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[raayllum]

Allegorical Rayllum in "Dreamer's Nightmare"

Really thought I'd walk out of Dreamer's Nightmare thinking more about the broyals + Harrow, or an Ezran centric meta (and there may be ones to follow) but this was something that stuck out to me on my first two read throughs and was a truly unexpected part of the graphic novel so...

This is exactly what it says on the tin, and full spoilers for all of Dreamer's Nightmare.

Let's go

Crumbs

The biggest crumb(s) we get are arguably Callum 1) recognizing the mural as belonging to an elven temple, and 2) this panel below that definitely made me chuckle.

I also, accordingly, lost my mind over the elf-toy from 1x04 being a gift given to Ezran / the boys by the end of the comic, which seems to be modelled both after the Moonshadow elf featured in the story, and of actual canon Rayla per 1x04 itself, down to the girl having a similar hair style, markings, and being a sword wielder. (This also informs our basis for the next section.)

However, the definitely meatier stuff has to do with the Dream Warden (DW) creature, its history, and Ezran's interactions with it, so that's where we'll be focusing, and subsequently big spoilers for the graphic novel. Last chance to get out if you hadn't read it yet!

Identity and Loss

So there's a few things we learn about DW and their little mortal friend.

Long ago, a Dream Warden, still new to the world, befriended a mortal child. This violated the traditions of its kind, but the Dream Warden was young. Each night, it flew to the silver shores of sleep and each night found its friend there, wide-eyed and waiting. And beneath the watchful stars, they could adventure together through the child's dreaming world. But one night, sleep blossomed into dream, the Warden found itself alone. The child did not appear that night, nor any night that followed. The Dream Warden searched dream after dream for its friend. Sorrow became fear came anger, and soon the Warden left nothing but nightmares to flower in its wake.

This happens, of course, because the child has grown up and left their old dreaming behind, and the relationship between youth and dreams vs adulthood (actual and perceived) is something the comic is likewise interested in. Callum wants to be grow up so he can help, but as Harrow says, "Part of being grown-up is looking out for others," and there are many moments Callum acts far more like the 9-11 year old child that he is here than an adult, even if he is definitely more mature by the novel's close than he was at the beginning (and so on and so forth into S1 / beyond).

It is these two things — the abandonment of dreams (a life with Callum) to taking up an 'adult' task (assassinating Viren) in the name of "looking out for others" (Callum, the world) — that leads to Rayla leaving in Through the Moon. This is due to having fallen out of favour the idea that she's "stronger together" (BH) with anyone and missing the memo the boys receive/believe from Harrow—and their mother's actions—that they are "safest together".

So we have a Moon creature (seemingly) befriending an elven (mortal) child, even though doing so goes against the traditions of its kind. Then one day the Moon elf disappears in the action / guise of growing up, leaving the DW despondent, angry, and alone. Saddened, fearful, and furious they leave behind nightmares. [Sidenote: I do love the consistent metaphor of blossoming to flowering, it's nice.] Eventually, they fall into a deep depression and slumber.

This is a pretty close beat-for-beat of Esmeray as well, down to being left behind by a creature connected to the Moon arcanum who specifically "mysteriously dies"/leaves and subsequently causing an icy, snowy storm that shrouds the heavens (hides the starlight) until a return and/or reconciliation.

When she disappeared, she left you all alone. In pain. The storm isn't your rage. It's your grief. Your loneliness. On moonless nights, you miss her the most.

All of this is, however, mostly subtext, even if Callum and Esmeray match up in S6 and S4 in more than one instance, so I thought going through Dreamer's Nightmare that Callum's evident parallels to DW, and even Rayla to the moon child, that it would likewise remain subtext. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't.

Ezran

I've talked about Ezran and Rayla and their parallels before, decently extensively. Despite having different personality presentations, they have very similar cores. Both are less inclined towards violence in spite of Ezran having access to power and in spite of Rayla's upbringing, both have received prejudiced consequences for things they couldn't control (the assassin hit out on Ezran due to his father's crimes / Rayla being Ghosted partially because of her parents' as well as being seen as a monster), and these things contribute to them questioning perceived monstrosity more than, say, Callum, would.

We see this even reflected in Dreamer's Nightmare, where Callum despairs and in a desire to protect him and Ez, defaults to, "If I can't fight it, what can I do?" versus Ezran stating, "I can't fight you, and even if I could, I don't want to."

And while I have other thoughts on Callum and the 'monster' motif / label that you can read here, what I want to reaffirm here is the way through Ezran's connection with the Dream Warden, we also highlight his understanding of Callum both in the graphic novel and while Rayla was away / in the early days of her return.

Callum as a character has always been a character with a tenuous grasp on his own identity, especially in arc 1. He states in 2x04 that "when I got magic, I finally felt like myself" in trying to explain "how I've lost that. I'm just trying to find my way back". I think we can draw a point of comparison between Callum losing magic and not feeling like himself and Callum losing his mother and not feeling like himself, both in the immediate aftermath and repeatedly on the anniversary of her death. We also see elements Ezran mentions of Callum not feeling like himself (not drawing, his anger) that come out in S4 / 4x01 and 4x02, notably while Rayla was gone. It's only after she returns and they've begun to reconcile that we see Callum draw again (5x02) for example and indeed be more relaxed (somewhat) with his temper.

Through these periods, though, Ezran has been his cornerstone. Callum was lost in grief with Sarai, but finds his way back to Ezran; Ezran guides him out of the tower in 1x03 and into the quest to Xadia; Ezran is there even when Rayla is not, and Ezran encourages him to open up, recognizing there just as he does with the Dream Warden:

But it's easy to lose ourselves if we don't let others in. And I don't think you want to be angry and alone forever.

So Ezran through his assertions and understanding of both his brother in the comic's present, as well as the Dream Warden, takes everything that was previously subtext for Callum in the graphic novel as a character in the context of how he responds to loss (specifically Sarai and Rayla's loss), and makes it text:

DW lost their Moon arcanum connected best friend and fell into a furious sorrow, and that sorrow being disturbed is what brings the angered splintering back in full force. Dreamer's Nightmare ends, of course, with the creature being pacified and presumably going to bond with more new children, rather than just being shut away forever. Since Rayla isn't fully gone, and since she comes back, his tale of moon-friend-disappearing related woe ends differently with the full reconciliation, but the period of processing the grief and anger to "to hope and maybe forgive and love again" (4x03) remains the same.

This bodes well for theories regarding his love for Rayla and despair/desperation over losing her being what turns Callum into a 'monster' in S7, by which I mean Callum believing himself to become a monster through helping Aaravos / dark magic corruption, and believing himself to be something worth killing (4x07, 6x03) should those things transpire. But as Ezran says, all it takes is one (or two) people seeing you through the periods of anger, sadness, or splintered corruption to bring you back to your whole self again. Given the basis for Dreamer's Nightmare, I'm extremely hopeful that both Ezran and Rayla will have their roles to play in bringing Callum back to himself, just as Ezran's bonds with Callum and with Rayla will undeniably play a part in bringing Ezran back to himself, too.

With all this in mind, let's talk about the doll.

The Elf Toy

So the elf doll haunts me, nor is this new, by any means. I posted a bit about it when Dreamer's Nightmare had just come out, but I've had my eye on this thing since I first noticed the game motif some time after S3 aired. While it's since expanded to include Aaravos and his pawns (and dark magic) more directly in arc 2, said game motif in arc 1 mostly referred to the Key of Aaravos, with the motif and key itself being properly introduced in 1x04: "This is the game room, cube should be in there" / "It's a toy. A piece from a children's game."

A game motif oriented episode that then, therefore, likewise introduces a toy Rayla stand in, and one that Dreamer's Nightmare, purposefully being released before S7 for evident reasons for both brothers at least, harkens back to directly.

Like I think I can speak for all of us when I say I never thought we'd see the damn thing again. It's in 1x04 primarily to just emphasize how humans (namely Amaya) have always seen elves as scary monsters, it looks like Rayla to drive that subsequent point home, and yes it's a toy in an episode with the series' core Game Motif being centred for the first time, but that doesn't mean it's automatically connected. I'd like it to be, I think it'd be fun and very on brand for TDP's style of writing if it was.

That's said, let's go over it from various angles, starting with order of events:

Kid has elf toy, is buried under rubble

Callum and Ez pull them out and usher the kid to safety

The boys / Ezran resolve the conflict and defeat the 'monster,' with Ezran realizing it's not a monster, and instead relating it to Callum explicitly

The boys receive the elf toy as a gift

The most direct reasoning here, then, goes twofold:

Placing the toy here adds depth to Ezran thinking back in 1x04 about what makes something/someone a monster, which is the subject of the conversation at hand, and how it was incorrect

It is here in DM because we're revisiting the Banther Lodge next season, and there's going to be an emphasis on seeing people (others towards Callum; Ezran towards Runaan) not as monsters / reminding Ezran of his love for Rayla. We may see the toy, probably not, but that could be the thread

Therefore, that is where I think I'd leave it in terms of being a toy with a deeper purpose... if not for the fact it's referred to as a Gift. I've talked about the gift motif here in TDP and how arc 2 makes it much more of an emphasis, largely in regards to magic and magical sources of power:

However, where it's most notable in the 'gifts' Aaravos gives: his pawns are not just his pawns, but often tethered to him through magical objects. Claudia's current pawn intro has the Sun staff, which was given from Aaravos to Viren to her; Callum has the cube, a similarly ancient relic passed down through generations; "Lay it down? But it was a gift," Ziard says, the Staff clutched in his hand, and Viren later cites it explicitly a toy: "You had a lifetime to play with your toys, but now you hide them all away or destroy them."

To the point that throughout the various gifts given (the moon opal pendant, Rayla's goodbye letter, the sun orb from the Sun, the trio's gifts of sacrifice to Rex Igneous, Janai's sword and Miyana delivering the sun seed, and more I'm sure) the only things referred to as / that are both gifts and toys are the Key of Aaravos and the Relic Staff.

And, now thanks to Dreamer's Nightmare, the Elf (Rayla) doll.

Obviously this doesn't mean the elf doll is an ancient relic, or powerful, or even important, I think. Not on a literal level. But the final pages do tease it's a bringer of misfortune, which Rayla absolutely is (or is supposed to) when she lands on the boys' doorstep 6-5 years later. She's assumed to be a bringer of misfortune at said Banther Lodge where both the toy and cube are found, which is why she's taken captive.

What characters thus far receive things in the graphic novels, too, comes into play later. Claudia's map to the unicorn she acquired in The Puzzle House seemingly fulfilled its purpose pre-series with her tracking one down already, only to have another purpose in mind as of 7x01.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility to me, therefore, with all this in mind:

The doll was included as a throwback to 1x04

It will have importance

This importance will possibly relate to Rayla

If the motif of it being a gift and a toy is relevant, than the objects on par with it are the Relic staff and Key of Aaravos

Something something "Rayla's life is a fair exchange for the Key of Aaravos" because we all know what we're doing here by now

In summary: you lost your Moonshadow elf best friend and that caused you to become a monster / nightmare ("we had to fight our own people, it was a nightmare") and Dreamer's Nightmare just expected me to feel totally normal even before interweaving the gift motif into the game/toy motif with the damn Rayla stand in doll from 1x04 of all episodes. Yeah.

And that's really all I got for this one, but I hoped you enjoyed the allegorical thread break down and the game motif theorizing!

[scarlet-witchery]

why do people think Yevgeny wasn't Mickey's son? in 3x06 there was clearly no condom used (not that Terry probably would have let Svetlana stop to get one), but there's no reason to think she wasn't using condoms with her regular clients. it's not Svetlana's fault that she was a tool used to rape Mickey—the sole blame for everything that happens in that entire situation belongs to Terry Milkovich and him alone—so why does it feel like it's just another way for people to shit on Svetlana for something that wasn't in her control? it's not as though she'd asked to get pregnant in the first place...

[calliecopper]

Ok this isn't gonna be structured at all but I'm thinking about season 9 of Shameless and specifically about Fiona's departure from the show; A majority of the fandom takes this as a positive moment for her character and as a victory for her, finally putting herself first after years of self sacrifice. But I'm just thinking to myself: is this not exactly what Monica did?

Monica continuously left the kids on their own due to her own mental struggles, often justifying it like she does in season 1 by blaming Frank, or in season 2 by saying that the kids are better off without her. She is held accountable by the fandom for this, rightfully so, because she had a responsibility to those children, and regardless of personal circumstances, she should have been there for them. In season 2, she even acknowledges this, stating that she wants to stay in the mental hospital so she can get better and be there for the kids. This seems to be a constant struggle for her character; wanting to be with her children but struggling with her mental health, drug addiction, and her personal relationship with Frank. All that being said, despite her character being sympathetic, her actions are condemned by fandom.

However, Fiona leaving in season 9 is not seen this way at all. Now, to be fair, most of the children were adults by this point, so she wasn't leaving a minor to take care of five other minors whilst dealing with an abusive alcoholic father. However, Liam was still very much a child, and legally under her guardianship, yet she still leaves him in the care of Lip and the other kids, despite then all having lives of their own as well.

Throughout the early seasons, specifically 1-3, it is brought up continuously how Fiona taking care of the kids is going to come at the sacrifice of her own life. In season 1, she has the opportunity to leave with Jimmy to pursue her own happiness, but she turns it down in order to stay and support the children. In season 2 she reluctantly puts her trust in Monica to assist in helping with the kids in order to pursue a higher position in her work at the club, but ultimately returns to the status quo when Monica suffers from an episode. In season 3 she gains guardianship of the kids, despite the judge telling her outright it will come at the cost of her own freedom, and she will be obligated to care for these children over herself. She KNOWS that she is giving something up in these moments. She KNOWS it is a sacrifice, and she still makes the decision to move forward with shouldering that burden.

This isn't a complaint of her character, I actually find this struggle of hers to be one of the reasons I find her so compelling. She is only 21 in season 1 and is the main provider for her siblings, who at this point would be lost without her. She is only 22 when she gains guardianship. It is valid to look at her situation and realize that she is sort of backed into a corner. How could she in good faith leave her siblings to fend for themselves? How could she pursue something for herself when all she's known since she was 9 is self-sacrifice and putting others first?

However, I think it's also valid to criticize her actions after she gains guardianship. Even as soon as season 4, her shortcomings of being a guardian make themselves more known. Because, before she gained guardianship, she had no obligation to look after these kids, and her attitude, as seen when discussing Karen's pregnancy with Lip, of "I'm not their mother" held weight, because she wasn't their mother. She had every right to put her own wellbeing above others in seasons 1-3 if she wanted to. However, in seasons 4-7 especially, you can see this start to deteriorate.

Her lack of concern for Ian being missing in season 4, despite him only being 17, as well as her carelessness with having coke in the house when there's a toddler wandering around unsupervised. Her stating to Sean in season 6 that she doesn't want to be the one to raise the kids anymore, or her willingness to not support Debbie in her pregnancy despite Debbie only being 14/15 and still legally being under Fiona's care. Her wishing to no longer be top of the emergency contact list in season 7, even for Debbie and Carl who were still minors and legally under her care, and suggesting to put Kev and V above her despite them having their own children.

Her being legally guardian of these children changes the standards for how she should care for them, and I think it's compelling to watch her crack under that unexpected pressure. However, I think it's valid to find her care of the kids after gaining guardianship less than ideal. Most of the fandom seems to disagree, though.

Then, come season 9, she leaves. After suffering an extreme downsprial and struggling with alcoholism, she decides it's best for her to leave. To be honest, this would be the happy ending to her character people make it out to be if it weren't for Liam. Because all the other children are adults, she has no legal obligation to look after them. (Unless Carl was also a minor, but I forgot, I think he was 18, but the ages are so wonky on this show I can't be sure.) However, Liam is legally still her responsibility. Still, she leaves him behind and asks Lip to look after the kids, despite him just having had a baby of his own and struggling with his own personal battle with alcoholism. Debbie also has her own child at this point so she can't properly care for Liam, Ian is in prison, and Carl is too young (and too Carl) to reasonably take on the role of caretaker here. And, of course, Frank is out of the question. So, really, it was similarly unfair of her to leave that responsibility on them, as it was for Monica to leave it on her. Less so, of course, but still unfair.

I just can't help but think that this is at least similar to the ways Monica would leave. Obviously, to a less severe degree, but Fiona still backed out on an obligation she had to a child legally under her care. Although Liam was in a far better position than any of the kids were when Monica left, Liam did still struggle with the loss, as seen in season 11 when he starts sleeping on the streets, unsure of who is supposed to look after him.

I love Fiona. She's in my top 5 favorite characters on Shameless, but I find a lot of the fandom puts her on a pedestal and refuses to acknowledge her shortcomings or the way that she perpetuates the cycle of addiction and poor parenting once she becomes guardian. Her leaving in season 9 didn't feel like a girlboss win moment despite the show portraying it as such, I found it to be more her continuing the cycle set by Monica, just as throughout the season she had been continuing the cycle set by Frank with her addiction problems.

I honestly find her character to become a lot more rich and interesting when you acknowledge her flaws instead of believing she's justified in all her actions or by removing her accountability and blaming her poor actions on the way she was raised. As she says in season 4;

"It's me, Lip. Not Frank, not Monica. Not nature, not nurture. It's all me. I'm 23. Can't be about how much they screwed us up anymore."

And as Lip tells her;

"You're not perfect, Fiona. None of us are."

[kradogsrats]

Now we know What Viren Did(tm), and...

My personal side-eye aside, that denouement is actually an incredibly elegant application of the story's themes, within the scope of restrictions imposed by this particular medium (i.e. a cartoon targeted for pre-teens and younger). Like, I personally assumed for a long time that we would simply never find out the details, because it would be either too grim and/or violent for the story's intended rating or... kind of a let-down. On the surface, what we got seems like the second.

Most of us have looked at Claudia killing the baby deer to heal Soren's paralysis and went "well, it was obviously that, but y'know... worse, somehow," which is a completely reasonable assumption to make. It was definitely what was narratively implied, which makes the supposedly-damning ingredient being "your mother's tears" instead of like... idk, "your mother was pregnant again and I used the life of that unborn child to save you" or something kind of "... oh. Okay, then."

To be fair, that might also be why they went so hard in the IMO inadvisable male-dominated writer room direction of "so I held her down and took what I wanted" to convey the requisite "he's doing A Bad," which is what all my side-eye is toward. But here's the thing:

On some level, dark magic is about violation—of nature, of others, and of the self. Even violation by Aaravos, ultimately.

But it's also not just that.

Dark magic also sits at the center of one of the primary themes of the whole story, which is the evil of denying others' personhood. We see it again and again from the angle of the heroic cast: "You keep calling it a monster," "You knew he was a person, just like you," "She's not 'the elf.' She's Rayla." The evil they do not allow to take root is seeing people as things, the place where all other evils begin. (GNU Terry Pratchett, IYKYK.)

So Viren's damning crime, the crime that is dark magic, is this:

In that moment, he looks at his wife, and sees only a source of what he needs. One that he can take from as he wills. That's why Lissa leaves—Viren has pulled the circle he draws around "people" versus "abstractions, things to be used" in so tightly that she has found herself suddenly on the outside of it. That's not something you come back from, in a relationship.

As for it all being over something as innocent as Lissa's tears, as opposed to something like her blood, her unborn child, her heart, her last breath—that's also, I think, part of the point. It's a renewable resource, harvested without doing permanent physical harm, but it's still a violation of her. This is the ultimate refutation of the "but what if ethically-sourced phoenix feathers" argument as being, for the final time, bullshit.

When Viren bursts in looking like he walked straight out of hell and demands use of her tears, could Lissa have given them freely? Sure... but she didn't. Could he have talked her around, if he invested the time and respect for her that would require? Probably, but again, he didn't! He took what he'd decided was necessary, did what he decided he had to do, because he could.

And like, he knew, even then. Because while dark magic twists your perceptions and reasoning, dragging you deeper each time—it can't twist you so much that you no longer have a choice. It will do everything it can to make you rationalize making that choice, over and over, but it can't erase that it is a choice.

Like, I'm honestly kind of emotional about it because while the surface level watching experience is kind of hmmmmm, it delivers so well on a thematic and meta level that I'm just like idk. Fuck. It's good.

[variousqueerthings]

okay I watched good omens s2 yesterday with my partner, and I was genuinely very surprised -- I think if you've grown up through superwholock/merlin/the 100/teen wolf type shows where (with the exception periodically of doctor who) you kind of had to make up the good show that something could have been in your head, that colours a lot of your viewing, and to be honest I thought season 1 of good omens was a fine little piece, honoured the book while modernising it somewhat, it was a nice, fun, low stakes time, with a couple of things I might have wanted a tad different but nothing overall awful.

so I was seeing all this meta and gifsets and discussion, while I was waiting to give s2 a watch with my partner and thought "ah, people have made up the good show in their heads again" not that I assumed s2 was going to be a bad show, but that people were taking extra deep plunges into possibilities, the way fandom does, and that was fine. I knew there was a big ol kiss, I had a sense of some kind of argument at the end, and that it was setting up a s3

I also knew that mainstream reviews were calling it (politely) self-indulgent and dependent on whether or not you enjoy david tennant and michael sheen having a good time for just under 6 hours

all in all, expectations of a somewhat mainstream show without too much to think about, a nice, fun low stakes time, moving on...

(EDIT: AND THEN I WROTE A LOT OF WORDS SO YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT MY REACTION WAS QUITE DIFFERENT)

as it turns out it seems these things that were being written on tumblr were discussing the actual text of the show and not things you could extrapolate if you squinted and tilted your head a little to the left as I'm so used to doing, so in fact there is much to think about!

and my first thought was "this is like when you read early discworld books that ask a question like a joke, only to find that over time the answer to that question becomes very serious (and also can be funny at times of course)." how terry pratchett would pick and pick at tropes and notions and social ideas and go "oh now hold on, this seems strange..." starting way back when he thought it was odd that women warriors always seemed to be dressed in metal bikinis and then realising he hadn't done a good enough job of subverting the trope, simply by depicting it and calling it a bit silly

why do goblins always get treated as the villains? what's with this divine succession of kings business? where are the female dwarfs? who do we treat as disposable?

good omens season one went: "haha what if heaven and hell were intensely incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring of the work they did, and we took an angel and a demon and had them actually care? wouldn't that be... a bit silly?" (and it was)

good omens season two went: "what are the consequences for caring when the people who have power over you are incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring? what are the forces that supersede systems built on fear, ignorance, and violent conformity? can people change and break out of/challenge/break down these structures by caring?"

and this was set up with a neat little sleight of hand (to reference aziraphale's switch-and-bait in the episode with the nazi zombies), because the majority of season 2 does feel a bit indulgent: hey, remember those two wacky angel-and-demon characters? watch some more wacky things they did through the ages, watch them take a sojourn through 1827 Edinburgh and do a magic show during the Blitz, and... stop the death of Job's and Sitis' children (actually maybe that whole segment ought to have been what they call "A Clue")

see them try to figure out a kooky mystery, all the while setting up a cute little same-gender romance on their street. watch as everything points towards a happy ending that's all about the two of them realising what they've been to one another all these thousands and thousands (and thousands and thousands) of years- but hold on. lest we forget - and the show has made this point over and over - there are powerful people who control them, who hurt them, and who plan on hurting others, throughout the whole season, and as it turns out they know what they've been to one another for far far longer, and know how to pull their strings...

season 2 then, has to show us these things, not because they're indulgent (well, maybe occasionally, but the apology dance is still important), but because in order to make the ending a tragedy, we first need to understand, properly, the impact that they have had on each other. we need to understand that Aziraphale relied heavily on Crowley to be his moral compass and leaned on black-and-white thinking in order to deal with things, because if it's all grey then where does he fit and what has it all meant and heaven has to be the good guys, even as Job's and Sitis' children are ordered to be killed, it's all he ever had...

and Crowley was always an anchor, needed to trust that Aziraphale was different, needed to bend to every whim that Aziraphale has, because otherwise what's his worth in all this? After having been already deemed worthless by the heaven that Aziraphale needs to believe in?

and that, simplistically described, is the narrative that we're seeing in s2, and alongside that the ways that the changes they have upon each other are noticed, and monitored, and placed under suspicion, and finally... broken up, not by the clumsy, brute force that's been attempted over and over again, but by a promise to return into a violent, controlling system and to "make it better from within"

and all of this is wrapped up in two queer relationships + a third queered-within-the-text relationship that creates the inverse of how it ends for Aziraphale and Crowley (so far). queer love -- whatever shape that has -- is explicitly the shape of non-conformity within this narrative, including within the symbolism of angel-and-demon love of Gabriel and Beelzebub, which in the context of the systems created is considered queer (and one can argue till the cats come home about casting cis actors, about angel-and-demon notions of gender/romance/sexuality, but the "queerness" comes from building something non-conforming to the systems they exist in), and enforced by the explicitly our-world-definition-of queer romance that Nina and Maggie have going on (which, while less high stakes, still contains the background controlling relationship that Nina initially is in)

all of this to say, that I disagree that s2 meanders, or that plotlines happen for the sake of showcasing Aziraphale and Crowley without purpose, or that characters get sidelined (I'd say it sets up a whole host of interesting characters to further get into actually), or that it's strictly mainstream easy-access narrative that's just an excuse for the main creators and actors to get back together.

the love is the point, and this show takes its time to show the love (and the unequal boundary-setting, and the fact that one of them has an undiscussed tragic backstory, and the desperation to belong again, and the fear instilled by oppressive systems, and and and), so that we understand why those last 15 minutes happen the way that they do

it's sleight of hand, and like all good magic, you don't notice until it's happened

[indigovigilance]

Neil Gaiman's 3 cameos

"But Neil only has one cameo, it's in the movie theater!" Come now. What show are we watching? There is not just one cameo. There are three. The first one is...

The one that actually happened:

but then there is also...

The one that was supposed to happen, but didn't:

See those two people in the background? Lower left-hand corner of the screen? By rights, that should have been Neil and Terry, but Terry was taken from us too soon. Neil wrote this scene intending to do the cameo by himself, in honor of his friend, but on that day couldn't bring himself to do it:

Terry Pratchett and I, had a standing… not even a standing joke, just a standing plan, that we were going to have sushi - there was going to be a scene in Good Omens where sushi was eaten and we were gonna be extras, we were gonna sit in the background, eating sushi while it was done. And I was so looking forward to this and, so I wrote this scene with it being sushi, even though Terry was gone, with that in mind and I thought: Oh, I’ll sit and I’ll eat lots of sushi as an extra, this will be my scene as an extra, I’ll just be in the background. And then, on the day, or a couple of days before, I realized that I couldn’t do it. [...] it was written for Terry and all of the sushi meals we’d ever had and all of the strange way that sushi ran through Good Omens.

The fact that the scene exists at all, I think, can be taken as a cameo. I would interpret it as one of Neil's cameos, since he wrote it as a self-insert of an important aspect of his relationship to the work, but it is also Terry's cameo. Focusing on the empty space where something ought to be is itself a representation of what is missing; there is something to be said for drawing attention to absence, which is what our knowledge of how this scene came to be accomplishes.

There's no good way for me to transition to the next part of this meta other than to encourage you to take a deep breath and remember that Terry Pratchett has been immortalized by this and other works. He is beloved, and not forgotten, and lives on in our hearts, and we honor him by celebrating his works not only in mourning but in the full range of emotion that his works inspired in us, including laughter.

Because this next part is just silly.

Neil's AU Gary Stu cameo:

Neil Gaiman has told the story multiple times about how a careers advisor tried to redirect his life course from storytelling to... *shudder* accountancy. Here's one quote [source]:

Gaiman: I very much wanted to write comics. I remember as a kid, I was 15, and I had a meeting with an outside careers adviser. I was asked, “OK, well, what do you want to be?” And I said, “Well, I really want to write American comics.” There was a long pause, and then the outside careers adviser said, “Well, how do you go about doing that then?” I said, “You’re the careers adviser. You tell me.” And then there was another seriously long pause, and the adviser said, “Have you ever thought about accountancy?” I said, “No, I have never thought about accountancy.” And then we just sat and stared at each other.

We are all very lucky that teenager!Neil decided to completely disregard this advice, but Good Omens S1E2 contains a character that seems to resemble who Neil would have become (or thought he would have become) if he had let that careers advisor drag him into a life of bean-counting mundanity.

We may not see Neil's face in this scene, but we do get to experience his existential dread of the what if: what if I had never become a storyteller? What if I had listened to that wanker, and lived a life without following my dreams?

I'd say it counts as a cameo.

[qqueenofhades]

Good Omens Season 2: Some Thoughts (and also Screaming)

First, /screams

Second, obligatory disclaimer that this meta contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all six episodes. If you somehow have managed to remain virginally unspoiled, look away now, scroll past, or add "good omens s2" and "good omens spoilers" to your block list, as those are the tags I have been using for all posts and reblogs.

Third, /screams more

Okay okay okay. Deep breaths.

Anyway, so, uh, how about all that, huh? First, the good thing about the tone of the season overall was that it felt considerably darker and more adult, in a good way. We didn't have the precocious kiddies, the kitsch and literally-comphet Anathema and Newt, the so-clever narration, etc. All that was gone, which makes sense when you consider that a) the end of last season saw them reboot into an entirely new universe, and b) the fact that God has gone silent is, in fact, a major plot point for the season. We don't have Her slyly telling us the story, or indeed anything, and everyone is left to make their own judgments and take their own actions. Which, obviously, gets them into a lot of trouble, especially when Metatron (the Voice of God, aka someone acting in the belief that they're speaking for God and therefore doing terrible harm) swoops in with the ultimate buzzkill at the end of episode 6. But we'll get to that.

The downside was that the main, present-day plot (hiding Gabriel in the bookshop and trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love) was fairly thin, felt stretched out and at times weirdly paced, and otherwise existed mostly to get us to That Ending and the setup for season 3. But the ending was so damn good (if obviously, very painful) that I can't be TOO mad, not least because we spent six episodes with them just making absolutely no pretense about the whole thing being as incredibly homosexual as possible. I'll be honest: I did not think they were going to actually, explicitly go there. Neil Gaiman has been so consistent about "your interpretations are valid and you're welcome to read it however you want, but the only canon is what's on screen," which I think is frankly a good thing (not least since the Neil GAYman Cinematic Universe is consistently very, very good to us queers), that I just... didn't quite think they'd pull the trigger. Sir Terry is dead and can't have active input, this is based on a book published 30 years ago, maybe they didn't want to make it LIKE THAT... etc. I certainly hoped, but I didn't really think they would.

Uh. Well.

As I said in my various semi-coherent liveblog posts, I honestly don't think there was a single straight person in the entire season, among both major and background characters. Aziraphale/Crowley and Maggie/Nina are the obvious paralleling couples, but Beelzebub (using "they" pronouns and addressed as "Lord" despite presenting as femme/femme-adjacent) is clearly nonbinary and therefore also queer, and the countless gay/queer side characters were just /chefs kiss. From Job's son making a sassy pass at Aziraphale, to the random Scottish goon with Grindr on his phone (which he then gives to Aziraphale, because what is subtlety), to the interracial couple with the trans spouse at the Pride and Prejudice ball, there was just a lot of casual, unremarked, non-story-critical queer representation visible at every turn. It's like the NGCU saw the bigots wailing about Sandman season 1 being extremely gay and went CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, LET'S MAKE GOOD OMENS 2 EVEN MORE GAY.

God bless.

Obviously, Jon Hamm as Amnesia!Gabriel stole the show (he was SO fucking funny) and it was also incredibly fun to watch Miranda Richardson repurposed as a scheming demon. Nina Sosanya also reappeared as Nina the coffee shop owner, which leads us into the Maggie-and-Nina subplot. They're obviously, wildly, incredibly clearly an analogue for Aziraphale and Crowley themselves, but they're also each, crucially, a mix of both. On the surface, Maggie is Aziraphale: the plump, blonde, earnest, sweet-natured one owning a slightly dated book music shop and somewhat clueless about emotional nuances, while Nina is (also on the surface) Crowley, the hard-edged dark loner who doesn't want to open herself up to people or be spotted caring. But emotionally, Maggie is Crowley: the one openly pining, clearly besotted, only wanting to hang around their crush and do whatever they can to make themselves useful, while Nina is Aziraphale. Interested but reticent, attracted but conflicted, trapped in an abusive relationship with a demanding offscreen "lover" (Lindsay/Heaven) who tries to constantly control and shame them without ever offering much, if anything in return. By the end, they bring themselves around to what Maggie/Crowley are offering, but by then, well. We've got a lot more problems on our hands.

As I also said in my earlier posts, this entire thing has always been a metaphor for religion, queerness, and what religion -- especially abusive, fundamentalist, organized religion -- does to queer people, but they really cranked the FUCK out of that metaphor this season. Aziraphale is guilt-tripped, controlled, and shamed for his attraction to Crowley at every turn. He is torn between his imagined duty to Heaven, in all its ignorant, uncaring, bureaucratic, gratuitously cruel system that he still insists on seeing the best in because he can't bear the alternative, and the chaotic and sometimes grey but genuinely more good morality that Crowley offers him. (Can I just say, we were explicitly shown that the two of them together doing "just a little miracle" are more powerful than Heaven AND Hell combined.) And at the end, he's told that the only way he can be with Crowley -- what Metatron explicitly blackmails him with -- is if they both go back to heaven, submit themselves to the cruel system again and give up everything that has made them who they are: their home in London, their human friends, their reliance on each other, their independence, their own ways of doing things. You can be queer in this (religious) framework, but only the limited, watered-down, controlled, controllable, constantly-under-supervision kind of queer, which relies on both you and your lover "converting" back to the true faith. And if you don't cooperate, they will literally kidnap you, lie to you, manipulate you, take you from your soulmate, and force you right back into doing the one thing (destroying the world) that you never, ever wanted to do in the first place, because in their minds, that is still better than this. It's for your own good.

Ouch.

And the thing is: that's why the ending a) hits so hard and b) is so fucking painful, because of course Aziraphale agrees. He has no conception of being able to defy Heaven on his own; he has always, always needed Crowley for that. In the flashbacks, when Aziraphale is faced with an order from Heaven that he desperately does not want to carry out (such as letting all Job's children get killed), he still relies completely on Crowley to "outsmart the rules" and find a better way. Crowley is A Crafty Demon; that's what he does, and so Aziraphale rationalizes it to himself that therefore that must be fine. Even in season 1, when he really didn't want the Apocalypse to happen but initially thought it was his duty as a good Heaven footsoldier, he relied on Crowley to talk him out of it and allow him to do what he really wants instead. That's their whole dynamic in a nutshell, as exemplified in that scene in episode 2, where Crowley tempts Aziraphale with the "pleasures of the flesh" while sprawled on his back in Ravish Me mode like the giant walking gay disaster that he is. (Sorry, buddy. That beard. Can't do it.) Everything that Aziraphale's existence is, that makes him who he is, that he loves and cherishes the most (in this case, food and wine) comes from Crowley. Everything else is just background noise.

Throughout the season, what we see is Aziraphale increasingly coming around to the fantasy of being with Crowley. He's coy and flirty; he talks about "our car" and expects Crowley will let him (which he does); he wants to have a Jane Austen ball and for them to dance together (oh my heart); he even thinks, at the crucial moment, that the best way for them to be together is to go back to heaven just like they were in the beginning, once more perfect angels, as if those entire six thousand years of struggle and grief and pining and separation and falling didn't happen. And Crowley -- poor, poor, brave, devoted, heartbroken Crowley -- has just heard for the first time in said six thousand years that actually telling the person you love how you feel is an option. Maggie and Nina tell them point-blank that their whole stupid plan failed because people aren't chess pieces who can be moved and automatically achieve the desired result. And of course this gobsmacks the dearest and dumbest Ineffable Husbands, because they can't conceive of anything else. People are chess pieces in the Great War of Heaven and Hell; Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are chess pieces who have been desperately trying to get out of being moved by external forces, but that doesn't change the fact that that's what they are. They don't have volition or agency aside from that which they can sneak for themselves in brief and stolen moments. That's it.

Until, well. It's not it. They discover that this whole would-be war is actually an elaborate ruse to cover up another angel-demon romance, that of Gabriel and Beelzebub. (I'll be honest, I'm 99% sure they did this storyline because they saw the fans crackshipping them, but I appreciate a fictional narrative that values and incorporates its fans' input, rather than trying to constantly "trick" or "outsmart" them or "do what they don't expect.") And Gabriel and Beelzebub get to be together, but only by leaving their world forever. They have to desert their homes, their structures, even their own identities, and never return. And Crowley and Aziraphale are so rooted in their "precious, perfect, fragile" life in their little corner of Soho, with their bookshop and their Bentley and their dining at the Ritz (which they didn't get to do in the end because METATRON /shakes fist), that that just doesn't work. Neither of them can conceive of doing that. So Aziraphale thinks "go back to heaven and try to make the terrible system do some good and take what we can in terms of being together" and Crowley just... pours out his heart. He's ready to fucking propose. He barely stops himself from saying something to the effect of "I want to spend eternity with you." He begs, he pleads with Aziraphale to go away not in the literal sense, but the emotional/metaphysical: to finally break this toxic dependence on Heaven and tell them once and for all where to stick it. And because he is desperate to make Aziraphale understand, he finally throws all caution to the winds and recklessly, desperately, adoringly kisses him, the one thing he's wanted to do for ages and...

Gets. Shot. Down.

Ugghhhhh. I'm suffering all over again. Aziraphale wants him, hungers for it, for them, and yet he's been so abused and so conditioned by Heaven (he's still blithely repeating to Crowley's face that "Hell are the bad guys!") that he just cannot accept that kind of desperate, blind, limitless, lawless affection. He even forgives Crowley for this "transgression," just to really twist the knife, and Crowley just can't take it, can't face up to how terribly this has all gone up in flames, after he went to heaven trying to find the answer for Gabriel's situation. Gabriel, who he fucking hates. Gabriel, who tried to kill the angelic being he loves (and for which Crowley has transparently never forgiven him). And yet at one pouty puppy-eyed look from Aziraphale and a warning that whoever is harboring Gabriel might be in danger, Crowley leaps headlong into the Bentley again and rushes to the rescue while "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is blaring. He stoutly protects Gabriel; he does a miracle to disguise him; he lets him have hot chocolate and stay in the bookshop; he guards him from the literal demonic horde outside. All because of Aziraphale. That's it. And then, it still doesn't work. Not only that, Gabriel's absence and decision to forego Armageddon gives Heaven the one tool they finally need to take Aziraphale away from him.

I repeat: Ugghhhhhhhh.

(In a good way. Ngl, I love this angst. This is the kind of angst my brain Thrives on, the Thematic Parallel Romantic Character Arc kind. Nom nom nom. But also: AGONY.)

I also need to talk about Aziraphale driving the Bentley, aside from the obvious metaphor of him being in Crowley's home while Crowley is in his. Last season, we had the "you go too fast for me, Crowley" scene with them sitting in said Bentley, which was Aziraphale saying he's not ready for a relationship. In this season, as noted above, we see Aziraphale increasingly embracing the potential fantasy of being with Crowley. But here's the catch: when he's in the Bentley this time, driving it, setting the pace, acclimating to the idea, he's driving his own idea of what the Bentley/his relationship with Crowley is. It's not the real thing. He plays classical music; he supplies himself sweets; he turns it yellow; he drives too slow. Crowley calls him in another old-married-couple snitfit to complain that Aziraphale's messed it up, but what Aziraphale has actually messed up (or will, by the end of the season) is far more consequential than just a car. He's changed the entire shape of their relationship to the one he thinks can make it work, and it just doesn't. It has to be them -- "we could have been... Us" -- or it's not even close to the truth. It's not worth their time.

I repeat: Ouch.

Speaking of the writers validating fan theories, I know we all picked up and screamed about on Crowley's idea of Peak Romance Guaranteed To Fall In Love being sheltering from rain and gazing into each other's eyes, which confirms that that poor bastard was indeed ass-over-teakettle gone as soon as he met Aziraphale (again) in Eden. I also need to talk about the 1941 redux, because wow. This time, the danger comes from Hell, which we see being its usual self: gleefully, pointlessly cruel, pettily backbiting, dirty, sniping, tedious, endless, determined to mindlessly destroy because They're The Bad Guys and they like it. So they blackmail, spy on, miracle-block, illicitly photograph, and try to prove that Aziraphale and Crowley are secretly a couple, right after Aziraphale himself has just had the Light From Heaven realization that he's in love (which we all also picked up on in s1). They're forcibly outing them (to speak of more Religious Queer Trauma) in order to break them up/get them into trouble with their authorities/families. Aziraphale and Crowley manage to escape it mostly by dumb luck, but Crowley having an altogether freakout, hands shaking, barely able to actually point the gun at Aziraphale even in the knowledge that it's supposed to be fake, is just... wow. He can't even fathom the idea of ever trying to destroy him in earnest, especially when he knows on some level that Aziraphale also finally just realized his own feelings. So I just need to --

/screams

Anyway, Aziraphale's entire arc this season is doing what he thinks is the right thing and then inadvertently causing harm and damage as a result. In the Edinburgh flashbacks (live slug reaction of me: SEAN BIGGERSTAFF???!!) he tries to stop Elspeth from stealing bodies and gets Morag killed and Crowley drinking the laudanum to save him (though that part with David Tennant just riffing left and right, using his natural Scottish accent, and being Tiny Crowley/Huge Crowley was hilarious). He invites his neighbors to a Pride and Prejudice ball and makes them all the target for demonic attack. And of course the Job episode: Aziraphale, horrified at Heaven's callous cruelty, desperate not to get Job's children killed, willing to go along with Crowley's tricks to save them somehow, tempted by Crowley to do the fucknasty with their angel bits eat some food and decide that he likes it. As mentioned, the whole thing about God being silent this season is a major thematic choice. The only time we see/hear God is Her communing with Job from afar. Aziraphale enviously imagines the answers he must be getting (he's not, he's baffled and perplexed), while Crowley longs beyond words to even have the opportunity to ask the question: why? Why do this? Why is this your plan?

And of course, this absence culminates in the Metatron, the Voice of God, the person arrogantly claiming that they're speaking for God and know exactly what Heaven wants, being able to seize Aziraphale by the short hairs and absolutely fuck him over. Gabriel is gone/decommissioned/eloping with Beelzebub, so Heaven needs a Supreme Leader (God apparently is no longer a factor in the equation). And what this Supreme Leader needs to do is finally unleash the Apocalypse that Gabriel decided to pass on (the Second Coming). Aziraphale needs to be punished, taken away from Crowley's influence/love, and put back under Heaven's explicit control, so Metatron spots a great opportunity to do all three at once. It's not an accident that the exact tool he uses to get Aziraphale to agree is "now you can actually be with Crowley!" Aziraphale and Crowley have been trying so hard to hide out from their respective Head Offices, but now all at once, there's this seemingly miraculous opportunity for them not to have to do that anymore! They can be together! They can be sanctioned by Heaven! They can give up all this hiding and sneaking around and lying! Isn't that better?

... As long as, of course, they give up absolutely everything that makes them who they are. No big deal. Minor catch. Probably nothing.

Metatron doesn't let Aziraphale have time to escape, or think it over, or reflect, or anything. He pressures Aziraphale to come with him immediately, or be once more subject to Heaven's implicit wrath/destruction/judgment. Believe me, Aziraphale already KNOWS he's made a huge mistake, as soon as he hears what Metatron really wants: bringing him back to unleash the Apocalypse that Aziraphale and Crowley have given up literally everything to prevent. He doesn't need time to reflect. By the time my man is in that elevator, he's well aware of what a catastrophic misjudgment he's made, and yet --

Aziraphale needs this. He has, as noted, literally always relied on Crowley outsmarting Heaven's cruel orders in order to prevent himself from having to do them. He's relied on Crowley rescuing him ("rescuing me makes him so happy," WELL BUB, IT'S BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS NEED IT). He admits to Crowley's face that "I need you!" He hates Heaven's sadistic meanness, but he has absolutely no framework, in and of himself, to defy it. When the rubber hits the road, he will crumple and try to go along with it, and now he's been put in a position where he's going to have to stand up, defy Heaven, and make the break once and for all BY HIMSELF. He doesn't have Crowley around to do it for him, he has no support, he is going to arrive in Heaven and be shuttled straight off to the Apocalypse 2.0 War Room. The only way he gets out of this is if he actively stands up, if he chooses himself and Crowley and their life, and he has to.

The thing is:

Aziraphale has lived his entire eternal existence Looking Up. Up is the direction of Goodness and Heaven. Up is where Angels go. Up is where Aziraphale comes from and where Demons and Hell are not. But now he's going Up, in a position to take over the whole shebang, and it's the last thing he wants.

So he's going to have to come back Down.

He's going to have to Fall. He's going to have to get back Below at all costs. He's going to have to finally, once and for all, understand what led Crowley to make the choice to leave Heaven and never come back. It's only then that they can possibly be together on any kind of conscious, equal, deliberate footing, claim their own agency, reject Heaven AND Hell, and try to really earn that South Downs cottage and that happy-ever-after, and it's gonna hurt so good.

Now if you will excuse me, /screams

[sarahreesbrennan]

Quick Evil Note

To all my wicked darlings, I have now received rather a lot of messages asking me about the influences of Long Live Evil. And I wish to get messages about LLE and truly appreciate the ones I do get! And I wish to answer them. But answers about influences are tricky.

The book has been out in the US for a little over two weeks, and it’s going so well so far, I couldn’t be more delighted and appreciative about its reception.

But also I’ve been informed (not asked) that two of my characters are obviously somehow both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy of Harry Potter, and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. (Very puzzling as I don’t think these pairings - and one isn’t a pair - have much in common with each other or with mine. Vague hostility against a vaguely academic backdrop for a bit? For the record… in the book everyone is an adult and I don’t even have any academic backdrops to be vaguely hostile in front of…) This hasn’t happened to me in a long time, because I haven’t had an original novel out in a long time due to illness, and it is upsetting to always be discussed differently than writers who didn’t openly link their real names to their fan identity.

I have very different feelings and new appreciation for fandom than I once had. It’s been amazing to see and meet people who have stuck with me for decades. People are generally way more open and affectionate to and within fandom than they once were. Love matters to me a good deal more than hate. But getting death threats in your early 20s for excitedly telling your Internet friends you were going to publish a book does mark the psyche, and so does having your characters dismissed as other people’s characters.

And we can say there is nothing wrong with fanfiction or writing fanfiction and there isn’t! Fanfiction is great and can be genius. Terry Pratchett wrote Jane Austen fanfiction, and didn’t (and shouldn’t) have people saying Captain Wentworth = Captain Vimes. Still, when a TV show is discussed as ‘like fanfiction’ or when Diana Gabaldon said she didn’t like fanfiction and many said ‘YOU write fanfiction’ it isn’t intended in any kind spirit, even when it’s fannish folk saying it. And it’s just generally odd to have everyone call your apple a tomato, and has had professional consequences for me in the past.

However! All the asks I’ve received have been very kind, and I do want to answer them. I do want to talk about my influences because they are manifold and because I actually think it’s important to always talk about influences. I don’t believe stories exist in isolation - we tell tales in a rich tradition, and also a story doesn’t come alive to me all the way until it’s heard or read.

Long Live Evil is a love letter to fandom: it’s chock full of references to many many stories I’ve loved, to fairytales, myths and legend and Internet memes and epic fantasy and meta. My acknowledgements are endless partly for this reason. I do owe a great debt to many portal fantasies and archetypes and musicals and jokes about genre and plays through the ages, though I do think of my characters as themselves and nobody else.

I was frankly tempted to go ‘Yes I stole EVERYTHING! Bwhahaha!’ But while I am thoroughly enjoying and finding great freedom in my villain era, I do want to talk sincerely to you all as well, especially when asked sincerely interested questions.

But I’m a little scared to do so and have people say ‘AHA! Now we know what it’s fanfiction of’ (it’s happened before) or ignore me and go ‘we know the truth!’ (it’s happened before) and to feel like I’ve injured my book. Long Live Evil means more to me than any other and I really want to get talking about it right, and make sure it has the best reception I can give it.

So. Questions on all Evil topics very very welcome but answers to influence questions may come slowly. Bear with me. I am working on this!

[noneorother]

The art director & the Good Omens book cover tier list of doom, part 3

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3

I am your resident Art Director/Good Omens enthusiast, and welcome to my completely meta-free book cover tier list. Listen, making a book cover is HARD. I should know. But while we salute these artists for their hard work and time, I think we can all admit that once in a while, the vision is just not on. And on very rare occasions, publishers seemed to have managed to commission the cover art directly from hell... here's where we left off last time:

21. Labas zīmes, Latvian cover

Our boys are back! And they are so ready to join the Dead Boy Detective agency. I would say that Latvians don't wear much tartan, so Argyle might seem like a similar print, but it just seems so... not Good Omens. Much like Crowley's flying purple people eater tail and Aziraphale's Conan the Barbarian sword, we're straying into niche AU fan fiction territory here. I mean, it's not *wrong*, but it certainly ain't right, either.

Tier: Does the Job

22. Bons Augùrios, Portuguese

Let me start by saying this cover is so close to being in the blessed category. The layout and spacing are divine, the imagery is simple and whimsical, it reflects the humour inside the gravitas to give you an idea of the *feeling* of reading Good Omens. So few of these covers have gotten this aspect of good design right. Honestly, I would slow clap if it wasn't for that random FLAME JIZZ stuck to the bottom right hand corner of the book. Who's idea was that? Dagon's?

Tier: Great

23. Semne Bune, Romanian cover

I admire two things about this cover: 1) Their utter commitment to a clean 3-colour palette and comprehensible layout. 2) Symbolic demon giving a principality head joke RIGHT ON THE FRONT COVER. This designer had balls. cotillion-sized balls. Now, does Aziraphale's sword have a sentient rooster tassel that watches said head-giving in horror? I sure hope not, but I don't see how that could be allegorical so, I'm torn. I feel like this goes in two categories for completely different reasons. And seeing as I'm in charge around here...

Tier: Great & Not so Good (Omens)

23. Semne Bune, Romanian cover cont.

Compared to the last cover's gigantic double-entendre, this feels so tame and logical. The text is centred and balanced. There's breathing room, and we have wing symbolism! I've never seen a cover try to split Terry and Neil's names like that, which is a fun twist but BY GOD that center line is not straight near the right end of the feathers and it is sending this cover straight down to Does the Job. It's grounded there forever.

Tier: Does the Job

25. HYVIÄ ENTEITÄ, Finnish cover

In this list, having something actually *relevant* to the main plot of the book and not mangling and main characters really puts you in rarefied air. All the motorcycles are book accurate which means somebody read something! Would I have ever picked the empty parking lot of Famine's restaurant as a subject worth a cover? Absolutely not. But the sick 80s lightning tips it into "fine" territory. The text is yellow. It's pretty.

Tier: Does the Job

26. Head ended, Estonian cover.

My face after staring at this cover for ten minutes and finally realizing that this is Hastur and Ligur waiting around for Crowley to pull up:

The artist's face after watching me do that:

Do I even need to rate this? It's called HEAD ENDED. I don't know how to be funnier than that.

Tier: WTF

27. Dobry Omen, Polish cover

Some good points for trying to be original with the layout of the title by drawing a custom pitchfork "Y", but the heinous kerning and the fact the whole text block is not even centred kind of makes me take all the points back. I feel like we're pretty heavy on the demonic, extremely light on the angelic in this take. Maybe it's because on his death bed the lead guitarist of White Snake will finally admit to having designed this cover in his spare time.

Tier: Not so Good (Omens)

28. Good Omens, Hungarian cover

If I told you this designer did not read the book, and instead just watched the trailer of The Omen (the movie) and vibed this heinous brown carpet swatch into existence, you would one hundred percent believe me. I can't even talk about the faux belle-époque font right now. I am irrationally angry.

Tier: WTF

29. Good Omens, Bulgarian cover

WHO. IS. DADDY. WIZARD?? Is all I can think when I look at this cover. Aziraphale & Grommet are recognizable enough, and you could make the case for telescope monkey being Adam, but I need to find this cover designer and shake them until they tell me who this deranged Gargamel is supposed to be. I must know.

Tier: Bad

30. BELAS MALDIÇÕES, Portuguese cover

After all we've been through on this list so far, this truly sucks. It's not even weird. It's just puce text layered atop text to create a great yawn of a cover. Shout out to the designer of the Diablo PC game font, I hope you got paid.

Tier: Bad

Part 3 roundup:

[classicanalyzer]

Dragon Prince S6 Thoughts

"Sometimes the line between mercy and cruelty can be thin." Aaravos and Startouch Elves

Well holy shit, that opening really went from wholesome Viren (who is alive) hugging Terry and celebrating Aaravos’ supposed “lie” to OH GOD CLAUDIA KILLED A CHILD. God, it's really terrifying seeing Claudia give so much to save her father...it really hits home how Viren felt responsible for leading her down this route. The tragic thing is that I think Viren knows deep inside that as of now, he can't help her...but he hopes he can inspire her to turn back. Despite everything she did, Claudia's actions to save her father were all for nothing. She lost a leg and her soul (it is yet to be seen if her soul can be brought back) and yet by the time she reached home, her father died yet again...this time for good. Claudia's screams were really chilling and sad.

At least, Terry is always there for Claudia...though I'm worried about what will happen to him given Claudia's increasing mental dive into darkness and insanity. He rightfully points out how revenge is different from love and how it drove Aaravos to the deaths of God who knows.

I really love that Viren didn't choose to reveal what he did to heal Soren. It would've just caused Soren more grief and pain. That's one of the most best things Viren could have done before his sacrifice. He carries on the absolute shame (I felt chills when I heard how he obtained the last part of the spell) that he caused rather than “pass it on” so to say to Soren.

Viren’s true death feels fitting for him. All this time everyone close to him ask if he was willing to risk his life for another. Dark Magic has ruined so many lives and yet also saved so man in some cases. There is a price to be paid. But finally, he proved that he was willing to do that rather than find some other way to pay the price or back out. This time he paid the price and did a truly selfless action where nobody had to get hurt...other than him. He lived his whole life choosing what he felt was pragmatic and selfish with only a few moments of his good self showing...he chose to finally die a servant of his home. While Soren will understandably never forgive him for what he did to him and the world, he will remember him for his last act of unselfish genuine goodness and living up to his desires of atonement rather than going back. I also love how his last words are the last words spoken by Harrow to him.

"I am a servant. I am a...servant." Viren's last words

That entire ship episode is so hilarious with the meta-commentary. The Celestial Elves were a really cool sub-ect of Skywing Elves. I also love the parallels between dealing with Ice Behmeath in the present and the Magma Titan in the past. Instead of killing the beast which left people killed, they found what made it so sad and everyone lives.

Also Callum and Rayla are back together! So happy and I wished we didn't have the break-up personally but still finally.

I now understand the Soren and Corvus ship, and I approve.

I'm so happy that Amaya and Janai finally got married at last. Too bad Karim had to ruin all the vibes temporarily, thankfully, the two were able to salvage it. Amaya and Janai truly deserve the world.

The build-up to when Ezran and Corvus realizes the true plan of Karim is really chilling.

S6 really has me lowkey ship Ezran and Aanya haha. Two badass, wise, and compassionate young rulers who lost their parents...speaking off, I can't imagine seeing Ezran in S7 now that he knows his kingdom is destroyed.

Sol Regem really is responsible for the events of the show. While it is dark how he died and it's horrible how he was responsible for his soulmate's death, I can't say he didn't deserve his death at all. He was the one who laid the seeds for humanity's conflict with elves and utterly despises humanity. He literally choked and burned on his own element.

Katolis being destroyed made me sad since it was our primary setting in the human realm for 6 seasons.

The Startouch Elves gave me so many Collector vibes. Aaravos really is the Ardyn of Dragon Prince with a bit of Collector and I'm all here for it. Now all that is needed is for him to get a stylish hat and turn the sky into an eternal darkness. Also, Aaravos was really that big in his natural mortal form...which made S5's horrifying reveal of what he said make a lot of sense.

A major theme of S6 and the show is how revenge won't get you anywhere but further metaphorically drown yourself. Another major theme is love (platonically and romantically), whether familial, platonic, or romantic.

S6 really is an amazing return to form, and it felt like the quality of the first three seasons was consistent. I cannot wait for the final season of this saga. I did hear about them wanting to make three more books and I wonder how they can go from here...but I trust them to do right based on S6.

[embracing-the-ineffable]

Good Omens, staying skeptical, and the mystery and the lie at the heart of Gravity Falls

-Neil Gaiman, 29 June 2023

I recently came across this post by @apathetic-revenant, which goes into extensive detail about a whole secret meta lie generated by Alex Hirsch, creator and head writer of Gravity Falls, midway through the show.

It went like this: the show was very focused on mysteries, codes, ciphers, etc, and early on a character discovered a mysterious journal with an unknown author, and this drove the plot. There were clues placed in the show so that people could solve the journal author's identity, or more probably so that it would all make sense in hindsight after the big reveal. However, the show ended up with a larger-than-expected fandom who started organizing online in a way the creators hadn't expected or planned for, and they were worried everyone would collectively solve the mystery too easily, too soon, and the suspense and appeal of the story gradually unfolding would be lost.

So they took a fake BTS photo that appeared to reveal the journal's author and "leaked" it online. To give it credibility, the show's creator posted "Fuming right now" and then deleted the post soon after, once they were certain it had been seen and screenshots taken. The Gravity Falls fandom then stopped trying to solve the mystery, as they believed the answer had already been revealed. It was a solution "targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show."

Ok, Good Omens fandom. Are we Gravity Falls all over again? Are we also experiencing meta lies?

Is it possible that Amazon's marketing department has just released a new promotional video about Aziraphale & Crowley's "timeline of interconnectedness" (discussions here and here ) where they honestly:

got several of those timeline dates wrong, including labeling the entirety of seasons 1 and 2 as belonging to the same year?

mixed all the season 1 and 2 clips together so they're completely interconnected and out of the order they were presented to us so far?

didn't consult with Neil Gaiman for even a moment to be sure they had their facts straight? (Or literally anyone else who's spent years working on it? Or even someone who has just watched it once while paying attention?)

didn't understand the way most series tell a story by moving through time in a realistic linear fashion?

When Neil said today that "time is fine" in response to questions about the timeline of interconnectedness video, was he trying to misdirect the fandom away from the mystery that's clearly hidden throughout both seasons (and especially season 2)?

The Good Place seems suddenly more relevant than I'd imagined:

Neil has told us that his Tumblr posts aren't canon. He's also said:

"Never trust the storyteller. Only trust the story."

"Writers are liars, my dear, surely you know that by now? And yet, things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." -Both quotes are from The Sandman [link]

So here's my plea to whichever part of the fandom might read this: Stay Skeptical. It's wonderful to talk to Neil about his characters, the worlds he's created, his writing process, his views on world events, his sense of humor, his kindness, his compassion and empathy, and his good advice & encouragement for the entire range of the human experience. I respect him very much, and I'm thrilled he's here on social media talking to all of us. (Except he doesn't have social media, obviously. He's like Schrödinger's Social Media Neil-cat.)

I'm looking forward to all the surprises I'm certain are in store for us (and Aziraphale and Crowley) in Good Omens season 3. I trust Neil (and Terry!) to deliver our beloved characters to a very satisfying ending. But I don't trust Neil to honestly answer all of our questions on social media - and neither should you.

Especially not when he's already blamed obvious season 2 changes to the Bentley on the "lighting" (as just one example).

With lots of thanks to the members of the @ineffable-detective-agency - including @bbbitchvibbbez, @kimberleyjean, @maufungi, @noneorother, @theastrophysicistnextdoor, and @thebluestgreen for all their excellent fact-checking, ideas, and discussions!

Interested in diving further into all the Good Omens mysteries? I have more posts plus Clues and metas from all over the fandom, here.

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

Scale down

I have been thinking about what this concept in the Sydcarmy universe would look like if played out next season because that's where Carmy is going.

But I have a very hard time thinking of Carmy as a separate entity now, he's eternally intertwined in the tapestry he has been weaving with Sydney since she came into his life, and that's why his story restarted with her, she's his reset:

She's his chance to do it all differently this time around, not like when his relationship with Michael got fucked up. But even though he's trying, old habits die hard, and despite his heart being in the right place, he succumbed to his old default ways because apologies don't cut it anymore.

More about that here:

I believe The Bear's Legacy is about The Bear's found family branching out like Carmy's lines foreshadowed in 03x07 Legacy, because duh!

But in terms of Carmy as an individual, I think he's heading to a place where he will strip everything away and focus on what truly matters for him, which will lead us straight to SYDCARMY ENDGAME and I have already been talking about what this might entail, both in previous meta posts and in my fics:

This doesn't mean they won't get the star, no. In fact, I know they will, but they will get it when they are no longer chasing it and maybe once they do Carmy will decide he has had enough and diversify to other forms of art/outlets for his creativity because he said that "fixing" that restaurant (The Beef) was a way to fix the family

and he expresses himself through creativity.

So I'm expecting Carmy to walk from The Bear post-star either full or at least part-time and I'm also expecting Syd's dream spot to happen, (maybe in a time jump?) where she's gonna cook for people and make them happy

And that will result in them only focusing on what truly matters:

For Carmy that means this:

And this:

For Syd it means this:

And this:

Find any similarities between what truly matters for Carmy and for Syd and therefore what a happy ending would look like for both of them?

Me too.

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋

[aduckwithears]

Let's Talk Laudanum - a GO meta

Hey all - I'm gonna preface this one with a tw/cw for opioids, death, suicide, and substance abuse ok? It shouldn't be too heavy (just canon typical), but I don't want anyone surprised.

Ok! I've been watching some of the Good Omens s2 behind the scenes specials, and in the "Grave Danger" clip it mentions that Laudanum is "...a very intense kind of alcohol, or like ethanol, that would kill somebody…" which is not actually true. In the show itself we see the bottle:

Which confirms that laudanum is a combo of Opium (45 and 1/2 grains per ounce) and Alcohol (40%).

It also says Poison and CMOT Dibbler... The poison angle (is it poison? well yes... if you take enough) has been covered in another post by @queerfables who talked about the make up of laudanum as well. CMOT Dibbler is a great nod to Sir Terry of course :)

What do I want to add? That yes, laudanum is in fact an opioid, and was actually an incredibly popular and over-used drug in the 18th and 19th centuries, both in real life and maybe more importantly in novels of the time. Proceed under the cut!

In my non-duck life I work in a field with some familiarity with opioids, so I also want to add that while yes, opioids can make you loopy, they are ultimately a soporific (meaning a sleep aid, a downer, a relaxant), a pain reducer, cough suppressant, and a respiratory depressant. That last bit is why they can be deadly in the case of an overdose.

So let's get back to laudanum. Yes, it was used post-surgically, but quite often would also be prescribed to (predominantly) women with various aches or pains that their doctors couldn't (or wouldn't bother) investigating. Subsequently women would become addicted to the opioid, needing more and more to achieve the desired effect, leading to eventual death or any of the other mental, emotional, or socioeconomic ills of addition.

Given the above and the era's fascination with the "sexiness" of wasting diseases such as consumption (hmmm, cough plus pain, perfect for treatment with laudanum!) laudanum was also a little bit of a romantic drug. It was also popular in novels of the era such as those in the Gothic Romance genre. (A quick peek at Wikipedia turns up lots of examples... though I'm sure a literature expert of the era would have lots more to add.)

All of which to say! The Resurrectionists as a minisode is channeling some pure Gothic Romance (think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - pub 1818, etc) so laudanum is the PERFECT poison for Elspeth to pick. It dulls pain and at sufficient doses suppresses the respiratory system to the point of death. Without the modern miracle of Narcan or naloxone, death is all but assured. Of course, then, enter Crowley.

You know what laudanum doesn't do? Give you an Alice in Wonderland experience and make you specifically shouty about people not killing themselves. Now, this could be how opioids affect demons (it's possible), or the more entertaining option is that Crowley has no clue what laudanum is or isn't supposed to do, saw the poison and alcohol label, and decided to have a bit of fun while doing some deniable (the laudanum made me do it! honest!) good. It's also handy that he doesn't need to do mundane human things like breathing. So he gets to sing about Scotland, save the human, and get hugged by Aziraphale - pretty good day... until he gets Lightning Sanded to Hell.

I'll just add here that the laudanum plot line works well if we are taking the minisodes at face value... OR if we are reading them as Aziraphale's version of events of the past, especially with the literary aspect.

Bonus: If you've made it this far, maybe you'll come along with me on a little cross-fandom jaunt.

I'm also a massive fan of the Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian's books set in the early 1800s and starring Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin. If you've read the series or even watched the Master and Commander movie you may know... those two characters have their own odd couple thing going on and quite a collection on AO3 :) . Anyhow. In the books Stephen is hooked on laudanum for a good while, mostly to dull the pain of a love that cannot be acted on. That's actually what got me started thinking about this post since there are certainly some parallels there.

Thanks for sticking with me on this ramble!

[watchingyoufromthestars]

Hhhhhhhh more Hermie thoughts. I think the difference in s2 deaths for me is something like this, as articulate as I can make myself right now. With Terry Jr., there was some expectancy that we’d probably see him again. It had already been set up that the dead will ‘return’ in that they’re very easy to visit with some quick realm hopping. My feelings towards this was that I was unsure if I wanted to be able to see him again because of it being too late for Scary to make up with him properly and never seeing him again would really cement this. I do like that they got a moment together in Hell, and it was necessary to happen in terms of all the Daddy Magic memory collection, but all the same it’s too late for Scary to make things right with Terry in a ‘normal’ way.

With Hermie, I genuinely don’t expect to ever see him again. It’s been set up that permadeath exists. The void. Nothing and nowhere.

Hermie is chronologically two years old. He was created out of a scam, nothing of love. He was dropped into reality as a joke (literally and meta-wise). Nobody has ever loved or cared for him, and that’s only made more known to him the more he learns about his birth parents.

And then here’s Normal. Nobody really knows Hermie, but Normal sees him. Normal may fall victim to the constant oops-Hermie-is-here-we-forgot, but he does his best to make space for him and include Hermie, even if a good chunk of that time is alongside romantic feelings. It’s still recognition.

But in the end, none of that matters. Because Hermie is just an NPC. An NPC that the DM doesn’t even care too much about, despite how interwoven he became with the plot and gets dragged along. He’s important but at the same time he never mattered. In Anthony’s own words from Teen Talk 2-46, Hermie is a free kill because it does nothing to affect the podcast. And he hates Hermie because “he isn’t Paeden.”.

The said the entire next episode is just about the fact that he died. Hermie’s finally getting the attention he so desperately craved but would never receive, but now he’s not here to even see it. And after that? When they’re done being sad about Hermie for one episode? He’ll probably be barely brought up ever again, just like always. Except this time it’s because he no longer exists and never will again.

And that kills me.

[drconstellation]

When Crowley met Jesus, and the other demon at Golgotha

You know the scene. 33AD. Aziraphale is watching the crucifixion take place and certain fem-presenting demon sidles up to him.

Aziraphale greets them, and finds out they have changed their name.

"What is it now?" he asks them. " Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?"

I know most you have learnt by now that Asmodeus is the demon of lust, and this is obviously Aziraphale's idea of a flirty little joke (perhaps the first we see? because he's the one who's really as "mad as bag of frogs" after all and that's why Crowley's made an appearance, because he was probably just in the area, you know...), but I haven't seen or come across much meta about the first suggested name, which is a GO "lead balloon" moment.

Mephistopheles, Aziraphale? That's the name you thought of here? Of all places? jfc...you bad, bad angel! lmoa! This is a serious, sombre situation you are witnessing!

Mephistopheles is the name of the fictional demon sent to do a deal with the character Faust in a story that dates back to Germany in the early 1500s. Faust was a like a scientist in his day, well educated in things like alchemy and astrology and other mystical arts, maybe even having wizard powers (why not?) But he was hungry for more power so he did a deal with the devil for 24 years of assistance to achieve and gain anything he desired, and at the end of that time he would be claimed by Hell. Needless to say, despite starting off well it didn't have a happy ending. (I wont go into details as there are lots of variants, and its not that short, and they aren't all that relevant to the point of the post.)

It has been a hugely influential story ever since, appearing in many forms over the years; in opera, theater, movies, novels, adaptations such as Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Grey, and Queen's famous song Bohemian Rhapsody. Terry Pratchett also did a parody of it in his 1990 book Eric, and readers have often noted the similarity to the Hell depicted there to the Hell in GO.

Its the origin of the idiom "to do a deal with the devil" and a Faustian bargain. The mortals that enter into the deal with a powerful supernatural entity are usually set up to fail, and we go along with it because we are so used to the trope, its one we've come to expect the bargainer to fail in some spectacular fashion. It's one that keeps being repeated again and again because it so interesting to explore - often the protagonist is looking for some form of happiness, sometimes revenge, and hopes the deal will deliver, but find out the hard way that they should be careful what they wish for because the delivery is a two-edged sword. They may find out that they don't actually want what they thought they wanted, or they get what they want in an very unexpected way.

Back to Golgotha, and our demon and angel. We learn the demon has merely modified their name to Crowley. And yes, they met Jesus.

C: "Seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world."

A: "Why?"

C: "He's a carpenter from Galilee, his travel opportunities are limited."

This is a reference to one of the the tests of faith Jesus was put through before his crucifixion, from the Book of Matthew.

I like this modern version I found:

For the third test, the Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, “They’re yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.” Jesus’ refusal was curt: “Beat it, Satan!” He backed his rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.” The Test was over. The Devil left. And in his place, angels! Angels came and took care of Jesus’ needs. Matthew 4:8-11 The Message

Or, you could say: Crowley showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and offered the bargain that he could rule them all if he would renounce God and worship Satan instead, but Jesus just turned to the demonic messenger and simply told him to "fuck off!"

And there we have it, folks. Mephistopheles, and Asmodeus. Touche, Aziraphale, you sly little shit stirrer.

[hermitmoss]

So, I have some thoughts on Viren, Terry, and Claudia.  (Naturally, spoilers for Book 4 ahead, as well as discussions of domestic abuse.  I’ll also note here in case somebody wants to do some Discourse™ - I hope it’s not necessary, but still, in case - that I am a survivor of abuse, and have been a caregiver for my abuser, a parent.)  With that said, let’s dive in (dive off?)!

Terry and Claudia treat Viren in completely opposite ways.  Three guesses who treats him the “right way” - that’s right, the one who didn’t have to grow up being taught and emotionally abused by him.  In a work explicitly about breaking the cycles of harm, this is very significant.  This is a meta about this.

In many ways it’s completely natural (in a terrible way) for an abused child to, when finding herself suddenly more powerful by far than her abuser, to treat the abuser the way that she herself has been treated and seen modeled.  Terry obviously hasn’t been raised (badly, dangerously, harmfully) by Viren.

Obviously, Claudia’s dark magic raising gives her a sense of entitlement towards the bodies of others -- they’re used for spell components, after all!  Why should she listen if Viren says that he’d prefer palliative care than the slim chance of survival (and certainly a less enjoyable time than “enjoying the time he does have” would be)?  He has no say over his own body; she’s a dark mage, she’s in charge here, so what happens to bodies is her domain, not the domain of the people in them.

Terry, again, does not have this.  In fact, he models a very different conceptualization of love - a healthy one - when he says (I’ve slightly paraphrased rather than dig through the episode again for the exact dialogue) “I don’t control them.  Plants and I have a healthy relationship.  I know that they’ll be there for me when I need it.”

Claudia hits Viren.  She embraces him, and he weeps.  Terry suggests hugging Viren, then, when Viren doesn’t consent to it, Terry verbally states “I respect your boundaries”.

“That went well,” says Terry, when Viren first dismisses him.  He seems to mean it.  When Viren tells him, essentially, to suck it up about having killed somebody, he puts in a lot of thought, then has a genuine discussion with Viren about why he isn’t going to do that, and what he’s going to do instead.  (It reminds me of Amaya’s “two cakes” assertion.)  Terry is showing Claudia and Viren both a better way to love than what they have been practicing... and, right now, Viren seems more receptive than Claudia.

Neither Terry nor Claudia seem to notice initially that Viren is struggling with the ascent up the Storm Spire; however, it’s important to note that Terry is following Claudia’s lead.  When Viren has a panic attack and loses consciousness, Terry, without being patronizing or critical, grounds and reassures him, telling him what’s going on and affirming that it’s okay.  Terry is sitting with him.  Claudia... is not.  She’s standing ahead, impatient.  When they keep going, she continues to lead the way; Terry follows not her, directly, now, but Viren; stays on the other side of him so he’s no longer bringing up the rear, can no longer fall behind unnoticed.

Viren tries to hand the staff that he once used over to Claudia.  She uses it for one spell, then.... then who is carrying it?  Terry.

Terry offers Viren a hand up.  Viren hesitates.  (Claudia never gives him an option to say ‘no’ about receiving physical contact.)  The last time somebody offered Viren a hand up, and he took it, I think was Sarai, just before her death (her death, one could argue, because she stopped to save him).  He takes Terry’s offered hand.  I don’t think he wants Terry dead.

It’s also interesting that as much as Terry struggles (as he should, of course!) with taking a life while Viren scoffs that he has never hesitated to do the worst things imaginable to protect his family... Terry says to Claudia that she’s done terrible things, but until now (until it’s about a moonshadow elf rather than Viren’s life) he’s believed they were justified.

Viren also seems genuinely considering of what Terry has to say about feelings, and protecting people, and at the least awkward and at most genuinely sorry for snapping at him the way he did.

Then, of course, there’s The Scene.  The coming out scene, where Terry says that he chose the name Terrestrius.  Viren says “it’s a strong name.”   Strong.  It’s his idea of an affirmation.

“I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength, and instead have faith that it can be a narrative of love.”

I think Terry’s offering up love as an alternative to strength. Unlike Claudia, he doesn’t expect Viren to be strong.  He reaches out his hand to Viren.  To assist him when he is, this season, shown to be physically weak.  (“There will be stories of armies, battles, and decisive victories. But this isn’t true strength — it’s merely power. I now believe true strength is found in vulnerability. In forgiveness. In love.”)

Viren takes it.