#st james wedding

[wardrobeoftime]

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story + Costumes

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s creme, golden, white & blue wedding dress and silver cloak in Season 01, Episode 01, 04 & 05.

// requested by @nasyanastya​

[nightguide]

MEET YOUR COURSE LEADERS/LECTURERS OF THE ORIGINAL CAST OF GLEE

those i don't mention are karmic members of McKinley high (the reason the show ended with a claustrophobic mother of all plot holes that ended humanity with a Gomez leading the UN)

even Angelina Jolie went into hiding cuz of her (fear of nazar, ya Allah)

SANTANA LOPEZ: Ocular sciences (english literature (Master of Research (MRes)

RACHEL BERRY (OBERLIN): student

FINN HUDSON: student

KURT HUMMEL: War design (beauty guru's specialising in dermatology: actually a fashion apprenticeship with heartbreak (Master of Arts (MA)

NOAH 'PUCK' PUCKERMAN: Theosophy (Doctorate)

WILL SCHUESTER: student (choir leader spare time)

SUE SYLVESTER: Gym physics (19)

BLAINE ANDERSON: PSCHE (globalisation foundation degree)

JESSE ST. JAMES: Remedial biology (wood work doctorate)

SEBASTIAN SMYTHE: Cancer therapy (Higher National Certificate)

QUINN FABRAY: Arts and drama sociology (degree theory and masters in homeopathy doctorate)

BRITTANY PIERCE: White collar in past-life therapy (podiatry in biology: superhuman abilities to counter alternate realities Higher National Certificate)

SAM EVANS: Lt. sky high (Epistemology = childcare + bereavement Bachelor of Education (BEd)

ARTIE ABRAMS: Webb Degree associates archivists of the Starless Sea (personality pseudo-webinars in Intranet explorer) X-FILES

MARLEY ROSE: super girl (The Mediator enterprises in Shintoism to Ethical Investing Foundation degree)

TINA COHEN-CHANG: The Aquarian Conspiracy (Homo-Deus Apprenticeship)

LAUREN ZISES: Transactional analysis (Wall-Street immunology in bromatology Master's degree)

BECKY JACKSON: Database systems (in Jehovah's Witness Prognosticum Theologicum post-modernism to Unbroken art movement graduate degree)

MERCEDES JONES: The corpus hermeticum (dance therapy doctorate)

EMMA PILLSBURY: Architecture (Bachelor of Science (BSc)

SHELBY CORCORAN: Artificial sign language for remedial energy (Edgar Allen Poe society for wayward losers Doctorate)

TERRI SCHUESTER (MALONE): immunology in stage presence (Foundation degree)

HARPER OBERLIN: Social arts in Dubai and Brazilian architecture (hons in Universal Credits (UC) for post-graduates jobseekers allowance (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB)

PUSHING DAISIES (RETURNING CAST OF HONOURARY BACHELORS DEGREE):

NED WILSON: THERAPY FOR WAYWARD DIMENSIONAL PLUTONIAN WARGODS (warhammer)

EMERSON COD: X-MEN LEADING CAREERS ADVISOR

CHARLOTTE 'CHUCK' CHARLES: PALMISTRY PHYSIOLOGY IN SOCIAL CARE (diploma of higher education)

OLIVE SNOOK: BROADWAY ELYSIUM (actors hell)

NIGHTINGALES DIALOGUE OF GAIMANS HELL: SINGER SONGWRITERS GUILD

TAYLOR SWIFT: Acupuncture/Shiatsu in Latin: morals (Master's Degree in Law (LLM)

DEMI LOVATO: Alexander Technique in Hebrew: eyes body function (Foundation degree)

SELENA GOMEZ: Aromatherapy in Arabic: algorithm (Diploma of Higher Education)

MATT SMITH: Buddhism in Aramaic: kindness (Doctorate)

HOST CAREERS SERVICE IN TOON-FICTION:

FINN THE UNBROKEN (adventure time): Jake the Dog

more yet to come

[jomiddlemarch]

Reality has no place in our world

“Mom, stop. You can’t do this,” Rory said. She didn’t fold her arms in front of her chest or glare, two gestures Lorelai herself might have chosen to accompany giving an order, but then Rory was a better person that Lorelai would ever be and also, not nearly as accomplished at glaring; unlike Lorelai, she hadn’t spent the formative years of her facial expression life under the tutelage of Emily Gilmore and neither Luke nor Michel every gave Rory a hard time.

Rory didn’t look angry or exasperated or impatient. She looked a little frustrated, a little tired, and mostly, disappointed. Christ, it was so early, the sky still the dull dark of the moonless hour before dawn, and she’d already made Rory give her that look, the one that wasn’t a glare, and speak in that tone. 

“Do what? The cha-cha?” Lorelai shuffled a bit, shimmying a lot more. “Wake up before my alarm—check. Face the future without fear? On it—”

“You can’t leave Max. You can’t run away the day before your wedding,” Rory said. “You can’t do that to him.”

“No?” Lorelai said, as if she was going to add Try me or watch me or you’re not the boss of me, when it came out sounding like a real question and she was open to alternate suggestions, which as she said it she realized was, in fact, the truth.

“No. You can’t. Whatever’s going on inside your head, you can’t be that mean to him, to just leave. You can’t be cruel because you’re freaking out,” Rory said. “You’re freaking out, right?”

“So, I’m mean and cruel? Did you forget nasty?” Lorelai said, crossing her own arms in front of her. Someone ought to and it didn’t seem like Rory was going to. She carefully avoided answering the freak-out question, though it didn’t take a world-class genius to raise the hypothesis.

“I didn’t say any of that and you know it. This isn’t some cute rom-com, where you can ditch the guy at the altar and then there’s some montage of a roadtrip or a bunch of zany, over-caffeinated high-jinks,” Rory said.

“That sounds better than this,” Lorelai said. “A lot better. What’s the soundtrack?”

“It’s not. It’s not real,” Rory replied, ignoring her attempt at deflection. “You have to call Max. You have to talk to him, before you decide to do whatever you decide to do.” 

“I do?” They both heard the reference to wedding vows and Lorelai raised an eyebrow. Rory frowned.

“Don’t make this weirder, Mom. Call Max. I’ll get the phone,” Rory said.

“Okay. Fine. You’re obviously not going to let this go,” Lorelai said. Was she a little relieved that Rory had called out her imminent scarpering? Around 23% seemed fair. 

“I’m not,” Rory agreed. “You’ll thank me for it.”

“Don’t press your luck, kiddo—"

She called.

Max answered on the second ring, his voice the kind of growly that meant she’d woken him, which wasn’t a huge surprise because it was still hovering around 5 am. They didn’t talk for long. She asked him to come over and he said he’d be there in 20 min without asking any questions why, which was big of him given the time and date and she knew she herself would have expected some kind of explanation and probably would have taken more like 40 min to get to his apartment, because she damn well would have made a travel-mug of coffee even if she was heading over in yesterday’s jeans and the first tee-shirt she could put her hands on.

With only 20 min, she made a pot of coffee and put on fresh jeans. She didn’t change her tee-shirt. The coffee had been Rory’s idea. Lorelai recognized Rory was looking for other ways to keep her from bolting besides guilt and that coffee, naturally, was the best available approach. Lorelai sat at the kitchen table and waited for Max, letting Rory be the one to open the front door and then take herself off to Babette’s, since it was too early for anywhere else to be open.

“What’s wrong?” Max said, sitting across from her, a mug of coffee in front of him, untouched. Lorelai herself was also untouched, Max forgoing a hug or a kiss or even his hand on her shoulder or pushing back the loose hair by her cheek. She couldn’t be bitter about it, but she was, a little, even though she knew she was being unreasonable.

“Why do you think something’s wrong?” she countered, as if this would be some kind of ordinary sparring, like whether Al’s food could ever truly be called Chinese or if Brandy was a good name for a dog.

“Why do I—it’s 5:23, you called and asked me to come right over. There’s no good news you deliver that way,” he said, pretty calmly given that he could well be deeply frustrated, annoyed or outright enraged at her dancing around. He hadn’t even gotten to see her cha-cha.

“Maybe I do, maybe that’s something you don’t know about me—”

“Lora, enough,” he interrupted and she couldn’t have said whether it was hearing the nickname only he ever used or the brevity, just two words, or the tenderness in his voice, in his tired, dark eyes, but something in her broke.

“I don’t think I can marry you,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Why couldn’t you wait to tell me?”

“Okay? Okay?!” she repeated, screeching if she were being honest with herself, which is what this whole thing has been supposed to be about. 

“I didn’t mean I was happy to hear you say it. It was an acknowledgement, nor approval. Why couldn’t you wait until actual morning?” he said.

“I wasn’t planning this.” She took a sip of her coffee. It wasn’t as good as Luke’s but that was nothing new.

“You weren’t planning this—” he paused, looking at her with a degree of acuity that made her want to flee. Or squirm. She gripped the handle of the mug and hoped it wouldn’t break off in her hand. They sat there for like forever or 47 seconds, she couldn’t be sure. “This wasn’t your idea. This was Rory’s idea, us talking, she’s the only person you’d do this for—”

“I’d do it for you—”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You were going to leave. You were going to leave me a day before the wedding.”

Well, she’d known he was intelligent and good at reading her and quick, so fucking quick, that was why she’d fallen in love with him—

“Were you going to write a note? Call?” he asked. Lorelai sat, feeling lumpish and pathetic and all betrayal-y, and didn’t say a word. Max closed his eyes for a moment and let out a breath. “You weren’t going to do anything. You were going to run away and someone else was going to have to tell me. To deal with everything.”

“Sookie would’ve called you,” Lorelai said. She tried not to mumble, though she really felt like mumbling, more than she’d ever want to mumble in her whole life.

“You’d have called her from wherever you went,” Max said. “She’s making the wedding cake.”

“Five tiers,” Lorelai said. “All buttercream frosting. She has a thing against fondant.”

“It tastes like shit,” he said. It was quiet between them, so quiet a bird could have twittered or sung its cute little morning song so they could share a smile or the eye-part that went with a smile without actually moving their lips, but it was quiet and she wondered if Max would get up and walk out. 

“What’s wrong, Lora?” he said softly, which was a far cry from stomping out or shouting or making a snide, sarcastic remark about her, which were all the responses she would have expected from the other men in her life, Luke, her father, and Christopher respectively, and for the first time, she felt her eyes fill with tears.

“I don’t think I can do it. I’m not—you won’t want, I, I didn’t look at my dress every night,” she said in a rush.

“Is that a thing? Looking at your dress every night?” he said.

“My mother says it is.”

“But you think she’s wrong about almost everything,” he said. He made a good point.

“She said she wanted to, that’s how she knew she wanted to get married,” Lorelai said.

“Maybe that’s not how you’d know,” Max said. “In fact, I would bet good money that it’s not how you’d know, because I know you like your dress but it’s not even a distant second to coffee in your regard.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Lorelai said.

“Have you ever thought you don’t have to? That we don’t care about each other because it’s something we deserve, but because I want you and you want me?” he said.

“You don’t want me,” she said, before she could think twice, could stop herself or figure out something that would come after, some explanation about how there was a much better woman out there for him and he shouldn’t get derailed by her. She didn’t want to be his trainwreck.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” he snapped, then rubbed his face with his hand. “I’m sorry, this is hard. But I know what you expect. You expect me to walk out, plus or minus lashing out at you first.”

“What—”

“It’s what Christopher does. He leaves. It’s what Luke does. He walks away, he shuts down. It’s what you father does. He scolds you and he stalks out,” Max said. “Lora, I’m not going to do that.”

“But why?” she said. “Why not?”

“Because I love you. Because if loving you, I need to leave you, I’m not leaving like that,” he said.

“I was going to,” she said, almost under her breath.

“I know. But you listened to Rory and she wouldn’t let you,” he said and then he scrunched up his forehead in a way that was unfairly adorable. “She’s very insightful. And not here—is she next door at Babette’s?”

Lorelai could count on one hand the number of times Christopher had ever expressed concern about where Rory was, who was looking after her, or uttered a smidgen of praise that wasn’t of the generic “so pretty so smart” variety. 

“Yeah, she’s next door,” Lorelai said. “I still don’t think we should get married.”

“I know about Luke,” Max said. Lorelai suddenly understood the expression knocked over with a feather, though she didn’t know who was keeping feathers around for such a purpose. She felt herself goggle at Max and knew it was not her most attractive look, but needs must.

“What do you mean, you know about Luke?” 

“He hand-carved a chuppah for you to get married beneath. I can recognize when someone else cares about you. You never asked, but he must have,” Max said.

“Must have asked what?”

“He knows you’re not Jewish. He found out I am and he built a chuppah for you,” he said. “It sure as hell wasn’t for me.”

“You’re Jewish?” 

“Yeah,” he said. “My mother’s side. The side that counts. She was a Cohen before she married my father.”

“I had no idea—”

“I didn’t fall in love with you for your astonishing attention to detail and detective skills,” Max said. “I’m in love with you and I know Luke loves you and you love him, but are you going to throw away what we have when I’m not asking you to give him up?”

“What are you saying, Max?” Lorelai shook her head. “Despite what my mother thinks of me, I’m not…kinky.”

“Wow, that is a whole other conversation,” he said, laughing, which was not something she’d had on her bingo card for the discussion about breaking an engagement at the last minute. “I meant, you don’t have to stop caring about Luke, I don’t expect that. I don’t expect him to stop loving you—if there’s anything I can understand, it’s loving you. But not as a husband. Not as Rory’s stepfather—I want that and he doesn’t—”

“How do you know he doesn’t?” Lorelai said. It was the second time this night-into-morning that she’d said something that was intended as a challenge and realized she’d just asked a question of someone she trusted more than herself.

“Because you’ve lived here for over ten years and he’s never said anything, for all the breakfast, lunches and dinners he’s made for you. He’s never asked you out on a date or stayed for pizza or Al’s. He’s never been the one who ran out to the pharmacy to get Tylenol when Rory spiked a fever or needed posterboard for a school project at the last minute,” Max said. 

“Rory has never needed a school supply at the last minute,” Lorelai said. 

“He’s never made the cupcakes for the bake sale. Sookie did that and she still does,” Max said. He pushed his coffee mug away and left his right hand palm up on the table top. She’d held that hand, felt it cupped around her cheek, pressed against the small of her back and the curve of her ass. It was unclear whether she’d ever touch him again and she wished she could read the future in the creases and lines being picked out by the early morning sunlight. 

“Look, I’m not telling you you have to marry me and it’s not a contest and it’s not a guilt-trip. I’m only saying that I love you and I think you love me and what you’re worried about, about needing to choose, about not caring in the right way, the right amount, I think it’s bullshit. It’s partly your mother’s fucking bullshit and some of it is societal expectations and some is your own stuff going back to Christopher and the teenage rebellion that turned into being a teen mom. I want you to be happy, to do what makes you happy, but I want you to know where I stand. What I can live with. You’ll never stop loving Luke and Christopher will always be Rory’s father and I am okay with that, with all of that. Because I fucking love you, Lora.”

“I love you too,” she said. “But maybe, I don’t know if it’s the right way—”

“When has doing anything the right way ever mattered to you?” he replied and she had to laugh because it was true and because he understood her enough to know it and say it.

“I’m not sure it’s enough,” she said.

“What is enough? Is a thousand yellow daisies enough? Is agreeing to call me at 4:53 enough?” he pushed. “This isn’t a rom-com, it’s real life. And we’re not both sixteen, we’re adults. Let me ask you, why did you call me today? I know if was Rory’s idea but you did it, you could have refused, you could be driving to God knows where right now—”

“I wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to hear your voice. I didn’t call because I felt like I owed it to you. I’m not that good a person.”

“I want to talk to you first thing in the morning,” Max said. “I don’t ever want it to be too early.”

“What about too late?” Lorelai said. She’d done a fair job of royally fucking things up for all his protestations to the contrary. The caffeine and sun might be hitting him, he might think twice about sticking around.

“No such thing,” he said. He didn’t move, so she let go of her coffee and put her hand in his. “But maybe you want a new dress?”

“I can’t get a new dress the day before the wedding, Max,” she said, already thinking of that sweet little number she’d seen in a consignment store window in Hartford, all nipped in waist and Givenchy New Look attitude and the look Max would give her if she were walking toward him in it. She thought of Max watching her come closer and Luke watching her walk away until she was in the shadow of the chuppah he’d built. She thought it was impossible and that she’d heard worse ideas and not just from Kirk on any topic.

“Says who?”

She wore the new, second-hand dress.

Max stomped a glass wrapped in a cloth napkin in lieu of a rabbi. 

She didn’t take his name. In the receiving line, Luke kissed her cheek and called her Lorelai. Cutting Sookie’s masterpiece (Every tier a different flavor! Homemade quince preserves! Candied white violets!), she didn’t notice the weight of her wedding ring, but she couldn’t look away from the gold band on Max’s hand.

When she woke in the night from a dream full of dread, regret, the terrible mixture of mistake and failure, that hand lay gently on her hip and when she grew too tense, he murmured what’s wrong, Lora and then she could go back to sleep.

[venusleontios55555]

Best Fictional Characters to date (not ranked) Part - 2!

1. Ian Miller (My Big Fat Greek Wedding): John Corbett has portrayed Ian Millers' character fantastically. Perhaps one of the greenest flags in movie history, Ian is a kind and gentle teacher who falls in love with a Greek woman named Toula. Who comes from a conservative but highly loving Greek family. In order to be with the woman he loves, he was ready to be baptised and accepted by her family without hesitation. He also never once berated her or gave up on her family and was the most loving and kindest husband anyone could get. (He is really underrated though)

2. Hua Cheng (Heaven Officials Blessing): My Heaven Officials Blessing's fans know that Hua Cheng is the definition of the word Green Flag only for Xie Lian. This man defeated 33 military gods for Xie Lian, DIES multiple times for this man only to be reincarnated, and is one of the most loving and loyal people in the fictional world. Ps: my favorite quote by Hua Cheng right before he dies again (don't worry he reincarnates is " I am forever your most devoted believer". God, I am crying again.

3. Leo Valdez (Heroes of Olympus): HE DIED TO GO BACK TO OGYGIA! I REPEAT HE DIED TO GO BACK TO OGYGIA! JUST TO SAVE CALYPSO!!!! (From what I remember), THIS MAN IS SO ADORABLE!!!!! I CAN'T EVEN DESCRIBE HIM. OH MY GOD. (I am hyperventilating send help).

4. Harry Cameron (The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo): Even though he was not exactly an official love interest. Harry Cameron is the kind of friend everyone needs. He was kind, patient, and understanding and stood by Evelyn through every moment of her life. he even agreed to be Evelyn's beard so she could be with Celia, and he could be with the quarterback he fell in love with John. And (not my words) " their friendship and love was so genuine that at some point it causes Monique to think that the actual platonic soulmates are Evelyn and Harry"

5. Niles Crane (Frasier): Before anyone tells me Niles was creepy... zip it. I know he was a tiny bit creepy. But also remember this was a sitcom in the 90s! It was usually shown as a form of comedy. And considering other fictional characters (as far as my knowledge goes). Niles Crane was the sweetest and the nicest character who wholeheartedly fell in love with Daphne. Even though at the start the audience was led to believe that he only fell for Daphne for her looks... it was not exactly true, as throughout the series we see him pursue her, care for her, and try to make every dream of hers come true. (Like going to England to get her dad). And even when she gained 60 pounds he never even mocked her or taunted her, instead he never even noticed her weight gain or appearance till she fell on the floor and could not get up. This is quite interesting because 90s and early 2000s sitcoms always made it a point to make fun of fat female characters. (Ok now I know Frasier and Martin had made unsavory remarks but this is about Niles's treatment of Daphne). But I did not like the way he treated Mel.

" KEEP YOUR STANDARDS AS HIGH AS THE SKY"

PS: This was just my opinion, I am sure everyone feels differently

[fuck-you-gaiman]

Woken up from a dream wherein Crowley and Aziraphale got married: Aziraphale dressed in a white suit with cream trim, Crowley dressed in a black one with grey or red trim (Icr). A lady bishop (who may or may not have been The Almighty herself) officiating in a cute little country church while the fucking light of God spills in through the stain glass windows.

My dumbass, not knowing I was asleep, was pissed because I thought I'd just seen major S3 spoilers. Legit went "ffs somebody forgot to tag this with a spoiler warning and now season 3 is ruined."

But ever since I've returned to the world of the woken I've just been-

[gabbynyssa]

Saw some typoed email that was like "your bespok wedding dress start at..." and couldn't get a mental image out of my head, but also didn't wanna invest my time into a full art, so... here ya go:

a bespock wedding dress.

[buckyalpine]

Warnings: 18+ dub con, smut, Dark Bucky, breeding kinks. I want some Dark twin Bucky. Jealous twin Bucky. Manipulative, sexy, mob boss twisted Bucky. His brother James is everything good, everything wholesome, everything perfect. James had everything in life, the nicest house, a respectable job, the sweetest wife. Oh, how sweet his wife was.

Bucky couldn’t care less for the perfect reputation his brother had nor did he care for the money, he had so much more. More power. More control. The only thing his brother had that he wanted for himself was you. His brother didn't value or care for you for what you were worth, always working, focused on business, leaving you in the large house all by yourself. Bucky would have never. Not if he had you.

Loving, gentle, soft as silk.

Pure, untainted, everything he wasn't.

He had to have you.

"Babydoll"

You smiled hearing your husband enter your shared bedroom as you got out of the shower, wrapping a fluffy towel around yourself before going to greet him. He sat at the edge of the bed with a knowing smirk, shamelessly eyeing you up and down like he always did, your cheeks heating up under his watchful stare. You loved how much he adored you. He strode over, humming at the scent of your body wash, his nose trailing up the column of your neck, pressing soft kisses to your skin, his hands wandering to the edge of your towel.

"Miss me, baby?" He pulled it off, letting it pool to the floor leaving you bare before him, picking you up and laying on on the mattress, you were so perfect, pliant, he could already smell your arousal, your nipples pebbled against the cold air begging for his warm mouth.

"moy kotenok" He purred, nipping at your earlobe, your brows knitting in confusion, he never spoke Russian to you, only his brother-

“James?” You squeak, your heart starting to beat rapidly, blood running cold. This wasn’t your husband. You tried to scramble away, cover yourself but he grabbed your wrists in his hand, pinning them above your head. You then noticed the dark ink that peekd beneath his shirt, his telltale silver chain slipping out and dangling above your face. Your husband only wore his wedding ring, you tried so hard, unable to move his heavy body off you.

"Bucky-Bucky get off, what are you doing-

"Taking what should be mine, kotenok, showing you what being loved by a real man is like" He crawled off you, thighs spread wide kneeling in front of you. "He doesn't know what you deserve printsessa"

He shoved your legs apart, holding them from squirming, your twitching pearl amusing him. "S'been long, hasn't it, you say you don't want me but that swollen button says otherwise, what if I-"

He spits onto your clit making you cry out, a rough calloused thumb coming down to flick it to his hearts content. Your body jolted at the sensation, it was wrong, so wrong, God it had been so fucking long...

No.

"Bucky st-stop" You hiccupped as he moved faster, he could see your slick dampening the sheets, his idiot brother didn't know what he was missing.

"Why would I do that, hm? Look at how your body responds to me, you want this. Gonna get you so pregnant, bunny” Bucky smirked, giving his thick bulge a squeeze, making a show of shamelessly palming his erection. “Y’wouldnt even know who the daddy is”

He doesn't waste a second pulling his cock out, grinning at the way your cunt welcomes him home despite your futile protests. You scratch at him between moans of pleasure, your legs wrapping around his tapered waist. He pounds into you with purpose, he wants his child in your belly, he couldn't wait to see his brother dote on you not knowing any better.

He got harder thinking about your breasts leaking with milk as you got bigger, milk to feed his baby, milk to feed him. He'd find a way.

"Gonna put my child in you printsessa, give you my baby, show you where a man puts his cum, you'll take it won't you bunny, such a good housewife"

"No-No you-you can't oh God!" Your body shudders as pleasure and guilt washes over you, clinging onto him for dear life as he fucks you through your orgasm.

"That's right, cum for me, he can't make you cum like I can, don't think I haven't heard you with him, look at you, just a slutty little mess, you smell of sex kitten"

He intends on making the biggest mess in your pussy, needing it to drip onto the sheets you sleep in. You'd stay wrapped up in his essence while it leaked out of you, his sperm exactly where it needed to be, right in your belly-

"Get ready kitten, get ready to take it, fuck-squeezing me so good, tell me you want it, I know you do, m'gonna cum so hard for you princess, just for you, all this-fuck-do you feel it, s'all for you, SHIITTT" He roared, pumping you with the stutter of his hips, the headboard slamming against the wall as he emptied himself, shamelessly moaning into your neck.

The next 9 months would be interesting.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Good Omens filming locations masterpost! ❤ 🐍😊 Part 1

I made a Google map containing all the locations, see here! :)

Part one contains Season One, continue here for part 2 and here for part 3 containing the rest of S1 and Season Two, also a bonus book mausoleum!!! (it is split into more parts because tumblr has a limit of images in one post :))

SEASON 1

London:

AC in Berkeley Square (S01E06) - Tavistock Square, London

Scene: AC swap back and decision to go to The Ritz

Availability (as of 2024): 7:30–21

Link on the map

Crowley in the pub (S01E05) – The Enterprise pub, London

Scene: Crowley drinking and meeting not quite corporal Aziraphale

Availability (as of 2024): Mon-Wed 12-23, Wed-Sat 12-24, Sun closed

Link on the map

Crowley on the way to the burning bookshop (S01E05) – Wardour Street, London

Scene: Crowley's Bentley rushing throught the streets of London

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

AC on the bus (S01E01) - Piccadilly Circus, London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley meet on the bus to discuss the antichrist, in the background the Piccadily Circus can be seen

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

AC at The Ritz (S01E01, S01E06) - Criterion, London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley at The Ritz in the first and sixth episode of the first season. It was actually filmed at the Criterion restaurant which since then has unfortunately been closed and now (2024) there is Masala Zone with unfortunately changed interier :(.

Availability (as of 2024): Mon to Thur 12:00-22:30, Fri 12:00-23:00, Sat 12:30-23:00, Sun 12:30-22:30

Link on the map

AC on the way to the manor (S01E02) – Whitehall street, London

Scene: Crowley with Aziraphale driving the Bentley to the Tadfield manor

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

AC leaving the St James's Park (S01E01) - Carlton House Terrace, London

Scene: The stars on which Aziraphale and Crowley leave St James's Park in Episode 1, Crowley tempts Aziraphale to lunch and they speed away

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

AC meeting in St James's Park (S01E01, S01E03, S01E06) - St James's Park, London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley's meeting in St James's Park by the ducks in the first season in episode one (about the antichrist), episode three (victorian scene) and episode six (the kidnapping)

Availability (as of 2024): 5-24

Link on the map

Newt meeting Shadwell (S01E02) – Between Westminster Abbey and Palace of Westminster, London

Scene: Newt meets Shadwell for the first time

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

The Bandstand scene in St James's Park (S01E03) – Battersea Park, London

Scene: The bandstand scene in season one.

Availability (as of 2024): 8am until dusk

Link on the map

Aziraphale stops Gabriel during his jogging (S01E04) - Battersea Park, London

Scene: Aziraphale stops Gabriel during the jogging.

Availability (as of 2024): 8am until dusk

Link on the map

'Crowley' outside his flat (S01E06) - Eastfields Avenue, London

Scene: The morning after the Apocaflop 'Crowley' coming out from his flat.

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Dirty Donkey in 1967 (S01E03) - The Cat's Back pub, London

Scene: The interior of Dirty Donkey from 1967 where Crowley meets Shadwell for the first time has been filmed in The Cat's Back pub (the interior has been transformed into the 60s)

Availability (as of 2024): Mon - Closed, Tues: 5pm - 11pm, Wed - Thu: 4pm - 12am, Fri: 4pm - 1am, Sat: 2pm - 1am, Sun: 1pm - 11pm

Link on the map

Shadwell reports to Crowley (S01E03) – Best Cafe, London

Scene: Shadwell meeting Crowley in the present time.

Availability (as of 2024): street all day, the establishment itself seems closed now :(

Link on the map

AC talking about the Warlock's birthday party (S01E01) - Crystal Palace Park, London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley watching Warlock in the park with dinosaurs and talking about the birthday party

Availability (as of 2024): 7:30am - sunset

Link on the map

AC stopping in a cafe after the manor (S01E02) – Penge Cafe (then) / Antonella's Cafe and Bistro (now), London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley stopping to discuss how to find the antichrist after visiting the Tadfield manor, at the time of the shooting it was named Penge Cafe, now renamed to Antonella's Cafe and Bistro 

Availability (as of 2024): Wed-Sat 8:30-5, Sun: 9-5

Link on the map

AC watching Hamlet in 1601 (S01E03) – Shakespeare's Globe, London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley secret meeting in 1601 during a Hamlet performance

Availability (as of 2024): They open at specific times for tours and performances. See performances and tours on www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/, for example 3 APRIL - 23 OCTOBER there's a 'Pride Guided Tour bringing to life the queer stories and characters from Shakespeare’s life and times.' :). https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/guided-tour-pride/

Link on the map

Crowley after bringing down the phone network (deleted scene, DVD) – Trinity Church Square, London

Scene: Crowley leaving after he brings down the mobile phone network in the BT Tower

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Heaven top floor (S01E04, S01E06) – Sky Garden, London

Scene: The Heaven top floor background windows were filmed in Sky Garden, we are seeing this at the scene where Michael shows Gabriel the Earth Observation Files and during Aziraphale's execution (though the scene itself seems to be filmed with green screen)

Availability (as of 2024): the access is free but needs to be booked beforehand at https://skygarden.london/

Link on the map

Stairs To Heaven and Hell (S01E01) – The Broadgate Tower, London

Scene: Aziraphale and Crowley go to Heaven and Hell through the staircase

Availability (as of 2024): The tower is open Mon-Fri 9-18 but there is a reception downstairs where these stairs are – I've visited twice and once they were okay with me taking picks of the stairs and once not. The stairs are thought well visible from the outside and pics can be taken that way.

Link on the map

Aziraphale, Tracy and Shadwell on a scooter (S01E05) - Cardwell Road, London

Scene: Aziraphale miracles Tracy's scooter to fly with them and Shadwell to Tadfield

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Where Shadwell and Madame Tracy live (S01E02, S01E04, S01E05) - Hornsey Road, London

Scene: The residence of Shadwell and Madame Tracy. We see it in episode two (Newt arrives), episode four (Newt leaves for Tadfield) and episode five (shaken Shadwell arrives, customers for the seance arrive)

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Aziraphale eating sushi (S01E01) - Red 'N' Hot (closed), London

Scene: Aziraphale eating sushi with a surprise visit from Gabriel

Availability (as of 2024): It was filmed in the Red 'N' Hot – a sichuan restaurant, but it has been closed (now there is another restaurant with different interior)

Link on the map

Some scenes has also been filmed in the West London Film Studios.

Hambleden:

Hambleden is the place where most of the Tadfield village was shot :).

Tadfield Square (S01E01, S01E03, S01E05, S01E06) – Square in front of the church, Hambleden

Scene: Crowley phoning Aziraphale to tell him about the Armageddon in episode one, Adam reading and Anathema with R.P. Tyler in episode 3, seen R.P. Tyler meeting those going to the airfield in episode 5 and Aziraphale and Crowley are drinking on a bench after the Apocaflop and waiting for the bus

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Adam's house (S01E02 , S01E03, S01E06) - Hambleden

Scene: Adam Young's house (can be seen in several episodes)

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

The Them buying ice-cream (S01E02) – Hambleden convenience store, Hambleden

Scene: The store that The Them bough ice-cream from

Availability (as of 2024): Street all day, the store Mon-Sat 8-17, Sun 8-16:30

Link on the map

The Them planning to stop Armageddon (S01E05) - Hambleden

Scene: The Them returning planning to go to airfield and stop Armaggedon

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Anathema's cottage (S01E02, S01E03, S01E04) – cca 2km from the Hambledon square

Scene: The scenes with Anathema's cottage (Jasmine Cottage) were filmed here, it can be seen several times throughout the series (like Anathema moving in, AC dropping her off or Adam visiting her)

Availability (as of 2024): street all day

Link on the map

Others in England:

Warlock's house (S01E01) – High Canons, Borehamwood

Scene: The Warlock's home was filmed at the High Canons Estate which is listed on National Heritage List for England

Availability (as of 2024): The High Canons Estate is currently privately owned and not open to public, the house is not visible from road.

Link on the map

Hastur and Ligur hand over the Antichrist (S01E01) – Holy Trinity Church, Penn Street

Scene: Hastur and Ligur give Crowley the Antichrist at the graveyard

Availability (as of 2024): the outside should be available all day

Link on the map

(continue to Part 2 :))

[charliedawn]

Can the slashers meet Eddie Gluskin? I am just curious you don’t have to if you do not want to. And have a good day or night😊

Warning: MY KNOWLEDGE OF EDDIE GLUSKIN IS ALMOST NONE EXISTENT AND THIS IS AN INTERPRETATION OF WHO I THINK HE IS. PLEASE. DON’T COME AT ME.

Eddie Gluskin AKA "The Groom"

- 46 years old

- Patient with OCD and post-traumatic disorder. Obsessed with finding himself a wife. Abused physically and mentally as a child.

- Very tall and muscular man, middle-aged, with a black slicked back disconnected undercut hairstyle which is neatly combed down and light blue eyes.

- Eddie's face is covered with red scabs, skin peelings and he has a severe case of subconjunctival hemorrhage in both eyes, the right more so than left.

Face claim for him: Cillian Murphy.

VERY DANGEROUS. APPROACH WITH CARE.

Once you read his file, you frowned as you learned that Eddie Gluskin had been abused at a young age. You already felt bad for him. You knew that the first thing that man would need once entering St Louis was to have his personal space as patients with post-traumatic disorder needed to be handled with care—especially the first few days. Hence, you decided to keep his arrival a secret from the slashers at first, as to not frighten him. You were walking towards the entrance with General McCain and a couple of his men when you were made aware he had arrived.

"Be careful. He has already killed two guards in Mount Massive Asylum not a week ago. He is a tough guy."

You chuckled and shook your head.

"Don’t worry, James. I know how to handle tough guys…"

James nodded with a small smile on his face before he opened the door for you and you entered the room where a handful of policemen were waiting. They were surrounding a man who was chained down to the bench he was sitting on. The man was quiet and his eyes were facing down to the ground. You took a few steps forward before making your way through the policemen to reach the patient.

You stood before him.

"…Eddie Gluskin I presume ?"

The man remained silent for a while before he slowly raised his eyes to look at you.

"…"

He didn’t speak a word. He just started staring at you before you smiled and decided to introduce yourself.

"Y/N L/N. But, you can call me Nurse Y/N. Pleasure to meet you." You extended your hand forward and Eddie Gluskin stared at it for a moment. You chuckled awkwardly as you realised he couldn’t really shake it as he was chained up.

"Oh. Right. Sorry about that. I—" You were cut short when you felt a pressure on your knuckles and your eyes widened as you realised that Eddie Gluskin had just kissed your hand.

…

He then looked up at you with a smile and finally replied.

"Pleasure shared…"

You blinked twice in astonishment before you quickly retreated your hand and Eddie simply smiled at you. Little did you know…You had just unintentionally became Eddie Gluskin’s next 'wife'.

———————————————————————

First time meeting the slashers:

Freddy *appears wearing a wedding dress* : "Heard you were looking for a wife ?"

…What did you expect from the simp master himself ? Of course he would shoot his shot. Eddie is hot. In the way that he is tall, muscular and could rip Freddy to shreds…Of course Freddy would simp for him.

Eddie likes him, but only because he finds him amusing. Eddie chooses his wives upon various very strict criteria. Unfortunately, Freddy wouldn’t make the cut.

Freddy *looking at Author* : "Hey ! What’s that supposed to mean ?!"

When Brahms met Eddie, they both did not really talk much. However, after Eddie spent a little more time around Brahms, he started finding his company enjoyable…

Let’s be honest here.

Brahms would be the perfect bride for Eddie. Brahms is sweet, attentive and touch-starved. So, Eddie would surely like him.

But, I think Eddie would also see him as a child so maybe he wouldn’t try anything, but they would hit it off pretty quickly as two very distinguished gentlemen.

Alpha male standoff.

Eddie Gluskin is the same height and bulk as Michael, which means in Michael language: danger. Michael is like the daddy of the slashers. He protects them. So the first thing that would go through his head would be:

Should I be worried about that guy ?

And the answer is yes.

Eddie Gluskin also noticed the chain of power around St Louis and immediately noticed that all the slashers respected or didn’t mess with Michael. And you—his precious future wife—dared to spend a lot of time around Michael.

So, they wouldn’t really like each other.

Pennywise once pranked him by pretending to be you and Eddie kissed him. Eddie genuinely thought it was you and was so happy…until he opened his eyes and saw it was Pennywise.

…

He punched Pennywise in the face so many times that it took 6 nurses to get him off Pennywise.

Penny bit Eddie Gluskin’s arm because of what he did to his brother.

…

He liked the taste.

Jason met Eddie Gluskin when he was tending to his frogs. He was in the garden near the pond when Eddie came and sat down next to him. They started spending time together and Eddie even started helping him with his frogs.

They became friends—which is quite a feat considering Jason’s trust issues.

…Father Paul’s face after Eddie Gluskin came to him for the 11th time to ask him to officialise his marriage to you. (Give the poor man a break. 🤣)

Even though, A: You’re not aware of it.

B: Eddie Gluskin is mad.

And C: Father Paul is obviously no longer a priest.

But he still does it every time because A: He is bored, and B: Eddie doesn’t leave him alone unless he somehow convinces him that he would so…

[vidavalor]

Fish: A Good Omens Sex Meta Thing

A deep dive meta on fish and that deathless death.

NSFW under the cut. TW: Mention of Satan's attacks on Crowley. Also for those who asked me for more on the Ineffable Husbands and trauma-informed partnership.

Aziraphale, listen to me. The supernatural world? It's a mess. Life under the sea is better than anything they've got Up there...

This is basically the requested "Crepes 2" but you don't have to have read that first. I did link it at the bottom if you have not and you're interested in more meta like this one. Thanks for reading. 💕

Couples. Romantic and/or sexual partners who have an understanding of a mutually-agreed upon level of commitment to one another and their relationship. Frequent celebrators of special occasions.

"A team-- a group; group of the two of us." A couple.

Special occasions. Notable life events celebrating milestones and past days significant to a couple's relationship.

"For special occasions." Why Aziraphale bought one dozen cases (144 bottles) of Chateauneuf-de-Pape in 1921, as he either tells or reminds Crowley on the walk to the bookshop in 2008. Only "a few bottles" were still left at that time, according to Aziraphale, after 87 years of Crowley and Aziraphale celebrating special occasions enough times as an unofficial couple between 1921 and 2008 to have drank almost 144 bottles of the wine they only drink on special occasions.

Wedding anniversary. A special occasion; the "big one" of a married couple's special occasions. Celebrated annually by married couples as a romantic day that honors their commitment to one another. In S2, the day of The Meeting Ball is the night that Armageddon: Round Two gets underway. It is also the wedding anniversary of...

Mutt and his beloved spouse. The lovely magician who owns Goldstone's Magic Shop in 2023 and his beloved spouse, who is dry-witted, trans and had on a dress the color of Crowley's eyes at The Ball. Paralleling characters to Crowley and Aziraphale.

Anniversary. For partners who are not married, usually celebrated as a day of significance in their romantic relationship, chosen for its importance to them. Almost always related to a "first" in the relationship, like the day they first met or on which they had a first date.

"This is The Big One, Crowley..." What Satan (while impersonating the voice of Freddie Mercury) said to Crowley about Armageddon while assaulting him in 2008, on the night Armageddon: Round One began. Crowley was supposed to be having dinner with Aziraphale at the time.

The 1.01 sushi scene. Our re-introduction to Aziraphale in 2008. A series of indicators that we learn throughout the course of the season teach us that Crowley was supposed to be with Aziraphale in the Japanese restaurant on this night before he was delayed by Hell, assaulted by Satan, and forced into helping to start Armageddon.

Various scenes in S1 show us that Crowley always comes up on the same side of Aziraphale if he is approaching him from behind when meeting him but we don't yet know that in the first scenes of 1.01. As a result, we might not immediately realize that the reason why Aziraphale opens his eyes and looks to his left after hearing a miracle chime in this scene is because he expected that it was Crowley arriving to meet him after having been running late. In reality, it turned out to be Gabriel on his right-- which Aziraphale first sees in a mirror and which will be mirrored in additional scenes in the show (Crowley dragged to Hell in 1827 and the Gabriel statue on the other side of Aziraphale, etc.). Dialogue from the scene set the next day in St. James' Park that we will look at later on in the meta also confirms that Crowley was supposed to be with Aziraphale in the 1.01 sushi scene.

The sequence of scenes at the start of the 2008 minisode also sets this up by giving us Crowley alone first and letting us revel a bit in how fun he is and like him even more. The contrast with Hastur and Ligur establishes for us that Crowley is about a trillion times smarter and more enlightened than these guys. It's the second scene with Satan, though, that exists to show us that while some of the demons are just idiots, demonic life for Crowley is actual hell.

The "Bohemian Rhapsody" he so endearingly rolled up blaring in The Bentley comes back and now takes on a nightmarish tone as Crowley receives instructions from Satan while driving The Bentley and we learn that Satan can possess him at will and Crowley's sunglasses-- even in the dead of night while driving alone-- start to make more sense. They're a defense mechanism but he's actually defenseless in the face of this threat. It's from watching Satan get in-- through the radio, taking over the music, speaking through the voice of a non-evil entity, jumping through the air and through Crowley's sunglasses through his eyes and into his mind and rendering his body immobile while he's driving The Bentley-- that we are taught the core of what it means to be a demon in Good Omens.

The demons belong to Satan, in Satan's view. They are part of his collective of souls who exist to serve him. They are not individual people existing independent of him. There is no such thing as bodily autonomy in Hell.

What Satan does to Crowley in 1.01 is a metaphor for sexual assault. It's a forcible attack on his body against his will and without his consent. Though the scene is mercifully short, we are left with the awareness that it is short for reasons of the plot in this instance-- because Armageddon is beginning and the purpose of the attack in this moment is to give Crowley directions on delivering the antichrist baby. The scene, though, shows us that Satan can do this to Crowley whenever he wants and Crowley-- an otherwise very powerful being-- has no known defense against it. Crowley is unsurprised by it and that, plus all his various defensive layers already in existence in 1.01, show that it has happened before. Crowley has been on Earth for 6,004 years in 2008 and the implication here is that these assaults have been happening periodically the entire time and are among the issues most responsible for the PTSD symptoms he shows throughout the show.

It's off of this assault, though, that we segue into our re-introduction scenes of Aziraphale in the present and they are, at the start, the exact opposite of this nightmare that Crowley is living. As Crowley is attacked in his car on a dark road alone at night and then has to narrowly avoiding killing a man in an oncoming truck, we move over to Aziraphale's world, not yet realizing that this is the world that Crowley lives in when he can get away from Hell-- that it is actually their world together.

Aziraphale is presented with the sushi from his friend who has prepared it specially for him and we listen to Aziraphale thank him. The Italian of "Bohemian Rhapsody" (symbolic in this moment of Dante's Inferno and Hell) gives way to Aziraphale speaking Japanese (symbolic of mindful living.) The tone is all kind and gentle-- respectful and peaceful. We then get what is, really, the exact opposite of what just happened to Crowley, which is Aziraphale taking a slow breath with his eyes closed, inhaling the scents of the brine of the fish and vinegared rice and the herbs, and centering himself in the present moment as part of the experience of enjoying his meal.

The immediate contrast is drawn between Satan-- Crowley's rapist, who terrorizes him-- and Aziraphale-- Crowley's partner, who loves him, and with whom he has the kind of consensual, mindful, sensual experiences he was supposed to be getting up to on this night when Armageddon began instead.

In S2, the importance of the sushi scene from 1.01 returns as it is mirrored during the attack on the bookshop. Once again, Crowley is away from Aziraphale when he should have been there by that point and Aziraphale is worried about him. Present instead is, once again, Gabriel. This time, Gabriel has undergone a bit of a Jim journey. (Aziraphale offering him hot chocolate instead of tea in 2.01 was also set up by the sushi scene, as it's off of Gabriel being grossed out by the "rose matter" tea, showing again how important the scene is.) In S2, Gabriel is with Aziraphale again, this time pushed back further into the bookshop, and where are they in the bookshop-that-represents-Aziraphale during the sushi scene mirror? They're upstairs, on the landing.

Specifically, they're just inside the top of the stairs in front of a room, the door to which we are shown several times in S2 but which we have not yet seen open.

We have gone into the room next door to it-- that's the guest bedroom, where Gabriel stayed during the season. By process of elimination and out of an idea of convenience here, the room we haven't been inside of that is located at the very top of the stairs is almost certainly Aziraphale's bedroom. So, we've gone from S1 and having Gabriel show up unexpectedly while Aziraphale mistook him for Crowley while he and Crowley were supposed to be having one of their sexy meals together to S2 and Gabriel now there in the mirror scene in front of their bedroom, drawing a bit of a correlation between what these two scenes are both about.

There's also something symbolic to the idea that S2 uses invitations and doors and rooms in the bookshop to symbolize Aziraphale himself and who he lets in and whose voices he is, for better or worse, listening to at different times-- with his mental health crisis being symbolized by the bookshop being essentially overrun to a point that anyone can now get in. The one room that is shown to us but the door to which never is opened in S2 is the bedroom door. The bookshop can get overrun and others can get deeper into it than we've seen before-- demons in the living room, Maggie and Nina and Gabriel upstairs and in the back kitchen table area like the family they've become-- but the bedroom door stays closed because only Crowley and Aziraphale are allowed in there. No one but them can open the door. Metaphorically-speaking... and probably literally as well.

As the sushi scene is paralleled in S2, we get Shax there bullying Aziraphale. Shax is jealous of Aziraphale and his relationship with Crowley and she also fails to understand it because she sees Crowley as a demon like her and presumes he's as dark as she is, having no idea that Crowley's demonic schtick is an act to survive. She gives voice to these questions (and to Aziraphale's most illogical self-doubts-- but self-doubt is never logical...) when she asks:

"Aziraphale, what *are* you? Crowley's emotional support angel? The softest touch? The one who went native? Do you need more big, human meals, Aziraphale? Shall we send up *the sushi*?"

Shax is actually doing something here, language-wise, that the show first did with Hastur in 1.01, and that's making them both useful idiots when it comes to language. Remember Hastur's mistranslation of "ciao" as Crowley leaves the graveyard with the baby? What Crowley said was, as we know, Italian-- Hastur got that bit correct-- but instead of translating it in his mind as meaning the "hello"/"goodbye" that "ciao" means in Italian, he confused it with its homophone of "chow", which he said "means 'food'." It does but in an informal way or in reference to food given to animals.

This is darkly ironic in the scene because of where Crowley is headed in the next scene-- and where he's supposed to be during both scenes. He's supposed to be "chowing down"/having food-- having dinner-- with Aziraphale and food is, as we'll learn over the course of the 2008 minisode, euphemistic for sex in Ineffable Husbands Speak and symbolic in relation to it in the show itself overall. Instead, Hastur isn't entirely wrong when he translates "ciao" as "chow"-- and he might have done so unconsciously in his mind because he knows Satan is going to contact Crowley with instructions soon. He sees Crowley as "chow"-- in the sense of food fed to the animal that is Satan.

In 2.06, while Crowley is taking Maggie and Nina to safety outside the bookshop, Satan is mentioned when Shax demands that Gabriel and Beez be given to her to take "as gifts for Our Master Satan." Dagon-- Head of the Dark Council and not known for mincing her words-- replies that Satan "wouldn't want them... maybe as hors d'oeuvres." Not a single person in the room-- which contains almost every major non-human character in the show shy of Crowley-- disagrees with this assessment. Rape is not about sex-- it's about power-- but in a show that uses food as euphemistic for sex on several different levels, Dagon's comment is chilling.

It not only takes the attacks on Crowley that are already a metaphor for sexual assault and codes them through food in such a way that the feeling you get from the 1.01 Satan scene-- how it comes with an implication that the assaults aren't always a delivery of instructions-- is correct and that, unsurprisingly, Satan is a rapist in every way possible, but it also sees someone who would know in Dagon state that Satan would not actually care that much about Gabriel and Beez. He'd rape 'em, sure, is what Dagon is saying. He's Satan. But they would be just hors d'oeuvres. They're not who he's really fixated on.

The Grand Duke of Hell who betrayed him and their former Supreme Archangel partner are not interesting to Satan is Dagon's statement and not a single person in the room challenges that. No one says anything about it and the scene is deliberately structured so Crowley is not in the room when it's said to create this reaction in the others... the implications of which are just horrible where Crowley is concerned.

Back to Shax in the bookshop attack scene...

Shax parallels Hastur here because they are using her lack of language skills to highlight something to us by what it is that she doesn't understand. Much like with Hastur unintentionally spelling out what's really going on through mistranslations of words, Shax is trying to bully Aziraphale and she's tossing insults at him that are, actually, in the alternative meanings of what she's saying, the answers to the very questions she's been asking.

"Aziraphale, what *are* you? Crowley's emotional support angel? The softest touch?..." In insulting Aziraphale, Shax is using Crowley's mental health issues as a way of insulting both of them here, which shows how Hell obviously isn't exactly the most trauma-aware place. She's obviously saying that Crowley is comparable in mental health issues to humans (whom the demons see as beneath them) who have a need for emotional support animals. Like Hastur with the "chow", there's an animal comparison being drawn beneath the words used here but instead of the ominous lead-in to Crowley being attacked in 1.01, in S2, we have it about Crowley and Aziraphale, not Crowley and Satan.

So, Shax is calling Aziraphale Crowley's pet, right? And then she calls Aziraphale "the softest touch", which is a phrase meaning someone who is really gullible. What Shax doesn't realize is that the other, human-derived meanings of what she just called Aziraphale are the answer to the question of what Aziraphale is to Crowley.

In British slang, "pet" is a term of endearment. To pet someone is to touch and kiss in a way meant to be sexually arousing-- as in, "heavy petting."

The softest touch. This is, quite literally, the definition of a caress.

In S2, Aziraphale pats his and Crowley's pet-- The Bentley-- but he pets Crowley. The only time he tries to actually pet The Bentley is when he's semi-jokingly making it a sexual metaphor for Crowley. It underscores that Shax is almost there in getting it-- she's just not quite understanding the meaning of her own words-- which are words that, like Hastur's ciao/chow moment, exist to tell *us* something in how we look at them more than to tell the character speaking something.

In effect, we get a whole scene in S2 that parallels the 1.01 sushi scene by defining some more what it's really all about through Shax not quite fully getting it. What is Aziraphale to Crowley? is her question and the answer is the softest touch, just in the other meaning from the way that Shax says it. Aziraphale is kind to Crowley and gentle with him. He's the mindful sushi night in the face of the horror chow of Hell. They love each other. It's soft and sweet and that's why Shax has trouble understanding it-- it flies in the face of what she thinks the demon Crowley would want because of the reputation Crowley has sold everyone on regarding who he is, which isn't who he really is at all.

"The one who went native. Do you need more big, human meals, Aziraphale? Shall we send up *the sushi*?" Aziraphale is the angel who "went native"-- he lives a mostly human existence with Crowley alongside the humans. Shax clearly doesn't eat that much as no one has ever called sushi a "big meal" lol but besides that bit of humor aimed our way, this is more tying of food to sex. Aziraphale likes food and he likes sex and in Ineffable Husbands Speak-- which Shax does not speak-- food is euphemistic for sex. What's unnerving about this scene in this moment is that it plays like the later scene between Maggie and Shax does-- as if Shax is reading the thoughts of the character she's bullying and lobbying them back at her. She might well be doing this here and that's why the sushi comes up-- Aziraphale is thinking about it because Crowley should be here and isn't and Gabriel is right near him instead and it reminds him of 2008. (This wouldn't be the only callback to S1 in this sequence, either; there's Aziraphale explaining the fire extinguishers to Nina not that long after this.) Either way, it's writing designed to directly correlate this part of the bookshop attack with the 1.01 sushi scene to further underline what the 1.01 scene is about.

Okay, so, let's look then at why we're so into repeating bits of this sushi restaurant scene in GO and what it tells us about Crowley and Aziraphale's story by what other scenes it ties to...

As the 1.01 episode continues, we get another scene pretty soon after the sushi scene which adds another layer to this by recontextualizing our understanding of the sushi scene-- that's their lunch at The Ritz the next day, in which we learn that Crowley is rather into watching Aziraphale eat and Aziraphale loves it. This then helps to explain Aziraphale's look in the sushi scene when he turns to look in the direction of where he thinks Crowley will be on the left, before it clicks that Crowley is not there and he sees, instead, Gabriel on his right via the mirror on the wall.

Aziraphale hears the chime with his eyes still closed. His eyes are then still on the food when he reopens them and he hasn't had time to see that Crowley is not beside him before he turns in that direction and this is the expression on his face as he does:

That is a pretty sexy little look that was indisputably supposed to be given to Crowley...

In the later scene where they're at lunch at The Ritz, we come in on their meal at the end of it. Aziraphale is on the last forkful of his dessert and we get the idea of kinky lunch from what we see on the tail end of it. But before it? Back at the start of the episode, set the night before? We see that everything that happens the next day at The Ritz actually happens because they weren't able to be together the prior night. It will also help us to understand how Crowley knows about "the fascinating little restaurants where they know" Aziraphale in the St. James' Park scene.

The 1.01 sushi scene tells us that, by 2008, they sometimes sneak out to a quiet, dark place where they think they won't be seen to have dinner together.

What's most notable about the set of this scene in the sushi restaurant is the shocking brightness of one color in particular.

The scene leading into it, as we noted, is Satan's attack on Crowley in The Bentley and that scene is, appropriately, very dark. It's pitch black night outside and Crowley, in his perpetual black clothes, half-blends into the night around him. Flecks of grey and silver are the main sources of light in the scene. The same color scheme tips into the Aziraphale sushi restaurant scene-- with two exceptions. The silver grey remains (Gabriel) and so too does the thick, black darkness but there is more light in the restaurant and it shines over Aziraphale. He looks bright against the black darkness, even though he wears beige. He is the light that is missing from Crowley's scene. But that's not the shocking color to us in the scene. That's the one that saturates its way through the darkness around Aziraphale. That color is...

Pink. The color you get when you mix white (Aziraphale) into red (Crowley). Traditionally, a color of love, romance and health.

Pink plume. The energy field emanating from the bookshop when Crowley and Aziraphale performed a miracle together to protect Gabriel in 2.01. Also: part of Mrs. Sandwich's hair accessory during The Meeting Ball. Mrs. Sandwich represents sex and healthy communication in 'The Whickber Street Shopkeepers and Traders Represent The Stuff of Life' thing the show has going on.

"In the pink." A phrase meaning "in good health."

1967. Flashback scene in the 1.03 Cold Open in which Aziraphale gives Crowley holy water and they discuss their relationship-- specifically, trying to be more openly together. The scene is drenched by the pink light from the sex shops (one called the "Love Shop") that were then in the spot where Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death (symbolic of freedom) is in S2.

Jane Austen. One of the most famous writers to ever live (sorry, Crowley, but she is lol.) Writer of romance novels. A human that both Crowley and Aziraphale knew in the early 1800s. As Aziraphale brings her up to Crowley while they are talking about romance, pink floods the frame through the clothes on the extras in the wider part of the shot besides him. Pink is also present throughout this scene in general, which already parallels 1967 via it being related to set up, The Dirty Donkey and Crowley's turtleneck.

Back to the pink-dipped sushi restaurant in 2008... what else do you notice about this scene that is familiar, now that you've seen all of S1?

Maybe that Aziraphale is actually sitting at a bar? And thought Crowley would meet him there, so they would be sitting at the bar together? Aziraphale also had just spoken at the start of the scene with the restaurant person on the other side of the counter. Where have we seen one of them doing something like that before?

That other rather fish-oriented scene: Rome. 41 A.D....

Rome. 41 A.D.. Aziraphale runs into Crowley in a tavern in Rome. Crowley is miserable and not having the best day of his demon life. Frustrated by the temptations he's been sent to perform for Hell that have him enabling horrible men in the Roman military, he's lonely, tired and grouchy. This initially was worsened by the arrival of Aziraphale, whom Crowley always loves to see but who, in that moment, was a reminder of how broken Crowley felt.

PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A psychological condition brought on as a result of experiencing the psychological shock of a traumatic event or events. Some symptoms of PTSD include disturbed sleep, difficulties feeling safe, difficulties trusting yourself and others, anxiety, depression, and intimacy issues.

"In the pink." Remember the phrase meaning "in good health'"? Not a lot of pink in the Rome scene... initially. 😉

"Salutaria." What Aziraphale says in toast as he and Crowley clink glasses. Means "to your health." Crowley clinked glasses but quickly looked away, leaving Aziraphale thrown in the moment as to why Crowley was not rejecting his presence entirely but seemed uneasy and was putting up some walls between them that he had not in this way up to this point.

So, why was Crowley doing that?

Anorgasmia. Modern, clinical umbrella term for all issues relating to disorders surrounding an individual's ability to orgasm. If physical or medicinal reasons are eliminated, however-- as they often are-- then anorgasmia is a psychological mind-body disconnect.

Not an arousal disorder. Sufferers of anorgasmia still experience desire, compounding the impact of the disorder.

Secondary anorgasmia/situational anorgasmia. The inability to orgasm unless under certain conditions, such as through self-stimulation (masturbation). The inability to enjoy partnered sex. Extremely common in rape/sexual assault survivors.

(Diagnosis for anorgasmia are related to biological sex but Crowley is able to switch that at will so he'd be both of these, which are fundamentally the same thing.)

Hot Water Boiler. Device which heats up water in a house or apartment. In S2, a metaphor for anorgasmia.

In S2, Shax is living in what used to be Crowley's apartment and asks him if he knows how to fix the hot water boiler, as it has "two yellow lights" and isn't working. The point is that this used to be Crowley's apartment. Crowley, in 2023, knows how to get beyond a bout of it. He's fixed his own metaphorical hot water boiler-- and also the literal one when he used to live in that apartment. And while he's being sarcastic because Shax won't stop hounding him and Aziraphale, he's also giving her the most sage advice he knows, as he has continuously been doing during the season. In this case, it's to self-love a bit (which is actually prescriptive for anorgasmia in our modern times as well.) That he does is suggestive of the prior issues with secondary/situational anorgasmia.

Alcohol (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). As we looked at in the Crepes meta: Surface layer: alcohol. Hidden language layer: Sex. Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol. An extremely alcoholic breakfast at The Ritz.

Whiskey. Alcohol. What Crowley orders in a bar. Usually Talisker, which is a single-malt scotch. (Scotch being whiskey made in Scotland.)

Broken bottles of whiskey. What was in the case Crowley brought Mrs. H in 1941 at the start of the sexual metaphor that is The Bullet Catch.

Trauma-informed partner. Modern term for a romantic and/or sexual partner of a trauma survivor who is aware of the pervasive nature trauma can have on a person and who endeavors to provide a sense of safety-- physical, psychological and emotional-- for their partner and to create a relationship centered on healing and recovery, rather than one that causes further distress.

Frequently survivors of one or more forms of abuse themselves, as Aziraphale is. Not expected to be perfect but just to do their best by their partner.

Characteristics of trauma-informed relationships include kindness, empathy, mindfulness, gentleness, well-earned trust, a sense of playfulness, and a well-developed shared sense of humor. (Sound familiar? 😊)

The Bentley. Crowley's car and Linus blanket. As sexual metaphor, when Aziraphale is feeling cheeky: Crowley himself.

Driver's license. Documentation that must be obtained in order to operate a motor vehicle. Requires permission, experience, necessary skills, and willingness to learn. In London, not originally necessary to drive upon the invention of cars, until everyone realized what an absolute disaster that was. Aziraphale long ago passed his test and has had a driver's license since shortly after Crowley bought The Bentley. They did not require licenses at that time but always-eager-to-be-thorough Aziraphale made them give him a test to be sure he was truly qualified to drive.

As sexual innuendo: Crowley, we're absolutely ridiculous. You won't give up your car and I wall myself off in a fortress of books I can't part with but you've been "in my bookshop" and I've been "driving your Bentley" for an absurdly long amount of time. We even swapped bodies a few years ago. It might not actually be possible to be any more intimately familiar with a person than we are with one another and we both know I had these car keys the moment I asked for them so hand them over. No one was exactly a trauma-informed partner in those days but I was-- aren't I marvelous?😉I'll treat your car as gently as I treat you. Give me the keys or I will just keep going until I run out of car sex innuendo and I should warn you that I have lots more...

Trauma-informed partner. Aziraphale.

Mindfulness. A state of mind that focuses on being in the present moment by being conscious of one's thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. A state of the mind being connected to the body and experiencing the present moment consciously and fully. Frequently used to help combat PTSD, anxiety and depression. Also frequently used as a therapeutic intervention for assault survivors experiencing intimacy issues.

Aziraphale and Crowley smelling the magic shop in Season 2 and Aziraphale inhaling the scent of the sushi in 1.01 are both examples of mindfulness exercises. The sushi scene is tied to sex, as the food kinky thing is a form of foreplay, suggesting a focus on sexual mindfulness in bed.

Mind-body connection. What is in need of repair in sufferers of situational/secondary anorgasmia. Sexual assault causes the body to associate a loss of control with being under threat. Whereas people who have not experienced a violation of their bodily autonomy tend to respond to sexual stimulation with a response of pleasure, those who have been hurt have bodies that are wired to react to being touched or to feeling out of control as if they are under threat again, even if they are intellectually aware that the new situation they are in is not dangerous. What is arousing for others can cause a sense of anxiety instead of pleasure. There is also the risk of flashbacks to being attacked.

Healing the mind-body connection requires a trusted partner with whom the person suffering from anorgasmia feels safe and who is willing to help keep their partner in the present moment and help them "re-wire" and recover their body through new, positive experiences.

Asmodeus. The Demonic Prince of Lust. Crowley. A persona to have in Hell to give him big reputation that didn't involve him having to kill anybody and that also acted as a cover for his anorgasmia.

"Crowley." What Crowley asked Aziraphale to call him in 33 AD, just 8 years prior to Rome. An admittance of being mad about Aziraphale.

"What am I supposed to be, an aardvark?" In Rome, as Crowley grows nervous by this wine-drinking Aziraphale who also has nothing to do for the evening that has shown up in his world on a miserable day, he responds to Aziraphale's "still a demon, then?" nervous chatter with a line of his own, asking what else he was supposed to be? An aardvark? Of course, if Crowley was not a demon, being with Aziraphale would be easier and he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place but an aardvark is not just a random animal that Crowley thought up here.

Just prior to this moment, Aziraphale had approached him with "Crawley-- Crowley" and a soft smile. It wasn't actually a mistake on Aziraphale's part but a silent question: is it still alright to call you that? Thanks to S2 and the Job minisode we can see the 33 A.D. scene- in which Aziraphale learns of Crowley's new name-- in a different way. We see it as Crowley romancing Aziraphale a bit-- responding to Aziraphale being obviously a little jealous of Crowley's reputation as the wild Asmodeus with a whisper of how he'd changed his name to "Crowley"-- something that we know now that only Aziraphale understands. In Rome, eight years later, Aziraphale is asking by saying both names if that's still something Crowley feels-- and silently saying he hopes it is by subtly asking and by flirting with him a bit.

Crowley doesn't object to Aziraphale calling him "Crowley" and that encourages Aziraphale to join Crowley, who sends signals that he wants his company, even if he's grouchy. Maybe especially because he's grouchy. He can be grouchy around Aziraphale, who is his friend and will listen.

Aardvarks. Primarily eat ants and termites. In the insect metaphor in the show, humans are ants. (The "ants go marching" of The Flood scene.) Demons were hornets in this analogy but also flies and one could assume that termites might also be a good demonic insect analogy, as termites eat decaying plant material and demolish the dying down into the ground. Since food is sexual metaphor on Good Omens and living creatures are metaphorical in multiple ways, being an aardvark then is being someone who both fucks and kills other demons and humans. Being an aardvark is actually a good metaphor then for what's expected of Crowley in Hell and he obviously has some issues with it.

He doesn't want to kill anybody and he's sitting there wearing Roman military regalia, having been sent by Hell to facilitate some death and destruction in a way that he hasn't been able to Bildad his way out of this time. Aziraphale's presence is always welcome but Crowley's crabby in this moment because he knows Aziraphale is in a place by this point where he wants to sleep with him and they just ran into each other in a tavern and both clearly have the night free and now Crowley's got to decide if he's going to tell the angel or not that he's a disaster of an aardvark.

Aphrodisiacs. A substance purported to increase sexual desire. Named for the Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, Aphrodite, who has been depicted since antiquity usually nude and on the shell of an oyster (or, occasionally, a scallop), as both are two of the oldest purported aphrodisiacs known to man.

Oysters. History's foremost food-related aphrodisiac... though that's not really proven. A few years ago, Italian and American scientists did a joint study to attempt to prove if oysters really did increase virility. What they found was a very minor increase in testosterone in men brought on by one of the compounds of oysters (which is also found in some other kinds of shellfish.) The difference was so small, though, that the scientists determined that an individual would have to consume a lot of oysters (like, a bucketload) to notice any significant difference. In other words?

Whether it works or not is, like with almost all aphrodisiacs, in the mind of the individual. If you believe it will work, it likely will. It's mind over matter. If you want it to work, it probably will. Thematically, an interesting thing to throw in a scene involving a character deciding he's in a place to work on overcoming psychologically-based anorgasmia.

The ancient Romans were obsessed with the oyster-- particularly the soldiers of the Roman military. Much of the cultural awareness of oysters as having a reputation today as being sex-boosting food is actually rooted to the beginnings of that trend in ancient Rome. Both Crowley and Aziraphale would have been aware of the reputation of the oyster in 41 A.D. and Crowley wearing military regalia might have been one of the reasons, in particular, that Aziraphale chose oysters as an euphemism to convey his meaning.

Oysters. Fish. To eat them, you have first got to get them out of their protective shells.

Adam and Eve. The first humans and the other inhabitants of The Garden of Eden. Parallels to Crowley and Aziraphale. Eve gave Adam food-- showed him the pleasures of eating the apple. It sent them on a path of sensual exploration and Adam, freed by Eve showing him food, gave her sex in return.

The other two in Eden at the time-- The Angel of the Eastern Gate and The Serpent of Eden-- are actually no different.

Crowley tempted Eve but Crowley also parallels Eve to Aziraphale's Adam. Crowley encouraged Aziraphale to try the ox ribs and unleashed the raging hedonist that Aziraphale can be. Rome in 41 A.D. is Aziraphale then realizing just how much they are Adam and Eve. (Something that they become aware of over time and is at the root of things like Crowley dryly saying that it's "time to leave The Garden" in 2019 in S1, when they leave a park to go have kinky lunch together.)

By Rome, Aziraphale is now a devoted gourmand. He also drinks now; he's tried wine at some point in the interim years between the Job minisode and this scene. (This is the first scene in which both Crowley and Aziraphale drink and the first time we see them share a toast-- something that becomes symbolic of them as lovers in scenes in the future, like its parallel scenes in 1941 and 2019-- furthering the suggestion of Rome as the start of their sexual relationship.)

Aziraphale might be in Rome on Heavenly assignment but that's not what he mentions to Crowley, if he is. Instead, he talks about Petronius, whom he assumes from Crowley's military clothes that Crowley will know and whom Crowley does. If referring to, as we suspect, Gaius Petronius Arbiter, then Aziraphale is referring to a being so queer even the historians can't get around acknowledging it-- a courtier who was the taste and style maker of the Roman empire, and who is believed to be the author of The Satyricon, which is basically the foundation of satire in literature but also famously contains a whole chunk of it that is just basically erotica.

Some details of Petronius' life are a little vague so Good Omens is exploiting the wiggle room here to suggest that he actually did own a restaurant. In reality, Petronius wrote in The Satyricon a description of ancient Roman feasts that have been seen as maybe barely satirical because of the whole bacchanalia of the period that Petronius was satirizing. So, by 41 A.D., Aziraphale is moving in wealthy human queer circles in ancient Rome and enjoying all of the pleasures life on Earth has to offer... and he's found Crowley alone in a tavern and is throwing as many of these things together in a sentence at one time as possible to convey an overall sense of would you like to join me?

The Job minisode has already happened. Aziraphale is more than aware that Crowley was enjoying watching him eat. They're both here with the night free and blending in amongst the crowds has never been easier than it was in highly-populated Rome. Aziraphale is used to picking up humans and it's different than it is with Crowley, who is quasi-immortal like he is and his friend and somebody for whom Aziraphale has feelings. There's also something funny about the fact that Crowley is in a (literally) hellish mood and Aziraphale is pretty undeterred and still goes for it. In attitude, Aziraphale is basically like You're in a terrible mood--you need to get laid, Crowley. Lucky I showed up, isn't it? 😂

Meanwhile, Crowley is fully aware of what Aziraphale is up to. He's known since he heard Aziraphale approaching him and has been mulling over how he's going to handle it. The grouchiness isn't just about his bad day-- it's anxiety manifesting as crabbiness. To his credit, Aziraphale seems to get that even before Crowley more specifically shares the source of that anxiety.

So, Aziraphale goes for it and how he does is to pick up on their way of speaking to one another euphemistically that they started in Job's courtyard and introduce food as a way of speaking about sex. This is already amusing in S1 but it's funny as fuck after S2 when we know that the ox ribs have already happened at this point and that that's why Aziraphale is going this route. Aziraphale's like how to see if Crowley wants to smash? Tell him I'm hungry wink wink... 😉

I would also like to point out that they are already in a tavern that sells food. In the wider shots of Crowley in the second half of the scene, a plate of food is on the table beside him. There are oysters *in this bar* lol. Oysters were not uncommon in ancient Rome by this point-- if this conversation were really entirely just about trying this particular kind of seafood, they could just order some from the woman who served Crowley his drink who is three feet away for the entire scene and try oysters right here.

By bringing up Petronius and another restaurant where they sell sexy fish, Aziraphale is laying down an ancient Roman, euphemistic equivalent of do you want to get out of here?

To tell Crowley that he [Aziraphale] hears that Petronius "does remarkable things *to oysters*." To ask Crowley to go to bed with him.

Specifically, to see if the food kinky Crowley wants to go with him to Petronius' new restaurant and try these oysters the human guys are so on about and then go back to where Aziraphale is staying and see if the oysters really do anything to their oysters.

With this one sentence, Aziraphale has just turned "oysters" into three specific, separate-but-interrelated things at once:

1) oysters are fish-- just the seafood itself-- as we're always also talking about the thing on the surface level as well in Ineffable Husbands Speak and this is no different. Petronius makes some yummy oysters, according to the restaurant reviews of ancient Rome, and his new restaurant is an opulent food orgasm of a place and Aziraphale correctly thinks that would be appealing to both of them. He loves to eat and Crowley loves to watch him eat and does Crowley want to go on a little date to do that-- just also with actual sex this time?

2) oysters are aphrodisiacs-- Aziraphale is bringing up the fact that everyone is talking about how eating oysters can increase your sexual desire and bring about more pleasure for you and your partner(s) in bed. Aphrodisiacs are evocative of partnered sex. Not that you can't take them for fun times on your own but most people do not so bringing them up then sets up the verbal italics of "to oysters" that lands Aziraphale's invitation, unintentionally, straight in the heart of Crowley's issues, because:

3) oysters are a partnered sex orgasm-- Aziraphale says he (Petronius) "does remarkable things to oysters" so Petronius makes delicious oysters, which are what you eat to increase sexual desire and therefore what apparently cause you to experience more pleasure for longer and to climax harder... the innuendo is that the oysters (the aphrodisiacs) do things to your oysters (your orgasm).

Surprise twist, Aziraphale...

Crowley has made sure it never occurs to anyone that he has problems in bed and that has included Aziraphale up to this point.

Crowley basically now has a couple of choices. He can gently rebuff Aziraphale's offer, hopefully without embarrassing him too much, and they can try to pretend this never happened, and then he knows that Aziraphale is probably never going to ask him again. Not an option. Who knows when else they might find each other with the night free like this again? and Crowley does want to try.

He can pretend there's nothing wrong with him and stress himself into a disaster, like he's probably tried to do with humans before but they die within a couple of decades and take the embarrassment with them but Aziraphale's going to live for ages, is really his only friend, and Crowley's in love with him. Crowley's self-sabotaging at times but he's also an optimist and a romantic, and it's those things that give him some hope that he might not be permanently broken.

Finally, there's that he can just tell Aziraphale the truth because, let's be real here, the angel wants to try it and like hell is Crowley saying no to that.

So, he doesn't.

(Note the red squiggles on his costume that look pink in the light and like a heart monitor jackhammering-- with anxiety, with arousal-- and the candle that burns a pink flame where the light hits the jug.)

"I've never eaten an oyster." Aziraphale has defined an oyster between them as an orgasm had during partnered sex and that is what Crowley is saying he's never had.

He's also possibly saying that he has never eaten an actual oyster-the-seafood, because even though they were pretty common in Rome in the era, Crowley eats less than Aziraphale does, apparently hasn't been in Rome that long, and has had, until this moment, no reason to try the fish everyone is throwing back to try to increase their sexy times as Crowley's just been avoiding any sexual situation like the plague.

This is both a leap of faith on Crowley's part and a moment indicative of just how much he trusts Aziraphale. He needs every other living being to believe he's Asmodeus but Aziraphale can have the real, unvarnished truth because Aziraphale is the only person Crowley trusts not to hurt him. He knows Aziraphale can keep his secrets and that they have their own private world where vulnerability is allowed. He knows that Aziraphale is his friend beyond anything else.

This is telling Aziraphale that he'd like to try but he's kind of a mess. He doesn't want Aziraphale to feel like it's his fault if this doesn't work and he wants him to know what he's getting into. Crowley has long harbored a suspicion, though, that it would be different with Aziraphale, which is also why he wants to give it a try. If the angel can't help him rewire himself here, no one can.

Emphasizing this is Aziraphale's reaction. If they had been talking about pizza, maybe this reaction would have fit lol but it's clearly not a reaction to learning that Crowley has never consumed one particular kind of squiggly, hard-to-eat, honestly not that great seafood. It's a reaction much more befitting learning Crowley has not experienced something far more delicious and life-affirming than actual oysters-the-seafood.

"Oh-- well, let me tempt you to--" Just consider this moment from Aziraphale's perspective for a minute...

Serpent of Eden Crowley? He is literally the spark that lit the flame of all of humanity here. By tempting Eve into free thought and sensual pleasure, he also empowered her into teaching Adam these things. As a result, Crowley is basically responsible for sex on Earth-- for all of its history. If you live in the Good Omens universe and you've ever had an independent thought, a sensuous experience, or an orgasm, you owe Crowley a thank you note.😂Every play Aziraphale has ever seen, every meal he's ever enjoyed, every human he's ever taken to bed-- all of those experiences are indirectly because of Crowley.

Aziraphale has wanted him for quite literally ever. He compares everyone else to him. No one else has ever made him feel like this. He knows they're attracted to each other but he never felt like he knew what, if anything, he had to offer Crowley. The hottest being he'd ever seen freed him from the prison of his own repression here-- what could he ever give Crowley that was worth something like that? How do you learn together and try new things and adventure together with someone who seems like they're leap years ahead of you and know all the things it took you a long time to find out?

It's at "I've never eaten an oyster" that Aziraphale realizes that the being who freed everyone else got left behind and Aziraphale can fix that. He is good at burning holes in prison walls. Protection and arming others against threats to them and healing and kindness-- that's what he does. He's been here thinking for ages that Crowley would never need anything from him that he knew how to give like this but now he sees it differently. They've shown each other already by this point that they're good at being partners but this one aspect of it always felt to Aziraphale like it would be imbalanced. In Rome, he realizes that it isn't.

Aziraphale doesn't have the vocabulary we have today for these sort of issues and Rome wasn't exactly a bastion of trauma-informed sex lol but he didn't need any of that because he's intuitively good at this. He already knows that it will be fine because Crowley doesn't know it yet but he effectively already told him that it will-- by telling him in the first place. Aziraphale knows that trust and desire are what's needed and that they have those in spades. All he really has to do here is help Crowley relax and get out of his head.

Or, as Aziraphale will put it during the 1941 sexual metaphor that is The Bullet Catch plot: "You do the shooting. I'll do all the hard bits."

What gets Crowley's attention in Rome is how utterly confident Aziraphale is. How empathetic but unpitying. Aziraphale doesn't hesitate and he trips over himself accepting the challenge-- which is awfully cute-- but it's that Aziraphale doesn't treat him like he's broken or seem to see this as daunting that works for Crowley. There is a lot of internalized shame and fear and pain associated with anorgasmia and Crowley has been stewing in this for a very long time up until Rome so for Aziraphale's response to be not dismissive of it but, instead, reassuring, was exactly what Crowley needed. Aziraphale's whole attitude is oh ok no problem should we get going now or..? While he was not happy about Crowley having had difficult experiences before because he doesn't like to think of him in pain, he was really into the idea of Crowley thinking it could be different with him.

Aziraphale really, really, really likes being the person Crowley let in enough for this. Pardon the Crowley pun here but Aziraphale has never stopped crowing about it between them in thousands of years and if Crowley weren't besotted with him, he would have murdered him over it by now. (See: an example in 1941 that we'll look at near the end of this meta and "I had to miracle in the cherries" in Good Omens: Lockdown.)

"No, that's... that's your job. Isn't it?" Aziraphale's use of "tempt" to offer Crowley sex is then something of a joke between them because neither of them are tempting each other in a demonic sense of the word at any time. They find each other tempting though, in the sense that they find each other attractive. To use "tempt" with one another is just to ask each other if they are in the mood for something, not to influence the other into doing anything ("tempt you to a spot of lunch?" and "temptation accomplished" in 2019.)

This is really established first in the Job minisode, chronologically, as Crowley didn't so much tempt Aziraphale to try the ox ribs so much as he just offered them to him and Aziraphale decided to without influence. The same is true for Crowley choosing to try sex with Aziraphale in Rome-- he's really already chosen to by not saying no and that's all before Aziraphale's "well, let me tempt you--".

When Aziraphale replies to Crowley's reaction to the "tempt" line with "No, that's... that's your job. Isn't it?", Aziraphale is teasing him a bit. He's saying he sees through Crowley's massive control issues and that he gets him. You always have to be in control but you don't always want to be. Well, today's your lucky day, Bildad, because we're partners in this now.

Or, as it's known in 2023:

Flame burning pink as Crowley smiles a little for the first time in the scene:

"Oysters! Oranges!" What Juliet (the woman selling snacks) calls out as the opening dialogue in the 1601 scene to entice prospective buyers, the only one of which really is Aziraphale. Oysters-- aphrodisiacs. Oranges-- cinematic symbol of death. Aziraphale chooses...

"Some grapes please! They look scrummy." Grapes. Fermented grapes are wine. Wine is alcohol. Alcohol is sex. We haven't a need for oysters anymore and we shun symbolic death in favor of the little death. The grapes look "scrummy", shortened version of "scrumptious", meaning both "delicious" in food terms and "sexy enough to eat" in people terms. Aziraphale eats them in front of Crowley during the scene.

Oysters. What Crowley and Aziraphale had in ancient Rome.

Oysters. What Crowley and Aziraphale had in ancient Rome.

Oysters (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Both an aphrodisiac and an orgasm, but...

...since they don't want to bring up anorgasmia every time they're flirting or talking about sex for the rest of their very long lives... and since oysters on their own are really hard to work frequently into conversation and would get a bit old pretty quickly, they need another word.

So, based on what we've seen in the series, it evolved into...

Oysters = Fish.

Fish live in the ocean, amongst other sea creatures.

Fish & sea creatures (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). An orgasm.

Anything related to the ocean (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). A metaphor for sex.

If it is in or lives in water, it's prime material for climatic innuendo. If it has multiple meanings in English? It will be used frequently as part of wordplay. If it pertains to the ocean or lends itself to destructive adjectives (shipwrecks, sea monsters, bubbling seas and rising waves), it will absolutely be a sexual metaphor at some point.

Such as...

Wahoo. A kind of fish. Also: an exclamation of joy. For obvious reasons, Crowley and Aziraphale's favorite fish joke.

In 1941, Aziraphale seeks feedback in the dressing room on their sexual metaphor Bullet Catch performance-- that they are both more than aware of-- and Crowley agrees that it went well and dryly suggests they "chalk up a win for the side of the angel", turning the common phrase that is usually "...side of the angels" singular to reflect only Aziraphale, who is over the moon that Crowley enjoyed it and cheekily replies "wahoo!" before their flirting is interrupted by Furfur.

Decades later, Crowley gives another stellar performance-- the full, epic saga of his M-25 Orbital Disruption-- to the joyless, miserable lot in Hell and concludes it with a line that he plans to tell Aziraphale later to make him laugh:

Carp. A kind of fish. Also means: to stand around and bitch. Aziraphale telling Crowley to stop standing around getting off on grouching and go get Maggie and Nina for The Meeting Ball in S2.

Gravlax in Dill Sauce. Cured salmon. This one is special and we'll look at it in the Dill Sauce meta about the St. James Park scene soon.

Ducks. Waterfowl. Aquatic birds. This is long enough. 😂 They are a whole separate meta.

Pickled herring. A kind of fish, cured in salt. What was dumped out of the barrel by Elspeth in The Resurrectionist minisode so she could use the barrel to transport her corpse. Crowley and Aziraphale spend half the minisode dragging around a barrel that should contain fish (the little death) but actually contains a corpse (actual death)-- foreshadowing the fact that their date will end with Crowley dragged to Hell and the start of the holy water arc of misery for them.

Red herring. A dry, smoked fish that turns red as it is smoked (ooh la la...) 😉 Also: A literary device, in which something is established with the intent of it distracting the audience from something else in the story. Elspeth and her pickled herring barrel are a red herring that changes The Resurrectionist minisode story from what the audience thought it would be into what it is, distracting the audience from the fact that the story actually began with Crowley and Aziraphale meeting in a graveyard at midnight for... ah... reasons. Aziraphale also turned 'red'-- turned to Crowley's side-- during the course of the episode, even as his shot at getting him some "pickled herring" that evening went up in hellfire smoke.

"Sargeant Shadwell." The hilarious, Sean Connery-esque way that Crowley said Shadwell's name in 1967, made funnier by the fact that a shad is a type of fish... and part of the herring family and this scene itself is a red herring. It misleads the audience into thinking we have a whole new plot about Crowley leading a break in to a church that is rendered inert within a matter of minutes when Aziraphale gives Crowley holy water. Shadwell's name is basically 'Fishwell' and, for Madame Tracy's sake, I hope that's true and not ironically funny. Either way, doubtful that Crowley and Aziraphale haven't joked about his name before. Shad also phonetically sounds like 'shag', the British slang word for fucking, and Crowley's tone of voice in the scene had a ring of 'shag' connotation to it.

Kieler Sprotte/Kieler Sprotten. A German smoked herring dish. A hidden reference in the Baraqiel entry in 'The Demon's Guide to Angels...' book that Furfur had in 1941. Baraqiel is Crowley and the entry, based on what's in it, was written by Aziraphale. One of you requested a meta on Baraqiel so that's on deck for now.

Newt. A semi-aquatic salamander. They live in the water but only some of the time. Also: Newt Pulsifier, an extreme parallel of Crowley who breaks all technology he touches, loves his less-attractive-than-The-Bentley car, and falls for a being who has issues with the purpose they feel they were put into the world to fulfill. Newt gets "in the water," metaphorically-speaking, when he has sex for the first time in S1 with the Aziraphale-paralleling Anathema, which is another example of how he's a more extreme version of Crowley, whose parallel to Newt is Aziraphale helping him through his intimacy issues.

Flounder. A kind of fish. Also means: to struggle helplessly in water. "To flounder" is frequently confused with "to founder", which is wordplay intentionally being used by Aziraphale in the "Seeds of Destruction" scene in S1, which we'll look at in the requested Seeds meta soon.

Bananafish. A kind of fish. Also: the first two words of Aziraphale's magic words. Is it "bananafish" or is it "banana, fish"? It's a little unclear and possibly situational. It's also likely both and a reference to wordplay and sex via fish. "The Bananafish" is also a short story by J.D. Salinger about trauma, PTSD and suicide that correlates to S2 quite a bit but we can look at that in a more Aziraphale's-trauma-centric meta.

The 'drunk-in-the-bookshop' scene. Part of the 2008 minisode, in which Crowley and Aziraphale are drunk and talking on the surface about Armageddon but are actually flirting with each other using sea-related terminology to make some drunken sexual metaphors.

Whales and dolphins. Sea-dwelling mammals. Not fish but live like them, alongside them. Damn big brains. Whales, in particular, are their own metaphor in Good Omens-- above and beyond Ineffable Husbands Speak-- but, in this context, they are non-fish creatures that live in the ocean, so Crowley is equating himself and Aziraphale to whales and dolphins in the drunk-in-the-bookshop scene and calling Aziraphale smart and clever in doing so. He is too drunk to come up with how smart they are ("brains the size of... *gives up* damn big brains" lol). His point is that Aziraphale is so smart, which is so hot, and that's his point. Brain city, whales.

Off of this, a drunk Aziraphale has heard Crowley say "damn big brains" and is thinking you know what *else* is big, Crowley?

"Kraken! Oh, great, bigggggg bugger..." Totally plastered Aziraphale is undefeated at Completely Wasted Wordplay, though, and he has a mythical monster and a whole attempt at a sexual metaphor for Crowley here, thanks to whatever brain cells are still kicking around in his damn big whale brain. The Kraken is huge and we aren't just talking about smart anymore, nope... Adding to the humor is the use of 'bugger'-- The Kraken is a massive one and we're talking about both in size and in terms of quite extraordinary amounts of buggery that Aziraphale wants to get up to here...

Giant squid and octopi. Also not fish but live in the sea, much like the whales and dolphins that Crowley had just mentioned and probably one of the reasons why Aziraphale's mind then goes towards The Kraken.

The Kraken. Mythical sea monster from Norse mythology. The Kraken-- and sea monsters, in general-- are thought to be based on giant squid and/or octopi. Particularly before days when squid and octopi were understood, The Kraken was sometimes described as a "sea serpent". Crowley, in Aziraphale's sexual metaphor here, is The Kraken-- is the great, bigggg bugger who is:

"Supposed to rise up-- right up-- to the surface. At the end. When the sea boils." We're talking about Armageddon on the surface but we're talking about sex under the surface and The Kraken is a mythological being who does not exist, making this drunk conversation even funnier. Adam will manifest The Kraken into existence later on in the season-- but, prior to that, the actual Kraken was a myth. Aziraphale and Crowley both know that. Neither of them believe in The Kraken-the-sea-monster. Aziraphale is just using it as a joking sexual metaphor while they're drunk as all fuck to flirt with Crowley using their whole ocean-themed innuendo.

"The Kraken" is "supposed to rise up, right up, to the surface, at the end". The sea serpent going from the depths of the cold black sea to cresting the surface of the ocean at the end of days, which is Aziraphale using destructive sexual metaphor-- using disaster, death, apocalyptic terminology, etc. as a metaphor for sex. Armageddon is the end of days is a sexual climax. "The Kraken" rises to the surface of the ocean "at the end-- when the sea boils"-- when it becomes too hot and there's no other choice but for the sea serpent to come... to the surface. 😉

"There is a lot of 'underlying unspokenness' and it comes to the surface now and again." Michael Sheen quote describing the nature of Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship in S1 in the interview below. I'd bet serious cash he's specifically thinking about The Kraken scene.

Thanks to @procrastiel for showing me the interview.

"Well, that's mah point! Dolphins and whales-- whole sea bubbling-- hard to keep everybody from turning into bouilla--" Crowley's response to Aziraphale's The Kraken metaphor. Actually surprisingly witty at the start considering how drunk they are (it's their damn big whale brains hitting on something every few words lol.) It is, indeed, his point that Aziraphale is talking about-- his boiling point-- but Crowley uses "point" in the other meaning here as well (as in, "that's the point of what I was saying!").

"Whole sea bubbling-- hard to keep everybody from turning into bouilla--" Everybody, eh, Crowley? 😂I thought we were talking about fish being boiled in the end of days here? (Someone ought to get Crowley and Aziraphale to make videos explaining climate change lol.) These fish and dolphins and whales seem like they could be easily mistaken for people? Like, say, you and Aziraphale, hmm?When the whole sea gets bubbling and it's just too hot in here, it might, indeed, be hard to keep you both from turning into...

Bouillabaisse. A fish soup that is frequently referred to as a fish stew, which is what a drunk Crowley calls it. The dish is French and when Crowley is too drunk to get the word out, he keeps repeating the first half of it-- "bouilla"-- which comes from the French verb "bouillir", which means "to boil". He heard Aziraphale's "when the sea boils" and his mind took it to the fish joke of bouillabaisse. To boil is, of course, to cook something in very hot water.

Crowley is too drunk to get the word out in full and repeats the "boil" part of it, getting distracted at one point and calling Aziraphale "baby" while they make hilarious, drunk, kissy faces at one another, before redirecting it with "fish stew-- anyway! It's not their fault."

A bouillabaisse features at least two different kinds of fish cooked together and served alongside one another in the same bowl.

Bouillabaisse/A fish soup or stew (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Climaxing together/simultaneous orgasm.

"Fish stew-- anyway! It's not their fault." The end of the 'bouillabaisse' portion of the scene and yes, it's not the fault of the actual fish that will be turned into bouillabaisse when the world ends but this is also Crowley thinking of Aziraphale's earlier "hereditary enemies" comment and saying again that it's not their fault, they didn't ask for this. Tossed drunkenly into this getting sloppy sexual metaphor, it's pretty funny as it's also saying wouldn't be their fault if they turn into bouillabaisse later as who could blame them? World ending, been waiting for days, bouilla bouilla baby...

Good thing they sobered up because they were one more bottle of Chateauneuf-de-Pape away from just speak-singing "Under the Sea" at one another. Even the sturgeon and the ray, angel! They get the urge and start to play! That's *mah point*... 😂

"Heaven will finally triumph over Hell." One of the coded things that Aziraphale said to Crowley in the 1.01 St. James Park scene. While the surface layer of this conversation is about Armageddon, they're actually talking on the hidden layer about having not been able to be together the prior night. The key bit to this that I'm mentioning here is the use of the word "triumph"...

Triumph. A triumph is obviously a great victory or success but the history of the word is interesting. It originally meant a victory parade-- a processional-- held for a victorious general upon his return to ancient Rome. It was exclusive to Rome for a time as a word and still is how historians refer to that type of processional.

By using "triumph" in the St. James' Park scene, Aziraphale correlates the would-be sushi night with Rome.

Sushi. Raw fish mixed into vinegared rice, along with other ingredients. What Crowley and Aziraphale usually go out for in the modern era on their unofficial anniversary, which is the date of the first time they had sex in ancient Rome.

1,967. The number of years between the first time Crowley and Aziraphale had sex and when they were trying to meet to celebrate that special occasion in 2008 in 1.01. Armageddon: Round One began on their 1,967th anniversary. A reference to:

The 1967 scene, in which they talk about their relationship, and "dine at The Ritz" is said.

41. The number of years between Aziraphale suggesting they could one day "dine at The Ritz" in 1967 and when they did for the first time in 2008. A reference to:

The 41 A.D. scene in Rome, which shows how they first became lovers.

Well, with one caveat...

Hellfire and Holy Water. Substances produced by the physical corporations of angels and demons which are lethal to one another's "opposite kind"/"enemy." Aziraphale's body can make Holy Water, which could liquidate Crowley into non-existence. Crowley's body can make Hellfire, which could burn Aziraphale into the same.

As such, they spent some time concerned that each other's, em, "hellfire" and "holy water" might be harmful to one another, until they disproved this theory. This historical HIV allegory is alluded to in the "angel-demon, probably explode" Discorporated!Aziraphale scene in S1 (to "explode" also meaning to "explode a theory"-- to disprove it) and also in this scene here, in The Big Damn Sexual Metaphor that is The Bullet Catch:

Aziraphale's dry "just aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear," right?

So, how did they figure out that they wouldn't kill each other?

Kingdom of Wessex. 597 AD. The Camelot scene. Crowley and Aziraphale cross paths in the time of King Arthur and are so damn over canceling each other out at work. After Aziraphale rebuffs Crowley's initial proposal of basically quiet quitting Heaven & Hell-- just doing the paperwork and phoning it in-- because he thinks Michael will figure it out (not because he doesn't want to lol), the two part the scene without a resolution... but the 1601 scene provides that resolution for us via the reveal of The Arrangement.

Back in 597 A.D., after the scene we saw, Crowley and Aziraphale got creative in trying to find a solution to their work woes and wound up experimenting with what they had been told by Heaven regarding what their capabilities were. They uncovered that Crowley could still do blessings and Aziraphale could do temptations. So long as they kept pulling power from their respective head offices, it didn't matter what type of miracle they did and no one in Heaven or Hell figured it out. This then caused them to also realize that if they were biologically similar enough to be able to do the same miracles, then odds were high that they actually wouldn't hurt one another if they had more expansive sex and they decided to try it. They're both still here so obviously the end result was nothing but wahoo. What else is suggestive of this besides the already mentioned scenes? This one, in 1941:

Excalibur. King Arthur's sword. Excalibur's Chest. The famous swords-in-the-box magic trick, on sale at Goldstone's in 1941. Swords are as much sexual metaphor as guns. Note what's between them in the magic shop in 1941 when they agree to perform The Bullet Catch together that night, after a performance by The Ladies of Camelot:

This is part of the reason why they also use performing miracles as innuendo-- besides the fact that there is just a lot of material there lol. It's because it took them 556 years after Rome but they happened into figuring out Heaven's big secret and it freed them to boff each other senseless for the last *maths* 1,426 years as of S2 lol so it's kind of irresistible. An example is Aziraphale in S2 with "the 25 Lazari miracle you and I performed together the other night" which is on the surface, sure, about the miracle they did together to protect Gabriel but which Aziraphale makes actually sound like what they got up to the other night, probably the one before Gabriel arrived. He's talking about Muriel there for the Gabriel miracle but he's saying it with a tone of: I suspect that the angel is here to verify the miracle that was Sunday night. I'd imagine alarm bells must have been ringing in Heaven constantly since. You and I raised the damn dead, old serpent...

The Bullet Catch. A sexual metaphor for both "firsts"-- 41 A.D./Rome and 597 A.D./Kingdom of Wessex-- mashed together because they were similar... but also a metaphor for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship overall.

The Bullet Catch requires them to trust one another and be vulnerable with one another. It's only possible because of how much they trust in and care for one another. Crowley's ability to fire the gun in a way that won't kill Aziraphale-- which Aziraphale is trusting him to do-- means that Crowley has to trust himself to do it. He has to believe himself capable of it and that he can relax enough to do it. He only believes this because Aziraphale believes it about him and makes him feel safe enough to focus. Aziraphale's trust in him allows Crowley to trust both himself and Aziraphale while Aziraphale's trust in Crowley allows him to let Crowley in enough to let him see his insecurities and be loved in spite of them, something Aziraphale's self-doubts and imposter syndrome keep him from doing with other people. Crowley knows he's imperfect and loves him madly anyway, something Aziraphale has trouble doing with himself and which no one else in Heaven ever has. Crowley's faith in and love for Aziraphale give Aziraphale the confidence to live more freely and feel like he's among the professional conjurers and not just on the outside of life. Their trust in one another helps them trust each other and that self-trust opens them up to experiences with each other that lead to ever-deepening trust of one another that lifts them both in a kind of feedback loop.

"Cheers for, um, getting me off the hook." Crowley thanking Aziraphale for helping him with the Mrs. H situation. He's more than aware that Aziraphale assisting with Crowley's broken alcohol bottles when alcohol = sex to them is more than a little metaphorical for their actual history and he chooses a fish reference as part of the thank you. "Cheers" is that British way of saying "thank you" but it's also obviously what people also say as a toast (which is also a word used to refer to warmed bread, which is also related to partnered sex in Ineffable Husbands Speak.) It's what Crowley actually says in 2019 at The Ritz at the end of S1 in the "Cheers. To the world." moment. Here, it's also a reference to the first time they did clink some glasses together in toast-- the "Salutaria" of ancient Rome. And what is this toast-y thank you of Crowley's for? For getting him off-- that is, for getting him "off the hook."

"Off the hook" refers to a caught fish being taken off the hook. It also became, over time, a phrase referring to communication, from the days of phones with cords. Leaving a phone "off the hook" meant that calls couldn't come through and communication couldn't be had. By 1941, the phrase would have roots in both origins and if we're talking about fish and telephones, we're talking about earlier in the evening in 1941 but we're also talking what it referenced to them symbolically about the past of their relationship. It is also absolutely why Aziraphale jumps on The Bullet Catch as his grand gesture once they get to the magic shop-- he sees a way to continue the metaphor that they're both more than aware of.

It also makes it a thousand times funnier then that poor Aziraphale essentially makes the same assumption about demonic life twice over a bazillion years apart. He thought The Bullet Catch would be a no-brainer, fun thing for them to do because he assumed that Crowley had fired a gun before, only to discover that this was now actually Rome all over again because while Aziraphale has a firearms license and a Derringer hidden in a hollowed-out book in the bookshop, this metaphor was suddenly way too on point because Crowley hasn't fired a gun with someone else around before-- in this case, at all, actually. His dry as all fuck "not as such" response to Aziraphale is well, we both know I've fired the metaphorical gun this rifle is standing in for here but yeah, no, I have no idea how to shoot this thing and I was going to miracle you safe and now those aren't working either so I have to do this for real and I'll just be over here trying not to have a panic attack...

Talking. Making sure the telephone is not off the hook is obviously always a good thing with everyone one trusts around them in life. In a relationship context, feeling safe enough to talk openly with your partner about things which make you feel vulnerable is the mark of a trust and what allows for deep intimacy. Talking in bed-- not just checking in with a partner but talking beyond that-- is a therapeutic intervention for anorgasmia, as it helps someone suffering from it to stay present in the moment. Tends to work in general but even more so if the person involved likes chat in bed as a whole, which a couple of scenes suggest Crowley does (the evolution of it into also some extra spicy chat in the "Seeds of Destruction" scene in S1 and his self-deprecating "you just say 'blah blah blah'" moment in S2.)

"We need to talk." What Crowley says in 1.01 when he calls Aziraphale from a corded public pay phone. This is the first time that Crowley and Aziraphale talk in the present, even if they're in separate locations, and the first time we've seen them interact since the opening scene of the show of them on the wall in Eden. We've spent the first part of the 2008 minisode re-introduced to them separately, not yet fully aware of how they were supposed to be together during it. Crowley doesn't wait until he's back in Mayfair after dropping off the antichrist baby-- he calls Aziraphale from the nearest payphone. He says "we need to talk", a phrase that is, for many, a relationship cliche that comes with a sense of the foreboding but we will learn from this scene also means other things to them.

For one thing, it's a code phrase that automatically triggers them to meet the next day at noon at St. James' Park. If one of them calls and says they "need to talk", they know that it means to meet the next day and when and where. This one they know a lot better than their four million alternative rendezvous spots, as we saw in that other scene in S1 when they set up meeting in the bandstand over the phone. Because it triggers St. James' Park, it means that the initial talk will be all coded in their hidden language, as that scene in 1.01 was, but that is also a form of communication for them and a kind that they actually enjoy.

For another thing, it means that they need to talk in general-- that something is happening and they need to talk about it, as was the case with Armageddon. At the time that they have this phone conversation, they don't yet know that one another already knows about Armageddon starting. We know from all the contextual clues we've already looked at here that they were supposed to be having dinner together earlier and that they also can't say that over the phone so when Aziraphale says: "Yes, I rather think we do. I assume this is about....?" there's a dryness to Aziraphale's tone because a form of talking was already on the menu. Sushi night is Rome and Rome had talking so, yeah, Aziraphale rather does think they need to talk-- to fuck-- and also Armageddon just started so they'll need to actually talk-talk about that as well at some point.

Crowley's response to what it's about, though, is destructive sexual metaphor. What do they need to talk about, on all levels, summed up by Crowley in a word?

"Armageddon." Armageddon: the actual end of the world and Armageddon: their big damn anniversary sex. The Big One. It's an apology of sorts for Hell detaining him and a request that they meet tomorrow.

The scene ends with Crowley placing the phone back on the hook-- indicative of understood, secure communication, the likes of which will be on display in the following scenes of the 2008 minisode.

Talking (in Ineffable Husbands Speak). Both verbal communication and physical communication. Talking means speaking. Talking also means making love.

"Trust me." What Aziraphale mouths at Crowley in 1941 to get him to be in the moment enough to be able to fire the gun. Absolutely one of the things Aziraphale said to Crowley to help him relax in Rome.

"I knew you'd come through for me. You always do."

Aziraphale pouring Crowley another glass of wine (and alcohol = sex) and the wordplay kink out here in full force as there are three levels of meaning happening at once. Surface level is about their success with The Bullet Catch earlier in the evening. Aziraphale knew Crowley would come through for him-- "come through" in the sense of he can always rely upon Crowley to be there for him when he needs him to be.

To "come through" something, though, is also to get through to the other side of something-- to have been able to pull through a difficult time or a struggle-- and refers to Crowley always coming out of dark periods and not giving up. But there's really also the third meaning, which is just the direct innuendo:

Some serious 'tone of voice' at play in this bit here performing a little magic trick and making that 'through' disappear right out of first sentence lol, turning it into: I knew you'd come for me. You always do.

Aziraphale's never going to stop being thrilled at their Roman triumph here and is still happy to remind Crowley in 1941 that they both know Aziraphale just does it for him.

"Well, you said 'trust me', so..."

Just prior to this, Aziraphale had been telling Crowley the magic words he silently said to keep the photo of them from Furfur (more fish-- "bananafish").

"Well, you said 'trust me'..." is Crowley saying "well, you said my magic words, so..." Aziraphale invoked Rome and talked to him so he got there.

"And you did." And Crowley did trust him, so it worked.

Aziraphale, though, is not just thinking about earlier that night in that moment in 1941 when he's staring off, reminiscing, before looking at Crowley like that...

...he's thinking about Rome.

"To drain the whole sea/Get something shiny..." Lyrics from Hozier's "Take Me to Church", pretty uniformly agreed as the most Crowley song that has ever Crowley songed, and which is on his official playlist in S2.

Pearls. The shiny things found in the sea. The jewels harvested from within the opened protective shell left behind by emerged oysters.

The original post referred to a bit in this one:

[wardrobeoftime]

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story + Costumes

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s creme, golden & white wedding dress in Season 01, Episode 01 & 04.

// requested by @nasyanastya

[julienbakerstreet]

ACD Holmes Ephemera Flatlay Full list of canon references under the cut:

From left to right, top to bottom:

Simpson's restaurant matchbook (The Illustrious Client, The Dying Detective) [Simpson's is still in operation and this is actually one of their logos]

Newspaper clipping from the text entitled "Singular Occurrence at Fashionable Wedding" (The Noble Bachelor)

Ticket for The Gloria Scott (The Gloria Scott)

Visit Reichenbach brochure (The Final Problem)

Il Trovatore Opera advert (A Scandal in Bohemia) [Consulted Klinger's Annotated Holmes for a list of contralto roles Irene could have played]

Shag tobacco (Holmes's favorite, referenced throughout) [Hugh Campbell's is a real brand of shag from the period!]

Sarasate ticket at St. James's Hall (The Redheaded League)

Lysander Starr for Topeka button (The Three Garridebs) [This is a deep cut but if there's two things I love it's vintage political buttons and the name Lysander Starr]

The Diogenes Club matchbook (The Greek Interpreter, The Bruce-Partington Plans)

Arthur Pinner's Franco-Midland Hardware Co business card (The Stockbroker's Clerk)

Bradley Cigarettes (Holmes notes them as Watson's favorite in The Hound of the Baskervilles)

Sussex honey label (The Second Stain)

Come at once telegram (The Creeping Man)

Hotel Dulong label (The Reigate Squires)

Dancing men cipher (The Dancing Men)

Keep away from the moor note (The Hound of the Baskervilles)

Red-Headed League membership card (The Red-Headed League)

Wessex cup ticket (The Silver Blaze)

Underground ticket (The Red-Headed League)

Everything is based on real vintage ephemera, albeit not quite period-accurate because Victorian design gets boring quick <3

Might post individual designs later, but if anyone wants a specific design let me know!

[world-of-wales]

HAPPY 11TH BIRTHDAY TO THE SWEETEST AND CUTEST LITTLE MAN, HRH PRINCE GEORGE ALEXANDER LOUIS OF WALES (B. 22 JULY 2013) ♡

On 22 July 2013, Prince George was born to Catherine and William, then known as Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in St Mary's Hospital, at 16:24 BST weighing 8 pounds and 6 ounces. He was born during the reign of his paternal great-grandmother Elizabeth II and is the first child and eldest of Will & Cat.

The little prince's name was announced on 24 July as George Alexander Louis. George is one of his paternal grandfather King Charles’ middle names and was the regnal name of Queen Elizabeth's beloved father Albert. Alexander is the masculine version of Queen Elizabeth's middle name Alexandra and was also Catherine's top choice for a baby boy's name. Louis is in honour of his 3rd-great-uncle Earl Mountbatten of Burma - Louis, his father - Prince William and King Charles.

Georgie was was christened by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, on 23 October, in the Chapel Royal in St. James' Palace.

George spent the first few months of his life in Anglesey, Wales, before his family relocated to Kensington Palace in 2014. He started at West Acre Montessori School Nursery in 2016 when his family moved to Anmer Hall in Norfolk and then studied at at Thomas's School in Battersea. In 2022, George and his family relocated to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, after which he started at Lambrook School with his siblings.

Born as a Prince of Cambridge, he became HRH Princess George of Wales after his grandfather conferred his parents with the titles of the Prince and Princess of Wales. George was third in line to the throne upon his birth but is now second in line following hid dad taking over as the heir.

He made his official royal debut during the Cambridge tour of Australia & New Zealand in 2014. His first Palace balcony was in 2015 and has also joined his parents on official tours to Canada, Germany and Poland. Taking part in two royal weddings Georgie has also been a part of his great-grandmother's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022 and was a page of honour at his grandfather's coronation in 2023.

George is a keen tennis and football player (a huge Aston Villa & England fan) and loves rugby, cricket & triathlons. He is adores AC/DC and Led Zeppelin & is learning to play the electric guitar. Georgie is known to love the military and wanted to join the air cadets when he was younger.

He also loves helicopters and police cars and was a fan of Fireman Sam. As per his mum, he likes thunderstorms, and when younger T-rex, the dinosaur fascinated him the most. George spends a lot of time outdoors, helping out with the farm animals & is quite a competitive gardener.

[rogersandclarke]

our stefon story

hey, seth! can i talk to you for a second? sure thing lorne, what’s up? great. so basically i’m a little worried about the st patrick’s day sketch. oh why is that, lorne?

by the way the writing style is like to recall clarice lispector, william s. burroughs, james joyce, and SHAKESPEARE. because it’s a play. and mindy kaling, because she wrote matt and ben.

oh why is that lorne? glad you asked. seth–your character–who is YOU–is not supposed to kiss stefon. you are supposed to kindly accept it but you are not supposed to kiss back. kiss back? i don’t think i kissed back. Yes you did. really? i didn’t think i was. like, i just was acting like seth meyers normally would. i’m supposed to be myself, right? look, that’s fine, but you can’t be too gay on tv. i already agreed to let you have the wedding next year, but we have to do it in the edit. seth meyers can’t show reciprocal affection on television, we have to gay-bait the audience!

wait, i just don’t understand. i was just sitting there. i didn’t kiss him. ummm yeah we’ll see about that. roll the tape!!!

(the tape plays and it shows seth and stefon making out for five minutes while the director yells cut and john mulaney taps them on the shoulder and asks them to stop. “this isn’t in my script,” he says with his broad nasal sound from st ignatius high school).

seth runs out of the building. “oh fuck!” he thinks. “i didn’t do that, did i?” he screams to the sky. I LOVE MY FIANCÉ! I KNOW SHE WILL GIVE BIRTH VERY FASR IN THE LOBBY, HOSPITAL, AND MY BATHRUB!

STEFON exits the theatre, and approaches seth

STEFON: Hey baby. are you okay?

SETH: No. Why are you calling me baby

STEFON: I always call you baby when we’re not on set. See?

STEFON shows SETH a voice memo on his phone.

STEFON (V.O.): Hi baby, I just wanted to send you a voice memo cause i’m walk to the club right now but i really think you should come through, because you would love the dancing lion drag show tonight. It’s at Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round. and the password is Row row row you boat. I love you baby I love dating you I want to get serious in this abandoned meat factory.

SETH: Oh god, the fucking meat factory.

STEFON: Are you remembering?

SETH: YES. IT HURTS.

STEFON: you always forget me, and i always have to remind you who we are.

SETH: …

SETH (Cont.): Do I love you?

STEFON: I don’t know.

STEFON puts his hands to his face. SETH grabs them and holds them.

SETH: I think I do.

30 Rockefeller Plaza gleams above them. Tourists gaze on

TOURIST: I love my new Iphone 3

STEFON and SETH stop kissing.

TOURIST: Hey Are you guys Sethon? Can I have an autograph?

SETH and STRFON nod. They grab the pen and sign a hundred dollar bill while holding the pen at the same time. they write MRS SETHON MEYERS <3

TOURIST NOW KNOWN AS GAY TOURIST: I love you guys, your romance is so special to the community. it made my dog less homophobic to me. she loves “your mother and i are separating.”

SETH: Thanks. I’m still learning. I actually haven’t left my woman yet, and I don’t intend to, But it’s okay.

SETH looks at STEFON.

STEFON: I guess so.

SETH: I don’t know what to do.

STEFON: I can’t blame you. I also have another boyfriend.

SETH: Did our lovemaking trip mean nothing to you?

They share a meaningful look.

STEFON: Let’s dance it out.

SETH: Toure right. let’s go to WEEE LITTLE BAAABY

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

Miss Catherine Middleton attended the wedding of Lady Rose Windsor and George Gilman at The Queen's Chapel, St. James's Palace | July 19 2008

[warwickroyals]

Sunderland's Royal Jewel Vault (27/∞) ♛

↬ The Westminster Aquamarines

The Sunderlandian royal family has several magnificent parures of aquamarine jewellery. One of these collections, the Westminster Aquamarines, features some of the royal family’s oldest and most iconic jewels; uncovering their history takes us back nearly two hundred years. In 1830s, Sunderland was a lone constitutional monarchy in North America, bordered by the United States in the northeast and Mexico to the southwest. The early 19th century had seen the country’s steady expansion westward thanks to territorial acquisitions from the Spanish and British. This period of territorial and economic growth, however, was cut short by the early death of Sunderland’s Hereditary Prince in 1835. Hereditary Prince Frederick James was just shy of thirty, the only son of King Louis III and his beloved first wife, Princess Amelia of the United Kingdom. Freddie was also the only legitimate male-line grandson of King Louis II, as a result, his death complicated Sunderland’s succession. The question of who would succeed Louis III ignited a fierce rivalry among the King’s younger brothers, as they scrambled to marry and produce an heir to the throne. The Duke of Lennox and St. George, the King’s first brother and heir presumptive, married an obscure German princess. The Duke of Glencairn, the King’s second brother, married the daughter of a wealthy British statesman. But it was the King’s fifth brother, Prince Augustus, the Duke of Westminster, who looked for a bride closer to home. Lady Martha Whitley was twenty years younger than her husband-to-be, a descendant of the Prussian nobility that migrated to Sunderland following the election of Prince Heinrich of Prussia as King Louis I of Sunderland, Martha hailed from one of Sunderland’s oldest aristocratic families. Unlike some of her foreign, and significantly younger, sisters-in-law Martha was shrewd and held a deep familiarity of Sunderland's court life, this was reflected in her impressive jewelry collection. On her wedding day, Martha was gifted a small box of aquamarine pendants of various shapes and sizes. As Martha’s prominence at court grew, the aquamarines became known as the Duchess of Westminster’s Aquamarines. Over the years, the Duchess incorporated the aquamarines into a few pieces of jewelry including a necklace and a pair of earrings. The tensions surrounding Sunderland’s succession died down when the British-born Prince George of Glencairn became king in 1860. By then Westminsters had three children, Prince Louis, who became Duke of Westminster following his father’s death in 1877; Prince Thomas, and Princess Elizabeth Anne. The family was popular with nobility and the public alike, but they weren’t without their scandals. After Prince Louis enraged King George by marrying without permission, his subsequent children were declared illegitimate and barred from inheritance. Finding a suitable wife for Prince Thomas, now heir to the Westminster Dukedom, became a top priority. In 1876, Prince Thomas met and fell in love with Princess Marie of Hanover, a male-line great-granddaughter of King George III and therefore a British princess. The couple married in 1880, but struggled to have children. In 1887, their only surviving child was born in the presence of Queen Alexandra. The little princess, given the lengthy name Alexandra Anne Martha Georgina Dagmar Gloriana Marie, would be known to history as Princess Anne of Westminster. Growing up, Anne was placed in the direct care of her Dear Granny Martha.

My grandmother was magnificent. She was kind but strict, with old-fashioned ideas about how a princess should be brought up. - Queen Anne of Sunderland, circa 1953

The Duchess of Westminster had high hopes for her only male-line granddaughter. Indeed, Anne’s maternal cousins were well-connected to the British and Danish royals, as well as the Imperial families of Russia and Germany. By the time Anne was twenty, she’d been taken on several trips to Europe, excursions she came to loathe. Anne’s anxiety worsened when she was rejected by several families. After her mother died in Austria, Anne returned from Europe “alone and feeling rather sorry for myself”. Back in Sunderland, Anne made friends with her second cousin once-removed, Prince George, the Duke of Woodbine and eldest son of the Prince and Princess of Danforth. Over the years, the pair’s friendship developed into a romance and in 1911, King George allowed the couple to marry. That same year, the Duchess of Westminster died, and Anne inherited the largest jewel collection in the royal vault, aquamarines included. Anne and George married in 1913. Anne, now Duchess of Woodbine, was one the most dynastically important ladies at court and she set to work reworking her grandmother’s jewels into spectacular works of art. For King George and Queen Alexandra’s 1920 Diamond Jubilee, Anne commissioned Garrard to work the aquamarines into a parure that included a necklace, a choker, two brooches, and a pair of earrings. The parure paired nicely with the aquamarine Georgiyevna Tiara, which entered the family in the early 1920s. To this day, the Georgiyevna aquamarines are often mistaken for those of the Westminster set, showing how ubiquitous they’ve become with the main-line royal family’s collection. When Anne became Queen in 1930, she wore the aquamarines. Despite her overflowing jewellery box, the aquamarines were evidently her favourite and became synonymous with her name and legacy. The Westminster aquamarines have remained iconic long after Queen Anne’s time. Queen Irene became another famous wearer of the suite, wearing the choker as both a necklace and a headband in the 1980s. Queen Anne was an important figure to Irene during the early years of her marriage, and she wears nearly all of the jewels her grandmother-in-law left to her. In the 2010s, Tatiana, then the Princess of Danforth was seen in bits and pieces of the suite, notably the choker, signalling that the jewels will be carried on into the next generation.

Queen Anne of Sunderland, wife of King George II, wears the Westminster aquamarines with the Georgiyevna tiara for a promotional image, circa 1930

Queen Irene of Sunderland, wearing a powder blue satin evening gown along with the Westminster aquamarine choker as a headband, attends a gala dinner on April 30, 1984 in Auckland, New Zealand