#i'll probably make the one about Good Omens later

[le-panda-chocovore]

Top 5 fav moments from Good Omens or Avatar : The Legend of Aang... Thx :D

The Legend of Aang ? I didn't know this version 😂😂😂

I hope you'll take the responsibility of making me plunge back into my hyperfixations lmaooo

The order doesn't mean anything, this isn't in order of preference :

Sokka getting his ass beaten by the Kyoshi Warriors so bad that the Misogyny Spirit left him. An important point of his character development. Also Suki is badass.

Zuko venting to an unconscious Aang during a snowstorm at the North Pole, then trying to fight Katara when she found them and immediately losing the "rematch" lmaoo (Bro you're lame but we love you that way)

Sokka's haiku battle. It was really cool. I love when he's smart (it doesn't make it less dumb tho lmaooo)

The 2 entire Boiling Rock episodes. Because Zukka material, because Suki is badass, because Father-Son Reunion, because Mai is cool too, because Azula's shocked reaction, because running away from the highest prison of the Fire Nation is fucking awesome.

Any of Toph's legendary retorts/insults. Literally couldn't choose one, they're all priceless.

[ineffable-suffering]

Why Aziraphale is an unreliable narrator

Part 1: The Story of Job

I'm absolutely not the first one to talk about this on here and I probably shan't be the last either. Alas, here's my take on why all of the minisodes in Season 2 should be enjoyed with great care – and taken with a grain of angelic salt.

I'm gonna split this into 3 parts, aka the three minisodes we are shown, since I tend to get a bit waffley in my posts and want to still be able to include all the little details. Once I've written them, I'll link Part 2 & Part 3 here as well!

Alright, let's get into it under the cut of doom.

Episode 2 opens with the Story of Job. Right off the bat, I noticed that it sort of looks like an old film playing. At first I didn't read that much into it, but once we see the cut-away to Aziraphale at the bookshop, currently reading that part of the Bible (presumably), I immediately thought: "Oh! It's because it's his memory. He's remembering how it went down and therefore it plays like a figurative film in his head."

This, I then came to realize, is a very crucial difference to all the flashbacks of S1, which were exclusively told and narrated by God. May her intensions be as ineffable as they are: She did tell us all of these stories from an objective outsider's point of view. Now, however, it's Aziraphale who's re-telling those stories to us from memory.

And if there's one thing that's for certain, it's that a memory is something entirely different to an objective narration of a story. Just think about how you yourself remember things. Especially things that happened years, maybe even decades (or, in an angel's case, millenia) ago. What is it, that you really remember? Can you know for sure, that a conversation was held with those exact words? Are you 100% certain that the clothes someone wore weren't different? Had it really been snowing or would that make very little sense given what you're remembering happened in May? And did it even happen in May? Or does that just happen to be your favourite month, the current weather, your preferred style of clothing and what it was that you would imagine someone would have said to you?

What I'm trying to say is: The further away it is that something happened, the more your brain has to fill in the gaps. This is why, for example, your parents will remember the family summer holiday entirely different when you ask them about it 20 years later.

"No, it was Sarah who puked on the car ride home!" "Nonsense, Sarah never puked as a child. Bobby had that gone-off pizza, he's the one that was sick the whole ride long!"

We've all been there. Bobby made it out alive. Don't buy gas station pizza.

Alright, back to the plot: Naturally, Aziraphale is not actually human, so it is a pure assumption on my part that the way his memory works is similar to ours. However, the whole topic of "memory" is actually quite a recurring one on Good Omens.

Crowley seems to have lost his in the Fall, yet somehow managed to get most of it back. Not all of it, though, he clearly has some major gaps ("You used to jump on me back, little monkey in the waistcoat!"). Beelzebub helps Gabriel store all his memories in their little fly container before they get wiped entirely too, by the Metatron and/or Saraqael. Crowley and Aziraphale (and possibly Jimbriel) perform a miracle together that makes everyone in Heaven and Hell forget who Garbiel is or what he looks like. And we know that the Book of Life apparently has the ability to completely erase someone from existence – ergo also erasing them from everyone's memory and making it is as though the person had never been in them at all.

So, clearly, angels and demons being able to remember, forget, reconstruct and, if you're the Metadork, wipe memories, is very much canon. Apart from that very last one, it does make them quite human-like in a way. We too can forget or (wrongfully and incompletely) reconstruct memories, due to things like trauma, illness or simply a lot of time having passed.

So, just like Crowley remembers going into battle but doesn't remember Furfur being there, or just like Jimbriel has entierly forgotten who he is but still remembers the tune and lyrics to Buddy Holly's song Everyday, and just like archangel Michael was miraculously made to forget Gabriel and yet says "Don't I know you?" when seeing him again – just like that, Aziraphale's memories of the story of Job, the story of wee Morag and the story of the magic show in 1941, might not actually be the whole truth.

So, time to look at where the furniture isn't.

Now, it could very well be that the costume designers of S2 thought: "Fuck it, let's go crazy" – but given that this show has a track record of meticulously making sure to stick to accurate and cohesive character design, doesn't it strike you as odd that Crowley would go from this look at the Flood in Mesopotamia, 3004 BC:

... to the (very iconic, don't get me wrong) Bildad the Shuhuite drip in 2500 BC:

... back to this at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in 33 AD:

I mean ... I mean– come on, that seems like a bit of a far stretch, even for someone as enthusiastically experimental with fashion as Crowley.

And it's not just that: Where did the sunglasses come from, all of a sudden? And why do they look like some sort of obscure, ancient optometrist's device? It's a known historical fact that the Romans were the ones to have invented sunglasses, somewhere around 50-ish AD. Which actually matches perfectly with when Crowley and Aziraphale meet again in Rome 8 years after the crucifixion (51 AD).

So, where do the weird spectacles come from, over 2000 years too early? Maybe from Aziraphale's brain filling in some gaps? Hasn't Crowley always worn those ridiculous sunglasses? Was it Rome? Or Golgotha? Wessex? Oh, blimey, what does it matter!

And it's not just Crowley: Aziraphale's own clothes, as well as the other angels', seem to be very different from the rather plain linen we see him wear before and after the story of Job.

They're laced with golden embroidery along the neckline and sleeves. The remind almost of the clothes angels are depicted wearing in biblical and historical drawings. Ornate and decadent. Not at all like we see Aziraphale in the other flashbacks of S1.

Even Bildad the Shuhite's hair within the minisode keeps changing, going from all pouffy and voluminous to rather deflated and straight-looking:

The costume department either had to fix up two seperate wigs or manually straighten out the volume of the one again to give it a more sleek look. I'm not a professional in this field, but if there's anything I've learned from watching hours of behind-the-scenes material of movies and shows, it's that very little about costume, character, prop and set design is purely coincidental.

You know what it could be, though? An accurate representation of how memories aren't linear, historically correct and objective representations of a certain event, but rather an ever-changing, jumbled mess of impressions, emotions and exaggerations.

More specifically: Aziraphale's impression, emotions and exaggerations.

Like "remembering" Crowley with sunglasses because he's been wearing them for so long.

Like "remembering" himself wearing more luxurious, angelic clothes because that's how he thinks of the difference between Heaven and Hell.

Like "remembering" the permit as a ridiculously long scroll that folded out over an entire valley.

Like "remembering" Job's children to be weirdly sassy in an almost Aziraphale-esque way (Enon: "Don't be silly!") for the fact that Job would have probably taught them to be more humble and obedient in the presence of a literal angel.

Like "remembering" eating an entire fucking Ox after having just one bite of it while Crowley watched him lustfully, sipping on his wine.

Like "remembering" Crowley calling him 'angel', despite them having barely known each other back then.

There's a reason why the flashbacks in S2 seem so much more alive, quirky and, at many points, confusing and all over the place. Because they're not objective stories being told by a third party. They're Aziraphale's. So much of his own thoughts and feelings at the time get projected onto them because that's simply how memory works!

It's subjective. It's unrealiable.

It's not that I'm calling Aziraphale a liar. He's no more a liar than your parents are, mixing up Sarah and Bobby. Or you, remembering snow instead of sunshine. Memories aren't lies. They can simply be faulty, focus on things that you thought were more important and leaving out or changing things that weren't, to you.

The real challenge in all of this, is trying to filter through Aziraphale's stories to see what it actually is they're telling us. Where it is that the furniture isn't. And I think in this case, that's 6 main things (eff you, God, I know you like sevens, but I don't care):

God and Satan (still) talk to each other We see that Aziraphale is quite surprised when Muriel mentions that the whole Job thing is God's bet with Satan. But clearly, despite having made him and the rest fall, God still converses with Her number one traitor about whether or not the humans simply love Her because she gives them nice things or because they truly believe in Her.

God and Satan (and Heaven and Hell) can and do collaborate with each other when they feel like it So much for choosing sides, huh? Truthfully, this is not the first time this is shown to us, but still. It's another piece of evidence on the growing pile.

Aziraphale understands the World and humans way better than any of the other angels "Well, you see ... Citis is 58 ..."

Aziraphale, despite having troubles voicing it, absolutely disagrees and even condemns God's plan of destroying Job's children (and goats and camels and––)

Aziraphale is willing to lie and thwart the will of God Also not the first time we're being shown this but again, piiiile of evidence.

Angels don't automatically Fall simply by doing the above To me, this is one of the most important take aways. It's already hinted in S1 as well that 'Falling' seems to have been a one time even back when the first war broke out in Heaven. And I actually believe that ever since then, no other angels have Fallen again. Aziraphale is the best example for this. He has gone against God's plan numerous times and even lied to her very face (voice?) about it. And yet, nothing ever happened to him. Why exactly that is the case remains a topic for another meta (that I might or might not be working on already, teehee).

Alright, that concludes this first look at the Job minisode! If there's anything I missed, feel free to share it with me. I'll try and add Part 2 (the story of wee Morag) and Part 3 (the magic show of 1941) soon.

Update: Part 2 and Part 3 have officially been written, you can find it them right here:

Part 2: The Story of wee Morag

Part 3: The Story of the Magic Show in 1941

Hugs and kisses, (God)!

[captainfantasticalright]

Another Sir Terry Pratchett interview on the details of writing Good Omens with Neil Gaiman. (More about this process x).

Question about how he goes about collaborating with someone else .

Terry: “You make them do what you want”.

Gary Cornell came up with something very apposite talking about working together, he says : It’s not that (each) of you does 50% of the work, each of you does 90% of the work.

Um. The way we did it then, and I can’t really speak as an expert because it's the only time I’ve ever done it and other people do it in different ways, it wasn’t a case of, the way the Americans tend to do it, um, is one person writes a draft and the other person goes in and noodles with that draft. We did the whole thing from the ground up; each was doing bits. The ad hoc way we had of working, it’s simple: I’ve got a track record writing novels, Neil hadn’t. So I became like the editor, the taskmaster. Because the other thing is the practical problem about two people 120 miles apart doing something, is that, um, it would be different now, but in those days we had no reliable means of electronic communication. We could connect computers together with modems and then spend the whole evening at cross purpose and ringing each other up and saying “I’m getting lots of little faces and shit like that all over..”

Three quarters of an hour and about eight phone calls, you actually managed to transmit about 2000 words you could have actually phoned and sneezed in a morse code.

[w]hen we were doing the first draft of the film script, we were both members of CompuServe so crappy our BT rural lines that the quick efficient way was for me to go into CompuServe and leave the work I’d done in Neil’s mailbox on the computer in Ohio or someplace and later that evening he would dial CompuServe in America and download it from Ohio or wherever it was.

So in order to get the script 120 miles, electronically it was doing about 10000. This is from the global village.

What we would do is I would hold the master copy and sometimes work would have to stop for 24 hours because stuff was in the post, because the nightmare, the absolute nightmare which I knew would happen if we let it, was that somehow we’d end up with two master copies in existence with little, minute changes, and we’d never be able to spot which was which.

So the last thing we wanted was two master copies, and we worked on the phone who did what. I did a bit more than Neil, of that anyway. But, it also felt to me to be an awful lot of the glue that no one wanted to do because it was easy to do set piece scenes and written on a kind of, on the kind of plot somewhere you get A and B to F and X and Y across to C T. And that really is like 3000 words where you have to move people around and then,you know, shove extra bits in; so I ended up probably doing near 75% of the book.

I would probably say because it’s, because had we’ve done it any other way it would’ve been like three months longer to do.

Also part of the process from another interview with Terry Pratchett:

Q: Let's talk a bit about the book you collaborated with Neil Gaiman on: Good Omens. That was before email, so how did it work on a practical basis? What was the most challenging aspect of writing with someone else?

I'm sure what I have to say will echo what Neil has said. When two people work on a book, it isn't a case where each one does 50% of the work. Each one does 100% of the work. There are some bits in Good Omens which I know are mine. There are some bits in Good Omens which I know are Neil's. There are some bits which were Neil's idea which I wrote, and there are some bits which were my idea which Neil wrote. Some bits we no longer know exactly whose ideas they were, or who wrote them. By the time we'd gone through all the drafts, it had been written by some sort of composite entity. We wrote it in the 14th century. We each had one phone line and a 1200 baud modem. We'd work it out: "OK, you send, I'll receive." Sometimes it would take 20 minutes to half an hour before we could send the stuff. It would have been cheaper and easier to have rung each other up and sneezed out the text in Morse Code. I was the Keeper of the Disks. I insisted that there should only be one official version in existence at any time. The moment it split into two, we would be in dead trouble. But Neil would sometimes send me a disk with 2000 words, saying " This is the scene with so and so -- insert it here." It more or less worked. It took us about six weeks to do the first draft. I think it worked because, at the time, we were each making a name for ourselves in our respective fields. It's not that we didn't take it seriously. But we were relaxed. We thought we would earn some holiday money by doing it. The nice thing about collaborating is that there is one other person in the world who is thinking about the exact same thing that you are thinking about. We both have a similar reading background, I suppose. It was quite rare when one of us came up with something that the other guy didn't know about. So we could bounce ideas off one another quite easily.

[time-travelling-chaos]

Aziraphale and autism representation: episode 1

So, I was rewatching Good Omens recently, and I wanted to come back on how Aziraphale is represented as autistic in the show. I especially want to focus on the positive representation here, what makes me happy about it and how I see myself (and other autistic people can see themselves as well) in it. I'm probably going to go way too much into small details here, and end up analysing every scene where he is present (but to be fair, an autistic person is always autistic, whatever they are doing even if it's not always visible). And yeah, I'm probably going to be projecting a tiny bit here.

So, let's start with the first episode here, and especially, let's start at the beginning:

When we first see Aziraphale it is at the moment he meets Crowley and the conversation starts like this:

Crowley: That went down like a lead balloon Aziraphale: Yeah. *Laughs* Sorry what was that? Crowley: I said 'Well that went down like a lead balloon' Aziraphale: Yes, yes, it rather did.

There are two points that I find interesting here, about the way Aziraphale reacts to what Crowley says. He doesn't understand or hear the question right away, but still reacts to it before asking Crowley to repeat. One of the ways I read it is processing issues that often happen with autism. Sometimes, it simply takes time to process or to understand and information that has been given (and it has happened to me so many times, asking someone to repeat something to only realise what they have been saying when they start repeating it). Plus, here Aziraphale doesn't actually seems to realise that he has missed the information right away, it takes him a few seconds to do so. And sure, this can happen to everyone, but it happens more often with neurodivergent people, so it's a nice touch. The good thing about that as well, is the reaction of Crowley. He isn't upset, he simply repeats what he just said, and the conversation keeps going. This way of processing information is shown again later, when Crowley says 'it would be funny if we both got it wrong' and Aziraphale chuckles first (because it is objectively funny here) and only then realises the implications of it. [I'll insist here, but none of that means that Aziraphale is stupid. He is, it has been said over and over, a really intelligent being, I'll come back to it later.]

The second interesting point though is about masking. I'll come back to it later, because it's not the most interesting instance of it, but his first reaction to the question, is to pretend that he understood, to pretend that things are ok, and that he was following the conversation correctly, to not show that he didn't understand. And once again it's something that I do a lot. I miss pieces of information all of the time, because I didn't hear it properly, or wasn't focused or simply didn't understand something. And people get easily annoyed by that, plus it can be exhausting sometimes to ask to repeat all the time, so pretending to have heard something, and continuing like nothing happened is also a thing that I'll do quite often.

Now, one of the most visible things here, is the relation that Aziraphale has with eye contact. He makes eye contact with Crowley, plenty of times. But also (and this one also applies to Crowley to some extent), they spend a lot of the conversation not looking at each other.

And this is something that happens often in the show, when they are discussing, they don't always look at each other. It's more visible when Aziraphale is uncomfortable about something, or when he need time to think about something, he'll simply look away for some time, to give himself some time to rest and think properly.

Now, one of of the things I love about him, is his moral sense, and the way he cares. A common autistic trait is a strong sense of justice, but it means, most of the times, having your own sense of justice. And Aziraphale definitely has his own, that doesn't align with Heaven's one. He gives his flaming sword away to protect humanity, without hesitating a second. He doesn't want to kill anyone, not if he can avoid it. He is a strong character, and a protector and I love him for that.

Another thing about him, that can also be seen in that first scene, is that he has a tendency to overthink things. He clearly spent a lot of time worrying about the consequences of giving his sword away before talking to Crowley. While, that, by itself is not a positive trait, it is on that I love seeing in characters, because it is something that needs to be shown and discussed as well.

Now, the next scene where we see Aziraphale is the sushi scene, which shows a completely different side of him. Here, he is relaxed, and doing something he absolutely loves. I adore this part the way it shows the care he has for small things, the small ritual that he follows before eating, how it is shown that it is part of his habits/routine. It's a place he his familiar with, and that he loves. And the specific way he loves it. He takes time to do so, time to enjoy the smell, to care and love things slowly. And this is something I wish I'd let myself do more. Take the time to do things slowly, to fully appreciate them. And of course, that scene pictures the care and love for familiarity, for sameness, for small rituals, not in a boring way but in a caring and comforting way.

And then Gabriel arrives, and his expression changes, he becomes more nervous. And he stops talking freely. There is here a really nice parallel to make between autism masking and Aziraphale's relationship with Heaven. Autism masking is a way to protect yourself by trying to fit in a neurotypical society. And the way Aziraphale acts in Heaven, or in presence of Gabriel is extremely similar to that. He becomes nervous, and careful of what he is saying. Then we have this discussion

Gabriel: Why do you consume that? Aziraphale: It's sushi. It's nice. You dip it in soy sauce Aziraphale: It's what humans do.

And several things can be said about that. First, Gabriel's question wasn't really a question, more of a disguised insult here, to which Aziraphale replies as if it was a literal question from him, which does show some literal thinking. It's not the only instance of that, and a similar reaction will happen later in the discussion with Crowley about Warlock

Crowley: If there was no boy... Aziraphale: But there is a boy. He is right there.

Then, the way he talks about sushi. He is hurt that Gabriel doesn't like sushi, and he starts explaining what it is giving a tiny piece of information about it, and his face completely light up as he does. Food and especially certain type of food such as sushi are definitely one of his special interests, and it makes him really happy. He wants to talk about it, and he wants his interest to be appreciated. But then, he realises that it's not something Gabriel approves of, and hides his own feelings, stop talking about it, and try to justify it, to make his love acceptable (It's what humans do). And, ouch, this hurts. Having to mask your own interest when they are not deemed acceptable or, because you are talking 'too much' about it and it's 'not interesting' is absolutely a common experience of autism, and it is often heartbreaking.

Now, I don't really want to go into details in the relationship between Aziraphale and Heaven, because as I said I would like to focus more on the positive and on the parts that I find relatable, and also because it's a complex relationship and I'm not in Aziraphale's head, but I feel the need to say a few things about it.

Does Aziraphale have faith in Heaven? It's a bit of a complex question here. Plenty of times, he is shown talking about Heaven in what can be seen as positive (Heaven will finally triumph over Hell, we're the good guys). But he is also shown hating it, going directly against it (I don't like it anymore than you do...). He knows that the other Angels are, for most of them (not counting Muriel here), not good, and he is always careful around them. When we see him in Heaven, he has a tense face, makes small, constrained smiles, keeps masking and keeping his thoughts to himself, not trusting them. So where exactly does he stand with Heaven? I do believe that, at least in that season, he still has some faith in God, if not in any of the other angels, as he will end up praying to Her at some point, but there are other factors to take into account when analysing this relation. [Also I'm only focusing on the first season/ first episode here, I'm not going to the end of S2 at all here, which is a completely different topic]

First of all, liking the idea of something does not mean that you will like the thing as it is. To take a personal example here, I love academia. Except I don't. I love the idea of academia, the idea of public research, of being able to learn and to transmit knowledge. But academia is a shitty place. So, so much people are sexists and racists, (queerphobic as well, even if less perceived usually), and a lot of my friends have horror stories of their own about it. A lot of people are burnt-out, tired, it's a system that asks you to work relentlessly to get a chance to survive, in which a lot of people spend more time looking for money to work that actually working. Academia is absolutely awful but the idea of academia is amazing.

Then, as I mentioned it before -and this is the point that I really want to mention here- Heaven is associated to masking. And yeah, here, I know some people have mentioned that Heaven can check on him any time, meaning that he has to keep up appearances, but that's not exactly relevant to what I want to say here. Masking, when done for a long time, becomes a part of who you are, and you sometimes forget a part of who you are without it. For a long time, I used to go back home after my day and not being myself either, acting as if there was still people around me. Because, the rest of the time it's what keeps you safe. So you keep doing it without realising. Sometimes, I catch myself stimming or doing something I like when I'm alone, and I stop myself because it's not something you're supposed to be doing. Masking, when done for a long time, becomes somewhat a part of what you are, even when you are alone and safe.

And in a very similar fashion, it takes a lot of time to unlearn things. Not necessarily masking, but things that you learn from your family, you relatives, and you later realise were incorrect. I don't know how much (if to any extent) autism impacts that, but on some occasions, it had taken me years to manage to unlearn stuff (and some I still struggle with). And it's extraordinarily frustrating, both for you and for the people around you and sometimes hurtful as well. Now, Aziraphale has been with Heaven for thousand, even millions of years, it would make sense that some things stayed in his head. [Now, because I have seen that too many times, NO, he doesn't need to violently realise that Heaven is bad, he know it. In a similar way, I don't need to be let's say screamed at for masking, because it would only trigger the opposite effect. Aziraphale needs to be free from Heaven and some time to heal from it.]

Also, Aziraphale doesn't have any other option than Heaven at the moment (here in S1). Things are going to be destroyed and he will be stuck in Heaven, one way or another. So, maybe a part of it is simply him, trying to convince himself that there is good in Heaven because he doesn't have a choice.

Now, I don't want to say any of these are true, or try to analyse that relationship in more details, those are just a few points that I wanted to mention here, because they are (at least the part about masking) relevant to the rest of the discussion about autism so I'll stop there because there would be so much more to discuss and analyse, but that's not the topic of this post.

But as I was on the topic of Heaven, I'm going to do a small skip forward before going back to a linear discussion of the episode, and talk about that conversation:

I am an angel, you are a demon, we're hereditary ennemis. Get the behing me fool fiend! After you.

Now, I love this sentence, because it says a lot about his relationship with Heaven. He knows Heaven's rules, but he also knows when and when not to follow them. Of course, him and Crowley are enemies, that's how Heaven sees them. But they are also friends, that's how they constructed their own relationship. To some extend, it reminds me of the Don't Play With Liquid Nitrogen moment. [And before I go any further in my explanation, I'll emphasise on that: DO NOT PLAY WITH LIQUID NITROGEN, it doesn't matter whatever I say next, DO NOT PLAY WITH LIQUID NITROGEN GUYS].

When I was doing an internship in my second year of bachelor, one of the person I was working with started to show me and another student something, and told us that we were not supposed to play with liquid nitrogen, while himself splashing so of it around. The thing is, liquid nitrogen is dangerous, but when you know how to do it, you can touch it for a few seconds without getting burnt. And here it is a bit of a similar situation. By simply following the rules, they shouldn't interact, let alone be friends. But they've been there for long enough to properly understand the situation, and to know they can follow their own rules instead of Heaven and Hell's ones.

Now, back to the rest of the episode. After the scene with Gabriel, we next see Aziraphale in the bookshop. He is putting up his coat on the hanger, and while doing that, he is humming along with the classical music in the background. Here, he is at home, a place where he can be himself, do whatever he likes. And I love that we see him stim along with the music. We see him stim plenty of times during the show (with the music, when he eats...) and it shows that it's a part of who he is. And most importantly, it's never shown negatively or mocked, and yeah, it's just so great to see a character stimming (and I'll add: stimming in a non-cliché way. Everyone's stims are different and do not always fit the cliché representation that most people have of it) and enjoying doing so, in moments of relaxation and happiness.

And in the second part of that scene, the phone rings, and he is visibly annoyed. He likes the quiet, doesn't like been around people (even if he loves humanity and people themselves) and doesn't like unexpected things to happen. And thus, he also immediately goes to an automated script instead of starting a conversation (I'm afraid we're quite definitely closed).

Now, I'll take the opportunity to mention the bookshop itself, because I absolutely love it. To be fair, it would be one of my dream place in the world, but that's not the topic here.

The bookshop is such a comforting place. The lights are dim and it's quiet (despite the outside of it being in a crowded place, so that probably took a miracle), which makes it a dream to relax and avoid overstimulation. But also, it's a place where he stores everything related to another of his special interests: books (and also wines, and other things he loves). So books are a special interest that I share with him, so of course, it's something that I means a lot to be, but to be able to be surrounded by so much of things you love, with music you love in the background, it's simply amazing , and I'm repeating myself here, but it's absolutely a dream place to be. Plus, going back to the representation part, it's so, so important to see special interests shown as they are. Once again, not in a cliché way (and by saying that, I have absolutely nothing against special interests that can be considered more cliché (look a me right now, writing an essay on two of my current ones, autism and Good Omens)) but simply them being things that people can usually enjoy, but to a much strong extent in Aziraphale's case. And once again, it's never here to be made fun of, simply to be shared and appreciated.

Something notable as well about Aziraphale is his posture. He sits in a very straight way, that doesn't seems comfortable. Now, autistic people tend to have more the opposite problem, which is to have bad posture. But a usual one is also a notable sign as well. But also, his posture when walking is interesting.

He is holding his hands close to his body, and most of the time is stimming once more, with his hands (or perhaps with his ring as well). And this type of posture, is so, so nice to see. When I was younger, I had the tendency to hold my arms around my stomach, in a way that was a bit similar to the way Aziraphale is holding himself in the picture above. And, of course, I got scolded and criticised for it, until I stopped doing so. So seeing Aziraphale having a similar posture, and knowing the type of comfort it can bring, and how this type of contact is important, makes me really happy.

Now, I'm diverting a bit from the topic for a second here, but there is an interesting parallel to make between Aziraphale's posture, and the one of the other angels:

When we look at the angels in Heaven, they all hold their hands in front of them, but it's in a tense way trying to show authority and rigor, while for Aziraphale, it's in a more relaxed way, and the goal for him is comfort. It's similar, but it's also so different, and it creates and interesting contrast between Aziraphale and the other angels.

And when I'm talking about the posture, I'd also like to mention the vocabulary. Aziraphale's vocabulary is peculiar, old-fashioned, but it's also really precise. Now, that is not something I particularly relate to, but a lot of autistic people do tend to have a very specific and precise vocabulary to communicate their ideas in the clearest way possible, and I like that this is something we can find in Aziraphale as well.

Quickly after the discussion between Aziraphale and Crowley, they discuss going out for lunch, and mention the last time that happen, and start discussing the reign of terror, to which Aziraphale replies 'We had crepes'.

And while he does so, his face absolutely lights up. Now, I've seen people mentioning the fact that Aziraphale doesn't really show (or worst doesn't really have) emotions, but this scene is so much the opposite of that. When he is talking about something he love, he is so expressive and his love for it is so visible. And I love seeing that, seeing the love for special interests being accepted and represented in such a positive way. Now, when talking about emotions, there is a sharp contrast between this scene and the previous one, where they were discussing about Heaven where he kept his face neutral. Having a neutral face is something that is often seen as one of the characteristics of autism, but it's not fully true. First of all, it can be related to masking (and I've already discussed the relationship between Heaven and masking here) but also, it usually depends a lot on the situation, and when autistic people are talking about their interests, they can, in fact, be very expressive, as this can be seen here with Aziraphale.

Another thing that I love about that scene is how he connects the discussion to one of his interests. Now, another characteristic of autism is to see patterns between things, and for a long time, I thought this didn't quite applied to me. But it does, and usually in the way it's shown here with Aziraphale. When I have a special interest, I have a tendency to find way to connect everything to it, to make links between ordinary things and my interest, and that was a really cool thing to see here.

And now the dinner scene. I've mostly already discussed everything happening in the scene before, but I'll just say it again, because it shows that those things are constants in Aziraphale's character, and not a one time thing. First is his love for food, that we can see there once more. Then he is once more stimming after eating. And also, he is finishing eating much after Crowley already finished his meal. He takes his time, takes the time to really savour the things he loves, and I love that for him.

Another thing that I want to mention, is his gardener disguise (and much later in the show, his newspaperman disguise). It is, in both cases, so exaggerated, and shows a lot about how he comprehends the world. It's something that I can connect to the idea of learning how to be human only from what you see in shows and books, and that's something a lot of autistic people can related to. (And of course, this rarely works in real life, the same way that it seems odd in the show).

There is another interesting point to mention, and that's questions. When we think about Good Omens and questions, we directly think about Crowley, and him asking questions. But in the show, at least in that first episode, Aziraphale is the one asking a lot of questions. Especially about how precisely things will happen.

Won't people remark on the sudden appearance of a huge black dog? His parents for a start?

He needs precise information to know how things will happen and to be able to prepare for what will happen, and that, once again, is a strong autistic trait. (I could also discuss about the fact of Heaven not liking questions, and autistic people usually being criticise when asking questions to understand clearly what to do, but I think that would be going a bit too far in the analysis here.) Still, I love seeing the way he understands the world, and the way he sees the potential issues that could arise. And also, there is that scene with Crowley, that I particularly relate to.

Aziraphale: If he comes to his full powers, how will we stop him? Crowley: This won't happen. Aziraphale: *quick annoyed smile*

And this scene is important, because it shows the difference of what autistic people can expect when the ask a question, and what other people understand. Here Crowley tries to reassure him, and Aziraphale gets slightly annoyed, because it was not what he needed. This is a situation I've been here before, and when I ask this type of question (because at the same time I'm overthinking and I need to plan how I'll act and have a plan) people offer reassurance. And this is rarely helpful to handle the situation, because in that type of case, what I need is answers (or at least something like 'we'll figure it out'. Because things can go wrong, and I need to be prepared for this eventuality as well). And yeah, I really like the scene for showing that discrepancy between what is needed by autistic people, and the answer that other people usually provide.

One more of Aziraphale's special interests is magic, and it has quite an important part in the show.

As it's the case with all of the times we see special interest, we also see Aziraphale being extremely happy with it, and his face always lighting up. But this one is a bit different because he is bad at it. When he does magic, he is clumsy, and drops things and fails most of the time. And that's great, for two different reasons. First of all, clumsiness, and poor space management is often a part of autism, and it's one that is rarely shown or represented, so it's something that I like to see. But, and most importantly, it shows that you don't need to be good at something to enjoy it, and this, by itself is amazing. And it's especially great in the context of special interest, where once again, one of the clichés is that autistic people have to know everything and to excel at their interets, which can end up putting a lot of pressure on people (also as some autistic people, myself included, are extremely perfectionists). So seeing him simply enjoying it without being good at it is refreshing here, and helpful as well.

I'm now going to very quickly mention that conversation when the Hellhound doesn't arrive

Aziraphale: Wrong boy Crowley: Wrong boy

Simply because I've discussed earlier in the post about processing issues, and about how it had nothing to do about Aziraphale's intelligence. Well, here is a perfect example of it, because this time, just after learning about the situation he is able to have a good understanding of the situation, and, if that's completely obvious for us, it is much less to them.

And I'm now going to conclude with that sentence said by Aziraphale at the end of the episode: Welcome to the end times.

I don't have any specific analysis behind that one, I just happen to particularly love it and I wanted to share it once more.

And to conclude a bit more with that analysis of the first episode, I absolutely love how Aziraphale is depicted in the show. He is a strong and caring character, but also a very complex one. I find it really great that his character is able to show the good and the part parts of autism, and also, that it never turns any of it as a joke, nor goes strongly in the clichés. So, yeah, I absolutely love him.

So at first I was planning to do a similar analysis for every episode, but I had not realised how much time and energy this would cost me. I really loved doing it though, so I might continue, but I'm not making any promise here.

[maufungi]

The Bentley is a lie

(This is a spoiler zone for Good Omens season 2) Hey guys! I found something strange (and most likely the stupidest meta of all)

I read these amazing posts about the Bentley Ineffable discontinuity and the Bentley's roadtrip transformation and this one by @embracing-the-ineffable and @thesherrinfordfacility

and they got me thinking…

Why the Bentley is a lie:

So while re-watching episode 2, I noticed something strange…

Something immediately caught my eye in the first scene. The blue box in which the "2" (2500 BC) is written. In terms of color grading, I find it very striking.

A second blue box appears with the "L" of "Land of Uz".

The next 2 are in the book of Job that Aziraphale and Crowley are looking at. "T" and an "S" can be found.

In the back of my mind there was still the hint that this episode was called "The Clue". And of course there would have to be hidden clues in this episode. Something story or meta relevant.

So I just googled "2LTS". (Because I am a research professional)

And to my surprise a model of a car appeared, that looked very similar to the Bentley: the Ballot 2LTS.

Maybe there is a Bentley at the start of the season (episodes 1 and 2) but they later switched it to another car? The Ballot 2 LTS.

I don't know anything about cars. So I read a bit about them. To my surprise, a Bentley isn't just a Bentley. It's the chassis that is from the manufacturer Bentley and the body is made by a coachbuilder company. (In this post @scrapheapchallenge explains which body the old Bentley in season 1 had and what happend to it in season 2.)

So my theory is that they changed the Bentley chassis to a Ballot. And put on a 4 door body.

This could explain the changing seat colors and hubcaps.

And why they talk about a Bentley in the first two episodes and later just use the word car.

And why a Queen song is only played once in the Bentley. (Episode 1)

The Bentley was there at the beginning but then it was replaced?

In what way is this relevant for the story? I don't know.

Why are the clues hidden within the Job storyline? I don't know.

Maybe it has to do with multiple timelines (by @noneorother) where the Bentley is and isn't? I don't know.

Maybe the the french word "Ballot" has a deeper meaning? I don't know.

Does any of this make sense? Probably not, but I had fun writing it.

The only thing I know is that the Bentley ought to be the old Bentley, but it seems to be another car.

There are more of those blue squares (did you see the metatron's TIE?!), so I will look further into them, but for so long:

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I'll let myself out.

[magpie-come-east]

Also Hornsent grandam for the ask meme because she’s cute and deserves more love

favorite thing about them

Frankly I love everything about her. I love her design. I love her dialogue. I love that she is initially hostile but softens up as the story progresses. I love, even then, she never actually trusts the player wholly (she thinks you are a Sculpted Keeper, that's why she loosens up). Despite her sharp tongue and stinging condemnation, she shows over and over that there is a loving old grandma buried beneath the ash laid during the war. She's old. She's been watching her friends and family die all her life. She's watched her way of life slowly go extinct. But she faces the player with dignity. She makes soup with love. She tells the player to take a nap. She tells you to beat Messmer's ass.

least favorite thing about them

This is a petty detail, but it kinda bugs me that she says 'by the look of thee, another of Messmer's peons, methinks' about the player. Then later when the player wears the Divine Beast Dancing Lion mask, she mistakes them for a Sculpted Keeper because of their smell. I believe her horns made her blind, hence her recognition by scent later. But at the beginning they make it seem like she is still sighted. It feels like a minor oversight, but it bothered me haha.

But Gramma is perfect otherwise!

favorite line

"For what reason dost thou falter, villain? Enact thy sordid work with fullest pride. Else tuck away thy tail and leave for good. Loathsome issue of the rotten strumpet."

These lines are just so badass. She is an old woman 'looking' her would-be assassin in the eye and saying 'Do it, coward. You won't.' With a couple of lines we can see what a strong and proud woman she is. She fully expects to die, not understanding a Tarnished is not an agent of Messmer. But she refuses to be humiliated or cowed.

"I cannot presume thou didst not suffer... Please, I ask thee, allow thyself some rest. None of the tower would dare interfere. And if one should, I'll see to them myself!"

I also love this one. Once she lets her guard down she really is just a grandma. She is glad that Messmer is dead. But more than that, she is concerned about you. It's genuinely sweet.

brOTP

I think all the Horned Warriors love her. She bosses them around and they all crave her praise. Like I said, she's a Grandma.

I also feel like her and the Omen Twins would get along eventually. She'd bust their balls so hard, and they'd bite back just as hard.

OTP

I don't actively ship her with anyone. But since she grants the player the spirit of her own son to guard them, she probably had a partner at some point. Someone who likely isn't around anymore either ;;

nOTP

She wouldn't be caught DEAD with a non-hornsent lover lol

random headcanon

The Grandam is a respected leader in Belurat. Not because she was elected to or inherited any great position. But because she is one of the few elders of her clan that remembers the cultural practices that Messmer's armies are stomping out. Even the hornsent people call her Grandam because she's basically a grandmother to them all.

unpopular opinion

Hornsent Grandam isn't mean. If her 'rude' lines were given to Messmer to say ya'll (general) would be lapping it up. To be honest, I don't think most people dislike her, so this isn't really an 'unpopular' opinion. But all criticisms I see about her character are immensely bad faith. She's not 'fuckable' (ie, she's actually elderly) and a woman. So she must necessarily be dunked on to prop up the mediocre man that is her enemy.

song i associate with them

I dunno the Cult of the Lamb soundtrack.

Genius of Love - Tom Tom Club

[sonkitty]

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection Part 4 (Good Omens 2)

Last Updated: 04/18/2024

(For reference, start here: The Pocket Trick - Basics | The Pocket Trick Visual Representation | GIFs | The Pocket Trick - Tied Hands)

Main post:

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection

Here are Parts 1-3:

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection Part 1

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection Part 2

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection Part 3

This part covers The Door Trick and The Door Catch.

Theory. So much theory.

Problems

I will admit freely, my understanding of what is happening here is quite limited.

Still, I will share it as I think it's enough to hold some value nonetheless.

There are two left hands with desirable traits that pass by Crowley's right.

One left hand has a left thumb joint touching a lapel edge. Another left hand has a full set of visible digits. Both of these things are requirements in The Pocket Trick touches of a similar nature.

I believe using both of them requires a full 360-degree flip of the imaginary mirror for the Tied Hands while at the same time trying to make sure that Orange goes to Yellow and Yellow is what connects first, not Green or any other color. That means hitting Yellow twice in a row.

Because of such complications, there is something akin to a color wheel with humans and their bags fully pocket-framing the "Life begins after coffee" sign. It's not a full color wheel because it lacks green and has such limited blue, but one human who is probably representing the Tied Hands in Crowley's place with her arm swinging, has a blue-green strap on one of her bags and blue-green stripes, of a lighter shade the than the bag strap, on part of her shirt.

There are 4 non-rainbow shades around that do various things in this Rainbow Connection mechanic. They are Black, Brown, Gray, and White. I think there is a findable poem that goes:

Black blocks.

Brown borrows.

Gray shades.

White keeps.

I'll go over it more with the elevator itself later.

As things are now, I don't know the precise mechanics for how colors shift, but I believe the result is changing the direction of the connection with a skip to Purple and back up to Yellow.

Orange does get to Yellow, but then because of the skip-and-back to hit Yellow a second time, the next intended color is Orange again instead of Green. The goal for the main characters is not Orange again. The goal is to hold onto Yellow until Crowley's Green is ready. So, that requires a deflection that lets the connection redirect back down instead of up.

Such a thing is inadvertently resolved by the Metatron. It took some time for me to get it, but there is a hidden message about him in this part of the game when considering the word play mechanics: "The Metatron makes mistakes". That's alliteration and a rhyme. Without that message, I've described the Metatron's play as feeling like "cheating without realizing it or the story is not letting him play fully, just partly."

Without meaning to, he sets the connection back on track. That's why Aziraphale is stuck at Yellow for so long and what the blinking red lights mean. Aziraphale himself doesn't seem aware through his voice and manner of what is happening, but the actions he takes do otherwise look like an effective stalling tactic for the Rainbow Connection.

I am pleasantly taken aback by that hidden message, but I still think it's there since it fits within this puzzle.

Alright, here goes...

The Door Trick

Orange.

Crowley's pants are reflected in the Bentley, I think. Although Orange is not visibly reflected in the Bentley's surface yet, it will be. At the start of the cut, the Orange of an orange bag is visually touched by one of the Bentley's mirrors. I think Car Mirrors is Crowley's Pocket Frame for this Trick and contributing to so much of what is happening. The hood ornament looks like it's trying to be important for its role to play as well.

I think the Tied Hands' imaginary mirror flips, here, based on the right thumb CMC joint of the human furthest to the camera's left, the orange reflected in the Bentley, and the overall positions of the shoes on the background humans.

In the initial two touches of The Pocket Trick, each has something I consider over-the-rainbow touches, and I have long struggled to find the over-the-rainbow touches here.

Here, there is at least one of the car mirrors touching over the Orange at the start of the cut. Crowley's legs are crossed with one of his shoes over the shoe of a different human behind Crowley's shoe.

For my guess on that flip, the human walking behind the one holding the orange bag has his leg over the shoe of another human going the other way, toward the camera.

So, these tactics are considered sufficient, along with anything else I missed.

Crowley's left hand fingers look to be claiming Yellow, Green, and Black for use. The index finger is visually over a Green and Yellow sign. Zoomed in, I can't actually tell if the index fingertip is on one more than the other. His other fingers are visually over a human's Black attire.

Because of how things work out, that's to help Crowley's use of Black do things other than block and what he wants from his own imagination.

The human holding the Orange bag might be the "Fish" in looking for Bullet Catch magic word references. The pattern on her skirt looks like scales. My instincts had been to look at the cars and a human on a scooter, but visually, this pattern still looks like the closest match. I can't find the fish anywhere else. Because of the other guesses and references I found, I also think these are all supposed to be done no later than Aziraphale being linked into the Pocket Chain. The "dash of nutmeg" will be last even though the order before it will not match the exact order the words are said in the 1941 minisode.

...

There is an actual rainbow found between the left side of Crowley's torso and his left forearm. The rainbow places itself over closed rear car window, the open front car window and well past the edge of the left forearm, questionably all the way to the other edge. This rainbow helped emphasize something happening with the shoes I will not cover here, but this part also looks to be the game's cue that this rainbow is either what allows the incoming flips or is telling an audience player that the over-the-rainbow touches are due to how Crowley's apparel-to-car pocket is structured.

According to this post, the rainbow "doubles up," and there is two of them. Honestly, that's not what I see. The second seeming-rainbow is almost certainly contributing for whatever it is because great care is taken with the lighting overall, but I personally would not fully qualify it as an "official" rainbow because I can't distinguish its color set well enough, even with some tweaks in trying to edit the screenshot with brightness or saturation. Still, there is going to be a link to the Pocket Chain, and two characters are going "up" later.

...

Red alert. Although a red alert is given, the available Yellow is limited. The car itself blocked the nearby yellow lines to it before the red alert was on. The main Yellow on screen is like an Orange-Yellow on a license plate to further add to the confusion. More clearly later within this Trick, Gray will be shown as what can shade a color to a proper form in the Rainbow Connection. There is no nearby solid Gray to this license plate.

Otherwise, there are some yellow lines near the pub and the letters for The Dirty Donkey. I don't know which factors are keeping them at bay, but I do believe that's happening and can at least point out a few things. For instance, there is a human on a scooter between the car giving the red alert and the one with the orange-yellow license plate. This human is making a pocket with their legs and hinting at whatever is going on with the shoes. They have a patterned shirt and black pants.

The human with the black hat is who I call "Nutmeg" though her colors are strongly associated with Black and some Red. She is who is going to link the Pocket Chain to Aziraphale later. I'm making this Bullet Catch reference based on the color of her bag strap and the small part of that strap that will link to a pocket user near Aziraphale.

Since I suspect Yellow is hit twice later, it is my very uncertain hope that something here is delaying the switch long enough for what needs to be done. That most likely seems to be the red alert being boxed in by Nutmeg and humans on the other side of it. Black can block under the right circumstances, and Nutmeg has notable Black. There's a human wearing purple in front of the car with the red alert. He's probably important here for the eventual skip-to-Purple-and-back, and he is definitely important later for Aziraphale's part.

If you look behind the human girl with the cell phone and a light pink sweater and the man with a cell phone next to her, you can catch glimpse of another human with a Black hat. I don't know if she contributed to this Connection part or not, but she is, I believe, the "Gorilla" in Bullet Catch magic word references due to her movement within this cut itself. She wears mostly Black and was hunched over as she hurried along early on into the cut. Every other found reference contributes, so I would think she does too.

As she passes by, the human who I suspect will help with the Tied Hands and representing more flips visually passes "Gorilla". Using my imagination and playing with the words, I'll go with the play of associating "Gorilla" with "Tarzan," and then "Tarzan" with the name, "Jane." I'll name the human with the swinging arm, "Jane."

Orange. The human with the orange jacket has a lovely touch between her left thumb joint and the lapel edge of her jacket. The blur thing on the car is probably putting in a pass for her, so we can take that touch in with the first hit to Yellow. I believe she is "Shoelace" when searching for magic word Bullet Catch references. She is relevant to the non-rainbow thing happening with the shoes. Her shoelaces aren't visible here, but they are visible later. If the shoe links to the Rainbow Connection, I haven't figured out how, and it's a lot to go over. So, for now, I've set it aside. But it is happening, and it is relevant to something I'll mention further down.

While Shoelace is by Crowley, a pocket user wearing a yellow shirt and dark gray open vest is in a window pane reflection near Crowley and Yawning Yellow. His reflection is going to appear again in the upcoming window pane for him. The main clue his reflection isn't causing the switch here and now is there are no red alerts, and there is going to be something soon. So, this part is, just guessing as usual, preparing for that first switch to Yellow. Due to the shade of his yellow and visible left arm, I think of him as "Banana" when looking for Bullet Catch references.

The tie strands are never shown as moving with Crowley standing so still, but they do move while off camera between each of the three cuts given from in front of Crowley. That can be found through comparing screenshots of each cut.

Orange. This part is probably linking up the human fully blocking Crowley's left hand, who I named Jane earlier, with his tie strands, so she can represent their swinging in how her left arm swings.

Usually, a switch to a color and a mirror flip are not simultaneous, but given how the play goes, I've long assumed they are simultaneous for Yellow here without realizing I was doing such a thing. Still that's what I think happens, probably related to Crowley's Pocket Frame being Car Mirrors.

Yellow #1. Orange is reflected in the car with red alert lights at the same time. The earlier thumb joint touch is received with the switch. With the suspected 360-degree flip, this part is the 180-degree place in between, and something about the color wheel will finish the trickery rather fast. The human who seems to be most likely responsible for such trickery is the one wearing a purple jacket and holding a yellow bag. He has a little bit of blue visible in the collar of his shirt.

The visual cue for this being the 180 is mainly Yawning Yellow's right hand becoming visible, further supported by the nature of the arm-swinging happening by Jane.

For over-the-rainbow touches, the same mirror that was over the orange bag is now over the yellow jacket. While the actual rainbow from the first front-facing cut of Crowley is gone, this one does show the car hood ornament in front of Crowley, acting as the bottom of his top apparel-to-car pocket and being over a front edge of the car itself.

Yellow #2. Jane is pocketing the yellow of a yellow bag, holding the line for it and sending it over through the connection. If White is needed for that hold, it can be found with the visual touch on the white letters to the "Life begins after coffee" sign. Yawning Yellow has a lighter shade of Yellow in her jacket, and the Gray in her pants is compensating for it to still qualify as a proper Yellow. The black in her jacket may be doing something too. She is further assisted through Banana, whose reflection can now be found in the other window pane near her.

A human wearing Black and White, including a white turtleneck, is further solidifying things where they need to be. I am yet to find a relevant pun or word play with what a turtleneck does for pocket trickery, but I assume it does something because Crowley wore a Black turtleneck for the first two touches of The Pocket Trick. Conceptually, turtles are slow, so maybe it slows things down. Something probably worth mentioning is that in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, there is a very famous turtle, the Great A'Tuin, that the four elephants holding up the disc of Discworld stand on.

Anyway, Banana's reflection can be found in the window pane behind Yawning Yellow. The big blurry head on the right of the screen is probably giving Green a pass, so it's not sent too early. Yet another human has a mirrored-head thing happening behind Yawning Yellow that probably does something too.

The human most directly behind Crowley has a brown jacket and an excellent alignment of his arm with Crowley's existing pocket between himself and his car. That human's elbow is like the other side of a diamond from what can be seen of Crowley's left hand. I think of him as "Diamondback". He's also a pocket user himself.

So, if his Brown is necessary for the following wording to borrow, it's there:

Yawning Yellow lends Crowley a hand with a full set of visible digits.

Yellow. Here is the actual link to the Pocket Chain from Crowley to Aziraphale. It's through Nutmeg and the pocket user wearing a white fur coat. There isn't much yellow here, but there is a yellow light that is going to be Aziraphale's overhead light eventually...but not yet. The blue car goes on a stronger red alert after this part. Due to how things go, that alert is probably more for getting the Metatron linked in as well because he looks to be putting his hands in his pockets at that point.

There are also yellow lines touching Nutmeg, but as noted, Black can block under the right circumstances. Are those circumstances here? If they are, the overhead light makes up for it because there is going to be Yellow on display for quite a bit in the incoming cuts.

The "Donkey" sign is questionably yellow as well, but there's no nearby solid gray to assure that to be the case. The Metatron's coat could look dark gray in the lighting, but it's actually a dark brown.

So, given all of the surrounding circumstances, my own guess still looks to the overhead light as the Yellow of relevance for everything that's about to happen.

Please take a look at this post: More evidence.

I have a lot of thoughts I haven't fully processed on what that thing is, but I do believe it is generally relevant to this particular cut. I suspect Aziraphale puts it back in his mouth after Nutmeg passes by him visually and before the actual link to the Pocket Chain.

Yellow for both Aziraphale and the Metatron. They are sharing the connection. Each one is going to keep having a touch on Yellow for a bit. Aziraphale receives focus, but the Yellow is visually touched by the Metatron, not Aziraphale. The Metatron is allowing himself to be visually touching Aziraphale here.

Yellow for both Aziraphale and the Metatron. The Metatron receives focus. Aziraphale visually touches the Yellow, not the Metatron. Aziraphale is not visually touching the Metatron as the Metatron did for him. A human wearing orange passes by behind the Metatron though yet another human passes by more closely to the Metatron. The orange is gone from the cut by the time the cut itself finishes.

Yellow for Aziraphale. He has Green nearby and not ready. He also has some Orange up near his head. With both him and the Metatron having visually touched Yellow, Aziraphale now has yellow lights visible by his head. He's visually touching those this time

The Green is touching that Yellow too. Aziraphale's still stuck on Yellow for awhile though. A small bit of Yellow touches the Metatron during the cut. Meanwhile, someone wearing what seems to be Black is pocketed between the two by the end of the cut. I can't figure out what they might block in this moment. Instead, it might be relevant to how Crowley's touch will be on Black between edges in his own final cut for The Door Trick.

Yellow for both Aziraphale and the Metatron. The Metatron receives focus. Aziraphale visually touches Yellow without the Metatron again. He is not visually touching the Metatron again either. The Yellow starts to walk away.

Deflection. I suspect due to the nature of the game and the trick with the words that deflection happens first here, redirection happens in the next cut of the Metatron, and disconnection happens in the cut after that.

The red alert lights blink once, giving a warning about the status of things. The Metatron starts to turn around while they are blinking.

The Metatron has no Overhead Light. He was not seen with Green in his front view shots after being linked through the Pocket Chain. He doesn't block Aziraphale's head completely, but he does block Aziraphale's face. Aziraphale's right ear is still visible, which probably helps with Aziraphale's own overhead light later.

The shadows of the green leaves hit the Metatron's face. That's the front. Crowley had help from "Diamondback". Aziraphale was linked in with his back to Crowley. Aziraphale's back is what's going to get the shadows later.

The red alert lights blink again with their warning. The blink is done before the end of the cut with Orange still visibly on the screen. Hopefully, that's the deflection.

A switch to Orange for Aziraphale does not happen. Did it happen for the Metatron? I suspect not because they are still connected. It was technically on screen by the end of the cut, but the Metatron was making mistakes in the process.

Yellow. Aziraphale's still on Yellow himself thanks to the deflection. He's still not ready yet, so again, he probably needs a redirection. Two sets of red alert lights are on. There are yellow lights by Aziraphale's head and a human with blurry yellow clothing. This time, with the Metatron out of the way, the blurred clothing touches Aziraphale behind him. The first set of red alert lights go off with that blurred yellow behind Aziraphale. When the yellow reappears on the other side of Aziraphale, the second set of red alert lights go off. Yellow has been properly received or maintained. Aziraphale does his mixed emotions facial expression. The red alert is still off at the end of the cut.

Redirection, I hope. The Metatron is heavily lacking in rainbow colors. There is maybe a little blue in his tie, which is not enough, or with mechanics as complicated as these, is actually just blue enough to move things where they need to go for the incoming disconnection. The camera work and movement suggest that the redirection in this cut is from the patterned interior of the Metatron's coat. Look at those shadows on Aziraphale's coat that will somehow help keep Green later.

Disconnection. If the blue helps disconnect, it happens here. Another contributing factor could be the visible darker straight lines on the white shirt.

Yellow. Even though this cut does not have blurred yellow clothing as others have done, it still seems to be enough to maintain Yellow thanks to the Metatron. Orange passes and is gone. Another shade that's hard to really call yellow passes the other way. Due to its timing, it and the yellow lights near Aziraphale's head are enough. That might have been helped by the gray in the elevator and its more colorful buttons not being shown yet. Aziraphale's bow-tie being tartan probably helps something somewhere.

Aziraphale turns his head with the red alert light still on by the end of the cut. This time it's for the look to Crowley. I really don't think the Rainbow Connection switches to Green until after we see Crowley.

Yellow. Despite the nearby reddish clothing and orange-ish clothing, no switch happens here though Green is being gathered or kept for the incoming switch through the nearby humans. I assume Aziraphale is maintaining Yellow thanks to the Overhead Light.

The human with the white shirt and brown backpack is probably helping or the extra blurs from humans in the foreground are helping so that said brown-backpack human can help later. He's blocked in the shot I chose, but he is there.

I consider this moment, Ground Zero for The Door Catch. It has not truly started until we see Aziraphale's shoes on the ground. That's part of the shoes thing I mentioned earlier. A lot of effort is being put into the shoes not being shown to help communicate this Ground Zero moment.

The challenge from the game is to guess what he's thinking or saying, and many audience players will opt for "Trust me" because of The Bullet Catch. That's an understandable choice because this Magic Trick is so deeply inspired by The Bullet Catch. The sequences at the end are designed to give the audience that impression. You'll find it is one of the most commonly played puzzles people remark on in the entire thing.

But it's a Trick. So, the answer is not "Trust me". Crowley is already trusting Aziraphale by setting the stage for him. The answer is actually, "Here goes nothing."

Sure, that's still a guess, but it is one of my more certain guesses the more I play the game.

One of the rules I've noted in the Threshold Tricks is, "Never do the same trick twice."

So, "Trust me," was already done. Been there. Done that. It's a no-go move. Yes, I'm playing with the words on purpose here.

Here are some other reasons I grow more and more sure:

The concept of zero or null is showing up in my readings of Terry Pratchett's work. I suspect that particular line, "Nothing lasts forever," is significantly linked to this answer to the puzzle.

In one of the "Episode 0" Behind-The-Scenes specials for Good Omens 2, Neil Gaiman says something to the effect of he is trying his hardest to tell people "absolutely nothing" when they ask what's going to happen.

Moving past the hidden "Here goes nothing" line, Aziraphale's right ear is not visible. It was shown earlier with the deflection and the cut between the deflection and redirection. On the redirection, it was not clear. Aziraphale was blurred from the back. However, the Metatron had two because his right ear was shown and reflected in the window pane. Then for the disconnection, the Metatron's right ear disappeared from view. Meanwhile, Aziraphale's right ear was shown in the cut after the disconnection.

That last part was the cut before this Ground Zero moment.

In addition to all the ear things happening above, the two humans who pass over him both have their right ears available.

All of those things are supposed to help allow—or even require—Aziraphale to not show his right ear with the Overhead Light on screen.

Green. Crowley's Green is ready. Not long after this part, Crowley has an illusionary touch on Black to the bag being carried behind him. That touch will be between edges, which is unusual. That moment is Aziraphale's cue to begin.

...

The Door Catch

Green. Aziraphale's Green is ready. The overhead light is gone—or moved. There is some yellow light near his head, but it's not the same and through a different window. This cut is the official beginning of…The Door Catch.

Blue and Purple together. There was a small pocket of light that this pair of humans reached together. The one with the darker blue pants is who covered it fully with one of his legs. That light suggests that the blue and purple switch at the same time with these guys looking like they have three legs for two people.

The Blue connects to one of Aziraphale's shoes. The Purple connects over by Aziraphale's right hand and various parts of Aziraphale's clothing, including notably the edge where the coat meets the pants.

In the previous iterations, there was a double purple in The Pocket Trick's Double and then a possible double red in The Pocket Trick's Single. Since a skip-to-purple-and-back already happened with The Door Trick, connected to The Door Catch, my guess then is that a double purple to start going back up is not required.

I don't think the Rainbow Connection is at Red or Yellow despite those colors being on-screen in this cut.

This part is for Aziraphale to take a deep breath and make sure his bow-tie touches his skin.

Remember that thing from earlier that I said I thought Aziraphale put in his mouth?

My guess is it's a shrunken version of one of Crowley's own "thumb joints" of his Tied Hands, so that Aziraphale can have one here.

I don't know a lot about the logistics, but here are clues for why I think that. When I first saw that post, a clasp "thumb joint" was my first guess, but then I contemplated those things are too big.

However, in reviewing the minisodes for other reasons (my Sideburns Scheme posts), I noticed that Crowley uses his tongue when readying himself to make himself bigger in The Resurrectionists. He also used his tongue to make himself smaller in season 1. So, if he can shrink his general self, he could theoretically shrink this special part of himself.

This possible "thumb joint" lines up with the knot in Aziraphale's bow-tie. When the bow-tie touches the skin, that is when it is most shiny.

Since Aziraphale's not going to have his actual hands doing certain things on screen, he's going to have to rely on his own version of his own Tied Hands. This thing being where it is suggests Aziraphale's Tied Hands are going to need at least one thumb joint. He might even need only one thumb joint because the other hand is "tied behind his back" for word play silliness. Only his left hand was visible by the end of the preceding cut, for example.

For Crowley's touches, Crowley himself needs a clothing contact on his right-partly-pocketed hand for his own touches.

So, this is something like that. A crucial mistake the Metatron is going to make is not having a thumb joint visible in a particular cut.

If the Yellow serves a purpose, as well as the colors on Aziraphale's own clothes, it's to help reach for the Green from earlier.

The red alert is off before Aziraphale is shown to enter the elevator.

Green. Somehow, many things leading to this moment are letting Aziraphale keep his connection at Green, thanks to the shadows on his coat. The words that come to mind are "stretch" or "share". The "stretch" seems more likely because I think of it as Aziraphale reaching back for the Green. See, his back on screen is even telling me so. I mentioned other "back" things earlier.

Pocket Frame. This video frame contains Aziraphale's Pocket Frame. It also contains the Metatron's Pocket Frame.

However, thanks to the disconnection, the Pocket Frames themselves are different.

I believe Aziraphale's is Elevator Edges. Thanks to the Metatron's pocket use and finger being exactly where it is, he is such an edge himself.

Meanwhile, the Metatron's Pocket Frame is Doorknobs.

The Metatron is properly framed between doorknobs of the pub doors, but...the Heaven elevator buttons are the equivalent of doorknobs for its threshold. The framing from the scene itself is strongly suggesting that to be the case due to how the buttons are shown with the Hell button further to the camera's left and visually behind one of the doorknobs where they all generally are on the camera's right.

The Metatron's finger is on the Heaven button. He is touching his Pocket Frame with the tip of his index finger. I suspect that is a mistake on his part due to the implied message from the game that's what he's doing in general. While we're at it, he never revealed a thumb shown from his right hand on the clothing when using his right coat pocket.

In the window pane, there is a reflection of Aziraphale's head over the Metatron's.

I am missing some valuable words I wish I could tell you about this significance. I sense from the nature of the game and what is happening with this special Magic Trick, that reflection is supposed to be to Aziraphale's advantage and the Metatron's disadvantage.

During the cut, the reflection switched from the Metatron's head being on the window pane closest to him to being the one closest to Aziraphale. His reflection is caught in a specific place with the back of Aziraphale's head in a move called The Door Catch.

The manuals and tutorials this game provide are hard to read, especially in the later stages. At this point, I'm mainly looking to past patterns and precise framing to guess at these types of things. My imagination and my word play skills can only get me so far, and right now, that's as far as they get me.

As for why I'm talking so much about the framing here, it's because there is a little more to this Rainbow Connection, I am led to believe.

As a reminder, non-rainbow shades and colors do things. I don't get them as well as I would like and will go over that in further detail soon. For now, here is some of the older wording of this post before I add the newer stuff.

Black-and-white together seem to do something like a trap. Meanwhile, gray seems to allow some leniency on a lighter or darker shade counting for a proper color. Brown does something like borrow. Even though brown is in this screenshot, something about it is supposed to be wrong. That something is probably that the thumb joint of the hand seen—and the only hand seen in the cut, becomes extremely close to being seen and doesn't quite get there.

The elevator has plenty of Gray, but the Heaven button is a full circle Black filled with White and a Gold "H" button. That "H" would qualify as Yellow thanks to the Gray if it weren't for the black or black-and-white blocking it out.

So, when that button is pressed, the gold is disqualified as a yellow and trapped. Hence, the Rainbow Connection is further maintained at Green.

...

Now here's the newer stuff that is some review of the above in a lot more detail:

Well, it's been weeks and this bit is the best I've got, so here we go.

In the Heaven elevator with the Metatron, I do believe the following is supposed to apply:

Black blocks.

Brown borrows.

Gray shades.

White keeps.

I like "white keeps" in the rhythm better than "white holds," but that is the same general idea and why I've said I think Muriel's white helps hold things for assisting Crowley in other Threshold Tricks.

There are two huge problems I encounter with this idea, but I can't let it go. It still sticks with me.

The first one is that I cannot figure out what Black is blocking in Triple Part 3 and the Single of The Pocket Trick. Inside the elevator, the Black is blocking out the elevator's Gray. I am as sure as I can be that's the intent.

The White is holding the Gold to keep it as Gold.

Together, that allows the Black and White to effectively trap the Gold, so that it cannot be switched to Yellow despite so much Gray outside the Black circle.

There actually is a little Gray in the White but it's not enough or inaccessible because the Metatron makes the mistake of using a close-up touch and not showing either, or enough, of the two types of thumb joints he has on the hand doing the touch. So, the dark Brown he wears can't use the Gray to qualify the Gold as Yellow.

However, if I go and look at The Pocket Trick for what Black might do, I struggle to figure out what it's blocking. In Triple Part 2, I think it's helping trap the Green for eventual use in The Door Trick. It's part of how I got the idea that Black and White together can act as a trap. What needs to be blocked to make the trap? By now, I think it helps block in the rainbow.

Crowley and Aziraphale stall Blue switching to Purple for the Double, and the lighting is not setting Crowley's clothes to Black as obviously as it is in Triple Part 2. Maybe there is White helping that time but not Black.

The problems go on from there in similar ways. In Triple Part 3, that's where I got the idea because I was like "Okay, I guess the human wearing suspenders mean the Black and White suspend something". Well, they do in that part at least. Then the word is "suspend" instead of "block" though it's based on the idea of the trapping.

In The Door Trick, Crowley's illusionary touch is on a Black bag between edges and it essentially acting as a cue for Aziraphale to Begin. So, then, it doesn't seem to actually block anything. There are three other words other words that start with "b" around though! Between. Bag. Begin.

So, the Black's meaning itself switches, depending on what one's imagination requires it to do or I'm just incapable of finding what is being blocked.

That imagination part is the second huge problem. So long as I can see pockets in the right places and a goal in mind for what Crowley might want to accomplish, it doesn't seem to really matter. I mean, it does because I'm supposed to find the logic and the patterns. I wouldn't know these shades do what they do if they didn't show up in certain places at certain times.

But in both Triple Part 1 and the Double, I can say that the color didn't switch until a given time because of how Crowley and whatever assistance he got managed the timing, framing, and pocketing. If non-rainbow shades happen to be there, that's fine. I still don't know what Black is blocking or White is holding a lot of the time, if anything. I don't really think Brown is necessary to borrow either. Is there someone on-screen using pockets while Crowley himself has something he wants from his play in the game? Then it's done!

So, this poem:

Black blocks.

Brown borrows.

Gray shades.

White keeps.

This poem is more like a default with a limited imagination or limited available pocket assistance.

It's not exactly that way though because Aziraphale gets someone with White and Brown. What does that do? What does he need to borrow that needs a hold? The Green from the nearby humans in the preceding cut until the shadows on his coat can do the Trick?

I guess!

The thumb joints also matter. I can imagine what the Metatron would want—if he even knew this part of the game was being played—but since he's making mistakes, my imagination isn't going to fix it for him. He's not getting it done because I've progressed enough to figure out the pocket touches "hinge" on things for the thumb joints.

So, if my play further improves, I'll update accordingly.

I sincerely believe the 1941 minisode does actually give clues on these shades as well.

For Black, the miracle blocker blocks the turnip from turning into an inkwell. Ink is black. Black blocks. In this case, black is blocked, but I still think that's the clue. There are other colors involved, including a white handkerchief, but, again, I still think that's the clue for the Black.

For Brown, the clue is gross—and I am not a fan of gross things, so you're really going to have to use your own imagination because I am not going to spell it out completely. The old man the zombies kill is singing about farting. They kill him and one of them ends up borrowing that guy's voice to sing some more. You figure it out from there. Okay, fine, I will give you one more hint: it is a crappy joke. Nonetheless, Brown borrows.

For Gray, the clue is much more pleasant and is found near the end of the minisode at a lovely candlelit table while Crowley and Aziraphale are drinking wine. The "shades of gray" are mentioned in conversation, including darker shades and lighter shades. Gray shades.

I'm not as sure on the eventually named clue here for White. Aziraphale waves a white handkerchief around with "prestidigitation" in his dialogue when offering to help Crowley to Mrs. H. With the miracles being blocked later in the minisode, the problem keeps happening while he uses the white handkerchief over the turnip. White keeps.

And that concludes this updated part about these shades.

...

There is possibly some word play or joke in here to be made about leprechauns and their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I generally leave off the leprechauns part and just say it like this from the main post: "The Rainbow Connection ends at Green thanks to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

Nonetheless, the button being pressed is theoretically the end of the The Door Catch despite the two extra cuts of the Metatron and Aziraphale after that moment.

If you missed my simplified post of notes, my theory is that the green leaves by both Crowley and Aziraphale represent Earth and their shared love for Earth.

The Green is shown to be a maintained connection because of the plants being on screen with Crowley while playing the nightingale song during The Window Trick, then again during the credits.

The emotions at the end are, I believe, still supposed to be real. There is supposed to be heartache. The message from the hidden games is that even with this heartache, things are not as bleak as they seem. There is a bigger plan happening in the background. These two have been doing things separately together during Good Omens 2, and they will keep doing that after. They have made and maintained a connection.

[house-on-sand]

the jason playlist (the jaylist if you will)

bonus -> favourite / most fitting lyrics

any in depth thoughts abt the lyrics might come later idk im sleepy rn

bathtub - tfb: still i scrub and scrub till my body bleeds / convince myself i am coming clean / forget and ignore who i used to be / that kid is never coming back & and all of a sudden, i am scared / all of a sudden, i can't breathe / all of a sudden, i am nothing / in this moment, you are everything

bleed - connor kauffman: you lie through your teeth, feels so incomplete / wait for your story to take you too deep / and i call out your name

wide eyes - badflower: my innocence was taken / i'll never be that boy again / i guess i'm only speculating but there's no use in hearing the truth from a liar & rage! / i'm the bad guy, i'm the bad guy / i'm the cynical kid, i'm the rage / i'm the big lie / i'm the goddamn shame of the goddamn pride! & i'm the bad guy, i'm the nice try / i'm the typical bitch with the rage!

the worst in me - bad omens: it seems no matter where i look, it's always gone / with you i know i'll never win / and it's hard to say where it went so wrong / and failed me in the end & is there forgiveness in the end?

family line - conan gray: scattered 'cross my family line / i'm so good at telling lies / that came from my mother's side / told a million to survive & all that i did to try and undo it / all of my pain and all your excuses / i was a kid, but i wasn't clueless / someone who loves you wouldn't do this

memento mori - crywank: in my life, will i make a difference? / in my death, will i be missed? / will i be granted some sort of an afterlife? / or will i just cease to exist?

bloody! bloody! - junie & thehutfriends: you're so down bad for everything / been mad since you were seventeen / you drink to forget everything / and now you're seeking blood & and you're driving with your hands, not believing all the bleeding / and they're calling you bloody / and the knife sits gleaming in the red back seating and they're calling you bloody / and theyre all still screaming in your head, and their lips dead / calling you bloody / and theyre calling you bloody, bloody

funeral derangements - ink: slave to the plot / let 'em rot / or bring 'em back forever / sometimes / sometimes / dead is better & they say, "beyond those gates, eternal life awaits" / but those beyond the grave, come back beyond depraved & i'll dig through sorrow and disgust / ashes to ashes, dust to dust / don't give up, don't let go / i'll make this right & they say that time heals all / but i won't heed the call / buried in misery / spare me the eulogy / still, i can't escape this struggle / driven when push comes to shovel / whether god's hand or my own / nothing here is set in stone & the flesh is living but the souls have spoiled / the wrath of god lays beneath this soil

let you down - nf: yeah, i guess im a disappointment doin' everything i can / i don't wanna make you disappointed, it's annoying / i just wanna make you feel like everything i ever do was never tryna make an issue for you, but i guess the more you thought about everything you were never wrong in the first place, right? & yeah, you don't wanna make this work / you just wanna make this worse / want me to listen to you, but you don't ever hear my words / you don't wanna know my hurt, yeah / let me guess, you want an apology, probably / how can we keep going at a rate like this? & i feel like every time i talk to you, you're in an awful mood / what else can i offer you? / there's nothing left right now, i gave it all to you

family - badflower: this home of mine / i see it in my dreams / where everyone looks happy / and everyone still likes me / this home of mine / i miss it all the time / what happened to this family? / what happened to this family? & first fifteen years, i'm the favorite son / last fifteen years, i'm the hated one & 'cause i let you down / and i lost my fucking mind / then everything got messy / and everyone got angry / i cursed my blood tonight / it happens all the time / is everyone against me? / has everyone goddamned me?

take a bullet - NOTHING MORE: your lips are poison and sweet / but trust doesn't come cheap / talk is nothing to me / take a bullet for me / maybe then i'll believe! & your words mean nothing to me / it's time to eat what you speak / take a bullet for me / maybe then i'll believe!

friendly fire - NOTHING MORE: i don't care about the story / i don't care about the myth / i don't care how you see my life / you haven't witnessed it / use fear as a weapon / pity as a whip / convince everyone around that i'm a piece of... & make me a sinner / because you paint the picture / buy your believers / you couldn't resist you couldn't resist

let's bury the hatchet... in your head - ink: i'm pulling all the strings i have with god / i'm hoping to find a better way / i pray the only thing i need is time / to rid the world of your lunacy! & you're as faithful as a false prophet / so, here's a prophecy for you / you'll remember me (remember me, remember me!) / when you're struggling to breathe! & can't you see the monster you've become? / i couldn't watch the world through your eyes / salvation for you's in the hands of god / so save your prayers and beg for your life!

a sadness runs through him - the hoosiers: time and again, boys race to be men / impatient they start, fearful they end / but here was a man, mourning tomorrow / he drank, but finally drowned in his sorrow & he looked in the wrong place for redemption & don't look at me with those eyes / i tried to anaesthetize / turn back the time that drew him / but he couldn't be saved / a sadness runs through him

connect the cuts - ink: doubt has dragged me down to rock bottom this time / despite the weight on my shoulders, i continue to climb / in my final hours towards a higher power to find / i'm damaged by design

the three of us (jason todd) - edward caldwell: now you say that i haven't learned, gotta be better than them / maybe you don't care or maybe you're just scared / so your greatest failures here yeah you have to choose / the man who ripped us apart or the son you had to lose & not upset you couldn't make it in time to save me / not upset you found someone new had to replace me / but why on god's green earth is he still breathing / especially when he took me from you / i mean dammit he took me from you

if i'm crazy - amigo the devil: we live in a castle made out of sand / i stood there and wondered how much you could stand / both of us float in the same kind of dark / but i was the storm and you were always the ark / you've already heard everything that i've said / i'm a man of my word and that word is regret

[jokeringcutio]

Open for Halloween Prompts & Updates

Hiya all,

I'm open for Reader insert prompts that are Halloween-themed or set during Halloween. If you want to be inspired, these are my fills from last year. They can be SFW or NSFW. I personally would love to write a few more consensual or more romantic kind of Halloween fics.

I'll accept prompts for fandoms such as: Stranger Things, One Piece, Harry Potter, Blake's 7, Joker (All versions), Peaky Blinders, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wednesday/Addams Family, Xena Warrior Princess, The Lord of the Rings & Hobbit, Good Omens, Crimson Peak, Dead Boy Detectives, Beetlejuice, Enola Holmes & All Sherlock fandoms, Shakespeare's characters, Many European Movies & of course TRHPS, Five Nights At Freddy's & most Slasher Movies, & Many more so check out my interests or just take plunge and see if I will write your request.

Will I fill all prompts?

Unfortunately, unless I receive just one or two, I probably won't be able to fill them all. I am currently recovering from surgery (Yay, this is a good thing, means we're going to come back babesss) , but still have long-covid weighing me down. So although I'm poking my nose into Tumblr again, I still have limited energy and might have to make choices. But I'll try and fill as many as I can.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN????

Sorry, I was ill and it became so bad, I couldn't write anymore. Luckily, I've had surgery and got rid of the nasty things so things are looking up. I need a month or two to recover from the surgery. I'll still have my long covid stuff that is weighing me down, but at least I'll be able to write again and slowly return to the living.

WHERE"S THE JOKER FIC????* *Or any other fic I started but haven't finished yet. As said above, I was unable to write and update. The Joker fic: The Man Who Claimed to be Yours is finished, but as a rewritten version that was meant to be an ebook. Because of my health, I've been looking into other ways to make a living and since writing was the only thing I could do (until a few months ago), I decided to explore my options there. I have been working on original tales that I hope to publish in the near future. I WANNA HELP YOU OUT AND COMMISSION Thank you to everyone who kindly donated to my Kofi in the past, or asked me for one of my ebooks or for a commission. I am planning on posting a wishlist in the near future with financial goals I wish to achieve, and setting up a system where I will write a tale for people who donated as a thank you :) I will, however, keep filling prompts when I can, so don't worry about that. I do this for fun and I love sharing with you.

I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO REQUEST BUT I WANT TO READ

Yay, that is wonderful. You can always follow my account. I usually place warnings and add a 'read more' so the post won't show the entire text. If it's not your cup of tea, you should be fine and able to ignore it and wait for something that is more to your taste. And you can always send in a prompt at a later date, when you come up with something. Or just poke me via chat and we can try and think of something together :)

[ineffablydelighted]

[How exploring the Ineffable Husbands' dynamic in Good Omens can help us figure out what the show/book is all about, Part 1/?]

Also called: This human has, apparently, too much time on her hands and will be trying to Effable the Ineffable for [...] hours.

Ah, Hello! 👋

I'm ineffably delighted to meet you all! 😇

Let's cut to the chase and bear with me as we try together to analyze further the subject of the day:

Aziraphale is in love with Crowley and I am pretty sure he is aware of that fact BUT 

[yes, there is a "but", do not erase me from the Book of Life just yet, let me explain first, homie 🥺] 

I do not believe he can comprehend WHY he is just yet, and what that would mean for him in terms of... well... EVERYTHING he ever stood for.

It will also be the perfect roots to answer the biggest question yet :

What is Good Omens all about, exactly?

[Yeah, it's a tough one. When I say "bear with me", I really insist on the fact that it will be LONG. I will try my best to make it fun to read and to allow some "natural breaks" but know that I would appreciate your unshared attention if you're willing to give it to me. 😇]

Although, would you have the chance to ask him about it (probably looking at a cup of tea as we would all do in Earthy fashion), Aziraphale would have somewhat of an answer to give you, probably in the range of:

"Because, deep down, Crowley is the nicest being I've ever known."

Is it false? No, Crowley IS nice. Swaggeringly nice, occasionally unhinged, but still. Nice.

And that is somewhat the core of the... "problem" for our soon-to-be Supreme Archangel [Yep, the pain is still fresh, thanks for asking, you're welcome for reminding you 😭👍] because, as much as Crowley learned nuances due to past experiences (Falling being, most likely, the most traumatic one,) Aziraphale remains bound to think in absolutes. And everything relates to THIS perfect meme right there:

[Whoever you are, person/entity who has done that, you have forever my utmost gratitude and respect]

I'm far from bringing anything new to the table here, but to Aziraphale, Crowley should NOT have fallen in the first place. Because of how nice he is. Crowley IS an angel, to him. In fact, I'll go even further by stating that, to Aziraphale,

Crowley is more of an Angel than ANY Angel in the "Main Office."

Let's present our other contestants, shall we?

When he ruled, Gabriel was an absolute a** and had an ego the size of, idk, at least A DOZEN GALAXIES. He made Aziraphale feel like... well... poop most of the time they interacted.

That is why, in S2 when Gabriel/Jim tells him "I love you", Aziraphale, even being and considering himself a "creature of love", happens to be utterly unable to either reciprocate or take the compliment. At this moment, later enhanced when he reminds himself of the Job case, he realizes he is able to feel, if not hatred, NOT love NOR admiration for somebody he should somewhat consider a role model.

That is very important for Aziraphale's present and future character development, especially considering Gabriel/Jim's own fate, so please keep that in mind.

Michael? Oh God, Same if not worse: too condescending and ambitious in the wrong way to inspire anything nice to anybody.

Sandalphon just does what they are told but can totally throw a punch if necessary.

Uriel is mostly cold, occasionally cruel, and can also be physically threatening.

[I love the actress, though. Gloria Obianyo deserves a Ph.D. in Resting Bitch Facing for her performance in Good Omens alone and I'm here for it.]

S2 Saraqael seems to be more layered but has also been hurtful to Aziraphale (especially when she ironized that he couldn't possibly be the 25-Lazarii-magnitude-miracle caster).

Overall, S1 Aziraphale refers to the "Main Office" Angels as "BAD ANGELS!" after their hostile encounter. We could see from his face he would have wanted to use harsher words but couldn't get past his forgiving, decent nature.

Before we talk any furfur-ther [Am I proud of this so-called pun? A-BSOLUTELEH 😎🤭], let's add a really important stone/layer to our favorite Angel's thinking: to him, it is simple maths:

GOOD = RIGHT, BAD = WRONG

And let's save it for later, shall we?

[Killgrave dear is just here to remind you you can take a break anytime to drink a glass of Talisker if you'd like, or, more so, if HE'd like. Also because that character is THE best David Tennant role on television - 10th Doctor being the worthy third, I let you guess which character is our second now - and I might have wanted to use this gif just to be able to say that, who knows? *whispers* Mysssteryyyy...]

Anyway.

To a being like Aziraphale, who mostly thinks in dichotomy, being an Angel requires one main requirement: being GOOD.

[Buy a farrrrrm and be good! Not just "pretendy" good but. properly. GOOD! - NO, I couldn't find the gif and YES, I'm mad about it, but since I'm also unable to make one myself, I'll just shut it.]

That is why he refers to the Main Office Archangels as simply being BAD.

At that moment, they had been mean to him, threatening, and, by doing so, they became somewhat active in Hell's Armageddon project. Making them "bad" angels, but, more so:

Bad at BEING Angels.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, is, at heart, the penultimate goody-two-shoes: he does feel bad about himself whenever he does something bad/wrong such as lying (it has started to change, and I'll nuance that statement another time, but you get the grip).

He is constantly scared he might fall whenever he somewhat defies God's will or the idea he built in his head of what an Angel should be(have).

But have you paid attention to how his "Angelmates" NEVER seem to CARE about their own displays of, let's say "unconventional characteristics" for what should be the highest "Representatives of the sole concept of Good"?

Have you ever seen Gabriel or Michael being self-conscious about their narcissism and condescending tendencies? Uriel about their coldness? Saraqael about their sarcastic nature? Any of them about their use of violence? Of course not! They seem to be perfectly fine with it!

They own their characteristics, good AND bad.

Aziraphale does not.

Aziraphale is... soft. Even if he, at times, expresses regrets to be just that, he also applies it to his Angelic nature.

You know who else is soft?

Crowley.

Crowley is soft because he cannot kill children and takes it upon himself to LITERALLY DEFY BOTH GOD AND SATAN'S WILL TO SAVE SAID CHILDREN, including two annoying ones [especially the one who DARED to hit on Aziraphale but that is a topic for another day]

[MASSIVE Bildad the Shuhite fangirl here, consider yourselves warned.]

Crowley is soft because he cannot even kill GOATS.

Defying both God's and Satan's will to save kids? Yeah, eventually, okay.

Defying God's and Satan's will to save goats? Man, that's so effingly. more. powerful.

[Oh, look! A bird flying, normal thingy, nothing to see here, buh-bye!]

Crowley is soft because he proposes/"tempts" Aziraphale to "eat a spot of lunch", especially whenever his Angel experiences stress.

We have barely seen him eat, which might indicate he does not have such a strong taste for it personally. He only goes to the Ritz to enjoy Aziraphale's company and to watch him happily eat scrumptious, comforting foods.

[Okay, also because it morphed into a proper kink at some point but that is NOT today's subject, so stop trying to make me deviate from it! 😣]

Oh, and, before you bring that up, no, the alcohol motive is not relevant since he can, in all probability have a glass of Talisker in ANY sort of pub/restaurant in London.

[As a proper peated whisky lover who happens to be French, let me tell you this is NOT the case in my country and I'm super duper jealous of you, lads.]

Crowley is soft because he takes care of both Gabriel and Aziraphale's bookshop, even if it is clear he loathes the first and expressingly said he would not be a bookseller "even at gunpoint."

And, by "taking care of", know that I MEAN IT: he kept an eye on Jim, didn't wake him up when he heard him snore, answered any question he had, no matter how seemingly stupid they were [Even if Crowley, of all beings, cannot be anything but a raging "There is no stupid question, only stupid answers" representative] and offered him hot cocoa. As for the Booksho-P[uhhhhh *exhales in asthma*], he attempted to repair Jim's messy ordering twice and meticulously rearranged the place after ✨the Ball✨

[What do you mean, "he also Killgraved him into jumping out of the window?" HE ALSO STOPPED HIM FROM DOING SO, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. #NotBiasedInTheSlghtestIndividual]

Crowley is soft because he shares his Bentley with Aziraphale. Which is a VERY. BIG. DEAL. considering it was, at the time, HIS LAST ONE AND ONLY PRIZED POSSESSION.

[Should I mention that the Bentley FALLS IN LOVE with Aziraphale or is debating on whether or not that falls into the Oedipian complex territory off-topic? Yes, I'll see myself out.]

Crowley is soft because he rescues Aziraphale on countless occasions, even though, 99% of the time, that is pretty much unnecessary.

For real, guys: if Aziraphale had been discorporated in the course of his 6000+ years on Earth at any other given moment BUT on the eve of THE WAR with a capital "W", nobody in Heaven would have flinched.

[I do have a theory, though: maybe being re-incorporated takes quite a long time, which would have meant too many years apart from each other, hence the growing Damsel in Distress kink in Aziraphale, idk THAT IS NOT TODAY's SUBJECT, OKAY?!]

Also, Crowley is soft because "doing that makes him so happy".

Do you know who is supposedly "so happy" to save living things, aka GOD'S CREATIONS? Angels.

Crowley is soft because he rescues Aziraphale even when it is ACTUALLY ENDANGERING for both of them

He risked: his life, his pretty comfortable position "he carved out for himself", both his Earthy and Infernal homes sort of speak, AND EVEN HIS CAR to save his Angel's bottom/help him out in the direst situations (like stopping time to stop SATAN HIMSELF.)

[Also his past/present/future existence altogether, but the Bentley is more important, as I'm sure we'll all agree.]

[That is a Class A Protective/Helpful Husband, right there.]

Crowley is soft because he encourages Aziraphale to follow his passion for ✨prestidigitation✨

Even though he is pretty... amateurish at it. Not only does he encourage him, but he also HELPS him when he accepts to be his dashing assistant on stage.

[Yes, he does tell S1 Aziraphale to stop doing magic because he "has no idea how demeaning that is" but I'm pretty sure it was BECAUSE of S2 1941's events. Also, #WeStan1941Crowley here.]

Crowley is soft because he works pretty hard to make two humans he barely knows fall in love.

Yes, he also does it to cover his and Aziraphale's 25-Lazarii-magnitude-miracle lie BUT don't tell me his amazed expression when he thought he was about to witness Nina and Maggie actually falling for each other was not the purest, sincerest of all.

Finally, even if I could come up with more examples,

Crowley is soft because he saved Aziraphale's books JUST because he KNEW and CARED that Aziraphale CARED about said books.

That also, in Michael Sheen's very own opinion [as stated by Neil Gaiman in S1 GO DVD commentary], shared by many fans, and myself very much included, marks the moment

Aziraphale falls in love with Crowley.

[I DARE you to tell me THIS is NOT THE LOOK OF LOVE PERSONIFIED, go on, fight meh.]

So. WHY did it happen at that moment in particular? Well, because, first of all:

As a proper Jane Austen fan, Aziraphale is a slow burner.

Also, to him, an actual Angel, love is everywhere, so differentiating one love from another might be more difficult for somebody who can feel it whether or not it is even their own.

BUT [have you started getting used to my "but"s yet or should I harass you some more?] Let's go back in time to see how every previous encounter (that we know of) led to that pinnacle, shall we?

[Oh and, YES, this sort of essay will be long, and NO, I had no idea how much it would be when I started writing it, and still haven't, tbh 🤷‍♀️]

During part 2, we will also dive a little bit deeper into what Good Omens is all about.

[Yeah... I figured we would all need a break at this point.]

More on that later, then!

Hope I kept your interest at a reasonable peak. See you soon, Angels ❤

Need help to find the rest of this analysis? I've got you covered! Follow me, Angel 😇

Previous - Beginning (you're here) - Next

[ineffablenlghtingales]

So I've done it.

I've taken on a new fixation, and that's Good Omens.

I think all the fan art I've seen here is to blame for that, but I've officially started watching it and it's a thing now. That being said, this is the sideblog I've made for it because I'm gonna want to dump here all the lovely fan art, gifs and just other stuff I see about GO...and it's a place for me to gush about GO without flooding all of my moots with GO stuff when they follow me for HP stuff (sorry, folks! please bear with my constantly changing fixations!).

Frequently Used Tags and what they mean:

#ineffable husbands - any and all posts about Aziraphale and Crowley (also my catch-all Good Omens tag)

#GO recaps - my posts containing my reactions/thoughts/what-the-hell-just-happened-there stuff about S1 and S2 of Good Omens (because currently watching the show for the first time). You can find the links all in one organized place here

#night's musings - my thoughts/meta about GO and Aziracrow (this will come later because lol I've only just finished 1x01)

#ineffable idiots - memes and funny things I've found related to GO

. . . And probably more to come!

About Me

My name's Ella, and I'm 27 (28 at the end of next month, yay!), and I'm a fic writer (you can find my stuff here, but no Good Omens fics there, not yet), like to think I'm an artist and lover of reading.

If by some chance, you like Harry Potter (specifically Dramione), you'll find plenty of that on my main blog (inastarlesssky). This here is a side blog, so follow me if you like, but I can follow back from my main. If you happen to like Marvel, Spiderman, the Avengers, etc, I also have a Marvel sideblog where I'm posting fics, graphics (made by me) and other stuff. (peterpcrkcrs)

Here I'll probably just be reblogging stuff and sharing Thoughts™ about this wonderful new fixation. If you're interested in that, come say hi. My messages/asks are always open, and I like making new friends. C:

[sourdoughservitor]

Yule: The Winter Solstice

⋆꙳ •❅*‧ ‧*❆ ₊⋆꙳ •❅*‧ ‧*❆ ₊⋆꙳ •❅*‧ ‧*❆ ₊⋆꙳ •❅*‧ ‧*❆

Merry meet and welcome to the first pagan holiday of the Wheel of the Year, and the first installment of my Year of the Wheel series! I will practice witchcraft every day this year, and this blog will serve to document my works as well as share them for others' benefit.

Yule

Yule falls on December 21, 2023, where I live. It is the Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere; it marks the shortest day of the year, the day with the most darkness, but of course this also means the following days begin to get longer. Thus, Yule is celebrated as the beginning and end of the Wheel of the Year: it is the signpost by which we track our years.

Yule is an excellent time to celebrate the past and the future. Practitioners will often use this day to focus on cleansing; to re-affirm bonds, vows, pacts, and wards; to set goals, affirmations, and aspirations; as well as to reflect on the past year and what they've learned and experienced, and how they've grown.

During this time, I like to cleanse the negativity of the past year, embrace the positivity, and prepare for the upcoming one.

Yule Witchcraft

I will be doing a variety of works to celebrate Yule. Unfortunately I have nobody to share Yule with in my personal life, so there will be no feast in my home. Instead, I am conducting the following workings to prepare myself for the year ahead:

A Year Ahead spread. The simplest very first thing I like to do to celebrate Yule and the coming year is a Year Ahead spread. As simple as it sounds, you draw one card (tarot, oracle, your choice--I draw tarot) for each month. The image below shows last year's spread, with January at the top and the other months following deosil (clockwise). This year, I'm following full moons instead--I'll make a post hopefully soon into the new year about those too!

Creating my grimoire. This one is a little extra, I'll admit. But I just wasn't satisfied with any of the notebooks or journals I could buy, at least not for under $40. So I decided to learn bookbinding and make one. I already have many notes in a digital grimoire for redundancy, portability, and searchability, but I find paper infinitely superior when doing spellwork or rituals. I'll gradually fill it out as I go, and maybe post the finished book / some spreads later.

Creating a tulpa and enchanting a ring. I'll probably (read: definitely. I mean look at my URL) do a post on thought forms in the future but for now Google it if you're unfamiliar. I learned something about myself in therapy recently--about a part of myself that manifests as self-hatred, but truly comes from a place of compassion. I will bind it to a ring I wear daily in order to work with it to serve me instead of hinder me.

Observe the 12 Days of Omen. Just a good tradition to observe following Yule. See tomorrow's post for details!

Cleansing my altar, my space, and myself, as well as re-confirming my wards.

Journalling. About the past year, the next, about my craft and myself. As part of this I may do some trancework and meditation, depending on my mood and time; I would also like to test out the oneiromancy oil and tincture I made (post forthcoming?? oof so many I have planned!).

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave a note. My asks are always open, too. Blessed be 🐻💚

see my Year of the Wheel masterpost for more!

[snek-panini]

At long last, I have a new book to share! Feels like forever since the last one. This is Vita Nova, a fantastic Good Omens fic by @philoomenaa that I asked to bind way back in October. It took me a while to get here and I learned several new techniques for this bind but it was so very worth the wait. It's an excellent pre-season 2 story from 2019-2020, involving the fandom's favorites dealing with an unexpected bout of both humanity and memory loss. It's just...really really good and I love it.

More photos and process talk under the cut! There are a lot of details to see with this one.

One of the things I learned for this bind was homemade book cloth. I used the heat n bond method and had pretty good results with this satiny bronze cloth that I found in the Joann's remnant bin. The making of the cloth was fairly straightforward but it handles very differently to regular book cloth. The satin is really slippery and absolutely would not hold a crease at the hinge. I think it also shrank a little at the gluing stage? Which sounds weird but I left my usual amount of space for the corner turn-ins but still had teeny tiny gaps on three of the corners, which has never happened to me before. I also had an issue with glue seepage when I applied HTV to the cover and spine. You can see this in the images above, and here in the spine photos:

Part of the reason it has that fancy art nouveau frame on the cover is an attempt to hide this. I think it's the heat press re-activating the heat n bond to cause it. I found out two things here: that fabric requires less press time than book cloth or cardstock, and that if you move the heat press slowly but constantly like an iron it is way less likely to do this. I was super disappointed that it happened but now, a few days later, it doesn't seems so bad. I guess some items just come with a little personal history already baked in.

Here, have some more glamour shots:

The geometric endpapers were chosen specifically to go with this cloth. I found them at the same craft store and knew I had use them together, they look so incredible. And I learned edge gilding for this project! It was very annoying. The final result here is with heat transfer foil, and I did about six tests on scrap text blocks before I got a result I was at all satisfied with. I tried rub n buff (great coverage, not shiny enough, kept coming off on my fingers even after curing for 2 days) and an actual gilding kit (flaked off as soon as I separated the pages). The heat foil still has some patchy spots but was by far the best-looking result. I also learned double-core end bands for this project! Because I wanted some kind of match for those opulent endpapers and didn't want to settle for just two colors. I think they came out pretty well for a first try and I'll definitely be doing them again.

Couple of photos of the ribbon I chose for the bookmark. It's probably a little too wide for a book this length; you can see in the end band photo that I had to fold it in half to get it to lay in the spine properly. But it looks so good with the other design elements that I couldn't resist. Luxury all the way on this one.

Speaking of luxury, have a look at the interior:

From left to right, we have the title page, the ornament I chose for the chapter numbers, and the scene break divider. All the images came from rawpixel with just the lightest amount of editing from me. The chapter image is the same as the star on the title page, but I made it gray and took out the center to turn it into a frame for the numbers. The cloth and endpapers really set the tone for this one all the way through, and all the other design choices followed from there. It's really gorgeous, guys. I love it so much.

And that's it! That was the last work in progress I had from 2023, and I'm so pleased to have finally finished it. Hope you like it, AMidnightDreary!

[ladyluscinia]

OFMD Fic Statistics, Revisited

I made this statistics analysis post about Izzy’s popularity on AO3 back in January 2023, and I’ve been wondering for a while how the numbers have shifted. (More thoughts.) Seeing as S2 is about to ramp up fic writing again and upend current trends, I figure this is about my last chance to look only at S1 / hiatus popularity. So. New numbers.

The original post was made at 12,072 fics. Today we are at 23,187. Almost doubled.

“Israel Hands” is character tagged in 11,271, so 48.6% of all fics. Lucius Spriggs is tagged in 6153 (26.5%), Jim Jimenez in 3732 (16%), and Oluwande Boodhari in 3201 (13.8%). Our mains still unquestionably take the top spots, with Blackbeard / Edward Teach at 17,773 (76.7%) and Stede Bonnet at 16,355 (70.5%). Also if I exclude all the character tags of the Revenge crew I get 1441 fics (6.2%) that mostly don't use character tags, around 60% of which appear to be BlackBonnet. Did see one Doug/Mary though. Get some, girl!

Compared to 9 months ago, Izzy is up about +3.9% and everyone else is down less than -4%. Lucius at -3% and Edward at -3.6% appear to be the biggest hits. But, again, these percentages are still nearly twice as many fics total (ex: Lucius added +2593 to his January total of 3560). This looks like the fandom has been pretty consistent about which characters they write about? (I'll muse on trends later.)

Re: Shipping... Let's get BlackBonnet out of the way. This ship is tagged on 15,111 OFMD fics, making it 65.2% of the fandom. Now 906 of those are also tagged SteddyHands, making it a whole 6% of all BlackBonnet, and reducing BlackBonnet to 14,205 fics and 61.3% of the fandom if we exclude them.

Running the otp:true search says that now 10,016 fics and 43.2% of all OFMD content is BlackBonnet with no side pairings at all.

The fandom is getting a little more varied and willing to write about more than their OTP. It's down -6.9% which is a good thing if you like basically any side characters. All these numbers are still definitely on the high end, though, even for a canon pairing. Like the main thing making them seem less skewed to me is Good Omens (TV) that has AzCrow at 83.7% of 57,524 fics. And that's a huge outlier with less side character attention than a true ensemble cast.

Izzy Hands compared to shipping tags is still probably a better idea of how much positive attention he's getting, so we'll break those down next. See if that slight character tag gain reflects in ships.

BlackBonnet is still the biggest tag under "Israel Hands" with 5499 fics - that's 48.8% of all "Israel Hands" fics. It also means 23.7% of OFMD fics are tagged with BlackBonnet + "Israel Hands". SteddyHands is also tagged on 840 of those, so we can exclude that many and say 41.3% of "Israel Hands" fics / 20% of OFMD fics are tagged with BlackBonnet + "Israel Hands" and NOT SteddyHands.

The actual Izzy ships go:

Edward/Izzy at 2816 under "Israel Hands", 3029 (13%) total. Excluding SteddyHands becomes 1997 under "Israel Hands", 2139 (9.2%) total

Edward/Stede/Izzy at 1819 under "Israel Hands", 1994 (8.6%) total

Stede/Izzy at 1290 under "Israel Hands", 1385 (6%) total. Excluding SteddyHands becomes 532 under "Israel Hands", 567 (2.4%) total

Izzy/Lucius at 1015 under "Israel Hands", 1116 (4.8%) total. Black Pete/Lucius still outranks it even inside Izzy's tag, btw

For comparison Black Pete/Lucius is sitting at 1845 (8%) of fics. 75.7% of those are also tagged BlackBonnet, and excluding it leaves you with 448 (1.9%) of fics. I didn't want to run otp:true since there's so much poly!Lucius.

Oluwande/Jim is at 1662 (7.2%) of fics. 72.1% of those are also tagged BlackBonnet, and running otp:true leaves you with 302 (1.3%) fics that are purely TealOranges.

Very, very modest gains in the Izzy shipping sphere, mostly via SteddyHands and its +1.9% raising several boats if we're being real. Still... take Stede out and not even BlackHands breaks double digits. Izzy/Lucius went up by +0.5%. Comparatively Black Pete/Lucius is down -1.8% from January, and Oluwande/Jim down -1.3%. Again, we're seeing a pretty consistent fandom here. Remember these drops aren't all going to SteddyHands (obviously)... there's a lot of negligible ships that are fluctuating too and hopefully benefiting from having a slightly larger slice of the pie to share (and twice as many fics in that slice)!

Trend-wise, I'm actually surprised it's still so consistent? BlackBonnet going down is easily the largest change here, and it's not exactly huge. Also inevitable and a good thing, based on patterns from other fandoms. I mean, you might be disappointed if you are literally only here for them, but very little sucks like watching an ensemble show and then finding out the fandom gives zero fucks about any of the characters outside the huge main ship... even when you like the ship!

I do wonder if the very small boosts in Izzy content have anything to do with Izzy fans retreating into the canyon to keep their fandom enthusiasm alive? I know all the aggression from the Izcourse has cut off a lot of Izzy fans from the general fandom and all the side character and minor ship content therein, and creative communities around minor ships are small enough without being subdivided further. If you have a whole community who will talk to you about Izzy, and then you can only talk about TealOranges with your Izzy friends because half the TealOranges people have you blocked, you might just write more Izzy???

Anyway hope people find this as interesting as the last one.

[ouroborealis-charnivore]

One of the reasons I think Persuasion fits Crowley and Aziraphale.

So read Captain Wentworth's letter first.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

Now for my ramblings below the cut.

Now that I'm not incoherently screaming internally. The quote I highlighted above in red. Which is. "You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others."

Now I could be wrong and I often am but isnt that almost in not so many words exactly what Crowley said to Aziraphale in s2e1 when they are sitting in the coffee shop.

Crowley: Right, what’s the problem?

Aziraphale: Problem? Who said there was a problem?

Crowley: Tone of voice. You have three reasons for calling me. You’re bored. You need to tell someone about something clever you did before you pop. Or something’s wrong. This was your ‘something’s wrong’ voice.

I know there are other parallels here to be made, but I can't help being obsessed with this line. I mean just the fact alone that Wenworth and Crowley have hope even after all that has happened. That's optimism baby!

There really is so much to unpack here and I am probably reading way to much into this, but hey isnt this what fandom is for.

Lol on a side note I love the "Too good, too excellent creature!" line in the letter just after the highlighted part. I just keep picturing Crowley saying something similar to or about Aziraphale but make it modern. Probably in a snarky, bitchy way, but it wouldn't be Crowley otherwise.

There are so many other parallels to Persuasion and Good Omens that others have touched on much better. Other highlights of note in orange.

I just bought a copy of Persuasion two days ago so I can pour over every little detail. (No more borrowing my sister's books.) So I expect I'll be making other posts later.

[sonkitty]

The Sideburns Scheme Post #68

(For reference: The Sideburns Scheme)

Crowley, Good Omens 2, Episode 5, The Ball, expert

...

Sideburns Check

The sideburns are short. The magic shop is a human space, and Crowley is taking no particular actions to lengthen them. They will stay short until he confronts Gabriel later.

...

Brighter Red Streak Check

The red streak can most easily be found when Crowley walks over to place his right arm on a panel while looking at Mutt.

...

Hairstyle Changes

Since the last scene gave such a limited view of Crowley's hair, this comparison goes to the scene before that when Crowley and Aziraphale crossed the street toward Maggie's record shop.

In this scene, the front top hair goes up and curves toward Crowley's right. There are also three notable tendrils that curl behind this front top hair and end up curling toward Crowley's left. The left-most tendril of this group is also where to find the more saturated red streak of hair.

...

Earthly Objects

(For reference: Earthly Objects | The Ball Invitations Checklist)

Now we have reached the second ball invitation to be done on camera.

This invitation is for a human named Mutt and his spouse. Mutt is the shopkeeper for Will Goldstone's magic shop. It's the same magic shop from episode 4's minisode. Much like the music shop, there are no other customers around when Aziraphale and Crowley visit.

Let's check in with the checklist.

Aziraphale does all of the talking, of him and Crowley.

Aziraphale does not talk to Crowley.

Aziraphale most obviously looks at Crowley when they are about to leave and he sees Crowley wearing the fez while playing with the crystal ball. He conceivably looks at Crowley when Crowley looks at him, before Aziraphale starts on his temptation with the book. There's another potential look when he's saying the book is not for sale.

So far as looking for Aziraphale with a possible illusionary touch over Crowley, his coat is obviously over Crowley when Crowley walks behind him. But maybe the game wants something more than that. There is a blurry part of him briefly over Crowley's left jacket sleeve when Aziraphale's suggesting Mutt bring his spouse along. Crowley's blurry right hand does visually pass over Aziraphale's left hand, so that would be an illusionary touch under, instead of over, Crowley.

When Aziraphale spoke, he did not greet Mutt with a hello, question, or number.

For names, he did not say the name of anyone who will be at the ball.

...

Crowley does not talk to anyone.

Crowley looks at Aziraphale just after they enter and before passing behind Aziraphale. He looks again after Mutt says he's taking his spouse out to dinner and again when Aziraphale looks at him while Crowley is wearing the fez near the crystal ball, just before they leave.

Because two humans are being invited, Crowley is probably supposed to have two of each of his assigned touches.

Earthly objects Crowley touches include a panel with his right arm, the rug with his shoes, some beads with his left shoulder, a fez, and playing with the crystal ball the way he does probably counts as a "touch" too. Figuring out which touch goes where is beyond my ability, but I'll still note some guesses.

For instance, the earthly object touches that would be for the sake of having an earthly object touch, my guess would be Crowley visibly walking on the rug and using the crystal ball.

The self-skin-contact touch is, I think, when Crowley visibly has his hands clasped together behind his back. One can hear the beads by his shoulder and see his reflection to confirm that touch. The other closest thing resembling a self-skin-contact touch is Crowley touching his own reflection with the mirror on the door.

The self-clothing touch are the panel with his right arm, confirmed as he moves away from it and his hand brushing up behind his jacket before removing the fez.

For the self-mouth touch, Crowley is making audible noises when playing with the crystal ball, even if he's not actually speaking. He opens and closes his mouth in the process of standing before taking off the fez. As one last extra something that could be the second self-mouth touch, he places the fez on a snake statue within the shop while also ensuring a tassel on the fez touches that snake's body.

Crowley makes pockets with his arms when he places his right arms on a panel. He makes a pocket with his right arm and head when putting on the fez. He makes another pocket when adjusting the fez as he lowers himself toward the crystal ball. He makes a pocket with his right hand and jacket when playing with the crystal ball. There is a self-made pocket of hair as Crowley removes the fez. That's a funny one.

The cross is probably the upper thighs as Crowley walks away from the panel and on the rug.

There are reflections of Crowley everywhere. His short sideburns are reflected in the mirror of the door. He right middle finger touches its reflection on the mirror on the door as he enters. He's reflected in the window panes of something near Aziraphale near a hat rack. His reflection can be found in the mirror behind the skeleton when he's near the beads. His reflection, or shadow—it's hard to tell, can be found in the window panes of something near that skeleton. His reflection can be found in the crystal ball.

Crowley's shadow can most easily be found near his shoes as he walks along the rug.

The best time to look for light in Crowley's sunglasses is immediately after Mutt says he's taking his spout to dinner tonight and again after Aziraphale says, "Card Table."

...

Aziraphale and Crowley do not talk to each other.

They look at each other mainly when they are getting ready to leave.

They have a "correct" sides view as they enter with Crowley even ensuring his Tied Hands and Belt Head are visible. Then he passes by behind Aziraphale to place himself on the "wrong" side. Again, his Tied Hands and Belt Head are visible. The watch becomes visible briefly as Crowley passes behind Aziraphale.

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Story Commentary

In my previous draft, I noted I have so many questions.

Upon figuring out that his touches are supposed to double for two invitations, I have some answers.

One previous question was, "Why the middle finger on the mirror and only that one?" I don't know for only that one, but I think this part is intended as a self-skin-contact touch.

Another overall set of questions went like the following...

"Why does Crowley brush his left hand against the back of his jacket before removing the fez? What does the tassel of the fez touching the snake statue accomplish? Tassels are thumbs on the Tied Hands, and sometimes one touches his Belt Head. Is it a way to share or transfer the touch?"

I think I was on the right track. The hand brushing on the jacket allows for a self-skin-contact touch. I'm guessing the tassel does indeed allow a share or transfer touch to help with another self-mouth touch.

Another set of questions was, "Why does Crowley get so many reflections here? Does that have to do with his Tied Hands?"

He gets so many reflections here because this ball invitation has an actual match to one of the Threshold Tricks. It matches The Door Trick. The Door Trick is linked to The Door Catch. The Door Catch is a hidden extra Magic Trick among the Threshold Tricks and performed by Aziraphale. That is to say, just as there are two humans being invited here, there are two performers, one for The Door Trick that is Crowley and the other for The Door Catch.

Additionally, while I still lack the words for the significance of the way Aziraphale catches the Metatron's reflection, I do know reflections are quite relevant to both The Door Trick and The Door Catch.

Onto my last previous question from a draft, "Was he actually doing anything with that crystal ball? He's a demon, you know. He's not shifting his supernatural zone in place yet, but that will happen later."

I at least think it was an extra earthly object touch for the extra invitation, but I don't know if this touch and movement did anything else.

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I've said this before, but it's been edited away or I forgot which post I put it in, but Crowley's antics with the fez and snake statue are cute here, but I've seen too much of his play in these games to think he's just being cute.

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There's some interesting sound effects just before Aziraphale makes his temptation. Crowley looks at him like, "You have the floor," and wants to see Aziraphale pass this challenge.

Satisfied with Mutt's reaction, Crowley moves on with his own moves, which include him visibly walking across the rug on the floor.

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As already noted, these two are making sure the humans invited on camera show up to the ball, even if it's their wedding anniversary.

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Aziraphale's being careful to not give another book away and put Crowley on alert again.

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That's it for this post. Sometimes I edit my posts, FYI.

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Main post:

The Sideburns Scheme