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humbledragon669 · 4 months ago

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Lockdown Episode Write Up P2 – dialogue

Introduction

I don’t think there’s much linking the dialogue with the images (apart from the cake sequence), so I’ve broken this write-up down into tableaus and dialogue, because there are just as many Easter eggs (maybe more) to be had from the tableaus as there are from the script. This part of the write-up will address just the dialogue, with the tableaus addressed in a separate write-up. Right, housekeeping done, let’s get stuck in shall we?

Dialogue

So Crowley picks up on the second ring, sounding very irritated. Considering he’s about to tell Aziraphale how bored he is, you’d think he might actually be relieved about the prospect of somebody calling him. And poor Aziraphale; the brusque greeting clearly puts him off, presumably because he was hoping for a more enthusiastic response, particularly given that Crowley openly tells the angel he knows that it was him calling in the first place.

AZIRAPHALE: Uh… Hello. It’s me! CROWLEY: I know it’s you, Aziraphale.

My thoughts about this exchange? I strongly suspect Aziraphale is the only one that ever calls Crowley. Not only that, I think he’s probably calling the demon multiple times a day at this point. I mean, think about it – neither of them work for their respective agencies anymore. For the first time in 6000 years they can be open about their friendship, no more hiding. And for the first time in those 6000 years something other than Heaven or Hell is making it impossible for them to see each other. I know, they really could have formed a “bubble”, or just ignored the rules completely, given their otherworldly status, but they didn’t because don’t forget – this is a PSA film at heart. Everybody had to STAY AT HOME. Besides, it makes it so much more angsty if they can’t be within physical proximity to one another during this time.

AZIRAPHALE: Just calling to see how you were doing in Lockdown.

Aziraphale actually says makes it sound like this is either the first time the angel has spoken to Crowley during Lockdown (which had been going on for almost two months by the time this minisode was released), or that they don’t speak very often. Personally, I don’t buy this, not least because the demon openly says he’s incredibly bored. And what does Crowley like to do best when he’s bored? Hang out with Aziraphale. Be his personal nuisance.

CROWLEY: I’ve decided that if I can’t think of anything to do within the next two days, I’m going to have a nap and I’ll set the alarm clock for June.

I *think* this is the first time we have confirmation that he does sleep, at least as far as the show is concerned (I’m not counting cut/missing bits from the Script Book, or from the original book). There’s also proof here that he’s actually an optimist, despite his efforts to convince the world at large otherwise – he’s convinced that everything will be back to normal by June. Interestingly, the UK’s really strict national regulations had actually been eased by the time the minisode was released, allowing those who could not work from home to return to work (yeah, we didn’t really know what that meant either, considering those of us who were classed as key workers never stopped going to the workplace), but June was still a very optimistic estimate – whilst restrictions were eased as we went into July, local governments were given the authority to impose local lockdowns where necessary. And boy, did they.

AZIRAPHALE: Oughtn’t you to be out and about doing things?

It's interesting to hear Aziraphale actually encouraging Crowley to be more demon-like. And he doesn’t just encourage, he gives him very appropriate suggestions for things he could be doing to fulfil his demonly duties. To my mind, it suggests his preference for Crowley in a demonic state. Or it could be an opportunity to emphasise the STAY AT HOME message, seeing as (for once) Crowley seems keen to stick to the rules. Take your pick. I know which one I prefer. Either way, there are two pieces of information here that I find noteworthy – firstly, confirmation that Crowley can’t get sick because he’s a demon. I think it’s interesting what human weaknesses the angel and demon are susceptible to, and which not. Alcohol, for instance, albeit in larger quantities than a human could imbibe, has the same effect on their human bodies as it does to humans. Illness and disease on the other hand, it would seem not. Laudanum, as we see in series 2, has an entirely different effect on Crowley than it would do to an ordinary human, but Hastur informs us that ordinary fire would easily discorporate a demon. Makes me wonder if the effect that a Heavenly or Hellish being has on its hosting body is one to do with constitution – where the body has an increased resistance to toxic substances but is unaffected in its ability to deal with trauma.

The second piece of information in this little plea from Aziraphale is that he says Crowley still has a job to do. Which, given the outcome of season 1, he doesn’t. I don’t think it was made blatantly obvious that neither of them report to their respective agencies anymore, so perhaps this is just a slip of the pen, so to speak. It might have been a bit more difficult to slip in this blatant reminder to people that leaving home was a BAD thing to do and that staying at home was the GOOD thing to do otherwise, and this little speech is very clear about listing certain things that were being actively discouraged at the time.

CROWLEY: I could do that. I mean I could… but if I did then… well…people might follow my bad example and get ill. Or even die.

Crowley’s response is… less than enthusiastic. It’s funny to hear him say that people might follow his bad example – surely that’s exactly what he’s been contracted to do for thousands of years? But again, I am forgetting – the whole point of this piece of media is to remind them why we should all just STAY AT HOME. So, with that reminder, let’s look a little more about Crowley’s actual feelings on the subject, shall we?

CROWLEY: I know I ought to be making people’s lives even worse but everyone’s so miserable cooped up right now anyway I just… don’t have the heart for it.

And therein lies the problem for Crowley and his existence as a demon – he actually doesn’t like to make people miserable. He loves to cause mischief and make trouble, but not with the sole intention to bring misery into people’s lives. Ultimately, he’s just too soft at heart to be a very good demon, which David himself has described beautifully.

AZIRAPHALE: I’m not miserable. CROWLEY: Really?

I really love this little exchange. Crowley sounds genuinely shocked that Aziraphale is so certain in his proclamation that he’s not miserable. And it’s hardly surprising really – I strongly suspect the reason that Crowley is feeling so down in the dumps is because he’s not getting a regular fix of his angel, so it stands to reason that he would expect Aziraphale to feel the same way. He’s probably had a little bit of his heart broken to hear that his angel is seemingly coping without him so well. It’s a good thing we go on to hear that basically the reason why Aziraphale is so happy at this time is because he’s not getting any customers in with the threat of trying to buy one of his books, although the angel’s speech does present the writer with another opportunity to remind us of our obligations at the time – social distancing and STAYING AT HOME.

You have to be paying attention, but Crowley doesn’t seem too pleased with the idea that Aziraphale might have needed rescuing from some errant youths that he wasn’t able to help with; there’s a quiet groan from him when he hears the retelling of the story. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think there was some sort of double entendre going on here with Aziraphale’s tease of there being “a few young lads” who “broke in through the back”, so that groan could actually be one of relief rather than frustration. What is interesting is that Crowley openly mocks the only potential rescue scenarios that Aziraphale would have had available to him – he’s obviously smarting that he didn’t get to be the white knight for once.

CROWLEY: Did you smite them with your wrath?

I’d be very interested to know if the script had been finished and handed to David and Michael at this time, because that particular line feels like a very obvious reference to the smited/smote/smitten exchange. And if the reference is a genuine one, my double entendre idea doesn’t seem so outrageous, given Crowley’s tone – could he be a little bit jealous?

What now follows is the only time that the images in the minisode link directly with the dialogue going on at the time, and they’re all to do with cake. Trigger warning, what follows is a lot of pictures of cake. If, like me, you are inclined to go out and buy cake as soon as you see a picture of one, I would suggest you look away now.

What I love about Crowley’s reception of the knowledge that Aziraphale sent the little vandals away with cake is that he uses the same expression that Anathema uses when she asks about the name of Newt’s car.

CROWLEY: I’m going to regret asking…

His tone shows just what he thinks of the angel’s method for rescuing himself. And if you consider Aziraphale’s tale to be a truthful account of what took place, it does seem odd - that somebody could just have a little chat with some wannabe robbers to change their minds, and then send them away with some excess cake. There is however a missing scene in the Script Book where several thugs enter the bookshop and start to make a mess in an attempt to get Aziraphale to sell the land the shop sits on. In a somewhat “miraculous” turn of events (see what I did there?), they change their mind, clear up the mess they made, and leave without a fuss. I suspect the same sort of turn of events occurred to the lads that turned up to steal the cash box.

AZIRAPHALE: It turns out I have a whole cookbook section here in the bookshop.

I love this idea, that the bookshop is so sprawling and diverse that even Aziraphale doesn’t know what it contains, despite the fact that he must have stocked it in the first place. And I love it because that’s the how every second-hand bookshop feels to me. I’ve spent my fair share of time in Hay-on-Wye and its multitude of bookshops, and I genuinely feel like I could get lost in some of them. There are another couple of lines from Aziraphale that suggests that he does not think it possible to eat anything unless it comes from an eatery.

AZIRAPHALE: Well all the restaurants and cafes are closed […] and I got peckish.

Because he couldn’t just go to the supermarket and buy some cake, could he? Like the rest of us were doing (and were allowed to do). He even goes on to say that he had to miracle the cherries in for one of his creations – quite why it was only the cherries he miracled in I don’t know, I mean he must have gotten the rest of the ingredients from somewhere. Which leads me on to another question – where is the kitchen in the bookshop? There must be some facilities somewhere, otherwise he couldn’t make all of those delightful looking goodies. He’s got to have a kettle or a stove for boiling water/milk at the very least for making his cocoa, so where is all that stuff?

Aziraphale then goes on to reel off a list of cakes that he’s made (another nod to the domestic activities that were going on up and down the country – for those not based in the UK, you might not know that during Lockdown it was virtually impossible to get hold of flour or eggs, largely owing to the huge increase in home baking people did), which includes angel’s food cake (you could argue that all of the cakes he makes is angel’s food cake, hahah. Hah. I’ll get my coat). I don’t know whether it’s interesting, whether it’s an oversight, or whether it’s deliberate, but there’s no devil’s food cake on the list that he gives. I’ve made and eaten devil’s food cake before. It’s awesome. I don’t think that he wouldn’t have made this particular recipe because of its lack of deliciousness. I actually wonder whether its absence is an indicator of Crowley’s eating preferences (and as a reminder, I’m someone who is of the mind that he doesn’t enjoy eating – more on this shortly).

AZIRAPHALE: And then, once I’ve baked them, I have to eat them all myself.

This line makes me properly snort with laughter, because he simultaneously manages to make it sounds like eating all the cake is something he definitely doesn’t want to do whilst also expressing sorrow that he has no-one around to eat them in front of with. The idea that this angel would ever not want to eat food is laughable. Crowley takes the bait on the sub-text though, employing some his tried and tested temptation techniques to try to get what he wants.

CROWLEY: I could hunker down at your place. Slither over and watch you eat cake. I could bring a bottle of- a case of something… drinkable?

This is my favourite line of the whole thing. The throwaway reference to his serpent form is delightful, and who’s to say he wouldn’t transform for his trip over to Soho to avoid being stopped by humans? There’s the idea that he would very much like to get drunk with Aziraphale again, and this time without an impending Armageddon to spoil the mood, and with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be going home at the end of their binge. But most of all there’s that line about the cake. He doesn’t say he can help Aziraphale eat the cake – he says he can come and watch the angel eat it. Which would not only go some way to confirming my suspicions that he doesn’t like to eat but would also help to cement the popular theory that watching Aziraphale eat is a pleasurable experience for him. The whole line is said with such longing too, it’s impossible not to hear it.

AZIRAPHALE: I’m afraid that would be breaking all the rules.

If you listen carefully to Aziraphale’s rejection of Crowley’s (quite frankly, adorable) suggestion, you can hear another little bit of the demon’s heart breaking with disappointment. I suppose he probably shouldn’t be surprised that his request of Aziraphale to go against protocol wouldn’t have gone down well and besides we were all supposed to STAY AT HOME, remember? What sort of a PSA film would this be if people just went around to other people’s houses for some flirting nookie company when there was a Lockdown in place?

AZIRAPHALE: I’ll see you when this is over.

So of course, Aziraphale says no thank you very much (quite a lot of Tory party members could have learned a lot from the angel’s morals, and none of them are half as likeable as he is), but how incredibly sad does he sound at the prospect of not knowing when he and Crowley will see each other again? Crowley might have quietly voiced his disappointment multiple times during the conversation, but Aziraphale’s own disappointment here is stated loud and clear.

Crowley’s upset can be heard again after this very final sounding line from his angel (and this time it breaks my own heart a little bit) but he rallies well, changing his planned nap end time to July, rather than June as declared earlier. It’s a pretty perfect way to get out of missing someone, isn’t it? Just go to sleep until you can see them again; I’m sure there are a lot of people that would definitely be on board with that approach. He doesn’t leave any further room for discussion either:

CROWLEY: Good night, angel.

It’s very definite – conversation over, nothing more to say. My thoughts are that he’s just too depressed to carry on talking on the phone to the one person he would much rather be spending time with in person, and now that he’s found a quick and painless solution to the problem (a nap), he just wants to get on with it. Charmingly though, this parting line sounds nothing like the dismissal it seems like it is when you see it written down. The delivery of this line conveys the familiarity and comfort that exists between the two of them, and actually makes it sound like this is a regular conversation that they have, despite the dialogue suggesting otherwise. As it turned out, July wasn’t really long enough to get completely clear of the restrictions that would see our heroes united freely, but who can blame him for being optimistic? And at least if he’s asleep, he’s definitely STAYING AT HOME.

Well I think that’s the lot for this write up. So much for this being such a short episode that it wouldn’t need a lot of time devoted to it. It was a fun little thing; in truth I think it serves more as a PSA that as an additional source of storyline/character development but that hasn’t dampened my enjoyment of it. Time to move on to season 2 now (which I am both excited and a little bit nervous about – there is so much to say!), so for the meantime, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome 😊

#good omens #episode analysis #ineffable idiots #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #head canon #crowley loves aziraphale #aziraphale loves food #aziraphale loves crowley #aziraphale's bookshop #crowley loves watching aziraphale eat #good omens lockdown

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avocado-writing · 1 year ago

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hii first of all, I love love love your writing so much so I gathered up courage to ask you for a Crowley x reader fanfic. I finished watching season 2 some days ago (💔) and I loved the minisode where their gravediggers and Crowley is high as fuck on laudanum, I think? So the request would be like Zira just manages to drag Crowley to your house and is like “girl take him i’m tired of his ass” and the reader tries to take care of him but he just does all his shenanigans and is super loud and cuddly (not that he’ll admit that the next day). Thank you so much and I understand if you don’t want to write this💕💕💕

notes: thank you so much! please never feel you have to gather courage to ask me for a request, I love receiving them! pairing: crowley x gn!reader rating: T (drug use)

There’s a sharp knocking at the door. It’s very late, so you suppose it’s a good thing that the knocker is insistent, or you’d have slept through it. You throw on a robe and shuffle downstairs.

“Yes, alright, I’m on my way!” you bark. Groggily you take yourself to the front door and open it enough peer through.

Aziraphale is holding Crowley up. The demon’s head is rolling around wildly, almost as if he’s possessed. They both look manic. You can’t have these two on your doorstep, if they’re spotted your nosy neighbours will never let you hear the end of it.

“Hullo! Er, sorry it’s late, but would you mind opening the door?” Aziraphale asks. Well; it’s more of a plea. With a groan you usher them both inside your house, slamming the door behind you before anyone can get a good look at the strange gentlemen you just welcomed.

“What’s wrong with him?” you ask, bracing yourself for the worst. The angel waves a hand at you, dismissive.

“Nothing too much to be worried about, just–”

“Laudanum!” Crowley suddenly pipes up, loudly, causing both you and Aziraphale to jump in shock. “Whole bottle of it!”

With that the demon goes to take a step towards you, totally trips over his own feet, and tumbles heavily into your arms. You send Aziraphale a firm glance.

“Laudanum? What on earth did you let him drink that for!?”

“I didn’t let him do anything! Sometimes he’s just… impulsive,” Aziraphale says. “But please can I leave him here while he sobers up? I’ve just got a little business to finish sorting out.”

He sticks you with the most pathetic gaze you’ve ever seen, and while Crowley begins to fiddle with the tassel on your robe, you feel yourself caving.

“I’m not a nanny for when one of you gets sick,” you sigh… but finally relent, “but alright. This once. You’d better be back by morning, Aziraphale.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much! I absolutely owe you a favour.”

You’ve lost track of all the favours Aziraphale owes you now. You slough Crowley off your person and into an armchair so you can lock up as the angel leaves. When you turn back he’s on the floor, picking loose threads out of your nice living room rug.

“Oi! Stop that!”

“I need to make it tidy,” he states. You groan and with some effort get him back in the chair, pushing him forcefully in the chest when he tries to rise again. This time he stays put.

“Right. I’m going to make you some tea–” you begin, but are cut off when you feel him wrap a hand around your wrist and tug you into his lap.

“Crowley-!”

“Come on, give me a cuddle.”

You feel the heat rushing to your cheeks and realise you’re not fighting his embrace quite as sincerely as you should be. He’s very warm and surprisingly comfortable for a bag of bones.

“Get your hands off me!” you tell him, but your heart isn’t really in it. He loosens his grip a little but you don’t leave his arms, instead just find a way to get a little bit more comfortable. With a sigh you take off his glasses so you can look him in the eye. His pupils are blown out when you meet his gaze; he’s clearly off his face.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he says, “you come here often?”

“To my house, Crowley?”

He looks around, as if he’s not quite sure that you’re telling the truth, but you drag his attention back to you with a gentle hand on the chin.

“How did you get laudanum in you, eh?”

“Stopped a girl killing herself.”

“Oh. Did it work?”

“‘Course it worked. I’m a genius, me. A genius!” he trills the last note, flinging his arms wide. You press a finger to his lips to quieten him down. Amazingly he does. He crosses his eyes as he tries to focus on where you’re touching him, and the image is a rather sweet one.

“You can be a good man, you know that, don’t you Crowley?”

Normally he’d chastise you and point out all the things wrong in that sentence, but instead he just buries his face in your hair.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he sighs.

“I won’t, darling. Can I get up now, please?”

“Nooooooo,” is his response, and he grips you tighter. You resign yourself to your fate and settle in. It’s going to be a long night.

The next day he denies his behaviour up and down, but there’s no hiding the fact you woke up that morning in his arms.

Taglist: @angiestopit@dazed-soul@smile-eywa@staygoldsquatchling02@underratedboogeyman@specter-soltare@cool-ontherun-world @emilynissangtr @willbedecided@cool-iguana@this--is--music @ilyatan @foolishprincipalitee

#crowley x reader #david tennant x reader #good omens x reader #ineffable husbands x reader #request

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the-conversation-pod · 3 months ago

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Summer 2024 Lagniappe (A Minisode)

AND WE'RE BACK!

Summer didn’t give us a lot to say, but we ALWAYS got something to say. Ben, NiNi and Shan talk a highlight of the season, Twig reports from the field, and we award summer’s Girl Who Tried.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction 00:02:21 - Twig’s Dispatch 00:14:24 - Spotlight: Tadaima, Okaeri 00:20:34 - Girl, You Tried 00:27:08 - Celebrating 50 Episodes

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 Introduction and Summer Season Recap

Ben

And we're back. We have reached the end of the summer season. It is hot as hell and hurricane season is active, but we at least still have our shows to watch.

Shan

Wow, what a way to set the mood.

NiNi

That is [laughs] one way to start, for sure. [NiNi and Shan laugh]

Ben

Girl, I’m stressed! [laughs]

NiNi

I feel you. I feel you. I feel you. We are here. The summer has been… it's been a lot.

Let's just dive right into what we came here to discuss. Shan is here. Say hi, Shan.

Shan

Hi!

NiNi

We're going to talk a few things that we didn't talk through this season. Twig’s gonna come in and leave us her dispatch, and then we're gonna round it up and award the Girl, You Tried. There are a lot of girls who tried this season. [laughs]

00:02:20 Twig’s Dispatch

DISPATCH! Thank you for having me back. [music]

While folks were lamenting having nothing to watch this quarter, I was as busy as ever!

In the skip section: Sadly, Korea really dominated this category last season, starting with Blossom Campus. Honestly, this was the biggest disappointment this season for me. This was my–the Korean independent team Strongberry, who I normally love—they released a full length Kdrama that, I don’t understand how it went so wrong. The story is about a university transfer student who works at the library and ends up in a few interactions with a taekwondo major and they fall for each other. It was boring, the story didn’t really flow, the chemistry was flat.The only good thing I can say for it is that when they do kiss, they kiss well. But it was not worth watching to get there.This was the least queer Strongberry has ever felt, and to add insult to injury it ends on a cliffhanger. This is a pass from me, friends.

Love is Like a Cat. Mew of the newly public MewTul relationship stars in this hybrid Thai/Korean production that did not manage to retain the good qualities of either country. It is bad. And not even in a fun way. The premise is a famous Thai actor is blackmailed into doing a Korean reality series in which he has to work in a dog cafe, despite being afraid of dogs. That sounds like it would be cute and fun, and somehow it was neither. Poor acting, cinematography, chemistry, story, everything was mid. Also, content warning for animal death—way to alienate your target audience.

Gray Shelter was a Korean short series that barely felt like BL? Honestly, it was trying to walk a trauma narrative and BL line and I don’t think it did that successfully. The romance felt rushed and the trauma part felt like it was being sad for the sake of sad rather than having anything to actually say about trauma. Also had another cliffhanger ending. Not my fav.

Moving away from Korea, Lady Boy Friends is a show that has a high barrier to enjoyment, so judge for yourself. It’s a remake from 2015 and the premise is an ensemble show in an all boys high school in which a good percentage of the cast are actually trans girls in an all boys school. There is a lot of infighting amongst the trans women, they are extremely catty and mean and clique-y to each other. That part I honestly found kind of fun, and I did enjoy them banding together against a common enemy. Unfortunately that common enemy is another trans girl who is looked down on for transitioning “late” which calls her authenticity into question. This show also has sexual assault played as comedy which is honestly the main reason why it’s in this section; there was also a gay couple who got the bulk of the focus in the last few episodes, and while that storyline will likely be the most appealing to this audience, I didn’t particularly like that the trans characters got short shrift in their own show, so. I didn’t fully love it.

Kiseki Chapter 2. This was a production by 9NAA. They have a history of not paying and exploiting their actors, and they’ve done it too many times, so I didn’t watch this one. Pay your actors and hire intimacy coaches and then I’ll talk about your shows.

The last one in this section is actually a GL Thai channel that I wanted to shout out. It’s just not to my taste, but I don’t like gatekeeping GL ‘cause there’s so little of it and it’s so hard to find. So, if you’re a fan of the melodrama and older, toxic relationship type tropes, give these guys a try. Last quarter they put out “Friend with Benefits the series” and “Sea [as in S-E-A] you soon”, and my favorite of the three was “You Are My Star the series” which I enjoyed because it retread a lot of BL tropes so I watched it and played, sort of, spot the BL parallels. JPC Media Channel on YouTube.

Now onto the shows that you might actually want to consider. There were a few genre BLs this season that were varying degrees of hit or miss so I’ve grouped them together. I love genre stories, so I don’t want to be too harsh on shows that push the boundaries of the BL genre, but all of these had at least one fatal flaw that makes me not able to recommend them without caveats.

Memory in the Letter is a Thai BL sci-fi/fantasy in which a student falls in love with a stranger in the mirror. This is a short series that had real high highs and low lows for me, including some of the best chemistry across a pane of glass I’ve ever seen. But also, the ending was so poorly handled that I had to call poor Ben to watch with me just so that I’d have someone to share my psychic damage with. Without spoiling anything, this show involves an age gap with actors not age-appropriately cast to hide the fact that the age gap is so large? It also doesn’t treat the age gap seriously or engage with the very serious problems that it raises in its own plot, and I found that very frustrating. So. Make your own choices on that one.

1000 Years Old the series. This show is a Thai vampire show that spends the first three quarters being an extremely low stakes series in which a vampire owns a pork blood soup stand and a glorious umbrella collection, and is in love with a man obsessed with searching for alien life. It is exactly as silly as it sounds. But then the last few episodes everything turns into intense melodrama, and I’m going to spoil this because I don’t know how not to: We find out that the vampire stays friendly with another vampire who murdered his human lover across multiple lifetimes. I was vibing and then I was really not.

Two Worlds is another Thai series, and a MaxNat vehicle. The premise of this one is as it says on the tin: There are two parallel universes connected by a glowing body of water. Our protagonist loses his love interest and travels to the parallel universe accidentally while grieving, to realize he has the chance to save his boyfriend’s doppelganger in this new world. While he does that, he finds himself falling for someone else instead. This series is a relatively slow burn show. Whoever made this show, they did the most bewilderingly good job of undercutting every dramatic moment so that it had no stakes or impact that I’ve ever seen. This show was almost impressively boring considering how much was happening at any given moment. I liked that it seemed to be saying people weren’t interchangeable, but then in the end the show undermined its own message. Watching this show was informative for learning about pacing and how narrative tension works or doesn’t in shows.

Last in this section is The Spirealm. This is a chinese danmei adaptation that we almost didn’t get because of censorship; it was heavily adapted so that rather than magic, the core of the unnatural happenings are a Virtual Reality video game in which our leads have to puzzle through dangerous mysteries to figure out the secrets of each level. It’s fun in an “oh this does feel like a video game” kinda way, and I enjoyed puzzling through the mysteries alongside the leads. But the mysteries drag on too long and they’re repetitive, and the ending of the book is actually really undermined from the adaptation choices. Also, if you’re watching for romance subtext, this is a VERY tame story even for censored cdrama. They barely touch, the shipping moments are few and far between in a long series. So, be forewarned.

Moving away from the supernatural and back to more standard QL fare, A Secretly Love. This felt like a very old-school Thai series, a feeling that was helped by the horrifically bad subtitles; about an engineering student who has been in love with this senior for years and watched him fail miserably at romance over and over. This heavily relies on the viewer enjoying the lead pining over someone who treats him badly for most of the series. So, in order to enjoy this, you have to find someone showing affection by being grumpy, rude, jealous, and demanding cute. No judgment, just giving you the information you need to no. Worth watching if you’re nostalgic for 2020s Thai BL.

Please Teach Me This is a vertical-format microseries from Korea about an aspiring idol trying to attend college that you have to grind through ads in order to watch. Honestly the series was fine, very middle-of-the-road KBL, but the microseries format and the barriers to watching make it not worth sitting through, in my opinion.

Blank the Series is a Thai GL is in the same universe as GAP, so if you miss Sam and Mon the characters, they do appear, though portrayed by different actresses. The main couple in this story have a 16-year age gap and the romance starts when the younger one is in high school, though due to plot reasons she’s of age. I know that’s a barrier for some, so I wanted to mention it off the jump, especially because she acts young. That’s the part that I actually struggled with most. This story is very lakorn-like in terms of it being very high melodrama; it also, especially in part two, gets quite sexy. The height difference is also really something. It’s in two parts and both are complete, it does have a happy ending with a cute timeskip. So, you know, manage yourselves on that one.

Jazz For Two. High school Korean music BL in which the main couple really fell flat for me and the side couple were a bully-turned-love-interest that I also really did not enjoy. This show tried to incorporate internalized homophobia as part of its main storyline but didn’t engage with characters overcoming it, so everyone feels kind of like they suddenly switch from being in a drama to a romance and it was both jarring and honestly, a little offensive. Trigger warnings are also important for this one, so take care of yourselves if you’re deciding to watch it.

Boys Be Brave. Another KBL in which a man who can’t say no tries to get the person with a crush on him to ask him out, to no avail. This felt like it was trying to be a manic pixie dream boy meets an autistic-coded grump, but they didn’t quite calibrate either of those characters right. The side couple also ended up landing kind of badly in terms of class politics. But it was pretty, and they were cute. I actually had fun with this one despite everything I just said.

Deep Night is a Thai BL in which the son of a club owner is against the host/club business model until he falls for one of his mother’s hosts. He decides to start working there to get closer to him. You might imagine that a setup like that would involve class and power politics, but you would be wrong! That being said, this show has a lot to recommend it: The main couple has great chemistry and the side couple is a canonical throuple, and there is another side couple of older sapphics to enjoy, as well. It is also very prettily shot.

Lastly, Close Friend 3: Soju Bomb is a beautifully shot and cute friendship drama, another Thai/Korean joint series this time about Thai boys in a Korean band who go on a bender in Korea after their contract is canceled. Honestly, my only caveat about this show is that it is absolutely not a BL. There isn’t a romance subplot at all in this show. I spent the entire time it aired so confused waiting for the romance to appear! It does not. If it hadn’t been advertised as Close Friend 3–a series which was previously all BL shorts–I would have enjoyed this for what it was. As it stands, I hold a grudge for being misled. Go in knowing what you’re getting and you’ll be fine.

Finally, let’s get to the shows that you might have missed that I actually recommend. To Be Continued, a Thai second chance romance of a famous person and a doctor who were friends when they were in high school. This one tells a lot of the story in flashbacks that are poorly paced at the beginning, so the start of the show really drags. But the reveal for why they broke up was satisfying. The pacing is the barrier in this one–if you can power through the first few episodes it ends up being a good little show. They have great chemistry, the story holds together, and I had fun.

Gym Affairs is an absolutely bonkers but cute mainland China BL in which a guy gets a personal trainer and sparks fly. This show is a silly comedy that is also surprisingly earnest. It goes by extremely fast and I really enjoyed the ride. That one’s on YouTube.

Blue Boys/Lonely Girl. SUKFilm is a Korean YouTube channel putting out short series. Blue Boys was a little disappointing, the couple had too many issues that they cycled through so fast. The GL though, Lonely Girl, was much more focused with a single main problem between the couple and so it worked much better. And both are really beautifully shot and have some great kisses.

Fake Buddies is another YouTube miniseries. It’s a 7 episode Korean series about a girl and guy who are dating, ostensibly, but really both using the other as a beard because they’re both in a gay relationship. The first few episodes are very funny comedy as the two of them try to make the other realize what’s happening; and then we get prequel episodes for how the gay couple and the lesbian couple both came to be. It’s a fun use of 45 minutes on the guynextdoor YouTube channel if you’re bored.

To the X Who Hated Me is a Korean GL produced by Red Q. It’s a series of microseries, there’s two out so far with 2-3 episodes each. They’re both GL and solid short second chance romances that are very fun.

City of Stars is the last one I’ll be talking about. It’s, in my opinion, the best hidden gem QL from this quarter. A charming celebrity/regular guy romance that tackles shipping, toxic fans, and the unreasonable expectations on people in the spotlight. Acting is a little rough, and it’s not perfect, but it had some really good things to say and it very smartly sandwiches those things among some pretty good sex scenes. The two leads are my communication kings. And there’s some decent trans side rep as well. This show really uses BL as a vehicle for having something to say and I appreciate it. And the story really holds together in a way that’s a little refreshing in Thai BL, too, so I really liked it.

And that’s the dispatch for this quarter! Thanks again for having me.

00:14:25 Spotlight: Tadaima Okaeri

Ben

It's time to talk about my favorite show of the season that no one else watched except for Twig. [NiNi laughs] We're going to talk about an animated BL from Japan called Tadaima, Okaeri. It is the best show of the season and I'm begging you, please, to go watch this show.

Tadaima, Okaeri is a 12 episode BL from Studio Deen that aired on Crunchyroll. Studio Deen is actually fairly important in the BL space. Pretty much all of the BL anime that we're probably going to recommend to you offhand was produced by the studio. In this particular one, they're adapting a manga series about a gay couple in the omegaverse that is trying to raise their kid in the suburbs. Our protagonist's name Fujiyoshi Masaki, that is actually his name, and his husband, Hiromu. Masaki is an omega, his husband is an alpha, and they have a son named Hikari together. He is a little baby and they are living in the burbs away from everybody else because they had a very difficult time getting together.

The show was not so much about the difficulties these two had getting together, it's about them building a life that they love and are happy with after going through what they did. So, like, this is your favorite leads, married and trying to raise their family now and working on healing some of the relationships that were damaged over the course of them getting together. There's a great deal of healing and growth in this. There's healing between Hiromu and his dad, who was not keen on their romance in the first place. There's the fact that these two guys love each other and love being parents. I am very often amused by how much my dad is still obsessed with my mom. And I really liked seeing that in a gay couple here. It was really restorative in a lot of ways, ‘cause we don't ever really see dads in BL.

This show was so healing. This was such a peaceful experience of a show to watch. What I like the most out of fluffy shows like this is for there to be a nice arc about what life we’re building for our family and a strong thematic thrust of, we're not trying to get back at anybody who hurt us. We just want our kid to grow up in a world where he—and eventually their daughter too—are loved by the people around them. Each episode was about a specific sort of challenge that the family was facing, and some of them were really huge. Like, how are we going to reconcile with the kids’ grandfather who wants to be part of his grandson's life? Even if it's something as small as, Hikaru is getting older and he wants to run an errand. Okay, we're going to let him deliver a letter to his grandfather to the mailbox, and getting a two year old to deliver something [laughs] successfully to a mailbox was a production unto itself, because he kept getting distracted.

It was genuinely one of the most delightful and wholesome experiences I have ever had in the genre. I have said for a long time that I've wanted a married gay dads show. I was not expecting it to come from the omegaverse of all places, but this was everything I ever hoped it could be and honestly, so much more. If you can handle omegaverse nonsense, including mpreg and the alpha omega pheromone shit, and rutting behavior. This is one of the best shows I have ever seen.

Shan

Oof. [Ben laughs] You just said so many words that upset me.

Ben

I know. I know!

[all laugh]

NiNi

I was like, “if you can handle” I can handle none of those things. I'm sorry.

Ben

If you're gonna be in genre, you gotta take your shit seriously, and I think that's why it worked. This show was not embarrassed about being an omegaverse show. It's not like [funny voice] we're going to do this in omegaverse because we know the girls will fucking show up for it. It took the conceits of its own genre seriously and incorporated it into the emotional context of their characters.

And so like I totally get it, mpreg is not easy for a lot of people. The rutting behavior stuff, it's not easy for some people. The way that omegaverse is used to perpetuate some of the heteronormative kinds of misogyny that women face is not for everyone, truly and sincerely. When I say that these are caveats to watching this, I am not being funny. These are real things that are being dealt with in this show, but they're not half-assing it. These are not normally things I enjoy. Tell a good story and take your shit seriously and we can show up for it. And that's what happened for me here.

So, I wholeheartedly recommend this show, but I do think it's important to not downplay that this is very legitimately an omegaverse story.

Shan

I appreciate that.

Ben

It's a 10, baby! Perfect execution of its own premise, and genuinely, it's the kinda show that was so fun to watch with other people.

Shan

I have been so intrigued by the conversation around this show and I really regret that it has so many of my hard lines in it [laughs[ because I would like to see it. I don't think I'll be able to, but I have heard nothing but praise and love from the people who've watched it.

Ben

I love the show with my whole heart. I do not recommend it at all. [Ben and NiNi laugh] This show had really strong ideas and it wore its whole heart on its sleeves the whole time. Mm mm mm. What an experience. Great show.

00:20:32 Girl, You Tried

Ben

Let's hand out our favorite award on the show: Girl, You Tried.

NiNi

Our nominees this season for a Girl, You Tried are Unknown the series from Taiwan, Love is Better the Second Time Around from Japan, and Living With Him from Japan. Does anybody wanna do propaganda here?

Ben

Ooh…

Shan

Let's start with reminding folks how we think about Girl, You Tried.

Ben

The Girl, You Tried for me is meant to reflect on a production that missed the mark, but we felt like the core work and the intent was there to actually do something good, and for whatever reason stumbled.

Shan

There's different ways that shows can stumble. There are shows that can be very well told and very confident up to a point, and then a mistake is made that is hard to recover from. There are shows that never quite nailed what they were trying to do, but did clearly have aspirations. There are shows that have a solid idea of at least the beginning and endpoints and something in the middle just got messy. So, those are different categories of ways that shows can go sideways. And all of these different ways came up in this season.

For me, a show like Unknown is not a Girl, You Tried because they actually did succeed at what they were doing for the vast majority of their run. So I wouldn't call that a Girl, You Tried. They made a mistake right at the end—and it was a big mistake—but their level of execution was so good through most of the show that I can't really consider that a Girl, You Tried.

For our two Japanese BLs here, Love is Better was really solid through about the first four episodes, and then it kind of veered off in a very strange direction that I still don't really understand why that happened. Versus Living With Him had a solid start, had a pretty decent end point that it was trying to get towards, and then got kind of messed up along the way trying to stretch out the story.

So for me I think I would want to give the Girl, You Tried to Living With Him out of these three, because I do think they had the bones of a good story. They executed parts of it really well. But in their effort to stretch it out into a longer format than the story really supported, they kind of lost track of some of their threads and got a little confused in the way that they landed at the end. So for me that one makes more sense as a Girl, You Tried because I see what they were trying to do. And I think that they just made some execution errors that got in the way.

Ben

An interesting analysis; one I will be pondering. It feels mean to say that Unknown is a Girl, You Tried because they rushed to their sex scene. It ignores how good the family story was around all of that, but I am also torn now if I'm going to choose between Love is Better and Living With Him because I feel like my angst for Living With Him is it doesn't release the implied sexual tension that really irritated me more than anything else, which Love is Better absolutely did.

Man, this is hard.

Shan

Have we ever had a Girl, You Tried tie?

Ben

We have not.

NiNi

There's usually a fairly clear cut winner once we talk about it, but I think part of the problem is that Love is Better and Living With Him sort of failed in similar ways, so it's hard to choose.

Ben

If I have to choose between the two of them, Love is Better the Second Time Around knew exactly what it was doing and it made very bad choices, and there's a difference between making stupid choices and struggling against something you couldn't do, in my opinion. I will give it to Living With Him because there's so much hang time, it's overly reliant on actor charm to hold itself together, and I do like how well the cast was able to hold this flimsy project together.

I think weaker actors would have made this a more irritating experience than it was, as opposed to just being kind of disappointing. So if I'm backed into a corner and have to choose [Shan laughs], it's going to be Living With Him.

Shan

[laughs] You do. Good job.

NiNi

Oh no, I'm about to throw a spanner in the works because I'm going to go for Love Is Better. [laughs]

Shan

This is very exciting! This is Conversation pod history!

Ben

Go ahead, give us your reasoning.

NiNi

For me, the original premise of Girl, You Tried was always ‘a strong idea that failed in the execution,’ and I feel like the ideas from Love is Better were stronger to me than the ideas in Living With Him, just in terms of, A, what I was interested in seeing and, B, what they wanted to do. I feel like those ideas were stronger in Love is Better. So the failure of the execution part is not the part that I'm looking at in terms of comparing the two, but the strength of the premise part.

Ben

Because both of these shows had really strong gay themes in them that I was really compelled by, I am going to allow them to tie and both get a Girl, You Tried, because I think both these shows were trying to do something really cool. I think by episode 3 and 4 both of these shows, I was like, “This show's got something in it. This is a real contender!” And then it was like, “Oh no, what happened, girl? Come on.” [laughs]

NiNi

So our first ever Girl, You Tried tie! Girls, you both tried.

Ben

Congratulations to Japan for getting your first Girl, You Tried awards.

NiNi

Is it?

Shan

And the double at that! Japan, always overachieving.

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

00:27:02 Celebrating 50 Episodes

NiNi

I think we have exorcized the demon of the summer, so let's wrap this up. We are wrapping our summer lagniappe and wrapping our summer season. See you in dot-dot-dot weeks for our fall season beginning as soon as I can get my shit together and edit.

Shan

NiNi, should we shout out that this is the 50th episode of the podcast?

Ben

Oh shit!

NiNi

[gasp] Oh my God, we didn't even talk about that! Yes, congratulate us, guys. This is episode number 50 for The Conversation!

Ben

Oh my God. [air horn sound]

Shan

There ya go.

Ben

If you are one of our listeners who has listened to us talk for all 50 episodes, please—

Shan

Wow.

Ben

—shout us out on Tumblr. I would love to talk to you and see how you're feeling about what we're doing after all this time.

Shan

You're a trooper if you actually did that.

NiNi

[laughs] Please, please, please. If you love us and you're hearing this, we are 50 episodes old today. Send us a note. Either send us a note on Tumblr if you know how to do that, or send us something in the Spotify down below—whatever…answer the thing thing.

Ben

[laughs] In the doobly-doo.

NiNi

Listen, okay? Auntie's old, okay? She don't remember what things are called.

We out! Say bye to the people, Shan.

Shan

Bye, people!

NiNi

Ben, say bye to the people.

Ben

Peace.

24 notes · View notes

basimdasasonst · 8 months ago

Text

ofmd s2 rant

so, this is my first post, and I have @ketamoru to thank for corralling (gently suggesting) me into making this. we watched season 2 of our flag means death a while back when it first came out, and i wrote this huge long rant (that I just finished editing) about it, intending to post it to twitter or imdb or something. but. due to the sheer nature of the word length, i couldn't. so, here it is.

On OFMD S2: as a viewer, I’m appalled at the season. As a writer, I could feel my soul escaping my mouth with each cringed breath I took, escaping my pores every time I had to hit the spacebar to pause and bury my head in my hands. I’ve read and written bad stories in my past, I've been on both ends of a shitty narrative, but my god.

There's three core tenets to a story: plot, world, and characters. You can lean on one if another is lacking, absolutely, BUT YOU CANNOT SACRIFICE TWO OF THEM AND EXPECT THE OTHER TO BE ALRIGHT. THEY ARE CONNECTED. THEY INFLUENCE EACH OTHER. GOOD CHARACTERS HELP A GOOD PLOT, A GOOD WORLD HELPS A GOOD PLOT. BUT A HALF DECENT WORLD CANNOT HELP SHITTY CHARACTERS AND PLOT!!!!!!!!!!

Let me start with the simplest to talk about: the plot.

In an introductory college level physics course without calculus (bare with me), you occasionally do problems with a pulley. If you account for the mass of the pulley and the string in calculations, the problem simply becomes too complex to deal with for an introductory course. So, you call the string massless, and move on with your life. Every single episode's plot was tied together by this massless string. As in, THERE WAS NO INTERCONNECTIVITY BETWEEN EPISODES.

The three sections of plot development are (as highlighted by Brandon Sanderson, who is not writing-Jesus, but is pretty accomplished in the fantasy genre, which should speak for itself) promise, progress, and payoff. Promises are made at the beginning of a story's plot arc. They hint towards the greater plot and arcs, and promise readers a story filled with [x]. For example, if you're going to write a comedy, your opening scene (the promises) should be comedic. You don't start a comedic novel out with a tear-jerker. This is arguably the only part, in my opinion, that OFMD gets right. The opening episode is, to give credit where credits due, pretty comedic for a comedic season. The tone is set properly.

Here come the problems: Progress. THERE IS NO PROGRESS. Stede and Ed make up WITHIN THE SAME EPISODE THEY MEET AGAIN. And then they break up in episode 7. AND THEN THEY MAKE UP AGAIN IN EPISODE 8. There is no conflict between the pairing. There is no conceivable sense of tension or drama or ANYTHING that builds up to a climax. THERE IS NO CLIMAX. It’s just a bunch of minisodes strung together by a massless string. Villains come and go within the same episode (I'm looking specifically at Ned Low). The only one that comes back is Prince whatever-his-name-is (I'll get to him in a second), and we don't see much of him. He's introduced to us as a bumbling fool in the beginning, we lose him for a long while while Ed frolics around (again, I'll talk about Ed's character too in a second), and then he's suddenly a prince (episode 6, I believe) needing to take revenge. He makes a cursory deal with Zheng, we see him for 5 more minutes, and then he blows everything up in a totally-not-seen-coming betrayal. Boring. No progress, no payoff.

Which leads me into the final part I have to say about the plot: payoff. WITHOUT PROGRESS THERE IS NO PAYOFF. Because of the nature of the season, with things just thrown at you with no cohesive narrative the season felt like a continuous dopamine rush with no need to work for anything in return. (What was the ultimate goal of the season, do you think? Ed's reconciliation? The prince's revenge? Stede's path to being a pirate? Do you think any of them were explored? Think about it, for a second.) The climax of Izzy's death (boy do I have some key words to say about that, but that's not the point of this review, far from it) didn't feel...worth it. In fact, I'm not even sure if that was the climax, or maybe it was Ed leaving (and coming back 30 minutes later … ) or maybe it was the bombing. Who knows? I don't. You can have subplots. You can't just treat them all equally. There has to be a point to a story, and you have to favour that point over mindless adrenaline rushes. There was a point to season 1: Stede's growth as a character as he realises piracy isn't all he thinks it is, and eventually falling in love with Ed. There is no point to this season. Or if there is, it's muddled by the 20 other things happening all at once, always. There is no progress, so there is no payoff.

2. Next, the world.

In this case, the physical scenery, the props, the costumes, the music, etc. I'm not a costumer, nor a musician, nor a lighting director, I’m just a viewer with a basic high school understanding of world history – but nothing ... changed about the world in this season. When you establish a world in the first act of a book, do you just stop establishing it in the second act? No! Of course not! You keep building it, because the world changes too.

Every single new town the ship visited, every time they docked or got off a ship, the scenery looked and felt the same. How many times are they stranded in the exact same kind of underbrush? The exact same biome, with the exact same kinds of plants? Do they ever go further inland? Is there more to the world than just two ships, one established town and then the shoreline? Of course there isn't! Because that means worldbuilding more than what season 1 did, and that's too terrifying to think about!

And the music. Christ, I'm no musician but did the music feel, to anyone else, passive? In season 1, at least the last time I watched it, the music fit the scene. It wasn't just there because there needed to be music. It spoke to the world, it said something about the scenery. This music, by comparison, is so tame. It's not noticeable. The only part I did like was when Izzy died in silence, because that silence let the death settle with the viewers as Ed weeps openly and – oh, here's the mindless royalty-free music again.

3. And finally, the characters.

Jesus Christ where do I even start with this? Let me start from the foundation of storytelling as any amateur writer understands. YOUR CHARACTERS ARE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ASSET IN A STORY. I am physically unable to stress this enough. I DON'T CARE IF YOUR WORLD SUCKS MAJOR SHIT. YOUR CHARACTERS CANNOT SUCK. WE STICK WITH THEM THE ENTIRE WAY THROUGH. IF WE CANT STICK WITH THE CHARACTERS, WE CAN'T STICK WITH THE STORY.

(Note: You can write characters with obviously terrible personalities, and that are meant to be disliked, without them sucking. It's about intentionality. If you write a character, and they’re meant to be likeable, and nobody likes them, that character sucks, and you’ve failed. You’ve also (usually, but not always) failed if your viewers hate your character for a different reason than intended. If you write a character you’re supposed to hate for [x] reason, and people hate them for [x] reason, you’ve succeeded. There is a difference between a bad character, and a character with an intentionally flawed personality that you're not supposed to sympathise with.)

Next question: why is everyone in a romantic relationship? The day people realise that platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones is the day I'm allowed to rest. (I say this beyond just the fact that I'm aroace. I say this as an exhausted reader.) There were not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE relationships that were given significant (well, as significant as it gets with 8 30-minute-episodes) screen time. Except, none of them were developed. Not even Ed and Stede's. What was the point in breaking up Jim and Olu, pray tell? Their conflicting personalities were what made them so interesting – to see two opposing forces find ridges where one slots into the other, where two people so different find solace in the other? Now Jim's just got over Olu in a third of an episode and they're kissing that other person. No, I don't even remember their name, because their personality was just Jim's in a different font. You paired two similar people up with each other. Why? Not sure. (I hesitate to chalk it up to some weird exoticism going on behind the scenes, but.) Now I'm bored. There's no tension in that, no story to tell, no good reason for it happening. And Olu with Zheng. NO BUILDUP. Zheng stares at Olu working on scrolls for a little while. That's it. THAT'S NOT BUILDUP, THAT'S JUST WASTING TIME. Her relationship with Olu is so unbelievably forced. (I could feel the crickets of the writers room permeating through my screen – that one stray writer going “well, if nobody else has any ideas, then idk maybe we could … “) They share nothing in common, her "you're the break in my day," is completely unfounded (I’ll get to this when i talk about her character outside of Olu in a sec), it irritates me to no end.

I don't have anything to say about Swede and Jackie, or Black Pete and Lucius, because nothing fucking happens. Black Pete and Lucius make up, after a little bit of progress I will say, and then it's ... a few episodes of them loving each other unconditionally as if nothing happened. It's boring. I'm bored.

Stede and Ed. Oh boy. Ed is clearly not ready for a romantic relationship in this season, despite whatever work he did last season. (Thrown out the window by this season! Who’s ever heard of setting up future seasons in your earlier seasons? Not the OFMD writers room!) He grapples (barely) with the idea of not being a necessarily good person, and tries (in heavy quotation marks, more on that below) to redeem himself, but ultimately just ends up right where he started: Blackbeard. He ends up reversing all of his progress in terms of his character arc. Right back where he started. Christ. And he's clearly too busy grappling with this to be conceivably ready for a romantic relationship with Stede. But Stede and Ed happen anyway. If handled by someone who wanted to comment on the nature of toxic relationships and wrote this intentionally, this would have been a GOOD PLOT. But it was clearly not intentional, as nothing seemed to flow together, characters spoke like robots, and I could feel the fact that the script was obviously just a shitty first draft. Not to mention the fact that Ed doesn't ACTUALLY do any thinking on what he's supposed to be. That purgatory thing was the best we get – and it was damn good in comparison to the rest of the season where he doesn't really reflect on his actions. He has one conversation, decides he's a changed man, then goes straight back to his previous actions.

And STEDE – man. They DECIMATED his character this season. In the beginning, in the first season, he was the gentleman pirate – two juxtaposing adjectives. WHICH IS CENTRAL TO CREATING A CHARACTER. No real person is one track (even the most stubborn of us), no real person can be effectively summed up in a few words like a bad character creation sheet. The conflicts that we deal with as humans are what make us human. Flaws, in no small part, are part of the human experience. (I could get into this, but if you’ve ever looked at AI art and felt its soullessness staring back at you, then you know. It’s too perfect. Too lifeless. Too flawless.) Every single person deals with layers and layers of complexity. Two completely opposing things can be true at the same time and that is a VERY REAL THING that we must grapple with as humans. There is no such thing as black and white on issues. Stede as a gentleman pirate was this COMPLEX LAYER that made him such an interesting character to begin with because “gentleman” and “pirate” are two very different things with two very different histories and connotations. To see the intersectionality of where these worlds collide and where they conflict was what made him so interesting in the first place.

In this season, he’s just a bumbling fool that calls himself a pirate. His backstory isn’t mentioned. He’s stupid in a cringe-ing way (not even comedic), and is just no longer a gentleman. He’s just a bad pirate. It’s so boring in comparison to the complex characterization we got last season, that every time he spoke I had to physically restrain myself from petulantly clogging my ears and going “lalalalala!” to pretend that he wasn’t really saying half the things he was saying. He’s just a puppet, waving around in the wind, contributing nothing to conversations and existing without complexity. It makes me want to bash my head into a table.

Zheng. Why? What was her purpose? I’m white, I should note, so I’m not entirely qualified to talk on this subject from an experiential perspective, but a great big part of her character felt like something I wrote my end of high-school thesis on: orientalism in science fiction, and specifically the pervasive notion of the “submissive eastern woman”. This isn’t science fiction, but it does employ (subtly, might I add, but still noticeable) tropes that Edward Said wrote about in his work “Orientalism” (1990) -- stuff, specifically in OFMD S2, like being the "other" (in particular, viewing the east as a "backwards west" that requires a "western touch" to correct) in the way that Zheng's ship was clearly portrayed as "abnormal" to us in every way -- the all female crew, the rigidity, the organization, etc. We were told repeatedly, time and time again, that she is powerful. But think about it for a moment, did you ever really feel like she was powerful? When she revealed she was an infamous pirate lord that made people cower, did you feel it? We saw some displays of power – but only deep into getting to know her. We never really felt this power that we were told repeatedly that she had, this fear of being some pirate queen. No, she was just a pirate with money.

(As an aside: the theme of power is notoriously difficult to get right in fiction, because it's so multifaceted. If you want my professional opinion (as some random internet nerd who spends time in a weird mix of fandoms) on who gets it right in modern fiction: I think JJK does it really well. I could go on about JJK for hours, both its rights and wrongs, but it gets the notion of power right if nothing else. For those unfamiliar, the “mentor character”s name is Gojo, who is a sorcerer born with a rare combination of techniques that makes him incredibly powerful – almost completely untouchable. To the viewer, he is silly, aloof, and overall goofy as a character (it’s actually a front, but this is an OFMD essay, not a JJK essay) which allows us to get to know him beyond his power level – but when he’s not acting aloof, when his smile deepends (or worse, when it drops) we can feel the power emanating from him. From impact frames, to the fact he’s constantly unserious, to enemies cowering at the mere mention of his name – his entire thing is that he’s the strongest sorcerer alive. Curses (evil spirits) quite literally can’t do anything while he’s around – so much so, that when he gets sealed in a prison dimension in s2 of the anime, the effects are felt quite literally all over Japan. With one simple action (the sound of the cube sealing him hitting the floor of the train station) an entire nation’s power has turned on its head – every curse, every sorcerer feels it. When his power is gone, there is such a large disparity between the protagonists and the antagonists, you can feel it through your screen.)

Zheng does not have this. She does not have the luxury of being in a story where the writers care about making her a threat. I could extend this to Blackbeard too to a lesser extent, but I won't. OFMD is a comedy. But being a comedy doesn’t mean you can’t tackle heavy topics – you can, and should tackle the heavy stuff in your comedic show. Repeatedly we were told that Zheng is powerful – but nobody treated her like that. Hell, the show didn’t give her the power that it claimed she had. We only ever saw the safe side of her, the kind side of her that (for no reason) liked and cared about Olu. Complex female character? Nah. Random romantic love interest for Olu? Hell yeah.

Fucking Christ. And don’t get me started on the costuming choices. Pigtails? Really? You had no other options? You couldn’t have dipped your fingers into any historical media for reference, like you’ve been keen to do with European references in the show? Alright man.

Finally, Izzy. WHY did they kill him? Probably my least favourite trope in modern media is when a character finally gets some closure towards the end of their arc, starts becoming a truly better character/dragging themselves up out of a deep pit – only for them to die mid arc. COME ON. If you wanted shock value it would've made more sense for ED to die because he’s, at least, stuck in his old ways. That could’ve been interesting, seeing him stick to his old ways to his detriment. Not to toot my own horn, but in the story I’m writing (shoot me if I mention it again) one of the primary main character’s whole theme is centred around desperation, and his eventual death as a direct result of it. His death is not just for "shock value" it serves a purpose. It's to further the commentary I'm trying to speak on about how far we’ll go to live in an idea rather than the present. I really, truly, honestly think that if they did that with Ed the story could’ve been so much better; and I say this having experienced the difficulties with writing out a central character. But again, this season lacks intentionality. Ed doesn’t die, and instead Izzy does after being the only character with any sort of redeeming qualities this season. I get, to some degree, it’s supposed to be a metaphor for Ed leaving behind his past but, does he really even do that? He’s Blackbeard when we end season 2. Izzy’s death didn’t mean anything to me beyond just wishing the season ended quicker, because (as we witness with Ed’s rebounding) concrete decisions made by characters can be reversed in the flip of a second thanks to Plot™! There is no permanence to the story’s cohesion, and Izzy’s death just doesn't stick. “Okay,” you say, exhausted. Nothing feels real. Nothing is internally or externally consistent. It's just a mess of ideas poorly strung together, and that's being nice about it.

I wont say much about craft because this is getting long winded but. Fuck me, dude. Why does every dialogue happen in a vacuum? NOBODY IS EVER DOING ANYTHING INTERESTING. a lot of scenes felt like filler -- there only to extend the series' runtime. I’m tired, man. It’s sloppy writing. I'd almost give it a better rating if Season 1 wasn't so much better by comparison. Instead of just being a bad season, it now also ruins what the show built up in the first season. I'm beyond disappointed.

TL;DR: please for the love of god start loving the stories you're writing. the future generations deserve more than money-laundering garbage edit: whoops got her name wrong halfway through its zheng not zhen my b lol

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #analysis #media analysis #blackbonnet #stede bonnet #ed teach #edward teach #pay your writers #i blame disney+ for the commodification of our media #pay your artists #and stop paying your billionaires #fuck this season #more disappointing than kfp4

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drconstellation · 1 year ago

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The Great War of Tadfield Manor

Future Echoes of the Past #1

One of the books on the shelf that Jimbriel is organizing is Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. I have to admit it’s been a while since I read it, (er, several decades, if I’m truthful about it) but my enduring memory is it seemed like the author wrote it in a linear fashion, then took all the chapters and threw them up in the air and put them back together at random, because it bounces back and forth in time in a confusing kind of way. There is a method to this madness, however, and the structure is deliberate. It’s also dealing with bureaucratic absurdity, but that’s not what I’m trying to explore in this particular meta. It’s the bouncing back and forth in time bit.

Now we have two series of GO to feast on, we seem to be slowly piecing together the expanded history of the GO universe in an inferred kind of way. It’s rarely given to us directly in a chunk, it’s mostly by a comment here and there and then we try to join the dots.

So we’ve learnt that there was a great deal of time that existed for Heaven before time on Earth got started, in 4004 BC, maybe an ineffably long period of time, maybe millions of years, maybe not. Sometime prior to 4004 BC, however, there was a rebellion in Heaven between at least two factions of the angels. This event is sometimes called the Great War - which is what Aziraphale is referring to in S2E6 when he is removing his halo for demon-detonating purposes; he’s not referring to what us humans would call World War 1 in the early 20th century. The result of the Great War led to the formation of Hell. The angel known as Lucifer was the leader of the losing side, and he was known as Satan afterwords. A third of the heavenly host of angels were sent with him down to Hell, and this event is called the Fall. They became fallen angels, or demons. At some point, there is supposed to be a second War, one that will decide who is the winner once and for all time. Well, that’s supposed to be the Plan - God’s Ineffable Great Plan, right? And we all know how the first attempt for that to get started ended up, don’t we?

As we start to look more closely into parallel stories and scenes between the two series, some curious pairs of parallels are starting to emerge. And even more interesting is that some of these pairs indicate that they will get a third presentation - I’m not just talking about the 1941 Blitz scene here, there are others! And I’m going to try and talk about one of them here, that I think has largely slipped under the radar up until just recently.

There was a meta by @newfangledfancy here about the two parallel scenes in S1 and S2 involving miraculous escapes from being shot with a loaded gun, and we should expect a third one in S3. It’s worth pausing and heading over to read it at this point, but if you don’t, I’ll try to fill you in - and I will revisit in the future, as while it contained the seeds of inspiration for this meta, it also reveals something interesting about Crowley's backstory that's worth discussing on its own. You probably know what and where the S2 “miraculous escape” is referring to: the Bullet Catch scene during the 1941 Blitz minisode in S2E4. But where is the one in S1? It’s at Tadfield Manor, in S1E2, after Crowley has turned all the paintball guns into real guns, and Norman, on the yellow team, cracks it, does a big rant about his life and charges into the firing line of the opposing red team, only to be shot straight in the heart.

Let’s rewind this a little bit, because I want to talk about when Crowley and Aziraphale first arrive at Tadfield Manor. All seems calm and quiet. They stroll in side by side – and are each shot by a paintball. Yep, this has been watched over and over, comments made about the colours of the paint, how they represent their various “sides”, and the sexual innuendo in way Crowley miracles it away after Aziraphale makes heart-eyes at him. But you’ve all missed once very important clue about what was about to go down in the next few minutes that was right in front of you all along.

Maybe I should pause this meta just here and refer back to my big colour meta I posted recently. I specifically went to all that work so I could come here and discuss the following event at Tadfield Manor.

Firstly, the paintball colours. There are three: blue, yellow and red.

There is a discrepancy between the colour that book!Crowley and screen!Crowley gets hit by. In the book its yellow, but in the tv series its red. Just at this point I’m going to emphasize that yellow is not the same as gold; gold is one of the colours of Heaven, but yellow is usually associated with fear.

Secondly, Aziraphale is hit with blue paint. That’s consistent with both book and tv. Then Crowley blows the blue taint of Heaven away, because Aziraphale needs help to escape its abusive clutches, its not something he can do on his own. Ah, a cute demonstrative metaphor there, another layer to that little scene.

BUT YOU DON’T SEE A BLUE COLOURED TEAM IN THE FOLLOWING BATTLE! Where is the blue team, that supposedly represents Heaven in the following battle? Did they just vanish when Crowley snapped his demon-miracle into place? I dunno, but we just see a yellow and a red coded team for the rest of the battle. But if blue is always Heaven-coded, yellow is fear, and red, while often demon-associated should be seen more as an indication of passion…what it really going on? Who is at war with who? It can’t be Heaven against Hell, because Heaven is not present, per se, as you know it, and neither is Hell, which is usually green. Oh no, it’s not that black and white…because we are watching a battle where Hell doesn’t yet exist, there is only Heaven at this point. One side, one faction, in fear, the other fighting with passion, and the division that actually creates the ‘blue’ side is yet to occur…

We’re watching a re-enactment of the Great War.

Let’s take another step back, to here: S1E2, around 15.46 minutes in. Newton Pulsifer is about to start a new job (wait, what? What the Hell is Newt doing mixed up in this? To honest, I'm not quite sure...*looks at a certain at note she made IN ALLCAPS again*...oh ffs- that is the worst joke, its got to be one of Terry's...now I can't stop cackling...oh, god now I've spotted another awful, awful joke...poor Newt, I love you more every second...)

*ahem* Back to the impending battle. Because it's here in the office of UNITED WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS (HOLDINGS) - an office *wink wink* of management and bureaucracy, that we establish the tension. As Newt slides into his seat, Nigel the manager arrives to ask who is exited about the upcoming "training initiative." Turns out, not really anyone has much enthusiasm for it.

Janice is going to complain to HR. Nigel points out there is no "I" in team, and Norman, who apparently organized the whole thing, proceeds to pick the three 'eyes' out of the "team building exercise."

This is going well, isn't it? [Newt departs. His role here is done.]

Lets skip to Tadfield Manor and the "training initiative" is underway. The Red team, lead by Nigel the Manager, seem to have the upper hand. The Yellow team see to be pleased at a chance to let off some steam with anyone who has annoyed them, the bitches.

Then God drops in to make an interesting observation.

Firms these days expected more than that. They wanted to establish leadership potential, group cooperation, and initiative, which allowed their employees to fire paintballs at any colleagues who irritated them.

Oh. Right. Lets deliberately cause a little chaos so we can see who's got leadership potential, who works together, and who actually has some brains? Go God! Lets start a little War and we'll pick the new Archangels out of the winners? Nice one. Plus, we get rid of all the troublemakers in the process, and we'll just be left with those who like to follow management's orders...

Then Crowley ups the ante. As the young woman who was the only keen employee to come, and is on the Red team, no less, runs past and asks "Who's winning?" he snaps his fingers and to change all the paintball guns to real guns.

Cr: You're all going to lose. Az: What - what the Hell did you just do? Cr: Oh, they wanted real guns, so I gave them what they wanted.

You're all going to lose.

Aziraphale does his best to protest at the demon's bit of wicked mischief.

Az: But there are people out there shooting at each other! Cr: Well - Lends weight to their moral argument. Everyone has free will, including the right to murder. Just think of it as a microcosm of the universe.

A microcosm of the universe?

Who's universe, Crowley? Yours? The humans? It's a big universe out there...

Things don't seem to be going to well for some, and Norman, on the Yellow team, has finally reached his breaking point. He makes a declaration. I'm only going to quote the last bit of his little speech, as I want to deal with the first bit in another meta. As he takes off his tie, and wraps it around his head, he says:

"They want war, we're going to give 'em war! OK guys, let's go get the bastards!"

Hmmm. Do the visuals remind you of anything?...

He turns around to charge out - and is promptly shot in the heart. While it's Nigel the manager he is facing when it happens, it's actually the young woman from the Red Team who ran past Crowley and Aziraphale inside the Manor, who asked who was winning, that fired the shot. The implications of this? I'm going to save that for another meta.

The sequence moves on to the infamous wall-slam encounter, which I don't think we need to go over here, so lets skip to where Crowley and Aziraphale have finished questioning the past-Sister Mary Loquacious and have decided they've found all they are going to find here its time to leave. The police have arrived and have broken up the fight. The fun and games are over. As they walk, floating unnoticed and serene, through the chaos, Aziraphale starts to ponder.

Az: You'd think he'd show up, wouldn't you? You'd think we could detect him in some way. Cr: He wont show up, not to us. Protective camouflage. He wont even know that his powers will keep him hidden from prying occult forces. Az: Occult forces? Cr: You and me. Az: I'm not occult. Angels aren't occult, we're ethereal.

Crowley refers to the two of them as one kind of entity, but Aziraphale insists there is a difference - they aren't the same. Not any more.

The War is over, and the division between Heaven and Hell has been created.

[Edit: I've since finished a meta on the Bentley and it's connection to crossing the thresholds between worlds. I mention this scene in it, as it is actually a beautiful example of two different times and places existing at once, overlaid on one another, as indicated by the smoke - that's a sign we are in a subliminal space. Its why Aziraphale and Crowley seem to just glide through untouched and noticed, as they aren't really there, in a way.]

Will we see another echo of the Great War in S3? Possibly.

It's the 3-card Monte. Its the three cowrie shells and a lone caraway seed. It's the Professor's Nightmare, where you don't know how long a piece of string rope is.

It's a f*cking Mobius strip that has no beginning and no end, infinitely going around and around.

It's God's game. Only She knows where it stops.

Further reading in this series:

#2: The Newton/Crowley Mirror-Parallel in S1

#3: "Not Even At Gunpoint!"

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #good omens analysis #tadfield manor #the great war #paintball scene #miraculous escapes #he did the thing with halo #lucifer and the guys #newton pulsifer #combating the forces of darkness #mobius strip #future echoes of the past

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tallerthantale · 11 months ago

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What Does Aziraphale Actually Believe, Part 5: Temptation

This is a series of my takes on what Aziraphale believes through the timeline of the show. It is all my personal interpretation, and I am happy to hear others. You don’t need to read them all in order, but know that I am coming from a perspective on Aziraphale’s machinations that can be difficult for people without a psychology background to follow without the first two posts as a primer. The quick version is that Aziraphale has a set of beliefs that exist in some form or another within his mind. However, at any given moment, only some of them exist ‘with awareness’ or as I am putting it here, conscious!Aziraphale only has access to the beliefs that the rest of his mind, veil!Aziraphale, allows him to know about. The context of the moment will determine what lives on the surface and what stays buried behind the veil, whatever arrangement best prevents a threat to Aziraphale’s sense of self and makes whatever he is inclined to do feel right.

In this part I will be starting with the ox rib we skipped over last time, then moving forward through the cold open flashbacks between Job and Edinburgh. Edinburgh itself will be the start of the next post. The focus is on temptation, Crowley tempting Aziraphale, Aziraphale learning to do Crowley’s temptations, then Aziraphale learning to tempt Crowley himself. 3.7k words. I just keep getting carried away don’t I… All hope was lost when I started doing end notes.

Temptations are Crowley’s department, all the way back to the apple. He was perhaps the original tempter. I have commented before that his description of himself as only ever having asked questions could be a description of him essentially tempting the other future demons to try to unionise heaven. He likes crafting a persuasive argument, and he makes them based on a model of what he knows other people believe, rather than his own beliefs. While Aziraphale shifts what he believes he believes, Crowley shifts the belief he is arguing, his actual beliefs stable but obscured.

Are You Trying to Tempt Me?

“Not at all, angels can’t be tempted, can they?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, then you’re free to try the food.”

This is, once again, a fallen angel, an entity who was an angel, ‘did the wrong thing’ and now isn’t an angel anymore because of it, telling a current angel that it is impossible for an angel to do the wrong thing. Once again, Aziraphale endorses the face value assertion. Aziraphale may be starting at times to adopt a view where Crowley’s fall didn’t happen because he did the wrong thing, but because God has an ineffable plan for Crowley.

That said, it is still funny to me that Crowley makes this argument, given that he at least considers the fall to have been intended as a punishment for doing the wrong thing. He knows the argument will work on Aziraphale anyway, because Aziraphale likes to assure himself with absolutism. Crowley knows that by claiming Aziraphale is inherently incapable of being tempted he’s framing things in a way that mindfucks Aziraphale. He is offering Aziraphale options for how to rationalise his actions. He also makes a point of presenting the platter, and holding it and himself still, such that every action Aziraphale takes is within his own control.

Aziraphale tries the food because he wants to. He would not have realised that he wanted to if Crowley hadn’t put it in front of him. He might not have gone for it if Crowley hadn’t verbally handed him the rationalisation. Individual definitions of temptation may vary, but I’m pretty sure this qualifies under most of them. Or rather, the degree to which it qualifies depends on the value judgement we put on eating the ox. We wouldn’t generally say a dehydrated person was tempted to drink water.

Does Aziraphale think that he was tempted after the fact? For the rest of the Job minisode he’s got bigger things to worry about, and we don’t see him again until 2533 years later. However, flashing forward to their interaction in Rome, my take would be that he does come to believe Crowley tempted him with the ox rib, but he feels positively about that.

Aziraphale has a peculiar trust in Crowley, where he never rules out that any particular thing Crowley says is a lie, either directly or through misleading, but has utterly unshakable faith that Crowley will not substantively abuse their bond. He is not worried for a second that Crowley will blackmail him or harm him. I think that version of complex trust extends to believing that Crowley can and will tempt him, including in manipulative ways, but it will only ever land him somewhere he will in retrospect be happy to have gone. Aziraphale can believe Crowley manipulatively tempted him to pick up earthly pleasures, and also believe at the same time that Crowley did him a favour by tempting him, as an act of service.

Aziraphale tends to sort things as morally bad when they feel wrong, and morally good when they feel right. Before trying the food, his desire to eat felt wrong, and he was at war with himself about it. He was being nudged towards something that felt wrong, he feels he might be being tempted, he feels conflicted, he is not at peace with himself. Once Crowley nudged him over the line, and he tried it, it felt right. His inner conflict was cured by the nudge, and now eating food feels right, and the temptation wasn’t like… a TEMPTATION temptation. Just a little tempting, as a treat.

While I think Crowley hesitates to tempt frequently, largely out of fear Aziraphale will decide it was the bad kind of temptation, Crowley is actually very protected from that outcome. In the event that Aziraphale doesn’t enjoy the thing, he won’t pick it up as a habit, and the TEMPTATION will have failed. Any temptation that works is the good kind, so Aziraphale won’t take up a vice and then feel negatively about Crowley for the fact that he has the vice. Even so, the pattern puts a lot of heavy lifting and responsibility on Crowley, and I can see why Crowley wouldn’t push those lines often.

Not Quite Allies

We next see the duo at the Crucifixion, where Aziraphale laments that he is not consulted on policy decisions. It is a tacit admission that he would not have made the same call if he had been in charge. He doesn't have any authority over what heaven decides to do. Does he think God made the decision? Does he think God was playing games with the angels to see what they would go along with? I don't know, and I'm not sure Aziraphale knows what he thinks either. At this point I think he tries to not have opinions as often as he can, but isn’t always successful. He wants heaven to be different, but he doesn’t have a plan. Does he want to be consulted on policy decisions? Not if it won’t make a difference. If he is too outnumbered for expressing dissent to matter, that is a workplace politics nightmare, and he might have to fake a position to avoid retaliation. Best to avoid that. But what if it is a case of pluralistic ignorance? See end note.

Crowley had a temptation mission and didn’t like how it went.

“Still a demon then?”

“What kind of stupid question is that? Still a demon? What else am I going to be, an Aardvark?”

“...Saluteria.”

Crowley’s bitter sarcasm, while partly from his already sour mood, still makes me think he doesn’t believe it is physically possible for him to stop being a demon. I don’t think Aziraphale has any material knowledge Crowley doesn’t. Aziraphale has no reason to have the hypothetical possibility in his mind that Crowley could stop being a demon. Sure it was just a fumbling awkward thing to say, but it had to be in some part of his mind first to come out of his mouth. As I have said before, when Aziraphale believes something inexplicably, it’s because he isn’t emotionally prepared to live in a universe where it isn’t true. Aziraphale isn’t emotionally prepared to live in a universe where Crowley will forever be a demon. That said, he’s going to have some fun with the fact that Crowley is a demon for now.

“I thought I’d try Petronius’s new restaurant. I hear he does remarkable things to oysters.”

“I’ve never eaten an oyster.”

“Oh! Oh, well, let me tempt you to… Oh, no, that, that’s your job, isn’t it?”

Gulp

Aziraphale tells Crowley it's his job to tempt him. It's a bit facetious, sure. But it's still in the context of genuinely encouraging him to go to an explicitly homoerotic fiction writer's aphrodisiac restaurant, so.... I have a long post about why Aziraphale wants Crowley to tempt him more, dubbed the spicy meta if you haven't read it yet. Long story short, it's a responsibility dodge for having desires in the first place. If Crowley tempts him, he can imagine himself to be accommodating Crowley’s desires rather than having his own. I would also speculate that given the popularity of the Roman baths Aziraphale has already figured out how to make the effort, at least as far as appearances go. At this point, is Aziraphale DTF on the grounds that it's just sushi with friction? I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I do think he is taking a baby step on a road that he knows is headed in that direction. See end note.

I don't think he thinks God would object, but I do think he imagines that returning Crowley to being an angel is a milestone on that road. He has seen the truth of Crowley's loneliness as a demon who can only go along with hell so far, and I think Aziraphale is already aiming for eventually creating a reformed heaven that wouldn't have cast Crowley out and could take him back. If he didn’t deserve to fall for Uz, why should Crowley be a demon for asking questions? Aziraphale treats Crowley’s demonic status as a temporary state. When he assigns qualities or features or allegiances to Crowley due to Crowley being a demon, Aziraphale doesn’t see that as an essentialization, because to him ‘demon’ is a transitory state of being, not an identity. That isn’t how Crowley sees it, and Aziraphale is frustratingly oblivious to that fact.

Several hundred years later they are both stationed in Great Britain. Aziraphale refuses the first offer of the arrangement. Aziraphale likes doing good deeds. He gets carried away doing miracles for people. Doing good things makes him feel good, and he likes it when what he is supposed to be doing and that he enjoys doing gets to be the same thing. His only inkling towards accepting Crowley's proposal was a creature comfort one, "It is a bit damp." Notably, the offer was not one to cover or trade responsibilities, but to mutually stand down. The next time we see the arrangement offered, it's a bit different.

All the World’s a Stage

When Crowley and Aziraphale are facing the same direction, Season one goes extremely hard on always placing Aziraphale to Crowley's right, and Crowley to Aziraphale's left, all the way through the season building up to the body swap reveal. Except at the Globe. Here they switch back and forth, to show they are now comfortable changing roles.

At the Globe Aziraphale protests, before it is revealed that he has already done Crowley's temptations dozens of times. The number one flashback I want to see in Season 3 is the first time Aziraphale performed one of Crowley's temptation assignments from hell, and why he agreed to do it. My guess is that it was mostly the potential for Crowley to be doing blessings that sells him on it. Probably relating to Crowley's fondness for doing nice things for people, but also probably part of Aziraphale's hopes to get an angelic Crowley back. I would imagine that proving a demon can be saved and become an angel again would in his mind be a far greater good than the harm done by him personally performing the occasional minor temptation that was going to happen anyway.

It is also clearly observable that when Aziraphale loses the coin toss, is now responsible for doing Crowley’s temptation, and won’t be getting Crowley to do a blessing, he isn’t bothered by it. At some point off screen he has gained the ability to tempt people himself without it ‘feeling bad.’ He has also gained the making puppy eyes at Crowley ability. He can get Crowley to do things without asking out loud, and therefore without having to acknowledge that he was asking for something.

Aziraphale now has a card he can play to not take moral responsibility for temptation behaviour. As long as he is tempting someone, or baiting them into something, he didn’t actually do the thing himself, he didn't ask anyone to do that... We can observe that he is personally doing a job assigned from hell, and judge Aziraphale for not considering that to be getting his hands dirty. I certainly do. But Aziraphale is clinging to that distinction. He tempted humans, they still did it themselves. He only presented Crowley the opportunity to do a good deed, Crowley made the play a hit. The last step in the causal chain is what counts. Except when it doesn’t.

His initial objections to the arrangement are all for show. It’s the theme of the flashback, all the world’s a stage and Aziraphale and Crowley are playing their parts when they do their jobs, and can play each other’s parts just as well. But who is Aziraphale’s show of protest for? There is plenty of room for interpretation on this point, but it seems to me that any observation from heaven or hell of their shenanigans would get them both executed no matter how many times Aziraphale faux protested about it first.

If Aziraphale’s sanity hinges on believing God is ok with what he has gotten up to, so he can assume he believes God already knows and doesn’t care, and the institution of heaven would condemn him either way, why the show? He doesn’t put up a show with the snacks. He’s just an angel that likes snacks. That works for him. Why can’t he just be an angel who’s friends with a demon? Because he isn’t at peace with it yet. His conflicted feelings about Crowley and about their allegiances are making a mess in the back of his mind, and the performance he is putting on is for himself.

Aziraphale’s initial protest lets him believe that Crowley made him do it. But isn’t he also, at the same time, learning to tempt others and not take responsibility for what they do? Yes. So does he believe the tempter is responsible, or does he believe the tempted is responsible? He CAN believe either. They are options he has, when his mind constructs his conscious experience. Whatever lets him do what intuitively feels right at the time without damaging his sense of self gets loaded into his awareness.

The Bastille

Princess Peach is looked up in the Bastille. Aziraphale cannot bring himself to simply take Crowley out to lunch. That wouldn't be a very angelic thing to do, taking a demon out for a lunch date. But alas, his encouragement of the temptation demon to tempt him more hasn't gone in the direction he had hoped, and so yet again, he must personally do the tempting himself. How can he, an angel of the lord, tempt a temptation demon into a lunch date without it being a lunch date? Well, if circumstances arose such that he happened to owe the demon a favour, the angelic thing to do would be to treat him to lunch of course. It wouldn't be a date per se, it would be courtesy. Maybe he can keep finding creative ways to owe the demon favours.

Once again we can ask, how much of this nonsense is keeping up appearances for heaven? I think it is basically zero. Aziraphale believes God already knows everything he and Crowley have done, and they have done it with God’s indifference if not blessing. Aziraphale will go to some effort maintaining appearances around the archangels, they wouldn’t like him fraternising. But I still don’t think the Bastille nonsense was an act for them. In my opinion he knows heaven’s management doesn't care if Aziraphale is out to lunch with Crowley because it's a date or if it's repayment for the Bastille rescue, it’s treason either way. There is a case to be made that Aziraphale is only ever worried heaven will give him a slap on the wrist for his nonsense, but in that interpretation I still think the distinction between lunch date and lunch repayment remains a distinction Aziraphale would know the archangels don’t care about.

So if Aziraphale isn’t putting the charade on for God, because God already knows, and he isn’t putting it on for heaven’s leadership, because the difference doesn’t mean anything to them, why is he doing it at all? Because needing the repayment excuse to take Crowley out for crepes isn't about maintaining an outward facing concept of appearances, but an internal one.

Aziraphale has an internal sense of what he prefers, and what feels right. His feelings towards Crowley create a conflict between his sense of what he prefers and what feels right. He prefers to buy Crowley crepes. Inviting a demon out to lunch for a date doesn't feel right. Repaying a favour feels right, problem solved. Of course what would really feel right would be for Crowley to be doing the pursuing and tempting. Then he would just be accommodating the demon’s desires, not having desires of his own. Crowley isn’t taking on the tempting / romancing role without some very aggressive subtext paving the way, but by learning how to do Crowley's temptation assignments, Aziraphale has also learned how to tempt Crowley.

Aziraphale can believe he is acting in accordance with God's ineffable will as long as what he prefers to do can also feel right, and he can get very creative about what feels right. It probably felt very righteous to swap clothes with the executioner. It wouldn't have felt righteous to personally kill the man with his own hands, but Aziraphale didn't do that, so in his mind he isn't responsible for the death.

There is a poetic justice argument to be made in favour of killing the executioner, and Crowley does make it. But that isn't how Aziraphale understands it. We see in the modern era that Aziraphale claims to have never killed anything before. Unless he personally does the killing directly, it doesn't count. He doesn't consider himself responsible for the death of the fish in his sushi either, contributing to the market demand for animal products is even more abstracted than changing the executioner's clothes.

Part 5/10

End Notes

On policy decisions: There is a Game Theory issue, where if one person can’t make a difference, and you risk destruction for speaking out, the right choice is not to speak out. Unless secretly a lot of people are all making the same calculation. Say you have a group of people, and there is a vote between green and purple. If purple wins, everyone gets 20$ and the organisers are fired. If green wins, everyone who voted purple is shot. The organisers say they will fine anyone who promotes voting purple. Everyone says they will vote green. Is it in your interest to vote purple? Only if you know you will win. Everyone says they will vote green, so you can’t ever have confidence that purple will win, even though purple winning is clearly the better outcome. This sort of trap hinders a lot of attempts to form unions IRL, even when a strong majority do want to form one.

If Aziraphale wants to coup heaven, he’ll need to know he has enough angels siding with him to win. He isn’t in a position to pull off so much as a sneaky headcount while stationed on earth, and given how isolated heaven keeps angels I’m not sure he’d make any progress stationed in heaven. I think there are differences he’d like to make in how heaven runs, but it isn’t clear if arguing the point would make progress or get him a one way ticket to a scrivener’s closet with a wiped brain. If everyone in heaven really is on team whack the kids, it makes sense for Aziraphale to just keep his head down. But what if like 95% of the angels actually agree with Aziraphale, and are also just keeping their heads down, because everyone is individually incorrectly assuming the majority are on team whack the kids, because everyone is coerced into saying that they are on team whack the kids? Then we might see his unwillingness to force the issue in a different light. The second version feels very Terry Pratchett to me.

On sushi with friction: I personally don’t think Aziraphale would have a romantic or sexual relationship with a human. I think he would consider it out of line with his responsibilities as a guardian / caretaker of humanity. I think at this point, that is the only reason he wouldn’t. Aziraphale parallels a lot of IRL behaviour of people with shame around their sexuality or sex drive, and it’s worth observing and commenting on, or feeling represented by for those who do. However I think his hang-ups with Crowley, wanting Crowley to tempt him, approach avoidance about it ect… are more about Crowley being on 'opposite sides' than about Aziraphale having shame responses around sex. That is just my perspective though, as with everything else here. Differing opinions are encouraged, I’m happy to hear what other people think.

On killing the Executioner: Theoretically modern Aziraphale could have not loaded the memory of the incident with the executioner into his awareness. We see when they go to the Ritz in S1E1 that Aziraphale’s memory of the time period has gaps, and he mostly remembers the crepes date. That said, we know from Neil’s recorded commentary on S1E3 that at least as far as Neil sees it, Aziraphale doesn’t take responsibility for the executioner’s death because that's just how he processes events at the time.

#good omens #good omens meta #go meta #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable spouses #what does aziraphale actually believe

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forjongseong · 9 months ago

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aduh tanteee, the smut scenes you write are literally top tier like TEACH ME HELLO?? all your works in general nana i love it. its so good, and i enjoyed reading everything 🥹 yk i haven’t seen many jay smuts lately, or i might actually be blind but i’m fixed on always coming back to your blog if i wanted to read some of my all time favourites of jay fics that you’ve written 🤞🏼 AND I LOVE THEM ALL and DONT APOLOGISE FOR TAKING TOO LONG, you worked so hard!! i know you did :(

i practically have all the eps, minisodes etc even my favourite lines from each one are ALL written in my notes like thats how much of a big fan i am of the series HAHSHAH anyway, i’m glad you’re doing good! i’m happy to see you’re doing good sjsjsj, and yes yes i am still in brisbane, as always 😞😞🤞🏼 i’ve been thinking of moving to melbourne soon but.. i’m broke.. how FUN

girl BUY. IT. i’m a tad bit embarrassed to say this but i bought a ‘device’ quite like the one you wrote about and… its otw.. I CANT GO BACK i don’t know what made me buy it (jay made me buy it) but i just pressed ‘buy now’ and went on with my day, LORDD. jay was always your mans from the start BABE i’m starting to bias him a lot now like.. i get quite insane. not kidding

SUNGAI CILIWUNG HELPPP 😭 why did that make me cackle STOP i’ve seen the photos of jakewon that day i was jealoussss 😭😭✋🏼 like i should’ve been there fr </3

i’ll always be supporting you nana ! day and night bae, i’m proud of you mwa mwa 🫶🏼🫶🏼 me and jay love you remember that 😋

tw jumpSCARE

took me literal months to answer this just because I wanted to gatekeep it... trust me it's not that I wanted to ignore this ask I was just afraid if I answer it it will get buried?? and it's easier to find it in my inbox huhu

you're a real one! sec!jay supporter since day 1 too and thank you so much for sticking around for so so long!!!

how's Brisbane lately? it should be autumn by now... right?? I miss that city and I'll sell a kidney just to be able to visit there

TREAT YOURSELF i hope you're using that device well and not leaving it go to waste... although don't use it now since it's Ramadan lol

thank you for the Jay pics, always appreciated 💖💕

#nanaanswers #from.val #brisbane bestie val

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all-seeing-ifer · 1 year ago

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Audio Drama Recs for Buffyverse Fans

Hey there, dear listeners! Are you a Buffy fan who’s been listening to Slayers and it’s got you interested in learning more about this whole audio drama malarkey? Are you a Buffy fan who’s not been listening to Slayers but are always interested in recommendations for new media to check out? Are you maybe even a Buffy fan who’s already listened to some audio dramas but want some ideas for others to check out? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then this is the list for you!

The world of audio drama is a weird and wonderful place where niche independent art can flourish. If you look close enough, there’s something there for everyone! It’s my hope that the release of Slayers can help bring this wonderful medium to more people’s attention, so I’ve compiled a list of a bunch of different audio dramas that I think will appeal to Buffy fans, whether that’s because they have a similar genre, similar tone, similar characters, or something else entirely.

No matter what it is you like about Buffy, I can almost guarantee there’s an audio drama out there where you can also find those same qualities. And the best part? All of the following audio dramas are absolutely free. An important part of the culture that’s emerged around indie audio dramas is that these shows are pretty much always free to listen to - funded instead by ads and patreon support. So you can just hop on to spotify, apple podcasts, pocket casts, or your other platform of choice, and get some beautiful narratives written by (and I do sincerely believe this) some of the most talented and visionary creative voices of the past couple decades beamed directly into your ears for the low low price of nothing at all. You literally have nothing to lose except time!

So without further ado, on to the recommendations:

Wolf 359

Listen if you like: Episodic/monster-of-the-week storytelling with an overarching plot, a tone that mixes comedy and drama, pastiches of popular genres (with heart), anti-authoritarian themes, stories about bands of deeply flawed misfits with interpersonal issues

Plot summary: Life's not easy for Doug Eiffel, the communications officer for the U.S.S. Hephaestus Research Station, currently on Day 448 of its orbit around red dwarf star Wolf 359. The Hephaestus is an odd place, and life in extremely isolated, zero gravity conditions has a way of doing funny things to people's minds. Even the simplest of tasks can turn into a gargantuan struggle, and the most ordinary-seeming things have a way of turning into anything but that.

Status: Finished

Episode count: 61 + minisodes and specials

Average episode length: 20-40 minutes

Why you should listen: I’m gonna say something that may be mildly controversial and say that Wolf 359 comes closer to capturing the Buffyverse’s tone and spirit than just about any other piece of media. A child of that mostly unfortunate period of time when every nerd creator on the planet wanted to imitate Joss Whedon’s style and it really does show (not least in the multiple direct references to Buffy the show makes). But while basically every other product of this writing style (including Whedon’s own later work) fell flat on its face into insincerity, Wolf, in a truly cosmically unlikely moment of lightning actually striking twice, just fucking nails it. It’s at once an ironic pastiche of science fiction serials from the golden age of radio while also being a serious and dramatic science fiction serial in its own right, and strikes the perfect balance between the two. While it starts out as more of a workplace comedy set in space, as the show goes on and the characters learn more about the company that sent them on their mission, the tone becomes increasingly serious and dramatic, without ever feeling like too much tonal whiplash. When it’s funny, it’s really funny, and when it’s serious and emotional, it hits depths of devastation few other shows can. While it may be science fiction and not fantasy, it shares the Buffyverse’s anti-authoritarian themes, as well as those shows’ large casts of flawed characters whose problems come just as much from interpersonal drama as from the speculative fiction elements of the story. If you ask me, it’s one of the greatest stories the 2010s ever gave us. But don’t just take my word for it, go check it out for yourself! Go meet Doug Eiffel, Renee Minkowski, Dr Alexander Hilbert, Hera, and a bunch more characters I can’t talk about without getting into spoilers. You can thank me later.

Ars Paradoxica

Listen if you like: A tone that mixes comedy and drama, anti-authoritarian themes, female-led shows, stories about bands of deeply flawed misfits with interpersonal issues

Plot summary: When an experiment in a time much like our own goes horribly awry, Dr. Sally Grissom finds herself stranded in the past and entrenched in the activities of a clandestine branch of the US government. Grissom and her team quickly learn that there's no safety net when toying with the fundamental logic of the universe.

Status: Finished

Episode count: 36 + specials

Average episode length: 20-40 minutes

Why you should listen: Ok, let’s say Wolf 359 appeals to you, but you’d prefer your semi-ironic semi-serious speculative fiction dramedy show with anti-authoritarian themes to have a female lead. I mean I’d still recommend listening to Wolf because while Eiffel may be the protagonist you still get to meet Renee Minkowski and Hera and [OTHER CHARACTERS REDACTED], but you could also try out Ars Paradoxica! Another child of the Whedon-influenced era that produced Wolf 359 with a similarly Whedon-influenced tone, I think Ars is a lot messier, tone-wise, but it’s worth working through that. While it starts off quite goofy and irreverent, as the show goes on it really matures and grows into itself and becomes something very special. It becomes the rare time travel story that actually engages in a meaningful way with the political dimension of the time period its characters’ travel to. It’s about the paranoia of the final days of WWII and beginning of the Cold War, it’s about the bigotries that shaped mid-20th-century society, it’s about war and scientific ethics and the desire for progress and what we’re willing to sacrifice for that progress. But despite its often dark themes, it’s also not as heavy as I’m making it sound, with all of its lofty ideas and high concept science fiction being anchored by a cast of highly flawed yet endearing characters, including the inimitable Dr Sally Grissom herself. Compared to other 2010s audio dramas, it’s fallen into obscurity into recent years, and I think it’s about time we bring it back into the light!

The Silt Verses

Listen if you like: Horror/fantasy, episodic/monster of the week storytelling with an overarching plot, anti-authoritarian themes, female-led shows

Plot summary: Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed god, travel up the length of their deity’s great black river, searching for holy revelations. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories.

Status: Ongoing (on its final season)

Episode count: 33+

Average episode length: 40-60 minutes

Why you should listen: It’s my favourite audio drama, hands down. More than that, it’s one of my favourite pieces of art, ever. Do you have even a passing interest in horror as a genre? If you’re a Buffyverse fan, then I assume the answer is ‘yes’. In which case, you should listen to TSV. Of all the horror podcasts I’ve listened to, I think TSV is far and away the most genuinely terrifying (I’d definitely recommend checking out the content warnings before listening) as well as having the most unique, well-thought-out, and generally interesting horror concepts and worldbuilding. It also plays with classic horror tropes in a way that feels vaguely reminiscent of BtVS at times, but its tone and atmosphere and writing style is all entirely its own. Despite this far darker tone and approach to horror, it also shares many of the Buffyverse’s themes. It’s a story about broken systems: living in them, dying in them, striking back against them, trying to fix them, burning them to the ground, all explored through a horror/fantasy lens. If you like how the Buffyverse explores its anti-authoritarian themes, you will probably also enjoy TSV’s approach. If you love the various complex fucked up little guys that make up the casts of the Buffyverse shows, then you’ll probably also love the various complex fucked up little guys that make up the cast of TSV, especially Sister Carpenter, the female lead of the show as well as one of the few characters in existence whose greatness rivals Buffy herself in my mind. And if you love the Buffyverse’s outlandish and often formally-inventive monster-of-the-week style episodes, then TSV’s own experimentations and propensity for bizarre fantasy concepts will likely also appeal to you. Really there’s very little else I can say without you experiencing the show for yourself. Do you like good things? Do you like things that are good? Go listen to TSV. Again, you can thank me later.

The Magnus Archives

Listen if you like: Horror/fantasy, episodic/monster of the week storytelling with an overarching plot, anti-authoritarian themes, stories about bands of deeply flawed misfits with interpersonal issues, fighting the apocalypse

Plot summary: A weekly horror fiction podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join Jonathan Sims as he explores the archive, but be warned, as he looks into its depths something starts to look back…

Status: Finished

Episode count: 200

Average episode length: 30 minutes

Why you should listen: One of the more well-known audio drama podcasts, and definitely the most well-known of the recent audio dramas! A lot darker, more depressing, and heavier on the horror than the Buffyverse shows, but there’s still a lot that Buffyverse fans will enjoy, from the anti-authoritarian themes to the multiple apocalypses the characters face. While TMA starts off as an anthology series, with each episode being a self-contained horror story, as the show goes on recurring characters start to appear and an overarching storyline begins to emerge. The later seasons of the show really display a similar ethos to the Buffyverse shows when it comes to taking their characters to very dark places, and the way that the show plays with horror tropes will likely also appeal to Buffy fans! Prepare yourself for some truly creepy storytelling and truly heartbreaking emotional moments and give it a listen.

Janus Descending

Listen if you like: Horror, female-led shows

Status: Finished (sequel series ongoing)

Episode count: 13

Average episode length: 15-20 minutes

Plot summary: This limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama podcast follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place.

Why you should listen: While it’s probably the least similar to the Buffyverse shows of any of my recommendations, I think Janus is still worth looking into simply because it’s a really great “starter podcast” for those who’ve never got into audio dramas before. It’s a limited series of just 13 episodes, each episode is only around 15-20 minutes long, and it uses the audio format in a really unique and interesting way. While it does now have a sequel series called Descendants, the original show works very well as a standalone narrative. The horror and tension and tragedy of the story is really well done, and despite how relatively short it is you still get to feel very close to the two protagonists. Another really underappreciated show that deserves more love.

Old Gods of Appalachia

Listen if you like: Horror/fantasy, female-led shows, anti-authoritarian themes

Plot summary: A horror-anthology podcast set in the shadows of an Alternate Appalachia, a place where digging too deep into the mines was just the first mistake.

Status: Ongoing

Episode count: 54+ (not including specials)

Average episode length: 30-40 minutes

Why you should listen: Another dark and gorgeously atmospheric horror podcast (you may be starting to sense a theme here), this one based around an alternate history version of Appalachia where eldritch gods and monsters inhabit the mountains and hills. Much like TMA, Old Gods is primarily an anthology series, consisting of a wide variety of different horror stories set in the same world. These stories range from one-off episodes to season-long arcs, and cover a broad spectrum of horror sub-genres. While I do find it a little hard at times to follow all the different connections between the different stories and arcs, I think it’s still absolutely worth listening to for its tone, storytelling, social commentary (plenty of “fuck capitalism” stories here), and well-written and complex female characters. Definitely a must-listen for all the horror/fantasy fans out there (and I know for a fact that’s a lot of you).

Hi Nay

Listen if you like: Horror/fantasy, female-led shows, stories about bands of deeply flawed misfits with interpersonal issues, episodic/monster of the week storytelling with an overarching plot

Status: Ongoing

Episode count: 32+

Average episode length: 30-60 minutes (not including specials and minisodes)

Plot summary: A supernatural horror fictional podcast about Filipina immigrant Mari Datuin, whose babaylan (shaman) family background accidentally gets her involved in stopping dangerous supernatural events in Toronto.

Why you should listen: A very fun urban fantasy monster-of-the-week style show that pulls from both classic horror tropes and Filipino folklore. While I haven’t listened to much of this one yet, it’s a really engaging and often emotional listen with a very fun framing device that uses the audio medium in a clever way!

Of course, this is only a small fraction of the wealth of audio drama podcasts out there. I'm only one guy and I can't listen to all of them! If any of you have any recommendations for other audio dramas you think Buffy fans will enjoy, feel free to add them on! And if you're interested and have any questions feel free to send me a message - I always love talkin' audio dramas!

#buffyverse #slayers a buffyverse story #buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #podcasts #ifer rambles #ok WHEW i'm done with this thing #this is it this is my contribution to events #i perhaps get a bit sappy in this post but i do genuinely hope that slayers is able to get ppl more interested in this medium #even if it's just a few people!! that would still be such a win!!!#i love audio drama very much and i want other people to love it too #long post

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ct-multifandom · 2 years ago

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Minisodes oh my lawd

I haven’t posted yttd since Kai’s island route came out, but wow that was some shit I just saw. I wanna talk about my thoughts. I’ll go in order of increasing sadness and rambling.

!!! spoiler warning !!!

Anzu

The least lore-heavy story maybe? It was cute, and I liked to see more of her since she’s one of the most minor characters in the playable cast, but I feel like there wasn’t a lot of deep stuff in this one.

Her school uniform is cute but seeing her de-clown-ified and normal is strange. It’s like when Nankidai draws Gin without the fursuit

I saw other people point this out as well, but it’s weird that Ryuu’s coworker got a full sprite while Anzu’s girlfriend was just a silhouette. Is the woman relevant somehow? mean if she and Samurai Yaiba can get sprites then why not the friend? Maybe it’s comparable to us never having seen Ryoko’s face in outside content or any part of her at all in the game itself, but Ryoko’s situation makes me suspicious. Does this mean something or is it irrelevant?

That bit about Kugie buying all the ice cream was a surprise. I wonder if it will be relevant to Kanna’s story, like she got her a ridiculous supply of ice cream to cheer her up when she was sad or something. Also confirmation that Kanna and Anzu lived in the same town. Did the cast all live near each other or is it just them?

I see people upset that Anzu found a guy hot but like. Her color scheme is the pansexual pride flag

I saw mention that she said she made her costume herself in the game, but the minisode says that it was a gift from Ryuu. Maybe he gave her part of it and she made the rest, or that she modified an old costume herself to be more her style? More likely that Nankidai just forgot tbh

The plaza where she became a clown is the one Midori was in last chapter, but we haven’t had a chance to be there in peace. I guess it’s just another memory location, but it’s interesting that it’s the setting for some very climactic scenes while the others aren’t. Of course, we haven’t seen every character’s room yet.

I feel like there’s something we’ve yet to learn about Anzu because at the moment she just feels like a wholesome, kinda incompetent comic relief character, and this game does not have those. Why is the survival rate of the girl who complains about extracurriculars being too much work so high? Is she such a positive force that people can’t help but keep her around? She dies immediately two separate times in the game and frankly doesn’t help with anything during puzzles. Is she secretly a good manipulator? She’s a self proclaimed good actor and learned slight of hand tricks and such from Ryuu. Does she have another side to her? If not for the logic route, we wouldn’t have known what Ranmaru is capable of, but according to the minisode, the way Anzu acts in the game is the same as how she acted to the people around her normally.

Alice

Why can’t we have nice things??? It was so cute and so heartbreaking at the same time. Like, if this was a scene in a linear, chronological story, we’d still have the hope and maybe expectation that Alice will still fix things with Reko, but we know that from this moment on he screws up literally every chance he can get until it’s too late. The good ending we want so bad is pretty much impossible.

The kid sprites are so cute. We already saw them in that one CG but seeing them as sprites makes them feel more alive, y’know

When Alice referred to himself by name and Reko was like I already know your name… this one’s going in my transgender compilation

Them having a secret treehouse fort is so baby

And I love the Samurai Yaiba designs. Looking camp right in the eye. Idc if people think it’s ugly, the girls who get it get it

It was nice to finally meet the other band members. I wasn’t expecting to ever see them have real screen time but hey. Although Stronghold turned out to be a creepy weirdo and Ursheen is nonverbal or mute or something?

I’m excited to see island routes for these two. Idk if their events together will be deep or anticlimactically goofy. I imagine Reko’s “good” ending will involve starting a band or something, but what would Alice’s be? Does he have his own ambitions? Imagine if it was the other way around, if managing a band or teaching music to beginners was his passion

It’s interesting that almost every account of this plot line is from Alice’s perspective, which makes sense because it has a much stronger emotional effect on him than on Reko who thinks she has more important things to worry about and overlooks Alice. I would like to see more of her take, though, because her whole situation seems to be deeply un-relatable to him. Did she prioritize her success with the conscious awareness that she’s hurting his feelings, or is she just so career-focused that she didn’t even think it’d affect him?

Lastly, I’m intrigued by fandom reaction to Reko’s behavior. People rightly find her to be complex and compelling, but they also just like her and seem to forgive or understand her. I often find that when a character, especially a woman, does something like this, people hold it against them pretty harshly. Yet Reko is widely loved and may even have more fans than Alice? Is it because we know she becomes a better person later on and starts to mend their relationship? As a member of the liked-Qtaro-before-it-was-cool-and-everyone-else-hated-him club I’m curious about the standards people hold flawed characters to. Is it because Reko has that badass punk rock pretty privilege, or does her story just resonate with people?

Kai

Oooohhhh my god dude. This one. Shitting and crying. Kai was allowed to be happy for five seconds ever.

Seeing Sei was a jumpscare

Seeing young Gashu was an even bigger jumpscare. Y’know how when a guy shaves, all you can see is the real estate where a mustache is supposed to be?

I can’t BELIEVE this shit made him somehow sympathetic. These sideplots have made every villainous character from previous chapters have a sympathetic side what the hell. We haven’t seen the full extent of Miley’s story yet, just little hints, which is exciting to me, obviously Safalin is grey all over, and Ranger was programmed to be the way he was, but Gashu?! Clearly he still sucks, but HRNNGGHR what’s next? Does Midori have a sympathetic side?

Gashu making brief, absolutely pathetic attempts at treating his kids as people with feelings between training sessions. These moments of empathy being seen as a failing on Asunaro’s end that had to be beaten out. Gashu not fully understanding what they were planning and turning himself into a total emotionless monster after he found out to protect himself for what was coming. He probably thought he was doing Ranger a favor by making him the way he did.

Sei’s whole thing re-contextualized Rio Ranger so grossly. People are upset that Kai didn’t live to meet him, but I’m kinda glad he didn’t have to see how his father desecrated his brother’s personality and image post-mortem.

Hated seeing the light leave their eyes after the visit from Asunaro lady

Speaking of her, huh? She looks way too unique to be a silhouette character? All the other ones were generic looking normal people but she looks like Miss dori. My theory is that the hair was the only part that mattered, that that hairstyle is a symbol of the figure the organization sees as “god” and its higher members perhaps try to emulate it, Midori included.

We got some more explicit information on the religious cult side of Asunaro. We already knew Gashu had these beliefs, but the other floormasters didn’t. We have hints that Miley and Safalin are actually exceptions, caring more about their scientific research and personal agendas than whatever the organization’s true beliefs and agendas might be.

Kai trauma-dumping on Mr Chidouin made me uncomfortable. It feels like Kai will trust anyone who’s nice to him, and is surprisingly optimistic or even naïve considering everything he went through. We don’t know what Mr C’s goals are, but man. He has the same poses as Meister. Come on. I hate the way he had that fake ass smile plastered on while Kai spilled his heart out. It seems like Kai never learned how to trust or distrust people, and both those things played a part in his downfall.

That Euphoria Rue Happy Moments compilation on YouTube that’s only one minute long except it’s Kai

I like how Sei really did have that bitchy, unserious personality Ranger ended up with, except he also had ~feelings~. I would have liked to see how his brash sense of humor plays of Kai’s bizarre one.

Does involvement with Asunaro immediately require you to upload your consciousness to their central computer or something? Where else would Gashu get the AI of a long dead kid for Ranger? I doubt he understood him well enough to have him replicated from scratch, fucked up liberties and all.

Sei being older than Kai surprised me. How old do you guys think they were? Like 12 and 15 maybe? I have seen many fans in the past interpret Ranger as being an adult, but I always saw him as a kid/teenager. I guess a big part of it is his trauma-induced immaturity (and probably literally having the mind of a child), but he looks young to me too. He doesn’t look too much older than Sei, and his body appears strangely un-athletic looking for someone who underwent rigorous assassin training, thought he does look taller. Maybe 18-ish?

The whole murder island thing felt so impractical and unnecessarily sadistic but then again everything the organization does is like that. Also can’t believe Kai won the hunger games by doing nothing what a legend

I know Sei’s death wouldn’t have had nearly the same effect without CGs, but this minisode being the only one with extra art like that made it feel way bigger than the other two

The way Sei was capable of breaking down in tears and loving and being terrified but still had it in him to kill others, and be casual about it too

Kai growing up still wearing that same type of uniform every day symbolizing how he could never escape Asunaro’s grasp even when he tried running, ignoring it, covering it up with his apron which represents his individuality. Ranger wearing that black t-shirt and little yellow scarf representing him being freed from Asunaro’s expectations, not in a way that granted him autonomy, but rather that it gave them the OK to empty out everything that made him him and using him as a brief, disposable tool, represented by him stealing pieces of all the other humans who were similarly used and killed by Asunaro for himself.

What would Kai dress like if he could pick out his own clothes?

I would love an afterlife scene with these two like the one Nao and Mishima got

Or the normal version of a Sei AI in YTTS

Man getting to know Sei really changed my whole perspective of Ranger and I’m glad he and Kai not only knew each other in life but also formed a close bond. That for a brief period they both had somebody they could trust

Edit addition: omg how both of them became completely aware that they were going to die with no way out of it, and didn’t accept it per se, quite the opposite actually, but their final wishes were to at least not die at the hands of the enemy who doomed them

Can you tell this one was my fav? Yeah uh. Fuck. Anyway I love how Nankidai manages to keep everyone relevant as have us learn more about them so long and so consistently after their deaths. Nobody is just there for a plot device or shock value, they all have their own stories that don’t end when they’re gone. Can’t wait for more

#yttd #your turn to die #kimi ga shine #kgs #yttd minisodes #yttd minisode spoilers #anzu kinashi #alice yabusame #reko yabusame #kai satou #sei satou #rio ranger #gashu satou #long post #yttd spoilers #your turn to die spoilers #kimi ga shine spoilers

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ineffableandco · 1 year ago

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✨Good Omens 2 Review✨

There’s so much to say I don’t really know where to start. After watching it I feel utterly and deeply satisfied. I expected this season to be great and I’m not disappointed. It goes beyond my wildest dreams. It’s just perfect. The cinematography, the music, the acting, the writing, everything is just top class. There’s drama, comedy, epic and it all blends in together very harmoniously to create a brilliant piece of television.

I remember being super excited when S2 was announced and when we got the first on set photos but it was nothing compared to the immense joy I felt when I saw my favourite angel and demon back on my screen. It was like meeting up with friends after a long time, it felt just right, like coming home.

I really love how vibrant the colours are this season, I find it extremely pleasing aesthetically speaking. I love that we get to see more of street where the bookshop is and simply more of the bookshop itself. And I’m sure there’s more to reveal. A round of applause for the people who worked hard to build all the various locations in a studio!

Regarding the story itself, I love how it is written and how it unfolds. It is very much about Crowley and Aziraphale but the other characters really have the opportunity to shine no matter the amount of screen time they have. One of my favourite things about S1 was the cold open in episode 3 so I’m thrilled that we get that in S2 with the minisodes. They were brilliant so a big shoutout to the talented people who wrote them!

Now about the characters, can we talk about how fucking amazing they are? I’ll start with Miranda Richardson’s Shax. I LOVE her, a perfect mix of comedy and badass. It’s in tune with Madame Tracy, her character from S1, despite them being two different characters.

In the “returning actor, different character” category Nina and Maggie are just fabulous, I just love them. I really love the wonderful dynamic the characters and actresses have.

As for the new characters, especially Mrs. Sandwich, Mr. Brown, and Pat, they may not have had that much screen time but they were just brilliant and really funny. Still in the new characters category, I am very fond of Muriel and Saraqael. Muriel because they’re the sweetest cupcake ever and Saraqael because the sass is incredible. So a big shoutout to these two wonderful actresses! And also a big shoutout to Shelley Conn for nailing the role of Beelzebub.

Now Crowley and Aziraphale, I didn’t think I could love those two idiots more than I already do but obviously I was wrong. And if anyone needed any more evidence that David Tennant and Michael Sheen are perfect for the roles then they should watch S2. I love how noticeable yet still subtle the changes in the characters and their relationship are. It’s just a natural progression. David and Michael already had incredible chemistry in S1 but in S2 it’s even more remarkable. Their off-screen friendship shines through and greatly contributes to making the connection between their characters even more genuine and believable. (I’ll write more about them/my theories later).

Now I’d like to quickly talk about two of my favourite things this season: the opening scene and episode 3.

That opening scene was everything. I didn’t expect to see Angel Crowley but what a delightful surprise! I cried because he’s just gorgeous and innocent. The pure delight and excitement he feels about creating stars is just so precious. I’m glad we got to see it and I really hope we’ll get to see more eventually.

Now episode 3 was just hilarious. The bits in Edinburgh had me in stitches. I’m beyond thrilled that David Tennant got to use his Scottish accent, it was music to my ears. And Crowley was just peak comedy. One of my favourite little details in that episode is the change in the telephone wallpaper, switching from the Union Jack to the Scottish flag. I see what you did there 👀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Overall, my mind is blown and my heart is half in pieces and half holding on as best as it can. This new season is a little gem. I laughed and I cried but overall my heart was filled with joy because I got to see my favourite characters again. I wasn’t worried about what this new season would be like but I’m still really pleased to see that it’s Good Omens at heart. And I’m sure Terry would love it. It is truly a labour of love. Made by people who love the story and characters for people who love them just as equally. But also people who love their craft and love to share it with people who are just as eager as them. There are so many details that are so meaningful. And the Easter eggs, I spotted a few of them and I know there are more for me to discover. I also want to give a big shoutout to the costume department who made the wonderful costumes they are truly marvellous. A round of applause to Peter Anderson Studios for their wonderful designs. And also a special mention to David Arnold and his team for the delightful music. The theme variation for the end titles of episode 3 have special place in my heart. Bless me bagpipes it was glorious!

And finally a heartfelt thank you from the bottom of my heart to the wonderful people who made it all happen. Lots of love and gratitude from me. ♥️

@goodomensonprime @neil-gaiman

#good omens #good omens 2 #david tennant #michael sheen #crowley #aziraphale #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #it’s ineffable angel #gos2 spoilers

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thecheshirerat · 1 year ago

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mmkay no one’s said this yet and I’m kinda surprised because I thought it was fairly obvious but

We (and when I say “we” i mean the Good Omens series fandom) wouldn’t be here if Aziraphale didn’t feel like he needed to prove himself.

Yeah, he believes that God and Heaven are fixable, yeah, he’s been emotionally manipulated by the Metatron, yeah, he sees the Metatron’s offer as a potential safe future for him and Crowley.

But imo, none of those reasons fully account for his choice. No one’s yet (to my knowledge) mentioned the sheer simple fact that Aziraphale saw, in Metatron’s offer, an opportunity to prove himself, and to a certain extent, prove the world wrong about him.

Think about what people say regarding Aziraphale in this season, both to his face and in discussion. Shax belittles him for being soft. He is called things like “Crowley’s emotional support angel” and “Crowley’s pet.” Condescension has come towards him from his enemies (“don’t tell me YOU did it?” - Seraquael regarding the miracle, from Shax as aforementioned) but also from the people he loves around him, and it’s been that way his whole life.

Crowley’s protective nature is adorable, but his concern isn’t always communicated well. He says, “you really are terrible at magic,” rather than “I was terrified I was going to get you discorporated and I don’t ever want to do that again.” While the bookshop is under siege, Aziraphale steps forward and seems to have an idea, but Crowley dismisses it. He doesn’t give Aziraphale key information because it would upset him, but as a result Aziraphale is unaware the true depth of disgust Gabriel held for him, he doesn’t hear about “extreme sanctions” until it’s too late, Crowley doesn’t explain his absence after the Resurrectionists minisode. This lack of communication is bad for both of them, but I digress. On top of this, Aziraphale relies on Crowley for validation- he needs to tell him his good deeds, and, notably, the entire conversation at the end of the Job Minisode where Crowley gives Aziraphale the option to be “an angel who goes along with heaven as far as he can,” serves as an example of this.

Let’s even zoom in on The Last Scene, for examples of the tiny ways in which Aziraphale struggles to feel as though Crowley truly respects him. “You can’t leave this bookshop.” “I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.” “Listen. Hear that? […] That’s the point. No nightingales.” “You idiot.” Obviously there’s a lot to these lines, but Crowley’s tone is decidedly condescending from Aziraphale’s perspective- he asks questions that have trick answers, he insists he knows best, and being told that he doesn’t know what he’s doing is a real pet peeve of our Angel’s. It’s also key to Crowley’s character. He loves doing this shit, to Aziraphale, to Muriel, all over the place.

With that context, some of Aziraphale’s lines make a lot more sense. “You can be my second in command!” “Oh Crowley, nothing lasts forever.” “I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.” “I forgive you.” He’s trying to say “two can play the condescending game,” but he doesn’t have the confidence. You can see it in his face when he says, “Well. I suppose there’s nothing more to say.” That face is screaming “there was no need for that tone of voice.” He’s mimicking the condescending tone of the other angels, striving to be right, for once- because he should be right, shouldn’t he? (“I’m a great deal holier than thou, that’s the point!”)

Because Aziraphale hates when Crowley condescends to him! He hates that, time and time again, he’s the one who ends up doing the “i was wrong dance” (why do you think he savors it so much when Crowley does it?), he hates that Crowley’s right all the time. And he knows Crowley is right, at the end of this scene. You can see it in his face when Crowley says “no nightingales,” you can tell he knows what he’s doing isn’t cute. He’s just terribly, terribly frustrated, and he doesn’t have it in him to back out now that he’s gone this far. Maybe if his self-esteem was stronger he could’ve siphoned up some humility.

So yeah. He wants to go to heaven and prove everyone wrong, and be the person that Metatron says he can be- a strong leader, wise, right all along. He knows, by the end of his conversation with Crowley, that it probably won’t be as easy as Metatron says it will be, he realizes Crowley’s suspicions could be true, but he can’t let Crowley win by backing out. Because then what would he be?

Crowley’s pet. Crowley’s emotional support angel. etc etc etc

He needs to do this in order to learn. He needs to do this in order to prove to himself that he can stand on his own. He needs to be the one to swoop in and save Crowley in season 3.

#i have thoughts #…#many of them #there’s more where this came from…#good omens #good omens s2 #good omens meta #aziraphale #ineffable idiots #good omens s2 spoilers #cheshi squeaks

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humbledragon669 · 4 months ago

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Lockdown Episode Write Up P1 – tableaus

Introduction

So, first things first, just in case you haven’t seen it, or want to see it again, you can watch this little bonus episode here. It takes place between seasons one and two and consists of a series of static “tableaus” with a voiceover of a telephone conversation between Crowley and Aziraphale. In truth, I think its purpose was largely to serve as a public service announcement for people to contribute to the “Stay At Home” campaign that the UK government had enacted as part of its Covid-19 prevention/reduction efforts, though I’m sure it was also a bit of fun to make for the anniversary of the book, and probably gave Michael, David, and some editing crew something to do for about an hour or so. The script never mentions Covid-19 directly, but I think we can assume (given the timeline between the seasons) that the time setting is 2020, May 2020 to be exact.

Despite the fact that it’s less than 4 minutes long (including opening and closing credits), there’s actually quite a lot to say about this sweet little thing (I’m going to call it a minisode from this point on – yes, I know that word has particular connotations for season 2, but we’re not there yet, so minisode it is). I don’t think there’s much linking the dialogue with the images (apart from the cake sequence), so I’ve broken this write-up down into tableaus and dialogue, because there are just as many Easter eggs (maybe more) to be had from the tableaus as there are from the script. Some of the later tableaus are reiterations of earlier images, so I’ve bundled them together where I can for brevity. I have also only commented on the items in the tableaus that can be clearly seen and aren’t out of focus.

This part of the write-up will address just the tableaus, with the dialogue addressed in a separate write-up. As a final bit of uniquity, I’ve placed tableau #12 at the end of the write-up as it’s a wider shot of a lot of the objects we see in other images, so anything left not yet addressed can be done there. Right, housekeeping done, let’s get stuck in shall we?

Tableaus

Tableaus #1and #18

Contents:

A plate of sushi, complete with chopsticks

Multiple piles of books (unfortunately I can’t discern what any of them are).

A drawing of Aziraphale.

What looks like the edge of a map – this will be covered in a later selection of tableaus.

Nothing too cryptic in this compilation of objects – it’s fairly obvious from them and the effects on Crowley’s voice that we (the audience) are in Aziraphale’s bookshop. The sushi and the books are pretty obvious connections to the angel, but I don’t think we’ve known him to be an artist (and a pretty good one at that) before now. The one thing I will say about the use of a plate of sushi in this first tableau is that it makes for a nice parallel to the opening of season 1 – the first time we see Aziraphale in the present day, it’s in a sushi restaurant.

Tableaus #2 and #17

Contents:

A G.K. Chesterton book.

A drawing of Crowley.

A plate of Welsh cakes (links into the cake sequence).

An old map of Oxfordshire – this will be covered in a later selection of tableaus.

A magnifying glass, presumably for looking at the map with.

Alright, now we’re getting into some neat little Easter egg territory. I’m fairly sure there is a reference in the book somewhere to Chesterton being one of Crowley’s favourite authors, but I’m not sure where. It is singled out in the dedication in the front of the book though, so it must be in there somewhere. And then there’s the drawing. It’s very difficult to tell, but in tableau #2 it looks like it might be the other half of the drawing we saw of Aziraphale. Which would mean that drawing is of the two of them together. Drawn by Aziraphale. In a very romanticised way. As much as I really want to believe that, we can see in tableau #17 that this isn’t the case. It’s a nice mental suggestion though.

Tableau #3

Contents:

More books.

A steaming mug (presumably of cocoa).

The objects here are pretty innocuous. The mug is the same one that we see Aziraphale using in season 1 when he sits down to look at Agnes Nutter’s book (and we see it used again in season 2, but we’re not there yet).

Tableaus #4 and #11

Contents:

A bottle of Courvoisier (cognac).

More books.

A glass, presumably containing Courvoisier.

I can’t quite work out what the text on the spine of the uppermost book is – all I can make out is ???WEN ?????YSON – so if anybody has worked this one out I’m all ears (I did Google for all of about two minutes). As far as the Courvoisier is concerned, I have assumed that’s what Aziraphale and Crowley are drinking at the end of episode one, although it comes from a decanter and there’s no bottle in sight (and in fact the Script Book stipulates that they’re drinking whiskey at this point), so an assumption is all it is. I can’t think of any other times that our hero pair drink hard spirits together in season one, but I’m happy to be corrected.

Tableau #5

Contents:

A stack of books, including:

Homer’s Iliad, Vol. II.

Something by G.K. Chesterton published by The Bodley Head, possibly Orthodoxy.

Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century, by Richard Kieckhefer.

Collected Verse, by Hilaire Belloc.

The Club of Queer Trades, by G.K. Chesterton.

A framed picture. The image in the frame is part of this work, described as a woodcutting of witches and devils dancing in a circle from 1720.

Alright, let’s take a look at those books. First up, Homer’s Iliad, specifically Vol. II in this instance. Honestly, I tried to do a bit of research about what this book might contain, but I got bored within reading the first paragraph of the summary, and I have never read the classic poem in its entirety. Don’t get me wrong, I love to read (I mentally inhale books if given the chance), but I have always struggled with classical literature. If anyone can sum up what this volume is about in three sentences (instead of the three long paragraphs I found), I’d very grateful. For now, let’s just say it’s about the Trojan war, specifically the setting of the scene for that coming war. Maybe that’s a subtle reference to the events to come in season 2, but it feels like a stretch.

There are two Chesterton books in the pile. Given that Chesterton is supposedly Crowley’s favoured author, I find it interesting that Aziraphale has so many of the author’s works lingering around within reach. Has he pulled these out of his collection to gift/lend to Crowley? Or is he reading them purely because he knows that Crowley likes the author? Has he placed them there to make the demon feel at home when he’s at the bookshop? Whatever the reason, there’s perhaps something to be said about the choice of these particular books. The first, Othodoxy, is a companion book to Chesterton’s earlier work, Heretics, which was a collection of essays refuting non-religious beliefs and defending Christianity. Chesterton described Orthodoxy as an account of his personal journey to embracing Christianity and its values, including the concept that biblical paradoxes are actually essential for satisfying the human need for conflict. Bit of a mouthful all of that, isn’t it? Pretty sure it ties it rather nicely to the ideas put forward in both seasons that Heaven and Hell must both exist in order for free will to be effective. I think. I don’t think I’m wording that very well, but you probably get the message. On the other hand, The Club of Queer Trades is a much lighter book of short stories, each one detailing a case taken on by a private detective agency that involves someone who has an unusual occupation. These occupations include a raconteur (someone who tells anecdotes in an amusing way), a vicar, a professor who insists on dancing, and a Lady who refuses to be rescued. Seems like there are quite a few similarities between those descriptions and a certain angel to me…

I find the next book, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century, to be an interesting one for Aziraphale to have on hand. This is said to be a collection of medieval magic, along with a commentary. It perhaps fits in with Aziraphale’s penchant for books of prophecy, but its contents seem a bit too practical for that.

The final book that I was able to identify in this pile is written by a gentleman I admit I had never heard of before – Hilaire Beloc. I found it difficult to identify what the contents of Collected Verse might be, but the author himself is referred to as one of the Big Four of Edwardian Letters, alongside H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and… G.K. Chesterton. So perhaps that’s the reason for this book’s inclusion.

Moving on to that picture. Being of Pagan background, that image is one that I have seen many times in my life. The full image shows a circle of four women and four demon-like creatures dancing together, apparently created in 1720. It was doubtless used as propaganda to justify and document the witch hunts that took place during this time in history. This feels like an especially odd object for Aziraphale to have, particularly as it’s framed. He of all people would know that the events depicted in the image were nonsense, and none of the figures in it are recognisable as anyone in particular, so why has he singled it out for such reverence?

I’m sure there’s probably a lot more analysis that could be done on these items and how they tie in to the Good Omens storyline and sub-text, but this was only meant to be a quick write up of a minisode that’s less than 4 minutes long, so if anyone wants to take up the mantle on that one, you’re more than welcome.

Tableau #6

Contents:

A preserved butterfly in a bell jar, held in place with what looks like a clockwork mechanism.

I don’t think I have much to say about this object except… huh? My initial thought about it is that this thing is ODD. I know people do preserve butterflies in jars, but I’ve never seen one with a cog literally threaded through the wings. I actually spoke to a friend of mine about who’s a qualified etymologist (she studies bugs) and she’d never seen one either. She did manage to tell me that the butterfly in question is called an “autumn leaf” or “leafwing”, which originates in Asia. None of which really helps me understand what this thing is doing here. What is its purpose? Why does Aziraphale have it? IT’S JUST SO WEIRD. Any ideas about this one welcome, because I can’t get my head around it.

Tableau #7

Contents:

A copy of Orthodoxy, open at a page of an essay entitled “The Ethics of Elfland”.

So firstly this would seem to confirm my supposition of the G.K. Chesterton book published by The Bodley Head. I will confess, I haven’t read the whole essay pictured, but you can do so here if you so choose. No, I skipped ahead to the end to see if I can get a feel for what the subject of this particular essay was. In doing so I found the following quotes:

Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, the attempt to utter the unutterable things. …magic must have a meaning… …the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them.

The first of those you can just about make out in the tableau, and I’m not surprised that this particular piece of prose has been selected by the editor – the is the very definition of something being “ineffable”, is it not? That which cannot be uttered? The quote about magic seems to me a very obvious link to Aziraphale’s penchant for magic, and that last quote about exercising restraint around good food and drink?

It’s the very antithesis of Aziraphale, so it’s interesting to apply this philosophy to his relationship with God (and Heaven in general).

Tableaus #8, #14, and #15

Contents:

An old map of Oxfordshire.

A magnifying class (presumably for looking at the map).

A plate of cakes (links into the cake sequence).

A newer looking (probably OS) map of Lower Tadfield, annotated with spiralling lines centred on the village.

An open book.

I can’t quite make out what the book is in tableau #15. No matter, the presence of the maps is plenty interesting enough. I think it’s likely that the older map is the one we see in the back room of the book shop:

The newer map is one that I feel like we’ve seen in the show at some point, but I can’t find it. I have a sneaking suspicion that it belonged to Anathema, and that the lines plotted on it are ley lines that have readjusted themselves in light of Adam’s emerging power. If that is the case, I’d quite like to know how and why Aziraphale has Anathema’s map. More importantly, I’d like to know if the presence of these maps in the bookshop is because the angel is still keeping an eye on the ex-Antichrist. Perhaps he’s just looking over his research for nostalgia. Maybe he just hasn’t tidied up properly for a while. Personally, I think there’s probably a reason he still has them – might be something for season 3? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Quick side note: the map explicitly states Lower Tadfield, but Adam’s home is never referred to in this way in the show, only the book.

Tableau #9

Contents:

A piece of paper with Crowley’s full name written on it in cursive script.

A wax seal stamp with what looks like some sealing wax, smouldering.

Now this is a curious one! When I first saw it, I thought it was supposed to be Crowley’s signature, but it’s pretty obvious that this must be Aziraphale’s hand when we compare it with the demon’s request for holy water:

So the next thing I wondered was what Aziraphale was doing “faking” Crowley’s signature. I don’t think that’s right either though, which leaves me with two other possibilities. Firstly, that the paper we see is an envelope, which has been addressed with Crowley’s name. This would fit with the use of the sealing wax, but I can’t explain why Aziraphale would be writing a letter to Crowley, or why he would be sealing in this antiquated way. I know the angel is a little behind the times, but he knows how to pick up the telephone, so I don’t think he’d be writing letters, particularly given he would have to leave the bookshop to post it, and in case you’ve forgotten, this minisode is supposed to be encouraging us to STAY AT HOME. And let’s not forget the addition of the title “Esq.” at the end of Crowley’s name. It’s a pretty outdated term now, and would certainly look out of place if used, even if it was on a letter.

The second possibility is that this is the writing from the drawing of Crowley, providing a description of the subject. This feels more appropriate than the letter explanation, although it does mean that the wax and accompanying stamp become somewhat meaningless. This explanation might also go some way to explaining the title that Aziraphale has given to Crowley, and actually fits quite nicely with the romanticised style applied to the portrait.

Tableau #10

Contents:

An armillary sphere.

I didn’t know what this was, other than something to do with astrology/astronomy, so I had to Google. Turns out they were historically used to predict/calculate and map celestial movements. Taking this into account, this seems like a strange thing for Aziraphale to have, though it would feel right at home in Crowley’s apartment. But. I did a bit more digging, and it turns out that the image of an armillary sphere has been used in classical paintings of saints to represent the presence of Heaven.

Mind. Blown.

Tableau #13

Contents:

Satanism and Witchcraft, by Jules Michelet.

Magic: An Occult Primer, by David Conway.

As with Forbidden Rites, both of these books seem like very strange books for Aziraphale to have at hand. The first of these two books, published in 1862 (!), is widely regarded as being one of the earliest known publications sympathetic to the history of witchcraft, although nowadays it is considered to be largely inaccurate in its facts. The second is a practical guide and introduction to magic rituals. Whilst I can see how Aziraphale’s interest might extend to the former as far as research goes, perhaps into Agnes Nutter’s history, I cannot imagine why he would have need of a guide for how to conduct Pagan rituals. Answers on a postcard.

Cakes

There is a sequence of cake images that falls between tableaus 13 and 14. These tie directly into the dialogue at this point in the minisode, so I’m going to cover them in the part of this write up given over to the dialogue.

Tableau #16

Contents:

A flickering flame.

I don’t think there’s much to say about this particular tableau. I have assumed that this is a candle burning, but it is rather difficult to make out. You’d expect to see the shape of a candle underneath the flame if that was the case, and the burning wick looks distinctly unlike one you would see on a candle, but I have nothing else to draw on for this so “candle” is what I’m going with.

Tableau #12

As a reminder, I’m only looking at the things in this tableau that I haven’t covered elsewhere in this write up.

Contents:

Piles of books, which include:

Several more G.K. Chesterton titles.

A copy of Pilgrim’s Progress.

The Lore of the Land, by Jennifer Beatrice Westwood.

Unfortunately, I can’t make out the titles of the majority of the books in this image. The book on the right of the tableau, The Lore of the Land, is a charming sounding little thing about the legends found in all the different counties of England. Whilst I can’t see an immediate link to the Good Omens storyline, I quite like the idea that Aziraphale and/or Crowley are responsible for the vast majority of the entries in that book! On the other hand, Pilgrim’s Progress has a much clearer connection to the themes and ideas of the show, detailing one man’s life journey through life and his relationship with his faith. What we don’t get any indication of is whether Aziraphale would have this on hand because of his ability to relate to it, or whether it’s simply because it’s considered to be one of the most significant works of theological fiction in all history.

I already covered the creepy mechanical butterfly in a previous tableau, but there is something extra in this image that we can now make out – there’s a plaque on the bottom of the jar. I can’t make all of the writing out, but I think part of it says it’s a science award. Where from and what for I can’t read, and I can’t see what the mechanism is powering or anything in the base of the jar. Still seems like a weird thing for Aziraphale to have if you ask me!

Pre-credits message

What a perfect way to end this little treat. Not just a tip of the hat to the ending of season one, but a message of hope for everyone watching in what was a very dark time in recent history. I’ve no doubt that there was a lot of comfort had from these four minutes of film when it was released, and not just because the fans for this show are deeply invested in its development. This single line seems to convey so much of what couldn’t be said in words (or images), and I’m not about to try here, so I’m going to wrap this part up and move on to the dialogue in the next one. As always, comments, questions, discussion: always welcome 😊

#good omens #episode analysis #good omens lockdown #aziraphale loves crowley #aziraphale's bookshop #aziraphale #crowley

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