok style of 30 and 40 second edits are very different what you find on YouTube. YouTube editors tend to use a full song and a lot more effects and a lot more overlapping dialogue. Whereas the fanvids - Vids - from people who came into vidding in the mid 2000s/2010s have their own culture, different ways they approach song choice, clip choices and narrative. I also suggest watching vids for shows/films you’re not familiar with as well as your fandom favorites. You can learn a lot about how vidders try to tell a story even when you might not grasp the context behind certain scenes but you can still follow along with the emotional arc of the vid.

Second Piece of Advice

Have fun and enjoy yourself. Everyone starts a new hobby as a newbie. It can be a lot of effort to make 30 seconds or a 3 minute vid, but it’s such a unique type of fanwork that is fun to watch and fun to make. It can also be migraine inducing because of all the learning and technical issues along the way. But!! omg when you make a clip fall on the perfect beat with your blorbo crying that perfect tear or you find an idea and sources for the bestest perfect lyrics of the song, it’s a magnificent high. It can make you feel like a god. At least that’s how I feel a lot of times!

There are about 10 steps* to creating** a fanvid/edit:

• select your platform and software (phone/computer video editors) • gather your video and audio files • create a new project in your video editor • import audio into the editor • import the video into the software and mute audio tracks that contain your video’s audio • review, label and cut up the video into shorter clips - this step is known as ‘clipping’ in vidding parlance, but it’s also optional. Some people pull in movies and scrub through the whole film and just pull it directly onto the timeline • move the various video clips around on the timeline to match the audio track you’ve chosen for your project, add video effects and additional dialogue if you like • export the finished timeline • upload the video to a streaming platform and/or downloadable service • share your project!!! posting to ao3 and/or social media or share on discord, etc * there are a lot more steps involved with each of these steps. What what software to use, where to find video, how to deal with copyright blocks on Youtube, etc. Some of that will be covered in the links below but is not comprehensive. That would require separate posts and links and I don’t want to drop an encyclopedia on you right now! I’m happy to provide more resources that I can curate if you want more direction and pointers to resources and amazing vidders.

** like any hobby, there can and will be a learning curve and frustrations. Blank page for a writer, blank timeline for a vidder. Is anything you put down is any good, self esteem and confusion about what actually makes sense is part and parcel for any creative work. Once you're in the vidding process and committed, as long as you're enjoying yourself you gotta just keep going to get it done.

Getting Started Vidding

My knowledge and background and learning how to vid from people on livejournal and dreamwidth from 2007. I don’t have any experience in editing with a phone but if that’s something you’re interested in, YouTube will be a place for you to start finding tutorials for various apps and tools. Probably discord communities, too. Vidding Workshop - a great how-to/guide when you're starting out. This is on dreamwidth from the WisCon vidparty in 2014. Some of the tech discussions might be a little outdated but there’s a ton of relevant information. It covers technical subjects as well as developing vid ideas and actually getting started. If you have any questions about what you’re reading you can leave an anonymous comment and ask - some of these vidders responding inthe threads are still active. You can find them on AO3/YouTube, tumblr, discord and actually leave them questions about their vids. Many vidders are more than thrilled to talk about their vids and answer questions. Vexcercises - this is a dreamwidth community for short-form vid excercises. This is a very structured way of introducing vid concepts and constraints so that you can produce a vidlet. I highly recommend you check this out and participate! There’s even an AO3 collection so you can check out how people have done the different exercises, too.

The Process of Vidding

Watch Me Edit - @limblogs put together a fantastic playlist of YouTube editors who will show you beginning to end how they made their vid. A lot of these editors appear to be using Sony Vegas but the general process of vidding end-to-end will be similar with other nonlinear editors like DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, etc. It’s a great way to actually see the vid come together if you don’t know what that even looks like. Every vidder will develop their own workflow and approach (which might even change from vid to vid), but it’s useful to see in video how people actually DO the thing. @limblogs also created a handy YouTube playlist some vidders from Bradcpu’s Vidder Profiles (Fanlore page). These profiles are basically like a director’s DVD commentary on their vidding process, featuring the vidders talking over their own vids! So cool. Phenomnal insights from these vidders about how they choose song, use effects, think about their narratives.

Self Rec: I recently did a vidding textpost series called: do it for the process - a naked vid draft: What (Yennefer of Vengerberg). How I Edit by @vimesbootstheory is another textpost about their vidding process. Self rec: Here’s my text interview: Vidder Profile - Kuwdora 2011. I talk about my process with a lot of specific examples from my previous work and lots of screenshots. This profile is over a decade old but a lot of this still holds true for me today! videlicet - this is an incredible vidding zine that @limblogs put togegther with a lot of amazing contributors. These articles and discuss about specific vids and aspects of vidding. It’s really detailed and a fantastic piece of vidding culture. I highly reading recommend the Demystifying Vidding article by lim and the A History of Vidding by @meeedeee and…pretty much every article in the zine!

Doing the vidding!

I recommend joining exchanges and watching vids that come out of exchanges and checking out fannish cons that have vidshows and discords to get more exposure to vidders and vids. Many people have joined @festivids (AO3 collection here) and made their very first vid, it's a very fun and great way to get into vidding. It’s not quite festivids season right now but time flies and it will be time to nominate sources and do sign-ups in the blink of an eye. Follow @festivids and check out the AO3 collection and see what people are making. Join the Vexcercises community and make some short vids and share them on your tumblr or on discord or somewhere and bask in the thrill of making your first fanvids. Check out who reblogged the vidder ask game - go and read other vidders responses and ask some new-to-you vidders questions. Everyone has their own take on process and tech and everything. It's great to hear and see what a lot people are doing and making.

Final Advice - talking about vids and doing the vidding

• watch vids • rewatch vids • leave a comment and ask a question about something you saw in their vid! • Again: find someone’s AO3 page of fanvids and ask them something about their vid in a comment or send them asks on tumblr (people usually have the same alias or link to their tumblr or dreamwidth pages somewhere.) • YouTube can be a valuable resource for tutorials so if you don't know something, there is likely someone who has made a tutorial about how to use a cross dissolve transition or anything else you might want to replicate in a video that you've seen in a vid. • start making a vid, scream and cry, ask for help, and keep going until you get it done. Celebrate and bask in your completed vid and share it with everyone! • Follow vidders on tumblr that you find from the vidder ask game • Check out the vidding discord for community and questions and vid recs and news about vidding exchanges and cons. • Have fun!

Hope this helps you get started! Thank you so much for the ask! Let me know if you have more questions and I can help you out or send you to cool vidders who have great advice and suggestions. And please send me your vid if you make one!

[jstor]

I saw something about generative AI on JSTOR. Can you confirm whether you really are implementing it and explain why? I’m pretty sure most of your userbase hates AI.

A generative AI/machine learning research tool on JSTOR is currently in beta, meaning that it's not fully integrated into the platform. This is an opportunity to determine how this technology may be helpful in parsing through dense academic texts to make them more accessible and gauge their relevancy.

To JSTOR, this is primarily a learning experience. We're looking at how beta users are engaging with the tool and the results that the tool is producing to get a sense of its place in academia.

In order to understand what we're doing a bit more, it may help to take a look at what the tool actually does. From a recent blog post:

Content evaluation

Problem: Traditionally, researchers rely on metadata, abstracts, and the first few pages of an article to evaluate its relevance to their work. In humanities and social sciences scholarship, which makes up the majority of JSTOR’s content, many items lack abstracts, meaning scholars in these areas (who in turn are our core cohort of users) have one less option for efficient evaluation. 

When using a traditional keyword search in a scholarly database, a query might return thousands of articles that a user needs significant time and considerable skill to wade through, simply to ascertain which might in fact be relevant to what they’re looking for, before beginning their search in earnest.

Solution: We’ve introduced two capabilities to help make evaluation more efficient, with the aim of opening the researcher’s time for deeper reading and analysis:

Summarize, which appears in the tool interface as “What is this text about,” provides users with concise descriptions of key document points. On the back-end, we’ve optimized the Large Language Model (LLM) prompt for a concise but thorough response, taking on the task of prompt engineering for the user by providing advanced direction to:

Extract the background, purpose, and motivations of the text provided.

Capture the intent of the author without drawing conclusions.

Limit the response to a short paragraph to provide the most important ideas presented in the text.

Search term context is automatically generated as soon as a user opens a text from search results, and provides information on how that text relates to the search terms the user has used. Whereas the summary allows the user to quickly assess what the item is about, this feature takes evaluation to the next level by automatically telling the user how the item is related to their search query, streamlining the evaluation process.

Discovering new paths for exploration

Problem: Once a researcher has discovered content of value to their work, it’s not always easy to know where to go from there. While JSTOR provides some resources, including a “Cited by” list as well as related texts and images, these pathways are limited in scope and not available for all texts. Especially for novice researchers, or those just getting started on a new project or exploring a novel area of literature, it can be needlessly difficult and frustrating to gain traction. 

Solution: Two capabilities make further exploration less cumbersome, paving a smoother path for researchers to follow a line of inquiry:

Recommended topics are designed to assist users, particularly those who may be less familiar with certain concepts, by helping them identify additional search terms or refine and narrow their existing searches. This feature generates a list of up to 10 potential related search queries based on the document’s content. Researchers can simply click to run these searches.

Related content empowers users in two significant ways. First, it aids in quickly assessing the relevance of the current item by presenting a list of up to 10 conceptually similar items on JSTOR. This allows users to gauge the document’s helpfulness based on its relation to other relevant content. Second, this feature provides a pathway to more content, especially materials that may not have surfaced in the initial search. By generating a list of related items, complete with metadata and direct links, users can extend their research journey, uncovering additional sources that align with their interests and questions.

Supporting comprehension

Problem: You think you have found something that could be helpful for your work. It’s time to settle in and read the full document… working through the details, making sure they make sense, figuring out how they fit into your thesis, etc. This all takes time and can be tedious, especially when working through many items. 

Solution: To help ensure that users find high quality items, the tool incorporates a conversational element that allows users to query specific points of interest. This functionality, reminiscent of CTRL+F but for concepts, offers a quicker alternative to reading through lengthy documents. 

By asking questions that can be answered by the text, users receive responses only if the information is present. The conversational interface adds an accessibility layer as well, making the tool more user-friendly and tailored to the diverse needs of the JSTOR user community.

Credibility and source transparency

We knew that, for an AI-powered tool to truly address user problems, it would need to be held to extremely high standards of credibility and transparency. On the credibility side, JSTOR’s AI tool uses only the content of the item being viewed to generate answers to questions, effectively reducing hallucinations and misinformation. 

On the transparency front, responses include inline references that highlight the specific snippet of text used, along with a link to the source page. This makes it clear to the user where the response came from (and that it is a credible source) and also helps them find the most relevant parts of the text. 

[zutarawasrobbed]

ALTA Live Action Season 1 Initial Thoughts (Spoilers)

I just finished the season, and holy shit!

Quick things that need to be addressed/debunked:

“Sokka is no longer sexist”

I dont know what people were talking about when they talked about Sokka’s “sexism” being removed. It’s still there! But not in the overly exaggerated comical way it was in the original.

In fact, it’s more in line with ancient practices of indigenous tribes where men are seen as protectors and providers while women are expected to nurture. It’s not the same “boys are better than girls” narrative in the original.

Additionally, Suki still beats the fuck out of Sokka and humbled him really quick. They’re super cute by the way. And I love Suki’s “I like my men a little stupid” vibe. She’s great.

“Aang doesn’t run away like the original!”

That is not true. He does run away, but not because he’s trying to get away from the temple but instead to get some air because he feels overwhelmed. He’s more like taking a quick break and planning to come back. It’s not exactly the same, but almost. It also is done in a way where his guilt feels more justified.

“Katara doesn’t talk about her mom anymore like the original”

This is true… BECAUSE THEY SHOW INSTEAD OF TELL. I was honestly not prepared to see the death Kya in such graphic detail and how Katara was in the room hiding when it happened. It’s honestly really sad and more heartbreaking.

Plot:

The timeline seems to be ambiguous compared to the original series where it was “end of current year.” In fact, they repeat “three years” a few times, which makes me think if the series get greenlit for more seasons, it would be over a three year period.

Jet is still villainized but given more nuance and not a simple "good v bad" way like the original.

Zuko’s story about how he got his scar has additional lore that makes him come across as even more selfless and compassionate. The additional context of the platoon he advocated for in the war meeting, becoming his current crew, really added to the story.

Eradicated the nepotism baby plot point with Pakku only training Katara when he finds out he used to date her grandma. Instead, Katara proves herself and ends up teaching the other male fighters the techniques she learned from watching other benders use their elements and mimics them.

This season doesn’t have Aang learning any waterbending, but rather facing his trauma and the consequences of his actions. He get roasted by all his past lives. Which is an interesting choice, but I think it works well in how they executed it.

This season seems to actually be Katara focused and her journey of learning waterbending which I honestly loved because it really hits home the element of “water” being the story of an untrained waterbender learning her element. But, I do think Aang could’ve learned a little bending. It felt a little off.

Katara ends up advocating for all waterbending women and ends up leading an army of both men and women during the siege. She’s really bad ass and is given the title of master without being formally trained by Pakku. She made herself a master.

I think the timeline is a little wonky because of how much they had to fit in with the limited episodes they had.

Kuruk is given respect! I loved that.

June actually seems into Iroh which I thought was a funny but cool way to flip the script from the original.

The relationship between Zuko and Iroh is really beautifully executed. I love the depth they added with flashback scenes and their bond prior to the Agni Kai. It also wasn’t as frustrating watching Iroh and Zuko’s dynamic because Iroh communicated with Zuko in a way he could understand with straight answers rather than seeming to actively sabotage him with cryptic puns and shenanigans like the original.

They changed the love triangle with Yue Hahn and Sokka to be very healthy. They gave Yue autonomy and a choice in her relationship- which- again- is much more in line with indigenous cultures. Also, Hahn and Sokka’s relationship is really supportive and full of respect and no ill will.

They way they handled grief and the realities of war with the loss of life was very well done and really drove home the point that this is a war and these are child soldiers.

There’s a lot more but these are my initial thoughts. Will probably post more later.

Shipping:

Kataang is all but removed. Literally DOA. There is no indication of a crust on either side. It’s painted like a sibling relationship, which is like the original, but this time everyone seems to be on the same page. But, I swear the writers had to have read ZK fics because damn.

They canonized a popular Zutara theory/hc about the cave of two lovers and how the crystals would light up once it went completely dark instead of a “kiss” activating the crystal glow.

Speaking of the Cave of two lovers. They keep the Oma and Shu story with red and blue coloring. Making it come across more as foreshadowing than a direct link to the present tunnel story.

Sokka is put in Aang’s place with Katara in the tunnels and turned it into a story about the love of family and sibling bonds. Aang wasn’t even present.

Zuko and Katara share a meaningful look when they first see each other and continue to have a Katara centric scene followed by a Zuko centric scene and vice versa.

The scarf scene. I will not be elaborating further. If you know, you know.

Zuko and Katara fight scene in the North is epic. He still taunts her with almost the exact same dialogue but it’s so sassy- I love the banter.

Suki and Sokka were really cute and the actors had great chemistry. I think Yue and Sokka was really rushed and didn’t really feel anything about them, honestly. But I attribute that to lack of episodes to develop all that plot.

[veilkeeper]

thoughts on the astarion-halsin polymance

i know some people dont like the halsin polymance specifically if the PC's other partner is astarion but. i want to talk about it. because i think maybe a lot of people have come to conclusions without seeing the scenes in question for themselves. so let me give a different perspective.

disclaimers: *i know a lot of people ship/hc this polymance as a triad, but for the purposes of this post i'm talking specifically about the "hinge" dynamic we see in-game thx. **also i got the halsin romance trigger before completing astarion's personal quest, so this post is talking about that perspective, and all quotes are from those conversations. ***i respect people who dont play this route. you're allowed to play this game however you want. the purpose of this post is to discuss the canon, in-game text and how it supports the astarion-halsin polymance as a viable and healthy path for these relationships, with nuance and respect to astarion's personal issues. this is not meant to convert anyone, but it is meant to clarify and provide additional context that i feel is largely missing from a lot of discussions about how the polymance is "bad", unilaterally.

let's start with halsin, because i think he's the easier perspective to tease out here, given that he really leaves nothing to the imagination. he's incredibly earnest and open, and will happily describe his perspective on non-monogamy right out the gate. as he says...

The wolf mates for life, but the bear roams free and partners as its instinct dictates. I need to stay true to my nature, and you to yours.

now, to get ahead of potential backlash here... if you haven't spent a lot of time with halsin, particularly if you've never flirted with him, that line may imply that he's a "player". he is not. given the context of the PCs interactions with him up to this point (and how he treats the relationship after, if you confirm the romance), halsin is deeply devoted, and has really strong feelings for the PC. it's really sweet, i highly recommend romancing him, either as a polymance or solo.

what he's describing here is a perspective of cultural non-monogamy. that he believes his feelings are not diminished by having multiple relationships at the same time, and he expects that if the PC agrees to a relationship with him that they will respect his freedom to pursue others when/if such feelings arise, just as he will respect the PC's freedom to continue and/or pursue other relationships as well. it's a really succinct and frankly unexpectedly respectful negotiation of the terms of a polyam relationship.

and that respect is evident from the get go. if you've never seen this conversation, it basically opens with him saying "hey, i have these feelings about you, i was wondering if you maybe felt the same," and if the PC says that they do, he immediately acknowledges the existing relationship and tells the PC that they can't move forward without consent. and you cant; speaking to halsin again just has him ask the PC if they've spoken to their other partner yet. at every turn, halsin is incredibly respectful of the PCs other partner, he never diminishes that relationship, nor does he expect the PC to ever place him above that relationship. he even says:

Indeed, I am but one of your lovers. You and I should seek happiness, wherever it lies. You are all I want, but I will not hoard you to myself.

he makes it very clear from the get-go that he has no designs on the PC's other relationship and that he is more than happy to take whatever they want to give him.

which leads me to my overarching point: astarion is consenting to this dynamic specifically because the other person in question is halsin.

and we know this for a few reasons. first, because.... mechanically in game, he's the only person you can romance at the same time as astarion. while astarion mentions at various points that he is fine with "arrangements", generally speaking, every other potential romance partner results in a "you have to choose one of us" conversation. the reason astarion gives for why the PC has to choose varies, i believe, but since i don't have the dialogue on hand (i have been faithful as hell in my playthrough) i won't speculate about those conversations.

however, we also know that astarion is consenting to an arrangement with halsin specifically because of this line:

The druid is unique. He has a lot of experience with this type of arrangement. Thus, I'm sure it would be quite a harmless affair.

which is interesting, isn't it? hold onto this one, we'll circle back to it later. and then of course, the other line we need to discuss from astarion here is the famously controversial...

It's not because… you know… we haven't… in a while?

so this is where i get into the potentially controversial take that i have, because it's more nuanced than arguments i've seen on either side of the pro-/anti- polymance debate. but basically i think that astarion is... insecure. shocker, i know. but unlike some takes i've seen, i dont think this means he can't consent to a polyam relationship, i think it means that he has certain Conditions related to it, that he has decided have been met. and i think those conditions are as follows:

the PC's interest in halsin is not borne out of any deficiency of astarion's.

this is why he asks the famous question. he's insecure, and making sure that the PC's interest in halsin is not because astarion is failing to "satisfy" them, that it's not because he isn't enough. astarion has a lot of self-worth issues that he tries really hard to hide, and i think it would be easy for him to think that the PC starting another relationship could be a result of him being... insufficient.

for people who have never been in a polyam relationship, this is a thing. this is an important thing, and making sure all of your partners feel that they're valued and "enough" is an important part of navigating these relationships. astarion does the right thing here, by expressing his insecurity and asking for reassurance. and when the PC gives it to him, the relief is evident and he gives consent to the dynamic immediately. not because he's been coerced, but because he's been reassured.

PC: Gods, I don't want you to think that for a moment. Astarion: I know I was being foolish. But thank you for saying it.

the second condition is:

that he is still a priority

this is pretty self explanatory but since it's sort of the clincher for my whole argument here, i do have to say the quiet part out loud. i dont think what astarion wants or needs is to be the PC's only partner. he talks about "arrangements" on multiple occasions, i dont think he has a problem with sharing. what i do think he wants is to be the PC's primary partner. what he's consenting to, in my view, is hierarchical polyamory, to use the proper term. as in, the PC can fool around with whoever they want, even have feelings for other people, so long as they always come back to astarion. he needs to feel like he is secure and valued above others as he values them above others. he needs to feel like the PC isn't going anywhere.

and that's why he consents to an arrangement with halsin, but no one else. because all of the other romance options, the origin companions, would want to be equal with astarion, they would want non-hierarchical polyamory. halsin, on the other hand, is all about taking what can be given and having a more fluid understanding of relationships. he doesn't care if he's #1, he cares that the PC cares about him, right now. no formal definitions or obligations required.

that's what astarion means when he says "the druid is unique." that's what he means when he says "he has a lot of experience with this type of arrangement." that's what he means when he says it will be a "harmless affair." because he knows halsin is never going to try to take the PC away from him. he knows halsin isn't going to be a threat to him and his status with his partner. and that's why he's comfortable saying yes, even though he says no to every other possible arrangement.

it's not because he was coerced. it's not because he doesn't know how to say no. it's because he feels safe. and that's what we want.

some additional notes while i'm here...

on jealousy: a lot of people hc astarion as the jealous type, as perhaps a little possessive, and i am also one of those people. it makes sense; he's a guy who hasn't had anything in 200 years, and the PC is the first person he's cared about like this. i can definitely see him being a little possessive and prone to jealousy. but stepping outside of the realm of fiction, jealous/possessive feelings are often the result of insecurity and in real relationships should absolutely not be used as a tool to control the behaviour of another partner. and, crucially, jealous/possessive feelings are a thing to be talked about and worked through, not tip-toed around. the presence of those feelings does not automatically mean that a polyamorous relationship is impossible, it just means there's another thing to talk about, and by astarion consenting to the PC having another relationship, he's pretty clearly saying he's willing to talk through those feelings and work on them.

on the ability to consent: i know that astarion doesn't talk about his feelings enough. but i truly dont think that this is a case of astarion saying yes when he means no. astarion can say no, even in high pressure situations he wasn't expecting. he says no to the astral-touched tadpole (rather firmly, i might add), he says no to sleeping with the drow twins, etc. the scene that most people use as proof that astarion cannot consent happens in a much different emotional context, with a lot of direct coercion, and is followed by astarion taking back personal control and dumping the PC. that is not what happens in this scene, when astarion is consenting to a polyamorous relationship. there is no coercion (in fact the PC can explicitly say "i wouldn't even consider it if it bothered you", and astarion expected the conversation, so he would have been able to prepare his thoughts and feelings ahead of time. at no point does he say no or even imply he's not okay with an arrangement with halsin.

on timing: ive seen some people say that they would be more okay with the astarion-halsin polymance if all of this was not be happening right now. i agree with that. ideally, astarion would have more time to adjust to his relationship before it was opened up at all. but because this is a video game, everything is happening during the events of the game. and because this is a video game, the events of the game are high pressure and wild and everything is happening all at once. i don't blame people who elongate the timeline in fan content, or who turn down halsin because they think its "too soon." thats actually very explicitly something halsin says when he initially propositions the player - that he hopes it isn't "too soon." however, astarion still consents (see point above), and relationships barely ever have good timing. one could argue that even the solomance with astarion does not have good timing, when considering astarion's trauma and recovery. so. we make do. and i think it would be... a disservice? to what is (in my opinion) really good polyam writing to just say "actually it's all terrible and icky because there's a lot going on right now" and dismiss it out of hand.

.......................and i think that's everything. thank you for joining me on this very long (oops) deep dive into this. a double thank you for reading all the way through if you don't like the astarion-halsin polymance. i hope i gave you a different perspective, even if i didn't change your mind. love ya <3

[olivegardenfurryaccount]

i don't think folks realize this, just because it's all fantasy worldbuilding, but dungeon meshi is absolutely a work of speculative evolution. the only major difference is the addition of a semi-sentient wish granting force called magic. (not unlike @dimespin's worldbuilding)

it takes a variety of fake creatures with biology that doesn't quite add up usually, and places it in the context of "while creatures are evolving, their wishes shape them" and manages to explain every monster from there.

dragons are a type of salamander that wished it could eat larger prey (just make it bigger, unintended consequence of sedentary lifestyle) wished they could make food could sustain them for longer (fire breath derived from the gizzard cooks food, makes it provide more nutrition)

it also manages to explain the different fantasy races pretty handily with this (one king wished for his people to be immortal -> folks wanted their life to end at some point, say 1000 years -> everyone wants to live for different lengths of time eg. some folks think 50 years is plenty while others feel they need around 500)

elves have a higher mana capacity because somewhere along their lineage, they wanted to use magic, but this leaves little energy for much else

dwarves are incredibly strong because they wished for it, but that strength comes from the same nutritional budget as everyone else, so they get exhausted quickly

someone wished dogs could talk and they eventually got kobolds

but the most common of those desires was some rephrasing of "i'm hungry, i wish i wasn't"

and so magic gained a hunger

and wanted to eat, like any hungry creature

and it started to evolve to make eating easier

[petermorwood]

Interesting post about costume here.

This paragraph in particular caught my attention...

What we think of as “peasant garb” is actually the product of a game of telephone that travels back from Romantic Revival art, and many of those (urban) artists got their idea of what rural peasants wore from opera costumes. The costumers working at the opera were not going out to the country side to take notes on what farmers actually wore, nor did they want to. Opera is show biz, you want it to be evocative, but not ordinary. Their costumes would have been based on what urban folks were wearing, with extra little touches like a shepherds crook to make it look “rural”.

... because it was Wagner's Ring Cycle that gave us horned helmets.

They didn't originate with the Vikings. They originated with the 1876 costume designs for a bunch of operas, and those designs by Carl Emil Doepler still exist.

For reference, all the horny characters are mortals.

Those helmets were probably based on archaeological finds, even though all Northern European examples are, AFAIK and depending on context, either religious headgear equivalent to a bishop's mitre, or ceremonial headgear equivalent to a crown.

In addition, every single one predates the Viking Age by a period ranging from a couple of centuries to a couple of millennia so - makes vague handwave gesture - they're more appropriate for the sorta-kinda mythic Migration Era setting of the Ring than any Vik who ever inged..

Doepler's designs also feature WINGED helmets, worn by immortals like Wotan...

... and the Valkyries.

Something else I encountered when looking for pics to illustrate this was that other clichéd armour error, the boob-plate.

Here's dramatic soprano Karin Branzell wearing one...

...while here's heroic tenor Fritz Vogelstrom also wearing one.

He's singing the role of Siegfried but wearing the costume of Brunnhilde, at least that's how it looks to an operatic Philistine like me.

Anyway...

Winged helmets are even more historically dodgy - no archaeological evidence at all - yet are actually more feasible as working combat helmets.

The difference is that horns, being heavy, need sturdy mountings so a horned helmet both provides catch-points for incoming blows and handles for an enemy to grapple, while a winged helmet does neither. The wings, being light, wouldn't need solid fixtures so would just shear off under a weapon or come off in an enemy's hands.

I'm well aware that other times, places and cultures - Indo-Persia, Poland, Japan etc. - had helmets with wings, horns and all sorts of other stuff, but this is about how the popular image of Vikings that headgear came from opera.

And went all over the place... :->

[certifiedsexed]

hey there! i don’t mean this in bad faith at all, and i’m not trying to use a term that’s a fascist dogwhistle. i promise i’m just confused😭

so i’m not a guy, nor have i ever been perceived as one, but in one of your recent posts, you said that men can’t experience oppression solely based on the fact that they’re men. which was kind of confusing to me — i don’t think you’re wrong, i think it’s me but i don’t know how to get to how you see it like that.

because in my experience, men can experience oppression because they’re men, although i don’t know if i’m saying that right or conflating the meanings of certain terms. i’m probably wrong, and would just love some clarification?

for example, my brother and i were always held to different standards growing up — it was expected of me to always cry and be emotional, and i was a ‘stone cold bitch’ if that wasn’t the case, but if my brother wanted to show negative emotions like sadness he was treated like there was something wrong with him too. and i know it wasn’t my brother — i spend a lot of time working with my high school’s diversity team, and in a lot of the events we organise, guys talk about how they feel enormous pressure to be angry and never sad, and to have stereotypically masculine interests and never deviate from that norm.

i also know men who’ve struggled to get jobs such as teaching as those are viewed as ‘female’ jobs and it’s a common view that men who want those jobs are ‘only in it to be around kids’. i’ve heard many women around me perpetuate sentiments like that, so i know they’re not making it up, even if it isn’t equal to the systematic oppression women face in almost every aspect of their careers.

i’m not providing these examples to prove you wrong, since i do think you’re right. i’m hoping that a window into the way i’ve always thought might help you clarify this in a way that can help me to change my mind, since i just think i’m lacking some clarity or context here. i think i’m conflating abuse and stereotypes with oppression, but i’m really not sure. any advice would be really appreciated!

i’m so sorry if this comes off badly, i don’t mean it that way. i’m just trying to learn, i promise i’m not trying to promote the kind of hate and close mindedness you’ve been seeing in your inbox as of late.

Hi! As always, I do not mind answering genuine questions!

The things you're talking about growing up and seeing boys around you pressured to present only certain emotions, that's part of the patriarchy!

Certain emotions are supposed to be "feminine" and thus boys shouldn't show them, while girls are often always considered "emotional" in some fashion. That's not oppression based on those boys being men that you're talking about.

It's the backlash that the patriarchy, and by addition trans/misogyny has on men. It's boys being pressured not to show certain emotions because those emotions are "feminine" and they're supposed to associate feminimity with weakness and shit.

What you're talking about there is also trans/misogyny!

The idea that men who do things perceived as feminine are predators, the idea that specific jobs are "female" jobs [while even in those specific female jobs, men are generally paid better and find it easier to get into those jobs than women trying to get into traditionally "male" jobs"]

[Though obviously this varies based on race and whether they're trans, etc, etc.]

To be a little more clear, all of the things you're talking about don't primarily affect cis men/boys. They fuck up transfems, because it's trans/misogyny.

You're right! It's not systemic oppression.

You might wonder if it's social oppression, which is also a no. Social oppression would require a historical/systemic oppression behind it. But that doesn't exist in this case.

What it is is the common issue oppressors run into. While they benefit greatly from oppression, there is also backlash they face from their own systems of oppression.

Like white people who fall into suicide cults trying to work towards white supremacy, or TERFs who fall into groups where they slowly pick each other off as they discover they're not all exactly the same and wind up accusing each other of not being "real" women, systems of bigotry simply do not work out perfectly even for the oppressors.

They never do.

To create the patriarchy, you must establish trans/misogyny, you must establish intersexism and you must push people to conform to those ideals, even if they hurt your own.

It's similar to how white supremacy can harm white people, despite white people obviously not being oppressed racially. The backlash of oppression hits even the oppressors sometimes.

Suppression, as a term, would honestly work far better to describe what you're talking about.

So yes, it's stereotyping, yes it's abusive to tell your children not to show/feel their emotions but it's not oppression based on these guys in your life being men! It's part of how trans/misogyny, transphobia and intersexism are enforced.

I understand exactly where you're coming from! It doesn't sound bad and I genuinely don't mind answering questions! Especially since you've got some good ones!

I'm not sure if I rambled too much to explain this properly but I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions and/or need me to clarify anything here. <33

[raayllum]

Rayla's Super Selective Hearing, or What is Callum Actually Afraid of?

There's a running current throughout the series, but especially Arc 2 and S6 in particular, about recognizing fear in another individual and the importance of it as a sort of moral horizon line not to cross.

We see this time and time again being twisted/warped with the dark mage characters:

as well as others as a warning sign

which is contrasted most notably with Rayla in S1 as an explicit reason for mercy and recognizing personhood:

RUNAAN: You let him go! RAYLA: Runaan, I'm sorry. The human — he looked up at me and I saw the fear in his eyes. RUNAAN: Of course he was afraid, but you had a job to do! (1x01)

RAYLA: And then I just... let him go. I don't know why. EZRAN: Because you felt for him. RAYLA: But he was a human. My enemy. EZRAN: Yeah, but then you saw he was scared, and you knew he was a person, just like you. RAYLA: That shouldn't have mattered. I had a job to do. (1x08)

and in pleas of ignoring fear:

versus reassurance that it's okay, even if the two can overlap:

And fear, is, of course one of the most consistent feelings that Callum has towards Aaravos, and subsequently one of the threads built upon between Callum and Rayla.

Some of this, mind you, is because they're going to have to confront the "it doesn't matter that the human was afraid, you had a job to do and should've killed him" holdover whenever Callum gets possessed again, which is also part of the reason why Runaan turns and flees from Rayla's compassion and forgiveness in 6x09: he's afraid he doesn't deserve it, and that he "can't go back". He's worried that he's too far gone, and that he's a monster.

This also plays into Viren's realization and acceptance of what had happened with Lissa, who was terrified of him and said similarly that he had "become a monster" as previously noted (and eventually he was able to acknowledge that she was right).

This same fear of becoming monstrous one of the many fears we see plaguing Callum in S6: that not only will Aaravos control and/or manipulate him, not only did he do dark magic again, but that if it happens again or if Rayla finds out that she'll be scared of him, down to similar framing to boot.

Callum's fear doesn't come to fruition in 6x03, with Rayla being not scared of him, for scared for him. As she lists out reasons why he shouldn't do dark magic (without knowing why he did so), she cites:

Because it's dangerous. Because it hurts you. But most of all, because it makes you vulnerable to the thing you're most afraid of. [...] I just don't understand why you would keep doing it, knowing that it puts your life in terrible danger.

And Rayla has good reason to think that Aaravos is Callum's worst fear, given that Callum has emphasized his fear over Aaravos a few times to her:

So Callum is scared of Aaravos, as are most of the characters, but the possession gets to him specifically. Part of this is because the possession strips Callum of the quality he cares about the most: his agency ("You think [making a mistake because Aaravos took control of me] makes me feel better? That makes me feel worse" / "I felt so weak and out of control. I was his puppet"). This is also what he affirms to Ezran in 4x05 ("when he took over my whole body and used me like a puppet").

The other side is one that he spells out for us in 4x07, so let's go line by line now that S6 has provided more reaffirmation / context.

I'm not afraid that he'll hurt me.

This line, of course, shows Callum's selflessness and willingness to risk his life (1x02, 2x07, 3x01, 3x09, 5x08), in addition to his rationale for asking Rayla to kill him. If his destiny under Aaravos and the harm it brings it inevitable, his own life and safety would be a reasonable concern, but it's not. And we know this because it's Rayla's primary concern in the possession plotline, and one that's not good enough for him. "We're all in danger," he rebuts when she just talks about him; she questions why he would use dark magic again when "it puts your life in terrible danger". But just his own life being at risk isn't enough to get him to not do something — at least not when he has a good enough motivation ("You can risk your life to learn magic" vs jumping off the Pinnacle or trying to take Ezran's place).

I'm afraid that he'll use me

This line is the crux of Callum's dynamic with Aaravos on his end — the fear, the concern, the paranoia. In 4x07, it's a scary possibility; in 6x01, he treats it more like an imminent inevitability unless he can find a way to destroy the pearl: "As long as it's here or anywhere, it poses a threat, because Aaravos can manipulate people on the outside. Like he did with Lord Viren. And... me." We'll get to why I think this change of "he will" (still leaves some room for doubt) to "he is" (he is going to) has happened in the next couple of lines. We also see that Callum finding out that Aaravos has used him in switching the pearl in 6x06 was enough to break his spirit even without knowing anything that leaving the pearl back in Katolis was going to lead to, so the stakes of the action itself (losing agency/control) are high. It's scary to think he might've already "played into" Aaravos' hands per his 'destiny' even if we know (thanks to the pawn intro) that he hasn't and much more is in store.

But what is Callum scared about when it comes to Aaravos' hold on him? Especially since 6x01 trims both of these things out of the mix in terms of verbal dialogue.

to do awful things

This is the first thing Callum mentions, so it accordingly has weight. We see that Callum, like the bulk of the main cast but especially the core trio, wants to and tries to do the right thing ("The right thing, I hope") and it's something he admires in other people ("she does what's right even when it puts her own life in danger"). He doesn't want to cause unnecessary suffering and he doesn't want to hurt people, and unlike characters who also feel that way most of the time but don't follow through (hi Claudia, hi arc 1 Viren), he is usually accordingly tormented and guilty when he feels like he hasn't lived up to his own ideal (apologizing to Ez for his temper, doing dark magic, etc).

However, "awful things" is a little vague. It can't include hurting the people around him per say because that gets its own distinction, so what does 'awful things' refer to? Harrow refers to his choices with the Magma Titan and Avizandum and Zym as "terrible things"; Soren asserts the same about trying to kill the princes; and Terry most explicitly tells Claudia that "I've seen you do a lot of awful things, dark magic things". So the most distinct thing we can get there is 1) killing and/or sacrificing people and/or 2) dark magic in general.

This is, to me, part of why 5x08 is so difficult for Callum as an episode, because he's forced to do some terrible things. Finnegrin tries to make him pick which one of his loved ones is losing a hand; Callum is nearly coerced and then chooses to use dark magic; he gives a dangerous man an even more dangerous spell and the trade doesn't even amount to anything.

Because if it comes down to doing terrible things, Callum would prefer doing that in order to not

or hurt people I care about.

Callum clearly thinks that dark magic and doing dark magic is awful. We see this routinely expressed throughout the series, scaffolded by dark magic always being a last resort and nothing else for him thus far: "But is it really so wrong?" "Yes!" (2x08); "But in your eyes I see guilt. What have you done that's got you so twisted up inside?" (5x08); "I did it, I'm ruined, it's too late for me, who cares?" (6x03)

Ergo, on Finnegrin's ship, in his own eyes, he did something awful. This is because I think it's evident that being vulnerable to Aaravos isn't Callum's worst fear, as Rayla posits: it's losing her or Ezran.

Being vulnerable and possessed by Aaravos is scary to him because it might mean hurting them. Yes he doesn't want to do something awful, but we've seen in canon that he's willing to if the alternative is letting either of them die (much like how Rayla didn't want to emotionally hurt Callum, but it was a trade she was willing to make if it meant keeping him physically safe). We know he's not worried about Aaravos controlling him just for his own safety (points to previous sections).

The phrasing of the line itself is interesting, as you can read it two ways, of him being scared Aaravos will use him to hurt his loved ones, or scared that Aaravos (generally) will hurt his loved ones. Neither is an appealing prospect.

But as Finnegrin says:

All that talk about how love makes you stronger, but the second you see that elf girl in pain, you completely lost yourself.

Callum would rather do something awful (dark magic) and make himself vulnerable to Aaravos, his 'worst fear,' than lose Rayla (or Ezran), which is his Actual worst fear. This is, of course, just perfect Greek tragedy irony: Callum getting possessed in order to save Rayla, only to inadvertently put her in danger again under Aaravos' control. Nor is this exclusive to Callum — I imagine the worst fears for basically everyone in TDP would be the loss of the people they love, even over the loss of their own life, and this is something we see reflected time and time again with Harrow and Sarai, Gren and Amaya, Aaravos and Leola, Rayla and Callum, etc.

What is more exclusive to Callum is the sheer lengths he may be willing to go to in order to not lose them. As he says in 4x07, he's afraid Aaravos will use him because it could lead to doing awful things or hurting people he loves; in 6x01, his speech has changed because he has a better understanding of how/why Aaravos would be able to manipulate him, and because he knows he'll do things he considers awful to protect/save the people he loves.

After all, as previously noted, Callum is afraid of having no choice... and that's exactly what happened.