#meta theory

[lohengrinoverture]

More Drosselmeyer ramblings, so a continuation from this post

I just really like the potential behind Drosselmeyer’s motivations. We know he clearly wants a tragedy. But taking into consideration the reveal of his backstory and how the nobility and monarchy exploited his powers for wealth adds another layer to his stories. So two of the stories he’s written is The Prince and the Raven and the Ghost Knight.

For the first, he’s wholeheartedly set on destroying this beloved prince, the figure of the kingdom’s worship. But the prince is also connected to the monarchy—the same crown that turned against him. Drosselmeyer’s set on a tragedy for the monarchy-proxy. And the knight who’s so loyal to the prince just gets sliced in two. His devotion to serving the prince is ultimately fruitless.

For the latter, the main knight is wholly devoted to the crown and its war. He even betrayed his own lover for the sake of the crown, all for it to betray him. He was basically exiled and discarded when the throne decided he wasn’t needed anymore. In a sense, his own loyalty cemented his end. And it’s shown to mirror Fakir, but it also mirrors Drosselmeyer.

The monarchy had no issue exploiting his abilities for their own sakes. They already had wealth and power but demanded he bring them even greater riches. And his stories did grant their wishes. But they were the ones who turned against him, the same way the kingdom failed the ghost knight after he served out his duty. The story shows the consequences the monarchy has on those who serve it.

And my personal headcanon is that the Bookmen are connected to the original fallen nobility who initially demanded his powers to grant their wishes. They’re so scared of his powers because they’re exactly the ones who wanted to capitalize them. But then they were unable to ultimately control Drosselmeyer or his descendants.

That maybe Drosselmeyer’s so obsessed with tragedy because his own life was a tragedy. The family tree Autor shows Fakir depicts that he did get married and have children. But when the king and nobles turned against him, they took all of that away. He doesn’t believe in the concept of hope or a happy ending because he never got the chance to have one. And if everyone thinks he’s evil anyway, then he might as well have fun with it.

[sigynpenniman]

WHAT IF ALL OF THE FEMALE TOUR CHARACTERS ARE ACTUALLY STAGES IN THE LIFE OF ONE WOMAN?

Disclaimer: I'm not 100% sure I'm the first person to have this theory/idea. We stand on the shoulders of giants etc

So, I've been getting really into the various tour date anniversaries, and it's brought something to the front of my mind that wasn't before: the order the outfits appeared in, and the fact that most of the outfits are roughly in historical order, for the vintage style of each garment.

Acknowledgements about possible issues with this theory at the bottom.

There's a segment in Shakespeare's As You Like It which goes through the seven ages of man. As listed in the play, these are: the infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the solider, the justice, old age, and eventual oblivion. So, what if Gerard's outfits are the ages of woman? Cheerleader > nurse > lady/wife > office worker > eventual oblivion. Nashville > Detroit > Riot > Firefly > Ring of Fire.

I'm allowing a bit of wiggle room for slight anachronism in the styles of the various dresses as I think Gerard and Marina were more concerned with the overall look & impression of the outfits than with being 100% historically sound.

So, let's take just the dresses (and Alpharetta), and go through - in the order these outfits appeared on the tour.

The Cheerleader

Let's imagine a woman born around ~1945. Maybe 1944 or 1946. She'd be 16 in ~1960. And she's a cheerleader!

x

The Nurse

She gets a bit older, and becomes a nurse. Nurses in the 50s and 60s tended to be young and unmarried. Our hypothetical woman would be 24 in 1968.

x

This is just about right for our Prettiest Nurse In The Whole World - the dress pre-dates the shift for nurse attire from dresses to scrubs, but could easily be a later 60s silhouette (straighter, slimmer fit compared to the "new look" fluffier skirts of the 50s and earlier 60s).

The Lady/ The Wife

I think this both overlaps with and leads into Riot. This is her when she's off duty.

x

This is very easily a late 60s look. It was also common in the 50s and 60s for women to quit working upon getting married, or even be forced from their jobs upon getting married. There were parts of the world even where nurses were not allowed to be married. Perhaps Riot is not only the nurse off duty, but also a transitional outfit, symbolizing who she's becoming, as she ages into the next phase of her life - the wife. Maybe she has kids, even, in this space. And then...falls off the radar a bit. Perhaps the fact that we lose track of her for a bit in the "timeline" is in itself relevant.

The Office Worker

The office worker takes us through multiple outfits, and a pivotal point in history. Through the late 60s and 70s, it became increasingly acceptable and common for women with children to re-enter the workforce. So, we assume she has kids, maybe, and when they're 6, 7, 8 - old enough to go to school - she goes back to work, perhaps in the mid 70s. You know what looks quite 70s?

x

Good old Alpharetta.

From here, I think, we follow her through her career. Firefly is sometimes called the teacher, but there's no particular reason to assume that. The only real evidence is Gerard's joke "you get this at the end of class," and I don't know that they meant anything in particular by that. So what if Firefly isn't a teacher, but just a further evolution of office worker?

x

This could easily be a very late 70s or early 80s office worker fit. Our hypothetical woman would be in her 30s at this point, which feels quite right for this look. Which takes us toooooo Auckland.

x

This still feels quite 70s, actually. There was obviously quite a bit of shifting and minor changes to what we call the Dead Secretary over the course of ring of fire, but if you assume you're looking at an office worker's wardrobe from the late 70s onwards (and we accept that Brisbane 2 was just for the sex appeal), it all follows fairly smoothly. And so we move on to

Eventual Oblivion

When the Dead Secretary Dies.

x

If we assume that the prevailing theory that the character from Ring of Fire is implied to have died on 9/11 is correct, that puts this fit in 2001, and makes our hypothetical woman 55ish years old. It's hard to think of 2001 as vintage, but it is to some extent - and the skirtsuit here is actually a bit more 2001 than it is modern, with its shoulderpads and pantyhose. This is very much what a 55 year old woman with a closet slightly out of date might have worn to an office job in 2001 (if we discount the gloves, which, Character Choice). I've seen it recently pointed out that the outfit changed and then stopped changing - and it DID! It stops changing when the contacts come out. The outfit stops changing when she dies.

Obviously, like I said, it's not perfect. I'm allowing some stylistic wiggle room with dates and clothing eras. But when you look at the feminine outfits overall, there's a striking order to them - they seem to be traveling forward in time, aesthetically, from the 50s to the 2000s, in a fairly consistent way.

But wait, what about -

Joan of Arc: I don't count Joan of Arc as part of any tour "canon," plot or concept. Joan of Arc is her own thing, we know Gerard loves Joan of Arc, she stands alone.

Houston - Houston is the one real non-canon/non-fitting dress here. Interestingly, it does actually fit nicely in the chronology of the outfits over the 20th century - the Manson girl fit would be late 60s/early 70s, which slots in just fine after Alpharetta. I'm not sure, though, if it makes sense as an event in the life of our hypothetical woman - she would have to be in her 30s at the time, and already have had a number of phases of her life, which seems doubtful for a Manson girl - but frankly, who knows. I do think, as much as I risk sounding like I'm disregarding things that don't prove my theory, it's important to remember this is Gerard we're dealing with, and while they most certainly have a concept or story they're working off of, they also will Do What Ye Will depending on the vibe of the moment. The whole Manson girl thing fits nicely into the overall theme of disparaged and victimized women, and fits well into the overall vibe, so I don't think its existence disproves the previous theory. Gerard very well may have just wanted to do a Manson Girl fit and thus he did - we may never know. Or maybe I'm completely wrong about everything I've said!

I don't know if this is what was intended to be the "story" of the tour but it sure does work nicely and I have to admit I am sort of obsessed with it now. It fits nicely, the chronology is fairly clean, and it feels like something Gerard is always trying to do - to tell a story.

[autogyne-redacted]

The interplay between trauma and theory crafting is rly weird and imo worth talking about more.

A basic way trauma plays out is projecting aspects of a past traumatic situation onto a present situation that bears some (perhaps only superficial) similarities. You jump to conclusions that things now are the way as they were then, or treat ppl now like they're ppl from your past, or have emotions that are proportional to the past traumatic situation in response to the present stimulus.

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If you're projecting past situations and roles onto present situations it's extremely easy to see patterns. Once you've ideologized these patterns it's even easier to see future situations as them happening again.

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And especially in more social justice type spaces the idea that oppressed ppl have an automatic, inherent expertise in their oppression works to take the rush of trauma-fueled clarity and cement it into collective ideology.

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And, like, it's not like we can/should/need to separate out what comes from trauma vs what's detached and rational. (Detached rationalism/objectivity are fake ofc).

Thinking about how theory around transmisogyny forms, but also about how older writings talk about feminist and anti racist consciousness raising work, letting ourselves see patterns and talk about them and affirm them and risking getting positioned as crazy /being crazy is rly important. (The combahee river collective statement gets at some of these dynamics re feeling crazy without communal validation).

I think there's a lot of really important theorizing work that's come from ppl being deep, deep in their trauma and in their own head and having extremely low thresholds for pattern recognition.

But it's also easy to end up too deep. To cling so tight to a specific theoretical framework that you lose the ability to appreciate the specificity of a given situation. To reduce individuals to demographics. To let one framework or one axis of oppression become the way you try and make sense of the entirety of the world. (Ask me how I know).

The Icarus comparison is inescapable.

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Lately I've been trying to stay grounded in the idea that theory isn't truth (cuz there is no truth at that level). It's just a lens or a tool. And a lens that brings one point into focus obscures and distorts all else.

But you can think with a framework and see what it tells you, and you compare it to what you'd get with a different framework, or what your gut says, to common sense, to your emotions, to various friends, and you make your decisions. Theory informs and you get to amend your frameworks over time and see where they take you.

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I have a ton of appreciation for the ppl who are deep in this shit. It's a real place to be, and it's where the bulk of theory is born imo. The times I've been there have been rly important to getting where I am rn.

My big thought here is just that it's a disservice to ppl in that position to hyper validate them, and it's been rly helpful for me to get to a point where I recognize and can think intentionally about these dynamics.

(extremely curious about other ppls thoughts. Pls talk to me about this shit)

[magic-in-onyx]

Await hold on!! What if...

Fakir kidnapping Mytho and holding him captive, with him being of Drosselmeyer's bloodline, was what caused the Story to not move? (As intentional or subconscious as it could have been on Fakir's side.)

Because Drosselmeyer's goal with it was to trap the characters in a perpetually reoccurring cycle of Despair, right? And Fakir shattering Mytho's heart and keeping it shattered (and letting the Sword of Lohengrin rust, only to later reforge it IN HIS OWN BLOOD which is of Drosselmeyer's own line) stopped the Story, because the point of the Story was to endlessly repeat the cycle of "everyone loves the Prince - their feelings wake the Raven - the conflicts free the Raven - the Prince fights the Raven - the Prince loses his heart". (The shard that is soaked in Raven blood is Love for more reasons than one, because Love takes on many forms, and is easily tainted, as Edel has said.) By suspending Mytho in nonfeeling darkness, Fakir effectively stops the cycle of Despair.

Enter Duck, whom Drosselmeyer personally seeks out and engages by giving her the Shard of the Prince's Hope - a both real and false hope which is to both force the Story to move, make the characters blindly believe they can succeed, but also deepen the Despair the characters would feel during the climax as Hope is unavoidably betrayed. Drosselmeyer gaslights Duck and makes her temporarily forget her origin, causing her to better adapt to the Story, which probably in some way also influences the memories of other characters, including Fakir, as the Cogs begin to turn.

This would mean that Fakir, over the course of the series, and likely more instinctively than not, stops, resumes, rewinds, breaks and resumes again, and finally completely reconstructs the Story's original narrative, in that order.

Note that he meets Siegfried just around the time he causes his parents' death as well, albeit after the fact, so around the time he stops writing (actively, that we know of).

For there to be creation, destruction must occur first. Chances of failure, of re-establishing the cycle of Despair are grand, so no wonder Fakir is so wary of Tutu, and so reluctant to agree with her mission, and believe in their success. Once he does, Duck's own Hope and Faith light the way, and not the borrowed Hope, which is also a product of Drosselmeyer's writing just as much as the Prince himself.

Fakir likewise renames Siegfried to Mytho when he 'claims' him from Drosselmeyer, and personally shatters his heart and traps him in protective limbo.

Fakir also damages the Sword of Lohengrin twice, once before the beginning of the series, (inadvertently or not,) and the second time when he breaks it while enabling Tutu to win the Shard of Love from Kreahe. (Not to mention he also inspires her dance confession, because he is the one to tell her not to speak the words of love and disappear.) A sword that is meant to belong to the Knight from the Story, but is in the end wielded by Mytho. (So is Mytho/Siegfried a knight as much as he is a Prince?) The Sword's two halves transform into two swans (a motif also on its hilt) that end up pulling the flying carriage at the end of the series. The Sword is only ever reforged in blood once, it being Fakir's (bathed in the blood of the Prince's enemy, god, captor, friend, and protector). Mytho reconstructs the two broken halves by summoning the swans to face the Raven. It is also partially wielded by Rue, who slays the Raven together with Mytho.

I'm not sure how I want to end this post, but I had to out these drabbles in writing.

Also how come, while even Fakir's and Autor's memories were altered, and complacency encouraged by the Story's influence, Charon appears to have forgotten nothing at all points in time?? If even Drosselmeyer's own Heir is made to forget his origin, and his puppet of destruction (Tutu) as well? (Autor logic-ed his way to the right conclusions.) The only other people who seem to be immune to the Story's hypnosis are the Bookmen.

Was Charon secretly a Bookman who deffected from the Order to raise the Heir to Drosselmeyer in hopes of winning against Drosselmeyer once and for all? So that this poor child would neither die as a result of Drosselmeyer's sadism, nor suffer from either his ability or the Bookmen's prosecution? So that he would be the savior of the new age?

I must be reading too much into the meta... (^^')

[kermittheeldritchhorror]

I hope we’ll be seeing more of the dance - not as an actual apology necessarily, but because I’m obsessing over the fucked up memory theory and it could be a really cute reminder as to who the characters are to each other

Also what the fuck was the im sorry dance. They really just did that and there was no further context. One of them said "do a silly little jig for my forgiveness" one day and they both just. Committed. What is wrong with them I wanna study them under a microscope

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[psyche-reads]

The first act of Alecto is Harrow descending into hell. There are nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. There are nine dead lyctoral cavaliers. There are nine resurrection beasts. Nona the Ninth implies the cavaliers are fighting the resurrection beasts Somewhere. Theory: in Alecto, Harrow will encounter each dead cav/corresponding RB one by one, liberating their souls a la the biblical harrowing of hell, culminating in her reuniting with the fragment of Gideon’s soul she consumed in a manner not unlike Dante’s Beatrice. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[somehow-a-human]

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Michael babygirl, I apologize now for the close-up screenshots of your mouth I am going to put on the internet. Call Neil if you have issues with it, it's his fault. Brain-rotting brought on by the lovely @melbatron5000!!!

Honey, why are you chewing on a ball bearing? I was going to be lenient and say it's a glint off of some saliva but nah are you sucking on a damn pie weight. I didn't see you take a bite of any dippin dots??? Who let her near my stash of Buckyballs that I've been hiding from the Consumer Product Safety Commission? Just because you are bbgurl doesn't mean you get to eat bbpellets.

[sherlocks-freebitch]

As much as I love the headcanons of TMAGP jmart locking eyes across the street, and having an infinitely brief moment before being cruelly swept away from each other, I'm even more in love with the idea of them crossing paths and never clocking each other at all. Maybe they bumped into each other outside a Tesco, both mumbling apologies and avoiding eye contact. Maybe one of them worked in a call centre and the other called up to complain about his phone contract. Maybe one had to squeeze past the other to get off a packed tube. How many people do we cross paths with in the course of our lives who could mean everything to us, if the circumstances were different? How many connections do we miss?

[avelera]

God, if it WAS a timeloop, if Arcane Jayce has been experiencing version after version of The Horrors of not stopping Hextech, if him shooting Viktor isn't "killing" it's the final act of attempt after attempt after attempt at SAVING HIM I will walk of a ledge I swear, it's all coming together, I am a "Jayce was trapped in a time loop" truther now, I'm losing my damn mind. There is no way Jayce killed his partner unless another Viktor told him to do it or he has tried so many times over and seen the consequences of not doing so that he's completely broken, or he just knows from all those other versions that this is not Viktor or it's the only way to actually save Viktor... anyway I'm officially chewing glass and losing my mind I take back every version of "that is not Jayce" I am now a "That IS Jayce several decades of trauma later, trauma caused by trying over and over to save the world and save Viktor" I think we're going to be repaid for all of our "The goodbye was too brief" or "There was no emotion when Jayce killed Viktor" with an ENTIRE SEQUENCE that is just all the emotions Jayce has been pouring into trying to fix all of this any other way

Tune in next week at the end of my psychological breakdown to see if I was right or just ridiculous!

[lohengrinoverture]

Okay, so the opening story in episode 21 ‘The Spinners’ can be assumed to mean Drosselmeyer:

Once upon a time, there was a man who died. All the stories the man spun came true. So the king, the nobility and the kingdom's rich all went to him, to get him to write them stories. But when they saw their wishes granted, stark terror of his power seized them and they began to abhor him. When the man finally died, the people rejoiced that this wellspring of misfortune had dried up. No one heard the echoing sound of the dead man’s scornful laughter.

The thing is, it doesn’t seem like he was always tragedy-obsessed in a way? You can interpret the story as him initially wanting to use his powers for good, trying to please everyone else, but snapped when they turned on him. Because the story doesn’t mention anything bad that happened, just that people began to fear him. So you could see it as Drosselmeyer having just turned cruel from the ostracization. If everyone already thinks he’s evil, then he might as well he evil.

Another interpretation is that he was a Jerkass Genie type who kept twisted people’s wishes around when he granted them. Again still in line with his love of tragedies. But the mention of the rich and powerful being the ones who demanded wishes granted is particularly interesting. Like it’s a particular the rich get richer type of situation. And it’s the the specific mention of the king. Even if Drosselmeyer brought about their misfortune, their greed still brought about their downfall. So safe to say he probably has some type of grudge against the royal family.

Mytho is a fictional character, the prince who escaped from the storybook. But what if he wasn’t? What if he was a real prince trapped in the storybook? And after spending extended time within the story, he lost his memories of his real life. Like if Drosselmeyer captured the prince in a tale as proxy revenge on the king. And that’s part of the reason he’s so desperate for a tragedy.

[orpiknight]

I just think that it'd be funny if, after all this speculation about how horrible Crowley's Fall was and his drunken rambling of "a million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulfur", it turned out he just had the longest most boring elevator ride ever down to basement Hell and then stepped in a very small puddle of warm sludge of questionable origin when the doors opened.

[anistarrose]

I'd like to propose a dark horse candidate for the most interesting line in The Book of Bill. And it's this near-unreadable, seemingly one-off joke from the "Skin" page:

[ID: tiny text reading: "Help! This is not Bill Cipher. My name is Grebley Hemberdreck of Zimtrex 5. I'm one of thousands of beings Bill has devoured over trillions of years whose souls are now trapped inside him. You have to free me! It's horrible in here. He just keeps playing the song "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark on an endless loop. Please, please, this is not a joke! The Zimtrexians were once a proud and mighty people, but now our spirits long for release from this..." End ID.]

Okay, so Bill devours souls who then live out a horrible existence inside him. That's just some typical and expected Bill behavior, right? Nothing to be shocked by? Maybe not, but one thing jumps out at me... and of all things, it's the way that Bill keeps playing that Beach Boys parody (correction provided by @fexalted: no, not in fact a Smiley Smile parody, but a real song!) on loop.

Because in The Book of Bill, there's a recurring motif of characters playing music for a very specific reason: to repel an unwanted presence inside their head. This is what Elias Inkwell, and later Ford, did with the "It's A Small World" parody — they tried to keep Bill out of their brains. Or, metaphorically... to drown out his voice.

[ID: a Journal 3 page with a cassette taped inside. It's titled: "The World Is Small Ever After for Always." Ford writes: "If it's war you want, it's war you'll get! If you want to torture me? I'll torture you back!" End ID.]

That doesn't necessarily mean that Bill finds the voices of devoured souls to be troubling, let alone downright haunting, does it? Well... not quite on its own. But there's a "color" code on the page about TV static that says a lot:

[ID: a code consisting of colorful squares, translated to letters that spell out: "he never sleeps he never dreams but somehow still he hears their screams." End ID] (screenshot courtesy of @fexiled)

The context of the page implies these "screams" come to Bill especially when he listens to TV static, and the broader context of the book implies that these are the screams of his destroyed home dimension, Euclydia. Therefore, not necessarily those of the souls he devoured, from Zimtrex 5 and possibly other dimensions.

Except... do those two things really have to be mutually exclusive?

The beings that Bill devoured were accumulated over "trillions" of years, plural, according to Grebley. In Weirdmageddon 1, Bill claims to have resided in the Nightmare Realm for precisely "one trillion" years. So the "devouring" habit probably extends back even further than his time in the Nightmare Realm...

Enter @acetyzias, pointing out a very conspicuous word — and one of the only uncensored words — from Bill's description of destroying his home dimension:

[ID: the word "mandibles". End ID.]

Oh, and how does Bill describe the "monster" that destroyed his home to Ford, when Ford asks about revenge?

[ID: Journal excerpt reading: "Sixer, it would eat you alive." End ID.]

For a long time, Bill's destruction of his home has been associated with fire, even when the story's told by Bill himself. But through the way the book characterizes Bill's guilt — and characterizes how the consequences of what he's done remain lurking deep inside him — I think The Book of Bill lays out the hints for another motif: devouring.

And, well, when it comes to how Bill destroys things... it wouldn't be without precedent.

[ID: screenshot of Bill in Weirdmageddon 3, taking a bite out of the Earth. End ID.]

[crowleys-hips]

ok i know everyone's analyzed the shit out of the Job minisode. but i think everyone has overlooked this Very Important detail, and it's this:

do you see it?

golden kermit collar

thank you for listening

[vidavalor]

I love how Aziraphale is so taken with Crowley in The Flood scene that he is actively trying to avoid looking into his eyes... all while Crowley, equally besotted, keeps trying to meet Aziraphale's.

Especially when you consider S2's whole thing about rainstorm-adjacent eye contact...

We start with the one moment where their eyes do meet, as Crowley slips around Aziraphale, causing Aziraphale to be caught in his gaze for a moment. Aziraphale has to steady himself. He doesn't breathe for a moment. He blushes. He looks away as soon as he can get himself together enough to do so. One day, he's going to paint his house the color of those eyes, but in this moment? His heart is going to beat out of his chest just looking at Crowley.

Then, Aziraphale keeps looking ahead and only glances occasionally slightly to the side, trying not to make it obvious that he is not looking at a flirting Crowley-- who, for his part, can't take his eyes off Aziraphale. Aziraphale avoids fully catching his gaze, looking away quickly, just undone by those eyes enough that he's too shy to meet them.

We get to a point where Crowley is literally *leaning forward* to try to get Aziraphale to meet his eyes, but Aziraphale is dodging by looking anywhere else.

Even when exchanging a brief look of understanding, Aziraphale looks in Crowley's direction but not directly into his eyes.

This keeps happening for the rest of the scene, with Aziraphale not directly meeting Crowley's eyes through telling him about the plan for The Flood, the rainbow, the Oi! Shem! unicorn moment, etc.. It ends with them both looking up as the rain begins. It is a whole scene showing us that Aziraphale's attraction to Crowley makes him shy away from his gaze while Crowley's attraction to Aziraphale makes him seek out his eyes. This scene, though?

It is the only scene where this sort of dance is taking place, is it not? There's no scene after it like it.

By the Job minisode, this eye contact issue not only no longer exists between them, but we have the scene where Aziraphale asks Crowley to take his glasses off and look him in the eyes.

So, back in Mesopotamia... come S3, might we see that this sudden rainstorm of The Flood eventually forced them together beneath a canopy where they looked into each other's eyes and... vavoom?