#committing unspeakable crimes

[angel-f4ce]

charles: cries tears of joy winning his home race bc it means so much to him

also charles: humiliates his teammate on live tv for trying his best for his final own home race driving for the team of his childhood dreams

surely that sounds hypocritical and downright disrespectful to you too, c******s?

[anticidic]

Rumor has it when Chuuya was younger, word went around that he was up to some SHADY stuff. Like, beyond the organized crime he'd already integrated himself with.

It's the worst crime of all.

He'd been found to be illegally harboring a kitten.

Dazai was the one who witnessed the unspeakable horror when they were out on a mission investigating some business from a rival organization. He heard a distinct mewing in the silence of the night and the fluffy head and ears of a kitten poking out from Chuuya's coat pocket.

Dazai just gave Chuuya the Look, and Chuuya averted his eyes, saying, "I can explain."

"No, you can't."

Chuuya really couldn't. But they had to make an emergency stop at his apartment to drop the kitten back off because they were about to get into a dangerous situation. It was also a reminder to himself to check his pockets and belongings to make sure the kitten hadn't snuck into them when he was unaware.

Mori played along with it the next day when he read the report and how Dazai happened to squeeze in something about Chuuya taking a hostage. When called into the office, Chuuya was asked how the little hostage was doing and if it needed any food.

[sy5tem3rr0r]

SADISTIC LOLIS. YOU AGREE.

[littlesparklight]

If we actually look what the myth/city-founder versions where Astyanax survives says, it certainly isn't "and he and Askanios, or he and his brother (sometimes he has a brother... or two!) then turned on Greece and murdered them all."

Like.

Look at me. Look me in the Tumblr.

Odysseus' argument in several versions of myth or tragedy, whether he does the killing himself or not, that allowing Astyanax in specific to survive will turn into him turning on the sacking soldiers and their families when he grows up is. not. true.

It doesn't happen!

All that happens, at the very most, is Astyanax/Skamandrios and Oxynios (as the other son is called) displacing Aeneas and/or Askanios, who in these versions haven't left the Troad yet. (Because these are city-founder myths, but nonetheless.)

The Achaeans are so fucking afraid of something that doesn't even happen in the versions where Astyanax has been hidden elsewhere/survives the sack (and no thanks to Odysseus for any such survival, guys).

[bowtiepastabitch]

Let's talk costuming: Angelic Robes and The Unreliable Narrator

It's two am, I have to be up at six, but this has been fermenting in the back of my head for the past five hours I've spent doing homework and if I don't get it out I shan't sleep.

The costumes we see representing angelic character in Season Two are VASTLY different from those we see in Season One. (See my post on Aziraphale's Job Robe for an in-depth art history analysis of this individual costume piece.) In season one, the angelic flashback clothing we see is rather humble and uncomplicated. As all things in this show, this serves a very important narrative purpose.

Let's first compare these gorgeous gorgeous girls to their S1 counterparts, shall we?

Just look at the collar on that robe! In S1, we're introduced to Aziraphale in a very plain tunic-style robe with an unfinished neckline. Aside from a slight gold decoration and draping on the shoulders, this could easily be mistaken for rather primitive human garb. S2, by comparison, introduces angelic costume as non-ostentatious but still refined with a gold-trimmed gathered neckline and wide sleeves. The fabric itself, on a textile level, is much finer and softer. Overall, the robes give an air of innocence and angelic purity that is lacking from Aziraphale's S1 'fit. Let's look at another example:

Their Rome costumes are strewn with so many incredible details (check out this incredible post from 2019) but they still retain a bit of that historical ruggedness. Same for these:

The argument could be made for pure historical compliance, sure, but to claim a lack of anachronisms in this show would be a flat-out lie. No, S1 Crowley and Aziraphale are very distinctively human in their dress. The cloth has a wider weave, the ornamentation is minimal, all around it serves to highlight their fitting-in with humans and the humanization of their characters. They're 'going native,' as it were, no doubt about it.

So why, in S2, is Aziraphale suddenly showing up looking like he just popped out of a renaissance painter's wet dream?

Simple. Suddenly, Aziraphale isn't an angel among humans acting human, he's an angel being an angel doing angel things. We get to see the rest of the heaven gang in full angelic decadence as well, a bold departure from the starkness of 'modern' heaven. If this is, as many of you lovely folk have speculated, a series of flashbacks from Aziraphale's memory, the design choices designate very clearly Aziraphale's perception of himself as an angel. A perception which, mind you, would likely be influenced by later human ideas of angelic and heavenly aesthetics. As an unreliable narrator, Aziraphale is showing us not his actual wardrobe as an angelic being but his perception of his past self.

Crowley, too, is affected by this shift in dress. Bildad the Shuhite is everything S1 flashback Crowley is not: fashion-forward, smooth-talking, and impeccably well-dressed. We've got three different fabric textures (that's three times as many as any of his biblical S1 robing) and a definable silhouette. He's practically a fashionista.

If this were all taken as an objective narrative, the shift back to billowing-void peasant Crowley at Golgotha, where we next see her chronologically, would be strange to say the least.

So why is the costuming of the S2 pre-modern flashbacks so much more elaborate? There's three possibilities I can imagine for a change in costume design for any show:

Budget: this is highly unlikely an instant rule-out for me. I've seen what costumers can do on a shoestring budget, and besides the later period costumes make this demonstrably false.

Change in production design team: Technically possible, yes, but if there's one thing Good Omens does well between seasons it's continuity. I mean, they burned the fucking bookshop and then hand-painted tiles to recreate it exactly for the second season. This is not Harry Potter. This isn't it.

An intentional design: Everything, and I mean everything, in this show is intentional. While not everything the wardrobe team does is easily decodable (see Crowley's shapeshifting sunglasses) we've got a pretty comfortable bit of time to figure such things out. This is the only option that makes a lick of sense.

Wonderful, so we've established that this is a narrative choice.

So if it's a narrative choice, and it's distinct from the stylistic choices of Season One, then someone is lying to us. Or rather, we have an unreliable narrator somewhere along the way.

Most of the buzz on ye olde tumblr focuses on the idea of Aziraphale as narrator and memory-holder for S2, and that would certainly make sense from both a story and design. Of course he would see Angel Crowley as adorable and innocent and angelic (the hair is not helping his case either omg I love her), and of course he would see himself as grandly, exaggeratedly, almost dissonantly angelic at the major turning point in his faith.

If Crowley is narrating, then it calls into question why he would choose to remember himself this way. It holds a sort of nostalgic sadness, a memory of a joyful innocence permanently lost to God's cruelty. When we see Aziraphale in angelic splendor later, we're reminded again of what Crowley has lost. It echoes the aesthetic of his former angel self, the gathering and gold trim and bright white fabric, but also introduces a much more elaborate silhouette that reflects the shift toward heaven's new high-and-mighty attitude.

Finally, I'd like to point out that by contrast Season One focuses heavily on themes of humanity rather than ethereality. Narrated by God, no less, who probably has thoughts on their assimilation. While I think we can assume God to be a more reliable narrator than Crowley or Aziraphale, it's not out of the question that She would have her own story to spin about our Ineffable Idiots' shared history.

Ultimately, I think it's safe to say that whatever's going on in costume design is a Clue to the story we're being told in S2 and the one we will be told in S3.

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

albus severus is the human embodiment of be gay do crime, in this essay I will-

[becasart]

To prison they go 👮‍♀️📸❗

[abushelandablog]

Different yet somehow the same

[kafkaesqueer]

It's giving "gay people meeting up for brunch"

[arilotll]

what did they do 😰

[unanchored-ship]

was just watching a youtube vid about the health issues of Louis and it mentions his SHIT teeth. And now. Im gonna. HC. for the elements not lo tho

Sooooo ya know how Fluorine be in some toothpaste? yeah, my version of em may be a murder-crazy bitch but oh boy is his pet-peeve people not BRUSHING THEIR TEETH he will stop all war crimes just to un-shit someone's teeth and if all hope is lost yes he will pull those ugly carcasses out. thanks for coming to my ted talk good night everyone

[sskklvr]

I'm sorry for making another long post but "Dazai hanging up on Akutagawa was so mean and he shouldn't have done it!" has always been a take that makes me so. Upset.

Yes, using Akutagawa's desperation and insecurity against him probably wasn't the kindest option available, but for fucks sake the dude was horribly in the way in that moment. Did you want him to just ask nicely instead???

If Dazai made Atsushi dance around and fight Akutagawa right then, they would've lost a LOT of precious time, and Atsushi would've lost a lot of energy even if he won, AND it would've cost them the win against Fitzgerald.

Besides, yk, Dazai literally planned on his appearance, it was part of everything to begin with.

Akutagawa's brief moment of interruption was mapped out from the beginning, but that doesn't mean Atsushi had the time to figure out how to politely deal with the man who has been ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL HIM SINCE THEY MET right now.

But back to the other part, I would like to put the idea on the table that if sskk did fight then, no matter who won, where would they be for the fight against Fitzgerald that Dazai was banking on BOTH of them being there for?? Yk, his whole theory to create the 'next generation'??? If they didn't deter Akutagawa right then, then everything they were working towards would've been for naught. Saving Yokohama, and Dazai's own plan.

Akutagawa needed a reason to keep pursuing Atsushi for them to face each other and work together against Fitzgerald, if Atsushi was not able to quickly pass by, that would not have happened.

Again, sure there might've been a better way to do it, but honestly, the ADA isn't built on some pillar of heavenly morals?? BSD constantly pushes the idea of "good and evil" not being so black and white, it's one of the main themes in the story, and it applies to the ADA just as well as the other organizations and characters. Holding the ADA and its members to a standard of being purely "good" doesn't make sense. If that makes sense.

[licncourt]

I have once again forced @nasnyys to be my Louis dealer. My very helpful picsart rendering of what I wanted under the cut

[potato-cat-999]

@yuumei-art I purchased your long fin white koi kit for Christmas and just finished today! Let me say it was really fun to decorate and surprisingly easier than I thought to assemble. It brought me a lot of joy to fly Bernard (him) around the house by his string. He is extremely aerodynamic. I will be rotating him in my head (and above my bed) for a while.

[unfortunate-songbird]

ok Yes, obviously Donnie would swear very often if he didn’t exist in a kids show universe

however

wouldn’t it be so funny if he didn’t? all his brothers swear (Leo often, Mikey and Raph when their brothers aren’t around) and he doesn’t??

this guy is a single degree of seperation from a full blown supervillain at all times and he uses goofy substitutes instead of swearing

“Holy Newton’s Pajamas!” Donnie yelps, on the run from the cops for illegal & unethical experimentation and four counts of first degree murder

[rosebleue]

Blorbo from my mind