#i'm Having a Moment here

[elliespuns]

What do you think is Ellie's and Dina's height difference?

Ellie is supposed to be 5'5 (166cm) when she's 19. Dina is a little shorter, but I'd say it's not by much (I love when Ellie locks her eyes with Dina's and she has to look down a bit, why is this so attractive??). She's probably 5'4 (162cm) if not 5'3 (160cm). I think it's cute that Ellie is taller. I can't explain why, but it is.

That little smile at the end...

But maybe it's because in the first game, Ellie was such a short, cute little button, while in the second game she's a tall, still cute but strong as hell hot stuff.

[drconstellation]

Lifting the Veil on the Bentley

Because I’ve been talking about the Bentley being Crowley’s black horse of late, I’ve had a nudge to talk about the number plate. I know it’s explained as an easter egg in relation to Monty Python, but I think we can explore it a bit further than that.

It’s worth having a quick look at this older post from @fuckyeahgoodomens where they explain the inspiration was from an animated scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life .

The following is from the linked article.

As a nod to Terry Gilliam, who once tried to do a movie version of Good Omens, Gaiman and Mackinnon threw in a little reference to Gilliam’s origins doing animation for Monty Python. “The license plate of Crowley’s Bentley is ‘Curtain’ backwards,” Gaiman said, because of the writing on the mausoleum in the suicidal leaves section of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. “Curtain backwards, like it’s the final curtain,” Mackinnon explained.

Before I get into all the connotations of “curtains,” there should be two things you notice about the “CURTIN” written on the mausoleum. The first is the spelling itself. It’s shortened to look like the Irish surname Curtin, so the mausoleum appears to belong to a real person. Curtin is an anglicized version of Mac Curtain, which means Son of the Crooked, or Son of the Harp, as the ‘crooked’ refers the hunchback shape of the Irish harp. I wouldn’t read too much into that, its probably more just a way of getting an actual curtain reference into that scene.

The other thing is that is not just backwards, it is mirror-image, as if you are looking at it from the other side of the mirror. So we should ask ourselves – which side are we looking from? And why does this matter?

While director Mackinnon mentions it referring to the “final curtain,” we need to start even further back than that to understand what the final curtain is, because even that has two meanings, even if only in a general sense. But because this is the GOmens AU, you can guarantee we’re going to find out there is more to it than that.

We need to go beyond the veil.

To go “beyond the veil” has become a euphemism for passing into death, or that unknowable place people go once they die. It was originally a figurative reference to the area in a Jewish Temple that was separated from the main body of the Temple by decorative curtains, called veils. The veils were specially woven, often with the image of a Cherubim woven in by a skilled worker; it was not allowed to be sewed on or added later. Each panel of the veil would display a different face of the Cherubim, such as the lion on one side, an eagle on the other, and so on. Only the priests could go past the veil into the most holiest of places. The veil was symbolic of separating men and their sins from the glory of God.  

The word ‘veil’ can be translated into English as ‘curtain,’ so the two words are almost interchangeable in respect of this discussion. I was interested to see that the word veil comes from the Latin word velum, which also means ‘sail,’ as in “to move, to drive a vessel or vehicle forward.” I have previously commented that the Bentley should probably be a “she,” as traditionally all ships were female, and that’s a tradition we still see carried into the modern day, thousands of years after its origin. I’ve even seen modern day space probes – little ships sailing the solar system – referred to as she! But I’ll not be pedantic about it, don’t worry.

Keep your hands off my bitch, bitch.

So the curtain, or veil, is the boundary between life and death. Only – we are seeing it from the other side. And in the GOmens AU this “other side” is very real, and one Aziraphale and Crowley walk through with both ease and without much thought. They are agents of those on the other side of the veil, yet they walk with Humanity in a solid reality on the surface of the Earth. They know the other side is real. When wee Morag complains about Elspeth’s body-snatching activity that the ones she digs up and sell won’t be able to go to Heaven because they will be cut up, Aziraphale tries to tell her it’s not like that, but she's not listening:

WEE MORAG: Aye. Tell that to the poor souls who will not get into heaven 'cause their bodies are all chopped into wee pieces. AZIRAPHALE: Well, that isn't how it actually… CROWLEY: Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know. WEE MORAG: It's no right. I'm telling you. CROWLEY: Yeah.

For humans, though, there is supposed to be no return once you cross that threshold.

When we, the viewer, see the two worlds meet, it's usually signaled by the presence of fog, mist or smoke. When Lesley the delivery driver meets Death, the fog arrives, as he is no longer in the living world. When Aziraphale and Crowley leave Tadfield Manor, we have smoke telling us we are seeing two different times and places at once - the past and the present are overlaid on one another.

The Bentley must exist in both the Human and subliminal worlds at the same time - how else can it drive like it does? It doesn't really need Crowley's hands on the wheel to guide it. It couldn't have started out like that - it was made by humans, but we all know the Bentley is more than just a car now.

It chooses the music to play on its radio, it refuses to speed when taking Aziraphale to Edinburgh until Crowley yells at it, it tries to follow the angel after he gets out at the end of the journey. How it got like this we will probably never find out, but we figure its become an extension of Crowley by close association, much like Aziraphale tends to influence the world around him without effort as well.

In terms of it being a black horse - well, now we get into some interesting stuff!

Horses have been companions to humans for longer than cars have been around, so there is lots of lore and symbology associated with them. Previous metas around S2 have focused on "dark horses," as they were specifically mentioned twice in the script. But a dark horse is not necessarily a black horse, and vice versa, so lets look at some of the aspects of black horse symbology in particular that could be relevant to the Bentley and it role in traveling between worlds.

Horses were the original vehicle of the ancient world. While Famine was supposed to ride a black horse (the others were white, red and pale green for pestilence,) the black horses could also be messengers of death, a demon bringing death or a guide to the afterlife. In the Illiad, Achilles sacrifices four horses on the funeral pyre to accompany Patroclus to Hades.

[Edit: I've just put myself through the pain of watching S2E6 again, for reasons, and realised why the ethereal lift is in the entrance to the Dirty Donkey - because a black horse is a guide between worlds! Of course!]

They became associated with the Devil during the Middle Ages as the church tried to break the link to old pagan rites. The broomsticks witches ride are supposed to represent horses. And then there is the sexual connection to horses...which leads in a round-about way to the practice of nailing horseshoes up for luck and protection. Although perhaps the burning horseshoe on Jasmine Cottage is more directly linked to the story of St Dunstan tricking the Devil and making him promise he would never cross the threshold of a house that had a horseshoe nailed to the door.

Our favourite Bentley has been beyond veil and returned. Though it was kept valiantly alive through the sheer will of Crowley to escape the unnatural flames of the Sigil of Odegra, it expired at the Tadfield airbase once Crowley arrived and finally released it. It was only appropriate that Crowley took a moment to acknowledge its service.

Then Adam restored it the next day. Resurrected it, one could say.

Time for the "final curtain" to wrap this meta up.

To "face the final curtain" is another euphemism for facing death, or at least an ending. It's the final curtain of a theatre show, after the encores are done. Its the final fall of the curtain at the end of a run. Sometimes we might say its just "curtains" for something or someone, meaning it will be ending, as a shortened form. But both Aziraphale and Crowley knows death isn't the end; its a beginning as well. Its just matter of perspective to them.

I've seen other writers associate this final curtain with the first Armagedon't, and now we appear to maybe be facing the "big one" in S3 - the Second Coming. I think that is too simplistic an association, especially for GO. The reversed side of the veil could be so many things: the final battle, the ability of our ethereal heroes to move between worlds, it could even be Crowley returning from the "death" of being one of the Fallen. As always, the meaning will be need to be considered within the context of the scene, and which side of the curtain we are looking from.

[bambiraptorx]

I need to see more character designs that don't treat wearing makeup as the default for women I'm so freaking tired of it. why do female characters always have to have eyeliner or mascara or lipstick or eye shadow or some combo or all of the above. why is wearing makeup so expected that in cartoons you can tell if a character's supposed to be female by whether they have lips or not

[guardianspirits13]

Today is the day we dress up all silly and eat candy to distract ourselves from the impending doom of a potentially catastrophic election day

[eybefioro]

Someone commented on one of my fics saying they re-read it and 🥺🥹😭😭🥺😭😭🫠🫠😭🥺🫠😭🥺🥹🥹

[laughingpinecone]

Real actual things that happened in Twin Peaks (2017) and sometimes you just forget:

Deep fried gun

[ashes-onthewind]

I say they're just the ones who gave me life, but i truly am my parents' child. I'm so good at telling lies—that came from my mother's side, told a million to survive

god, i have my father's eyes.. i can run but I can't hide

it's hard to put it into words, how the holidays will always hurt. i watch the fathers with their little girls and wonder what i did to deserve this.. how could you hurt a little kid? I can't forget, i cant forgive you, 'cause now im scared that everyone i love will leave me

all that i did to try to undo it, all of my pain and all your excuses, yeah i was a kid but i wasn't clueless. someone who loves you wouldnt do this.

all of my past, i tried to erase it, but now i see, could i even change it??

we might share a face and share a last name, but we are not the same

[marvelann]

PALLETS!!!

[bamgeut]

i know i don't talk about it as much but i genuinely actually love yeonjun so much he's just a silly little guy and whenever i see him doing silly little things i'm like 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 that's my dude. that's my bestie right there. i love him man

[tervaneula]

Are there any writers and/of stories that you consider an influence?

Most definitely darcylindbergh on AO3 (watsonshoneybee / forineffablereasons on Tumblr). Their amazingly soft works for Good Omens moved me and got me to try my hand at drabbles after many years of not writing anything.

You could even say that I owe everything to them.

Fanfic Writer Ask Game

[martinbythelakes]

bukayo nelli emile and eddie. they were like [the batman (2022) saving the people of gotham at the end of the movie] for us in different points of time. i love them with my whole heart. we wouldn't be here without them

[capitano-ale]

Theo assist on his first WC game in his life

[nimbusalba]

I'm dying now.

What’s your favourite line from good omens?

The invisible and unbreakable one that joins Crowley and Aziraphale.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Soup solves everything.

[unicornpopcorn14]

So we all know by now that Dazai is comfortable enough around Chuuya to show nervousness/worry.

Enough times for Chuuya to pick up on that pattern. The pattern, may I remind you, that doesn't have evident correlation to either nervousness or worry to most people. One that can even be interpreted as misplaced given the situation.

Which means that Dazai has done this in front of Chuuya so often, that Chuuya at first was hella confused, before he finally made a connection between when and why it happens. And still remembered that connection after four years of separation. Which gets us to my point:

What if this isn't the only emotion Dazai displays weirdly?

What if he has multiple unconventional patterns he displays for sadness, frustration, content, or disgust? The times he really feels them, and they become too strong for him to just deal with normally? What if these are the only times he's actually being genuine with his emotions?

And Chuuya is the only one who is familiar with them all?

Dazai would be jumping rope and Chuuya would be like, "quit sulking, let's get icecream"

Dazai hanging upside down on the couch and Chuuya going, "It's okay, mackerel. You can cry."

Dazai actually crying, full on heart-wrenching sobs, and Chuuya unironically going, "What, good news?"

It's just... comforting, for one person in Dazai's life to read him like a book. Everyone else would look at him like he's crazy, displaying wrong emotions/behaviors at the wrong time, but Chuuya knows that it's just how he processes feeling properly, and thus he's the only one Dazai can count on to put things into context and understand, which makes him display them even more openly.

Because Chuuya never shamed him for his quirks, as much as Dazai never did his.

[grey-viridian]

Based on hollow mind by @crows-murder

Thanks for the inspiration and a lot of pain)

Here is a version without a shield (it doesn't make sense but I just like it. You can see the fear in Leo's eyes much clearer>:3)

Aaand the original sketch (which I also like so I'm showing it to you)