#i'm very in love with the whole 1941 story

[brinnybee]

Your eyes that promise sweet nights Bring to my soul a longing A thirst for love divine ((Green Eyes -- Jimmy Dorsey))

A 1941 playlist for the ineffable husbands (and their candlelit dinner-date, ah).

[vidavalor]

Just on the back of your last post about how Aziraphale and Crowley have been a couple for (literal) ages, of which you have me thoroughly convinced, there's one thing I've never been able to figure out.

In 1941, when Crowley saves the books, what are we seeing from Aziraphale? By this point he knows damned 😉 well that Crowley adores him, so I very much doubt the 'this is when Aziraphale realised his love was returned' theory. Is it to do with their holy water fight?

Apologies if you've covered this already but I've read through your master post and most of your previous posts and couldn't find anything. I keep musing on it and thinking 'oh Vidavalor will know but I shouldn't bother them'!

Ground Control to Mr. Tom! 😊 Hi there. 💕 You are correct that I haven't done a post about this, which feels very much like my all-over-the-place blog, because this is one of the most-discussed scenes in the show. 😂 You are absolutely not a bother! Do not speak such silliness. I'm going to explain my take on that scene with some help from The Archangel Fucking Gabriel. Therefore, there is hot chocolate, should you want a mug.😊

This is also going to be my contribution to the Azirafeast celebrations so I wish any of you reading this many scrumptious returns!

Below the cut is the one in which someone who thinks Crowley and Aziraphale have been lovers since ancient Rome offers an opinion on what's going on with Aziraphale and the books in 1941... by way of a look at what we might be able to learn about this moment from its sister moment in Gabriel & Beez's flashback.

Be them real people or fictional ones, angels-- especially our two, main ones on Good Omens-- are not accustomed to feeling seen.

This is largely because they believe they exist to sacrifice themselves for the protection and betterment of others... that this is literally what they were made by God to do... or at least what they've been told God wants them to do... and, as we know, they've got plenty of questions over all of that.

They can often feel guilty about their consumption of resources-- or their curiosity about doing so in different ways-- when they've been told that those resources and the experiences that come with them are not for them, even if all evidence seems to suggest that might not really be the case.

They are told they are supposed to live small lives of sacrifice and are, as a result, full of conflicts about their hungers, their needs, their desires... about their love, and the want of a free life of their own.

They exhibit perfectionist behaviors, are full of self-criticism, and are excessively self-sacrificing.

Intellectually, they know they are a person with wants and needs like everyone else but they've been taught that they are supposed to be above all of that and breaking free of that abuse comes with negative self-thoughts, anxiety, depression, and a whole slew of other fun struggles.

That attempted thought control and oppression of people that is responsible for these angels' inner torment, though? As The Supreme Archangel aptly puts it while having a total breakdown shown by chasing his metaphorical self (The Fly) around the bookshop and trying to kill it with a Bible...

...it never works.

It might, unfortunately, get some people but it never, ultimately, works in society as a whole for very long because people want to live. People are made to live. They will seek out coffee over death and rebel against any society that seeks to oppress them in whatever way that they can. Eventually, angels who want to break free will find different ways of letting themselves be individuals on their own terms, even as they are still full of conflict about it, as we've seen Aziraphale and Gabriel do throughout the story.

They'll express themselves in different ways but with the same sense of desperation to have something of their own as a way of admitting that they are a person, too.

Maybe, one night, an angel will, say, allow himself to indulge his hungers by eating an entire ox... maybe in front of the demon he'd like to consume with just as much enthusiasm. Maybe those hungers become ones that, despite his inner conflicts that lead to periodic episodes of depression and fasting, this angel will allow himself to otherwise regularly satiate, and in which he finds enjoyment, nourishment, connection and peace, that he would not have otherwise found.

Maybe, on another night, a different angel will let himself slip away from Heaven and return having consumed resources for himself, in the form of a tailor-made suit that serves as proof to himself that he isn't just a symbol but an individual person in his own right. Maybe it gives him a connection to his body that also leads to him jogging and exploring more of the world. Maybe he allows himself the freedom of owning what he can of his own body and own appearance because control over these things have otherwise been taken from him in the process of denying his personhood and making him more of a symbol to be venerated.

While these are good examples of these two angels finding different but similar, healthy paths to recognizing themselves as people, it's one thing to recognize yourself but another thing for someone else to recognize you.

Angels are wonderful at taking care of everyone else but they sometimes have a blind spot when it comes to their own needs and safety. They are so busy taking care of everyone else that they are prone to making mistakes with their own care.

Such as this angel below being so pleased with an opportunity to contribute to the war effort that he missed that he'd accidentally let himself be recruited by the wrong side...

...and needing his partner to identify some Nazis and redirect some bombs to keep him from being discorporated...

...and such as this other angel below being pleased with his ability to show care towards his new partner...

...but also, as we can see by the expression in his reaction to Beez's suggestion above, so unused to being cared for that, even if he was intellectually aware of it, the aspect of partnership involving mutual care was so foreign to him that it threw him for a bit of a loop.

Sometimes, an angel will be going through a period of struggle when it comes to their interactions with the world. It's often times not even just the feeling that they should just be advisors more than active participants and that the world is not for them. They are, in these moments, just imposter syndrome run amok, and that robs them of pursuing that which makes them feel happy and fulfilled.

Loving an angel in this mode requires gentle, genuine, affirming care:

The imposter syndrome modes can strike at any time for angels but tend to do so especially when they've very recently tried to engage with the world in a big way and saw it backfire.

Like when they spend a lot of time trying to sort out their place in the world and regularly go back and forth between being so influential that they personally own and have developed an entire city neighborhood but also then have days when they don't want to open their own bookshop to the world.

Like when they are supposed to be an angel and nothing else but, if they could choose a vocation, they'd be doing card tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats at birthday parties for all of eternity, and they feel so massively guilty about it that they tell themselves that the magic shop is not a place for them.

But maybe never more than like when there is a war on... an absolutely massive, global war... the first atomic war, the war that could bring about Armageddon, for all the angel knows... and everyone in the human world is trying to do their bit as best they can and, one day, a young woman claiming to be British intelligence knocks on the door and says that they need the angel-- this particular angel and only him... this angel who sometimes feels like he doesn't always know how best to help but wants nothing more than to be good and do good and help others.

The Allied Forces needs Mr. Fell for an intelligence mission to help thwart the Nazis and work towards stopping the war. And what do they need from this angel, in particular?

They need his books.

Aziraphale collects books of all kinds but he has two major personal collections that are highlighted in the story. One is humorous and self-aware-- a collection of misprinted Bibles. Those are living proof of the fallacy of language and gospel-- of the bullshit of people. They are comforting to him in their existence, as they reinforce his sense that following what others say is the word of God is not really a better path than following his own moral compass. The Allied Forces don't need these books, though.

They need the other ones that Aziraphale has been collecting forever:

His books of prophecy.

This angel collects written works by humans that profess to be prophetic. He has original works of Nostradamus and Mother Shipton and many others. He has preserved them throughout centuries, keeping them safe in his care, even if the works are, largely, complete and utter balderdash. He has kept these books, nutty as they are, safe from damage and in existence, for years, just in the event that maybe these humans, in some way, really did have answers as to the future of the world in which the angel lives, too.

The one that he knows has been slated to be destroyed around 6,000 years from its inception-- a date that was approaching closer with each breath in 1941.

Was it really going to happen? Was there a way to stop it? Aziraphale has been trying to see if maybe the humans have found a way, studying their prophetic works for centuries upon centuries, anxiously looking for clues on how to stop Armageddon and save the world he loves...

...and also therefore be able, as a result, to stay on Earth with the person he loves and not be separated from him for eternity.

It's these books of this angel-- these beloved, material possessions; these perfect examples of everything that he's been told that he's not supposed to have-- that Captain Rose Montgomery of British Intelligence says that he can provide to entrap some Nazis and help save the world for his fellow humans and his partner.

An angel's biggest blind spot is always wanting to help and never feeling like they're doing enough. They're vulnerable to trusting the wrong people for the right reasons. Their desperation to do good and be good in the face of feeling like they're not a good person at all can cause them to have the best of intentions but be open to manipulation by those with the worst of ones.

Sometimes, it's a human Nazi. Sometimes, it's a supernatural one...

...same difference. Both dangerous. Both examples of an area where an angel might not survive if they don't let in a trusted person who can give to them the same love and care they give to everyone else.

The fallout from making a mistake can be devastating to an angel.

They feel embarrassed and snappish-- the anger and frustration related to the miscalculated situation triggering (and masking) the anxiety and depression to which angels are hardly strangers.

They can retreat into self-doubt. Moments of bravery when it comes to trying again are sometimes just as quickly diluted by their compounding insecurity and the fear that they are just jiggery-pokery and do not belong in the world.

This is when they need their demons the most.

Demons? They are fallen angels.

They know all this about angels because they're not much different themselves.

They have had the experience of having to redefine themselves in the face of being told by their societies that they were no longer angels and, in some ways, that has freed the more introspective demons to have enough perspective to offer counsel to willing angels as to how to manage those conflicts.

These demons, like Crowley and Beez, are uniquely well-suited to loving angels because they have also been through these same conflicts-- and still struggle with many of them.

These demons have experienced violence and violation as a result their angelic conflicts. They are drawn towards the inherent goodness of their angels, who approach them with kindness, respect, and a sense of equality to which the demons are not accustomed but which helps to build trust.

Just as these demons seek to protect these angels from harm that might befall them in the future, the angels we're discussing are both mindful of their partners' pasts and take care to help them feel safe. They are emphatic about their partners' comfort, reinforce their expectations of a partnership involving free choice and equality, and continually make clear that they consider-- and will always consider-- explicit, enthusiastic consent essential.

Their demons' knowledge of the darker aspects of the world also make them uniquely aware of the risks to their angels and they seek to protect them from experiencing the same pain they have felt from trusting the wrong faces. They do everything they can to keep their angels from falling-- literally, as in from Heaven, or more figuratively, as into despair.

They give them music and food and companionship... they open up the world for the angels and help them live life with the other people in the pub, literally and metaphorically. They explore the human world with them and make them feel less alone, letting the angels do the same for them.

Loving an angel is first seeing that angel there and acknowledging their humanity. It's affirming their imperfection as being just part of personhood and holding up that personhood as being worthy of love. It is reflecting back to the angels the same empathy, openness, and lack of judgement as what the angels give to them.

It's seeing that the angel who wrestles with living up to the expectations of the statues in his honor and the titles for which he never asked is, really, an imperfect, good-hearted, kind person beneath his snarky, sharp-edged exterior. It's seeing the depression that clouds his eyes and the fine edges he's walking in Heaven and knowing what comes next more than maybe can see in the moment and protecting him, as best as someone can, from the fallout of those actions.

Beez knows what it is to fall. They see Gabriel already in a downward motion in every way there is and knows that it comes with risk of losing himself, the way that they once did themselves. They dump out the matchsticks because the good kind of fire is already lit between them and the fire of Hell is not for their angel. They gift him a fly-- that which is made from their body. They are Gabriel's container. He is safe by putting all of himself, literally and figuratively, into Beez.

While this is a big moment in the Ineffable Bureaucracy parallel and one that also parallels the holy water, Gabriel's response to it is a mirror to Aziraphale's response to Crowley saving the books in 1941. What can Gabriel maybe tell us about what Aziraphale was feeling then, through what is similar and what is different about these two moments?

For starters, Gabriel and Beez knew how they felt about one another before The Fly. They already had shared that through "Everyday". The Fly is not an "oh" moment for Gabriel, in the sense that it wasn't a sudden revelation of either Beez's love or of his own. If anything, he and Beez never really had an "oh" moment in that sense of one because elements of how they both felt were always just understood and present in their interactions.

This is honestly true of a lot of relationships. A lot of "oh" moments are not so much becoming aware of having feelings for someone but are just being hit with a new aspect of love that both/all parties is/are already aware is in existence, even if it hasn't always yet been fully spoken.

In S1, we see that Gabriel and Beez only let their guard down around one another. They have always been as close to friends as they could be in their positions. They already care about one another when we first see them together and then, in S2, Gabriel is completely unsurprised at Beez's flirting with him moments into the first date-- and Beez had no hesitation in doing so, suggesting that they likely have before.

Their attraction to one another is presented as an existing given between them from the very start of their flashback sequence. There's no "oh" over The Fly or anything else because they just know. They start to give words and actions to it as they fall deeper in love throughout the scenes but there's never any doubt that they both have been long-aware of what exists between them.

If anything, Ineffable Bureaucracy is probably the real, millennia-long pining relationship in Good Omens, as while they had all these very good foundations for a romantic relationship, they didn't really begin to pursue one until between S1 and S2.

Gabriel's response to The Fly parallels Aziraphale's response to Crowley saving the books in 1941, even if the contrasting part of the parallel is that both are responses to gestures made by these demons for their angels in very different stages of these relationships.

For Gabriel, The Fly is an "oh" moment-- but not one that is about a new revelation related to love existing. It's about what is, for him, a heartbreakingly new experience:

It's not that Gabriel doesn't already know how he and Beez both feel about one another because already he does by this point. Gabriel isn't having a realization of the existence of his love or of Beez's love when Beez gives him The Fly; he's having a realization that this is what it feels like to be loved.

And what is feeling loved, to an angel?

It's being and feeling truly seen.

It's someone noticing them and coming along to care for them while they're out there, trying to save the world when they're sometimes not sure they can even save themselves. It's someone seeing that in them and not seeing anything worth berating them about the way that they berate themselves but, instead, seeing a person worthy of their love and protection.

Loving an angel is giving them the same kindness and care that they give to the world but that they often deny themselves.

For Gabriel, that night in The Resurrectionist was the first time that anyone had ever done something like that for him. It wasn't an "oh" of I'm in love because he already knew that and that Beez felt the same way. It was an "oh", though, of falling deeper in love. It was an "oh" of feeling love.

Beez had already done kind things for him before they gave him The Fly but The Fly and its matchbox are the first ever physical things Gabriel has been given by someone. He has never had any possessions besides his clothes before. He's never been given a gift.

He and Beez go to bars and pubs on their dates; they're surrounded by humans with songs and birthdays and Christmases and going on dates and living a life that involves tangible, physical things that Gabriel is supposed to be above but to which he is drawn.

On the first two dates we see, he and Beez meet up in places but they do not order anything. They do consume the music together and, by the night at The Resurrectionist, they take another step towards engaging more in the human world that they've largely been absorbing and observing together to date. They do so through allowing themselves to be a part of the space, too-- Gabriel miracling the song on the jukebox for Beez-- but also through material objects.

They start ordering stuff. Gabriel is happy to bring Beez something-- buying them beer and a bag of chips/packet of crisps, even if they're undecided on actually consuming them. He makes it clear that he doesn't have any expectations that Beez actually eat or drink anything if they don't want to but the idea is that they have moved to a place where they can see what the humans see in bringing one another things as they move through the world together.

Gabriel has gone from a being who barely knows why he's meeting Beez in this bar to being excited to see them again and happy to buy them a drink and their preferred snack to stare at. Beez is having a ball getting the food-judgy-if-also-food-curious Gabriel to buy them what they've clearly told him he had best call a packet of crisps if he plans on seeing them again. 😂 They have begun to let themselves claim resources for each other and themselves and to start to get less intense about consumption, which are features of recognizing the humanity in one another and themselves.

Gabriel's "oh" moment when he is given The Fly is that this is the first time he knows what it's like to experience the world as a person who has a person who cares about them and has brought them something.

What he means when he says "no one's ever given me anything before" is really "no one's ever thought about me before."

He means no one has ever seen him there-- until Beez did.

The gift of The Fly reminds Gabriel of that and shows him getting used to the new feeling of not being invisible and alone. He falls deeper in love with Beez and sees them more fully in return as well as a result of their gift and that, it could be argued, is what love is.

Love, if it's good, is a lot of "oh" moments-- because you don't fall in love once. You fall over and over again, deeper each time.

The difference between this moment with Gabriel and Beez versus the paralleling one between Crowley and Aziraphale is that, by 1941, our angel, Aziraphale, has known years upon years upon years of being seen by his demon.

(Amusingly, considering the theme of love as recognition, The Serpent is also literally, ya know, um, rather watchful at times. 😂)

Aziraphale is no stranger to Crowley being kind to him or rescuing him from the times he might have blundered, like we all do at times, in trying to do good.

Crowley saving the books in 1941 is absolutely not the first time that he's ever done something as Beez-and-The-Fly-level romantic as this for Aziraphale. In many ways, that's likely the point.

While The Fly was the first time of what will be many that Gabriel experienced what it was to feel loved by feeling seen, Crowley saving Aziraphale's books is a gesture that could not have happened at all without Crowley's long-held, intimate knowledge of Aziraphale as a person.

What makes Crowley saving Aziraphale's books so romantic isn't even just that he knows how important the books are to Aziraphale but that he knows Aziraphale so well that he could predict that the books would need rescuing.

Crowley knew that his angel would only focus on getting the two of them out of the church alive and unharmed and absolutely was going to forget about those beloved books of his while trying to protect them both and then be completely and utterly crushed when he did.

In this way, it's a contrasting parallel to Gabriel and Beez because, while that was the first time Gabriel had ever felt seen, 1941 is time number six trillion and five that Crowley had made Aziraphale feel seen like this and he's now so well-practiced at it that it's old hat at this point.

There is no judgement from Crowley about what happened with the Nazis in any of this. Aziraphale is horrible to himself over things like mistakes like he made in this church and being forgetful about these books but Crowley sees no such need for any of that. He protects Aziraphale from the fallout but in such a way that says he admires Aziraphale for trying to take the actions that he did. He sees Aziraphale as brave and his actions quietly affirm, much in the way that Beez does for Gabriel, that just because they are an angel who is used to doing for others doesn't mean they're not also a person who needs someone to do for them, too, and that Crowley is happy to be that person.

Aziraphale is reminded by Crowley knowing him well enough to anticipate that the books will need to be saved and taking care of that for him that they are a team. That Aziraphale doesn't have to worry about managing everything on his own because he and Crowley help each other manage life. They know each other well and have been together so long that they just know how to take care of one another.

It's not an "oh" of a realization of I'm in love for the first time. It is, as Michael Sheen says, a moment of falling in love. It's an "oh" of having been in love for a very long time and that love still finding new ways to surprise in its ability to keep causing Aziraphale to happily fall deeper and deeper...

This isn't realizing love and it's not the first time that Crowley has done something sweet and romantic like this for him-- it's the power of it being the nine billionth time Crowley has. It's the feeling of "oh" for Aziraphale that is a reminder that he is safe in the knowledge that Crowley knows him, through and through, and when confronted with the most real Aziraphale there is... the one that can be prone to making mistakes out of insecurities and self-doubt... the one that struggles sometimes with self-worth and brutal perfectionism... Crowley knows, sees him there, and is still madly in love with him.

Crowley never sees Aziraphale as weak or lesser for feeling any of it. He loves those sides of Aziraphale because he loves all of Aziraphale. He won't let Aziraphale be embarrassed because he likes and admires him as he is. He's gentle and kind and understanding about Aziraphale's insecurities, treating Aziraphale with the same care that Aziraphale shows him.

Crowley, better than anyone else ever has or will, sees Aziraphale for who Aziraphale truly is.

He loves that angel and his love helps Aziraphale to quiet some of his self-doubts and be a little kinder to himself-- much in the same way that Aziraphale's love does for Crowley. Crowley loving him makes Aziraphale feel like maybe there's a chance that he might be worth loving.

Loving an angel is making them feel seen and Aziraphale, holding those books Crowley rescued for him?

He felt very loved indeed.

The "oh" moment of 1941 is one moment where we see that Aziraphale has just been reminded of just how much Crowley truly sees him there-- and of just how much Crowley loves him. What we are watching, imho, is not the first realization of love but just one of a million different moments throughout history of Aziraphale continuing to fall deeper and deeper in love with Crowley.

[maaikeatthefullmoon]

Someone asked about places where they could find my creative works & how I make a living.

I’ve been a self-employed artist since 2017. The current economic climate is making that *very* difficult and I may well be giving up my beautiful business soon, but for now, I’m still clinging on by my fingernails. I’ve survived a lot longer than many of my colleagues and I’ve been VERY grateful and fortunate. (Yes, my profile photo is actually me- shock horror!)

You can find me/support me here:

Etsy: I have *two* Etsy shops. I make fan-based clothing, bags, and cushion covers at FullMoonFandom. and I make fan art and children's home decor, all hand painted on high quality medite wood at Lioncub Creations. This shop has been my main business for the past 8+ years and is my bread & butter. It's been hit HARD by the cost of living crisis and it's literally getting worse every month.

Ko-fi: If you enjoy my writing, or just generally take pity on me, I'd think you were bloody amazing if you could please buy me a coffee (although I'll actually spend it on bills...sorry). No pressure, though, I know money's tight.

AO3: I write Good Omens fanfic under the username imposterssyndrome, I’ve been writing since November 2023 after my trauma therapist recommended it and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done (especially after my mother told 8yo me that my writing was shit and I literally never wrote another piece of fiction until age 40). I skew angsty, love historical anything and researching stuff. Did I mention Here Be Angst?

Wavelengths & Frequencies - I'm writing this wonderfully fun enemies-to-lovers human AU with the ineffable @shadesofecclescakes. This is a DJ AU and bloody hell does it ever help that Eccles is a professional DJ, because I would have given up in the first chapter otherwise. This longfic will be funny, VERY piney, a teensy-tiny bit angsty (but not too much), smutty, and just generally a whole lot of fun. And it's got footnotes! And newspaper articles! And texts, and tweets, and an awful attempt at a forum, and and and...Rated E (and P for Piney-As-Fuck). WIP, published every *now totally off schedule, we publish when we can*, due to be completed by *who knows when*.

Epistolary Series - Aziraphale's diaries, read by Crowley, a romp through history, the series includes an Aziraphale POV and more, rated E, made of 3 completed works.

Ineffable Inspirations Series - Individual oneshots, all based on songs. Currently 2 stories, based on Fiona Apple’s Shadowboxer (set in 1941) & Finger Eleven’s Paralyzer (set in 2021)

[the-ineffable-dance]

A Companion to Owls is my favorite of the minisodes. Possibly my favorite story in the whole show. But more than it being just good fun and visually amazing, (plus, it gives us Bildad the Shuhite, I mean, come on..)

Job's story, really, is the beginning of "our side."

Before the Job story, Aziraphale and Crowley of course know each other, but I think it's still been a bit of feeling each other out. No one has really put themselves out where they could get into trouble. There's the chat on the walls of Eden, and then again at the Flood. In both of those, Crowley does a little pushing of Aziraphale's boundaries, but Aziraphale, regardless of his internal struggle, outwardly toes the party line... Heaven's plans, no matter how they might look, are in fact ineffable.

In Job, we see for the first time that they are beginning to really see each other. Aziraphale knows that Crowley doesn't want to kill off Job's goats or his children.

Though, of course, he's got to be a little smug about it.

And even when Crowley puts that to the test when he's setting the house on fire, Aziraphale remains confident in Crowley's innate goodness. And is again proven right when Crowley miracles them all into the cellar.

Crowley, for his part, knows that Aziraphale is starting to question the ineffable plan. God and Satan making bets, letting Job be tormented by demons, killing children... he sees the questions that Aziraphale is starting to have, and eases the path for him by being receptive to those questions.

Here we also have the start of Aziraphale's hedonism and love of human things. He's not quite ready to take the step of drinking alcohol, but he does accept Crowley's temptation to eating... and realizes that he's starving. It's his first bite in his entire existence, and he eats an entire ox! It's a small step from there to other things that we see him loving in the present... wine, music, books, clothes (I'm looking at you, 1793), all the things the other angels look down on him for, and Crowley probably introduced him to.

In 1941, they have the exchange, "You told me to trust you." "And you did." But I think that we have that here, too... for the very first time. When Sitis and Job are told that their children are dead, Aziraphale and Crowley put on quite the show with their cobbler/midwife and angel straight man performance. It's actually quite impressive... every time one of them leans on the other to keep up the charade, the other obliges...

It's important to remember just how dangerous this dance is for both of them. First of all, Crowley could not be in a worse place. Not only is there a host of angels here, Gabriel the Supreme Archangel is in the lead. To find a demon here, interfering in the ineffable plan, would certainly end in a smiting. His cleverness and the trust of Aziraphale are the only things that keep him one step ahead.

Secondly, Aziraphale himself is in great danger. Not only has he been collaborating with a demon, tempted into eating, and so on, but he is lying to Gabriel's face. We've seen him lie before. Most memorably to God when she asked where his sword went. But those were little white lies, with few ramifications. "These are his new children" is a direct contradiction to what the Plan is. He is for the first time, turning from the Heavenly Plan, and instead throwing in his lot with Crowley.

Which brings me to my final point...

Aziraphale is terrified of falling. But he was willing to do it to save the children. And that is something that means a lot to Crowley. When he realizes that Aziraphale thinks he's already fallen, he does tease him a little bit, but more importantly, he is soft and kind, talking him through this huge change in worldview.

The most touching moment is when Crowley admits that this path he is walking and Aziraphale now finds himself on is lonely. Crowley has been feeling it since the Garden... but now, it will be less lonely. Aziraphale doesn't have to face it alone, because Crowley will be there, too. Now, they have "us."

[noneorother]

The grand unified theory of Good Omens S2 hangs on - you guessed it - a double meaning (and art). *Part 2*

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l The End?

This is major spoilers for season 3 territory. You have been warned. I'm also going to split this into parts because wow, I have so many ✨Clues✨! Come with me on a long and magical journey through time, and trust that I will bring you back to the double meaning of it all very soon.

The second thing that Oofs and Ouches my Bones specifically about the art direction in S2 are the time/place cards. You know, the good old rope and stick cards we all know and love are back in S2E1! - wait a minute...

Oh. Okay. I guess we're going with a huge organ swell happening in the music at the same time as a gothic font. Seems... awfully religious of them. Let's try again. S2E2?

Oh shit. 1950s classic Hollywood biblical epic title cards? Really? Okay. But we've already been to London in 1941 in S1 so surely they would just use the same exact title card as last season because it's the SAME SCENE in S2E4 and-

OH GOD it's a black and white classic horror flick! Be afraid! Cower in fear from the zombies that eat brains. So...I think we're getting a feeling this season that they massively changed up the art direction for the all the Minisode title cards. Except did they? Wait, how did the Resurectionists Minisode start?

That seems... very normal. No crazy "Hollywood" title cards here. And they just punted all the classic rope and stick cards that tell us when and where everything takes place in the whole season?

They did not. Y'all there are TWO competing ways of showing the audience Time/Place going on in the same episodes. One is canonically familiar, and the other is new, and very *hack-esque*. If only there was another reference to classic cinema somewhere in the title sequence of each episode to explain what was going on with these things AHHHHHHH-

(If you haven't watched till the end of the opening credits) There's a dude with a big stick waving something in front of the projector in the booth each episode, and presumably this has an impact on what we see on the literal movie screen projecting bits of the story in front of us. So what do we see in front of us from the projector each episode, exactly?

Well for one, we can certainly see that Neil Gaiman found a really interesting place to put his name in the openings... right over a lot of the fishy things in each minisode is a FUN WAY TO DO LAMPSHADING, NEIL. At this point you're screaming at me "But what does this have to do with the gangsters, and Maggie, and everything else?" My friend, I am here to tell you that I'm starting to get the feeling The Metatron has been adding bits and pieces (not very well, mind you, he's a hack writer) to change the outcome of season 2.

Would you like to see more clues, and the prestige reveal of what the double meaning is? Part 3 right here!

[sweaterkittensahoy]

For the MotA OC hotties, some crochet things you could have your girls make to keep their hands busy:

I'm looking at 1930s and 1940s patterns, as I think some 1930s patterns would carry forward easily.

From 1933. Made from motifs. The pamphlet says you can make it in a day if one person stitches and the other sews. ...maybe??? But this is something I could see get made for a long time because it's meant to be the sexy version of a wool undergarment to keep you from getting a chill, and the general cover-up in the 1940s means this could still easily be worn under things.

1940s. You can tell by the military-style shaping in the shoulders and waist. This is made in two parts: First you make the filet-like base, then you stitch over those spaces to get the wiggly texture.

1930s but with all signs of being late 30s with the more structured sleeves and fitted waistband. I would suspect a lot of girls had this sweater well into the 40s, as it would pass style muster pretty easily but especially in the make do and mend era.

Bed jackets were a big thing back then, and I feel like this bed jacket from the 1930s was worn forever by whoever had it because it's so fancy looking. This was done in hairpin lace, which requires a hairpin lace loom, but it's a very common style of crochet that anyone who crochets can pick up pretty easily. Big hope chest vibes on this one.

1938 but again, those 1940s military elements are starting to show. Another one that could make it through the decade easily.

1940s afternoon blouse, as it says. Very fashionable. This is a British pattern, and I would guess it's post-war since there's frippery involved, hence more yarn, but I can't swear by that.

1941. meant to be worked in at least three colors. I could see girls swapping skeins with each other to get different color combos.

This one is getting a special shout-out because it's the West Point Collar, meant to mimic the uniforms at West Point. In case you need your girls to have a good laugh (yes, I do have a Minnie story about her making this just to dress up as a cadet for Halloween on base).

Likely early to mid 1930s, and I know it'd be seen as frippery and possibly wasteful in wartime, but I also think any number of girls might fire back with "I've had this gown for five years" because it was made for them by their mother or grandmother for a graduation or prom.

But also, I am in love with it and could see a frugal gal making a sash from parachute silk or even just well-starched cotton, so I want you to see it.

Dickies (aka vestees) and collars were a huge thing in the 1940s. A big part of make do and mend was to find ways to dress up old things with a new little touch of style, and collars and dickies take a lot less material than a whole new top or outfit.

I would be remiss not to include at least one 1940s fascinator. They were the height of fashion. All over the movies. If your girl is getting ready for a date night, she either has one of these or is borrowing it.

Anyway, just some ideas from patterns I have. You can also look up 1940s crochet patterns or 1940s knit patterns on etsy and get other ideas. Most things were made either with thread or very small yarn.

[lire-casander]

don't want to set the world on fire

[rating] teen and up audiences [pairing] carlos reyes/tk strand [prompt] tarlos historical au [warnings] angst with a happy ending, canonical character deaths, pearl harbor au, world war ii, grief, mourning, fluff, kissing, alternating pov

[summary] 1941. tk strand and carlos reyes arrive in hawaii ready to recover from their own, personal tragedies. what they are not expecting is to find love among war.

happy holidays, @tailoredshirt! i really hope you enjoy reading this story just as much as i’ve enjoyed writing it! 

it wouldn’t have made sense without the incredibly fast beta-reading help of @morganaspendragonss and the hand-holding offered by @moviegeek03 when i thought i couldn’t do this. 

title from the song by the ink spots, which was released in 1941.

don't want to set the world on fire 15k+ | read on ao3

March 27th, 1941

“What do you mean, you're going to Europe?” TK tries to control his voice as he chooses to ask the first of the myriad of questions that are exploding in his head.

“They need the help,” Alex explains calmly. He doesn't look TK in the eye when he continues, “That's why I enlisted.”

“You volunteered?” TK screeches, earning themselves a few glares from the other people having dinner at this fancy restaurant where he had thought about proposing to his boyfriend.

Maybe proposing isn't exactly the right word, since they can't actually get married, but TK had planned to promise forever to this man who's now telling him that he's volunteered to step into a war that doesn't even have anything to do with them.

This definitely isn't how TK had envisioned his evening going.

“Yeah,” Alex confirms in a low voice. “It's not unheard of, you know. We need to help.”

“We?” TK huffs. “It's not our war, Alex. Your selflessness is amazing, but I highly doubt that you dying for them is going to change the course of the war.”

“You can't know that,” Alex retorts. He sighs as he stretches his hand across the table to rest it on top of TK’s, but TK jerks back. “TK, please,” he tries again. “I know it's difficult to understand and almost impossible to accept, but all I'm asking of you is to respect my decision.”

“How can you ask me to respect that you want to—die for people who will never even know your name?” He tries to keep his voice steady and still low, so as to not attract any more attention upon them, but it breaks around the middle, tears threatening to fall. “Alex—”

“I'm a pilot,” his boyfriend interrupts. “That's what I am. That's the only thing I am. I know I can help. I'm going to, whether you want me to or not, but I'd hoped that you'd at least understand, what with your father being a high-up and—”

“War was what broke my parents.” It's now TK’s turn to cut the conversation off, veering it towards the pain he's feeling. “How could you think that I'd be fine knowing that you'd volunteered to die halfway across the world? When did this happen? How did I miss it?”

Alex doesn't say anything, as if sensing that TK needs to say everything that's crushing his heart.

“When?” TK asks, voice not louder than a whisper. He remembers, a second too late, the dispatch orders his father's signed this very same morning; TK was at Colonel Strand's office when a secretary came in with a stack of papers allowing American soldiers to fly out the very next morning. “Please don't say—”

“Tomorrow,” Alex says, looking down at his plate.

TK holds his breath for a few seconds, counts to five, and exhales slowly. He repeats to himself that he won't panic, that everything will be fine in the end. After seven rounds of controlled breathing, he feels confident enough to speak, even though his soul is shattered.

“Here I thought that tonight would be the first night of our whole future together…and it's actually the last night for us.”

Alex looks stricken as TK’s words seem to register. TK witnesses his boyfriend understand what his plan had been all along, as a lonely tear rolls down his cheek, as Alex wipes it away discreetly because he's a soldier and he needs to be tough, not sensitive. He looks down at his hands, balled in fists over the tablecloth, and exhales.

“Well,” Alex finally says. He reaches out to touch TK, and this time he lets Alex's fingers smooth the skin over his hands. “If this is our last night together, would you save a dance for me?”

That's what both disarms TK and breaks his heart, at the same time.

He has never been able to say no to Alex, not even once in the whole fourteen months, three weeks, five days and seventeen hours since they started dating. And yes, he's been counting—sue him.

“Of course,” TK breathes out slowly. “Wanna go to the pier after dinner?”

continue reading on ao3!

[idliketobeatree]

HIII 8 and 18 for the ask game <3

hi hello Leanne <3 sorry this is so late, and thank u for asking dearie!!

8. do you prefer season 1 or 2, and why?

oof that's a tough one, and i'm probably going to be in a minority here, but i prefer season 2, actually?

and not juuust because of the ineffable duo content. really! season 1 made sense, it was executed really well, following the book and introducing the characters that i've learned to know and like, and it was great, but also kinda uneven? like the pacing was very diluted. they dropped S1e03 Hard Times and then expected me to sit through Shadwell discussing witchfinder scamming with Newt. even good acting didn't stop me from hyperfixating on Them

now, season 2 is a whole other trip. you just get thrown into the middle of a 4-years-and-counting story that wraps around itself, changes POVs like gloves, leaves breadcrumbs of context and clears up absolutely nothing. it's like a fairytale to me. and the colors are so bright and you blink and Crowley's sitting on a throne in Hell basked in green and you blink again and they're having a casual bdsm apology dance on a Thursday morning. the whole Whickber Street has never looked more like a dollhouse. literally what' s going on

me on the left watching S2 for the first time. neil gaiman on the right

where's the logic where's the integrity where is Gabriel where is GOD. where is She???? oh look Aziraphale's on Blue's Clues. Crowley sleeps in his car? this would kill the 2019 fans from angst potential but luckily we have the most devastating damn kiss in the history of television to distract us from everything else!

i could go on and on and i understand why people don't like this season. i really do. but S2 was my brand of weird and unexplainable, and cheesy, and fanfic thropes, and chaos incarnate. all those metas could only grow in the aftermath of that particular tempest. if this is the bridge between S1 and S3? it's uh, flaming like anything

18. what is your favorite moment through history, and why?

besides going feral for 1941 i have an extremely weak spot for their first meeting in Eden. bible canon divergence for the win! other people have written it better, but i can't get enough of how much symbolism their choices held. they've barely set a foot (or belly) on Earth and immediately chose to love it. come on. you can't do it to ex-catholic girlies. not to mention David and Michael's unparalled chemistry.

((i'm also forever haunted by Crowley speaking of this moment in riddles like "they looked into each other's eyes and realized they were made for each other" what tf is wrong with him : ))

—

[good omens ask game]

[paperclipninja]

1941 thoughts

Just finished re-watching ep 4, after getting side-tracked by the opening sequence last night that led me to this post about the significance of the music Bentley plays for Aziraphale, and I tell you, nothing can convince me that we're not going to get a third part to the 1941 story in season 3. NOTHING.

The 1941 sequence in season 1 gave us the beautiful moment with the books being saved, Crowley walking on actual fire (pretty much) for Aziraphale and was part of a series of flashbacks showing that Crowley shows up for Aziraphale time and time again. Lovely, heart feeling many things here (as is a certain angel it seems).

The 1941 minisode in season 2 is an immediate continuation of the scene from season 1, with grateful Aziraphale insisting there must be something he can do to repay Crowley *fans self*, we discover that hell caught on to Aziraphale and Crowley's alliance at this time and Aziraphale steps in to help Crowley out of a pickle with angry Mrs. H. But that's not all.

We hear Aziraphale call Crowley his friend, twice. First, when trying to placate Mrs. H by offering to fill in for the magic show 'on behalf of my...good friend here' and then back at the bookshop, after Crowley thanks Aziraphale for getting him off the hook, 'no need to thank me, that's what...friends are for'. This is a significant insight imo, Aziraphale almost catches himself on both occasions but rather than stopping himself, he allows the follow through without correction.

We also get the unwavering indulgence and support of Crowley for Aziraphale's magic show; from the practice and Crowley pre-game inspo speech in the bookshop, suggesting a bigger act, 'isn't there somewhere we can buy tricks?', to the amazing bullet catch. I know the bullet catch scene has been discussed a lot and I'm not going add any new insight there, so as has been confirmed and observed, this is the ultimate display of trust between the angel and demon (I mean, as we find out, if Aziraphale tells Crowley to 'trust me', he does!), showing us yet another aspect of their deepening relationship.

Cue the dressing room with the coupliest couple who ever didn't couple, a radiant Aziraphale interrupted by Furfur, whose attempt at a gotcha moment is thwarted by banana-fish-gorilla-shoelace-with-a-dash-of-nutmeg (Aziraphale getting Crowley out of a pickle yet again) and we find ourselves watching the two drinking wine over candlelight and toasting to shades of grey. Ok ok ok.

Both the bullet catch and the photo swap-out happened while the miracle blocker was on. Which means that both Crowley and Aziraphale were put in positions to protect the other using only themselves, their own skill and thinking. The throw back to season 1 paintball and knowing Crowley is not a fan of guns, and repeatedly seeing that Aziraphale isn't great at magic, simply emphasises how big a deal both those instances of stepping up for each other actually are. But they also show something else I think.

They demonstrate that Aziraphale and Crowley's ability to perform 'miracles' is attributed to more than them being an angel and demon with special powers. There is a role that will plays for each when required, perhaps the influence of their time with humanity, but also the power of connection. I was going to say love, and perhaps it is love too, but the connection Aziraphale and Crowley have to one another means that they want to ensure the other is safe, will take a risk and bet on themselves in a time of need because they trust each other and don't want to let the other down. Also something to consider when thinking about why their 'tiny half miracle' to hide Gabriel was so powerful (that's a whole different post though). So what's my point here?

The minisode ends with our two faves very relaxed and enjoying one another's company, but also knowing that the trust there is absolute and reciprocated when it matters. There was a bit of a revelation for Aziraphale at the end of the season 1 sequence, they're now very in sync and on the same page it seems at the end of the season 2 scene, but it still feels like there's another piece. There are so many references to 1941 and when you view the season 1 and season 2 1941 parts right after one another, they read as a self contained developing story.

But you know what stories have? A beginning, middle and end. Right now, it feels like we've only seen two of those. And I will remain on this hill until proven otherwise, because as the lyrics of 'Moonlight Serenade' (the tune playing in the Bentley at the opening of ep 4) say:

Let us stray till break of day in love's valley of dreams. Just you and I, a summer sky, a heavenly breeze kissin' the trees.

And there's still a whole night before daybreak, just saying.

[queenofthearchipelago]

I'm genuinely disappointed in everyone who's out here saying that this season was weak and had no plot and was overall badly written.

Like, my dudes, the whole POINT is the subtly. The season was meant to be QUIET, GENTLE, and ROMANTIC. You're supposed to live in every small moment where Aziraphale puts his hand on Crowley's. Every moment where Crowley just fondly follows Aziraphale around the streets of Soho or Edinburgh, in 1941 or 2023. Every moment where they could have walked away but they didn't because gosh dang it, I know you and I trust you and when you aren't looking into my eyes I can admit to myself that I love you. You're supposed to watch them as they learn to love each other despite everything, and then because of everything, and then protect each other regardless of everything.

This is the story of how these two celestial beings FELL IN LOVE. If you think the plot is weak because the bookshop didn't explode again or something, then that says more about you than it does the quality of the season. This is what falling in love IS. A billion small moments added up in such a way that Crowley told Nina and Maggie that he and Aziraphale have been talking for "millions of years" when they literally met at creation 6,000 years ago. It's not bad writing, he's saying it FEELS like millions of years. It feels like nothing ever mattered before Aziraphale.

Please I am begging you to notice that the conflict of the season had nothing to do with heaven or hell, it had everything to do with their communication. How they do, how they don't. And that includes looking for meaning behind the things they appear to state very clearly. The nuance in their words, the subtlety in their tone.

Neil Gaiman is one of the most beloved and cherished authors on the planet, celebrated for his beautiful and vivid imagination and his ability to craft those ideas into stories that thousands of people everywhere fall in love with every day. Don't tell me he's a bad writer. Don't tell me he made a bad season.

And don't tell me he wrote a bad season "on purpose" to back up some crazy theory that the Metatron was rewriting history through the Book of Life or something (I don't think you guys know what the Book of Life IS).

Just tell me you don't know what falling in love looks like.

[politeanarchy]

Something is going on with the flashback sequences, and I think the Metatron must be involved. The whole second season is about memory. The angels have ways of controlling memories, at least to the extent of taking them away. I guess we don't really know whether memories can be distorted or selectively altered as well, but I think they can.

The historical flashbacks are memories. And they're full of disquieting oddness. In the 1941 church scene, the music and mood have changed. In all three of them, the things that happen seem to be putting Aziraphale and Crowley more at odds with each other, pushing them subtly farther apart.

That part is straightforward enough. But I also have a crack-y harebrained idea, based on one of the "wait and see" remarks Neil made in the lead-up to Season 2, about Crowley waking up in a Kafka story and Aziraphale being whisked away to the Land of Oz. [ETA link https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/711923162475036672/good-evening-sir-would-you-like-to-drop-a-morsel]

The movie version of The Wizard of Oz is incredibly well-known. I'm sure Crowley has seen it. I don't know whether or not Aziraphale has, but I'm certain he has read the books.

In the movie, the Great and Powerful Oz manifests to Dorothy and her friends as an enormous floating head.

In the book, it's a bit more complicated. Oz is only willing to speak to one person at a time, and he appears differently to each person, so Dorothy and her friends have no idea what his real nature might be. Besides the giant head, he also appears as a ball of fire,

a lovely lady,

and a multi-limbed beast or monster.

They all seem very real, and very intimidating. We're supposed to pay no attention

to that man

behind the curtain.

[glitterypin]

Good Omens 30 Day Challenge! (x)

Day 22: Least favourite episode

Season 2, Episode 4: The Hitchhiker (featuring the minisode "Nazi Zombie Flesheaters")

I can almost smell the pitchforks coming to get me from here...

I know, I know, 1941 Crowley and Aziraphale, the whole "friends" thing, Furfur being amazing blah blah blah, everyone loves this episode except me, I KNOW.

I have two reasons not to like it.

The minisode is a big chunk of story that doesn't progress the main event at all. At least the other two minisodes were sort of interwoven with the main story, so they felt like less of a distraction.

I DON'T LIKE ZOMBIES AT ALL.

AT ALL.

NO.

So, yeah, I agree on all accounts, very nice Aziracrow, the magnificent Fell, the great Siân Phillips as Mrs Henderson etc etc, but out of all twelve episodes, this is the one I am always most likely to just skip, I'm so sorry.

[vidavalor]

*dings the bell* … I’m back.

My Ukrainian friend made potato salad! It has cucumbers, carrots, onion, & canned green peas in it, and it’s absolutely delicious!

Sooo… can I ask what moment/scene you found the most devastating so far? I guess The KissTM is the most popular but I wonder if you’ve spotted something even more heartbreaking?

Hi @procrastiel Much love to you and your Ukrainian friend & please thank her again for me for the recipe as we made it and it was delicious. 💕Hope she's doing well. The KissTM is pretty heartbreaking for sure but I had a couple of moments that I found at least equally as heartbreaking...

The blues below the cut. TW: Depression.

What really got me in S2, in terms of heartbreaking stuff, was the focus on the less "showier" kinds of depression in Aziraphale and Gabriel. I'm not dismissing the amazing Crowley story the show has been telling but it tends to be more overt. The story focusing on depression lingering beneath different types of exteriors-- those who project themselves as being upbeat and/or fine-- was really well-executed and it had moments as devastating to me as the kiss.

The "but that's for professional conjurers only" scene and, in particular, the choices made in Aziraphale's response to Crowley's "my Nefertiti-fooling fellow" response is probably my favorite bit of acting in the series entirely to date. Michael Sheen broke me into little pieces with the way he conveyed a lifetime of pain, depression, anxiety and sleepless nights in Aziraphale's eyes on the "professional conjurers" bit and the smile...

...I love how you literally watch the pain of it all melt off his face at Crowley gently reassuring him and the smile that starts and then becomes just a beam of love he can't keep off his face. It's gorgeous.

It's actually what makes The Final 15 hurt even more, really, I think-- because you know that this is what Aziraphale needed. It's the same core set of problems but he needed 1941!Crowley and he got AlphaCentuari!Crowley because of where they both were at in the moment. It just makes 2.06 even more brutal because it shows you how they do understand each other and how right they are for each other if they could just stop being idiots lol.

I also actually think this is one of the most intimate scenes in the show. It shows a lot of guts on Aziraphale's part to be honest about how he's feeling and that's courage that Aziraphale has in general but was lacking a bit in the present in S2. He lets Crowley in here-- which is the theme of all of it and what he's not doing in S2 very much, especially in 2.06-- and we get a scene where Aziraphale is vulnerable and hurting and trusts Crowley with it and Crowley is there to help him as much as Aziraphale helps Crowley. It's very sweet and romantic but in a heartbreaking way because of how it shows how much pain Aziraphale is carrying around with him all the time. The lovely bit, though, is how it also shows how Crowley knows and is trusted with it. That it all takes place in largely the same space as the mess in 2.06? Gah. Devastating...

The other storyline that broke me was Gabriel. I know not everyone has the empathy for him that I do and he can be a total jerk, no doubt, but I thought he was the best example of the show bringing in other perspectives on life in Heaven/Hell in S2. We had angles like Furfur and Muriel illustrating that life for those not on Earth is lonely, isolating and boring and that many are yearning to live a bit more. Crowley and Aziraphale have not had it easy by any means but we are given characters whose perspective is that they're jealous that Crowley and Aziraphale have at least been able to be on Earth and have one another this whole time, which is more than a lot of other angels and demons can say, and that's fair. Expanding upon the glimpses of Gabriel that we saw in S1 and showing that, really, he's more complicated than we might have expected, was something I both loved and was a bit broken by.

Essentially, S2 shows that Gabriel is actually arguably the worst off character of all of them-- Crowley and Aziraphale included. That he really had no one until Beez is shown on his face so well-- Jon Hamm and Shelley Conn selling Gabriel's depression and how healthy this relationship is in almost no time at all really shows how great they both are. Look at this poor bastard, though, really...

He has the worst job of all of them. The Metatron is really in charge of Heaven-- Gabriel's the pretty face, forced to keep everything going or be killed for disobeying. S2 emphasizes how much he and Beez did what they did at the end of S1 basically at gunpoint-- it was kill or be killed and neither of them have the power to overthrow anything on their own. They have enough power, in the future, to probably help sway some things. Gabriel's always had enough power to make differences where he could and he used it to try to protect people. He can be a judgy jerk but he also fundamentally cares about the people around him and he's been drilled for so long into believing that upholding Heaven is his only purpose and only reason for existence that he's even still mulling over the ghosts of those thoughts when he has his whole gravity crisis in S2, even when he can't remember his name.

This is the bit that got me actually teary, though:

Imagine being thousands of years old and no one's ever given you a present. You don't have a birthday. You don't celebrate holidays. No one's ever protected you or been on your side or even just listened. You don't have any friends because everyone is afraid of you and you have to put up those pretensions to stay alive. The people you spend your entire life with are out for blood-- they'd sooner see you stripped of your sense of self and tossed through the ranks or to Hell and take your seat. Your life is one, long, never-ending meeting with your abusive dad and charming personalities like Michael and Uriel and Sandalphon. For six. thousand. years. Gabriel had never eaten anything before S2. He's never slept. Imagine six thousand years of being the Senior VP of Climb Every Bullshit Mountain without ever having a lunch break or ever going home. It's kind of no wonder that Gabriel spent half of S2 taking a nap-- he's exhausted.

He's not from anywhere. He doesn't even have a desk. Is it any wonder that this poor bastard was already rebelling a bit in S1? That he didn't totally get Earth but he was sneaking down there to get tailored suits made just so he could have something that is his own and taking himself for jogs in the park so he could get away from everyone for awhile? He's vain, sure, yes, but really because his looks are all he has that actually belong to him. It's why Beez gives him a pass on the statue-- because they know that this poor guy doesn't have anybody but them. The humans immortalize him in marble like he's a God and everyone in Heaven and Hell is terrified of him-- and he's been terrified of trying to be real with others because who is he going to trust who won't stab him in the back?

All Gabriel has that is his own are his clothes and Heaven even takes that, too. Beez is the first person who has ever seen Gabriel as a person. Is it any wonder why Gabriel likes and goes to Aziraphale for help? He knows that Aziraphale is the only angel who is both kind and sorta sees him there sometimes. He's the only one who ever seems to consider that Gabriel might exist in there as more than just The Supreme Archangel.

Gabriel's memory loss is actually very much akin to the real world occurrence of retrograde amnesia, which can and does actually happen to people who have undergone traumatic events. (It doesn't happen all the time but it's also not as rare as you'd think it might be.) The mind shuts down in such a way as to intentionally forget everything related to the trauma in order to protect itself and that can sometimes result in a loss of identity. The forgetting, though, also frees Gabriel because when he can no longer recall the fascist system of Heaven that has been harming him for so long, the actual self that he's been repressing and hiding shows up.

I see a lot of people talk about Jim as if he's a separate entity from Gabriel and he's really not-- he's Gabriel without the self-protective airs that Gabriel puts on. Jim is really not much different from glasses-free Crowley-- they have the same approach to self-preservation. It turns out, when he's free from the toxic masculinity hellscape that is Heaven, Gabriel likes hot chocolate and tiny dinners and bookselling and is emotionally available and mindfully curious about everything. He's a lot of fun and he cares about his friends and is grateful to have them. He's still a snarky bitch sometimes but so is Crowley lol so... That Gabriel was so miserable before, though, I thought was really pretty heartbreaking.

Now that I've depressed you, we'll leave on the sweeter note of Gabriel torturing some humans to romance Beez...

[trigonalidae]

ask game- 6, 25, 30, 44, 47

6- see below, previous ask

25- to my great shame I've been a bit of a slouch with regards to non western film. best I can do off the top of my head is a 1921 short I saw based on the jiraiya story which was definitely just an excuse to show off how they could turn a guy into a toad onscreen

30- this is such an expansive question that I think it may take itself to a separate post later but if I was to do caligari I would want Cesare as the lone human, Kermit as Francis miss piggy as Jane Sam eagle as caligari etc more on that one day. maybe the dummy Cesare could be like a custom muppet made to look like him lmao

44- I know this isn't the code responsible (what with it being based on a european film) but if it was up to me a woman's face (1941) would be about Anna holm getting *worse* after her surgery upon realizing that people's cruel treatment of her was based entirely upon the most shallow perception. I wish she'd taken the money and run. I wish she'd killed torsten in cold blood. I wish she burned down that manor with everyone in it. at the very least I like to imagine that her final look back to the camera after agreeing to marry her entirely unmemorable love interest was an indication that whole trial and confession was just another trick out of her sleeve. great movie though. watch it

47- I know he was slated to play dracula but I'm always prattling on about how my favorite Conrad veidt roles are of the "male damsel" type and I think it's a damned shame he didn't get cast as Jonathan Harker in the 20s

[stfrancisprayer]

Hi Parm! I’m looking at your OC’s intro post again, and I love all the details you included🖤 I was wondering what the patch on her jacket means? It’s super interesting! - @lostloveletters

HELLO BATTIE!!! very glad you asked this question, the patch is not super common knowledge so i'm excited to talk about it.

TL;DR she's a WAC, and the patch is ETOUSA (european theater of operations, united states army) specifically the patch iteration pre-1944.

historical ramblings about the ETOUSA under the cut :)

The origins of the ETOUSA trace back to early 1941, before the US had "officially" entered the war. At this point the US portrays themselves as a neutral power because they want to keep their military operations a secret. To be prepared, they send a small group of military personnel to Britain to observe how the government was using American lend-lease supplies, should there ever be a time that the US will need to do the same on home soil. This small group of personnel were known as SPOBS, or the US Army Special Observer Group. The US joins the war in December 1941, and the SPOBS converts into the US Army Forces in the British Isles, or USAFBI. Their whole mission was to coordinate US forces in the British Isles in conjunction with the British, but the theater is changing so quickly that they end up throwing that plan out the window, and now the USFABI is sort of a sitting duck. (source, source) In June of 1942 the US Department of War decides to take the USFABI and turn it into ETOUSA (European Theater of Operations, United States Army). The brand-new department's job was to administrate, plan, and operate control over US forces in the European Theater. (source) Members of the ETOUSA included Generals (like General Patton!) to lower-ranking officials. Most of their domain was in the Communications Zone of the war rather than the front lines. With such a broad scope of administrative duties, a lot of manpower and womanpower was needed to manage it all-- enter our lovely WACs!! The Women's Army Corporation had a huge part in the ETOUSA as a whole, but many could also be found in their headquarters. (source, source, source) Without revealing too much about her story, my OC (who I don't have a set name for yet, oops) works with administrative duties related to the strategic planning of attacks. Now, the patch. While I was cooking her up this website was a saving grace for me, it's got such good info on WAC uniform guidelines/regulations-- this section features the information on the ETOUSA patch that I referenced.

In her illustration she's sporting the first design of the ETOUSA patch from September 1943. You might notice how there's also a version of the ETOUSA patch with the service forces star atop it. Let me get into that. So now it's February 1944, the US had been making some pretty big strides across Europe (especially France), and now they want to focus on western Europe; so they make sure there's enough forces over there to justify a new command post. This new organization is called the SHAEF, or the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, whose job was to administrate, plan, and operate control over US forces in the European Theater...which is currently the ETOUSA's job. But we're dealing with western Europe now, so they split the job down the middle; SHAEF takes the commanding part and the ETOUSA settles in France with the administrative and supplying part. Befitting of the new rebrand they modify their patch to the second iteration, the one that includes the service forces star, in February of 1944. The ETOUSA continues with these duties until shortly after Germany surrenders on May 7, 1945, and on July 1, 1945 it is redesignated as the USFET, the United States Forces European Theater. It retains that name until March 15, 1947, when it is redesignated as the EUCOM, Headquarters European Command. The EUCOM would be absorbed into the United States European Command (USEUCOM) on August 1, 1952. The end.

***Obviously I'm not a historian, so if somebody reads this and spots a place where I've gotten info wrong or misunderstood something important let me know and I'll add a footnote asap👍

Thank you for reading!! 💗💗💗💗 My apologies because I know this is very long-winded but I really appreciate the interest Battie <3 You reminded me I need to get on it and write a formal intro post for her tbh... but both the ETOUSA and SHAEF are in this OC's future... i got stuff brewing. let me cook

[sounds-of-some-day]

So I just read the first four issues of the original 1940s Captain America run.

Some observations:

It's still kinda weird for Bucky to be a child.

Steve is a private in the military (to maintain his secret identity I guess).

It's very much not what you think of when you think comic-booky. There's no, like, comic book science or whatever. Outside of I guess the serum. But that's still plausible.

So all of Steve's villains are just normal guys. All spies so far, but also very ordinary.

It's funny because each "case" (issue story arc) is presented as if it's going to be some supernatural phenomenon and then it's just some dude.

Very Scooby-Doo villain.

Even the Red Skull, who of course, originally was not German (all Steve's early villains are essentially American traitors). Red Skull was a capitalist, basically a military contractor for planes, doing it for the money.

Before Red Skull is outed, as the business guy, he laments a plane crashing because the plane was beautiful (and expensive to build) and Steve is like "Uh... And there were people on that plane, and they died, what the fuck dude??? Get your priorities right," and this is why I love Steve.

Anyway, Red Skull dies in his first issue because he rolls over on his hypodermic needle full of poison and Steve just lets him.

Every story arc is contained within one issue.

Steve is like, extremely chill. Every time someone tells him he can't do something, he's just like "Okeydoke, I won't do anything.... but Captain America, on the other hand, he's definitely gonna go fuck some Nazi spies up."

Also, he's always telling Bucky to stay behind, and then Bucky does, like the exact opposite of that, and Steve (sorry "Captain America" because Steve is being a good boy and staying out of it like he was told) always has to bust in and save him, and then he's always just like "Bucky, I told you to stay home and you didn't listen to me, you little rascal, you." And I'm like, Steve. Steve, this kid is going to get himself killed.

Also it's hilarious to me that Steve has a secret identity, because everyone knows his sidekick is a child named Bucky, and yet no one thinks anything about the big blond guy in the army that hangs out with a child named Bucky all the time.

Also, yes, Bucky is also in the army, kinda, cause each battalion has a... child... mascot.... for some reason?!? Like, I know they shoehorned in Bucky so that little boys reading the comics could imagine themselves fighting alongside Captain America, but the whole time I'm just like who is allowing this child to run around with Captain America and risk his life??

Because Bucky is his sidekick because he accidentally walked into Steve's tent when he was changing out of the uniform and Steve is just like, "Welp, you know my secret identity now, so I guess you gotta be my sidekick." And I'm just like, what? Steve. What are you doing?!?

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the first four issues of Captain America (1941).