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I tried to wash my nose with my nose irrigator bc mild irritation. accidentally got the blasted saline into my ear, now I have a nose irritation, an ear irritation and a migraine, accompanied by the fear of I might have an ear infection bc of the saline to seal the damn deal.

Yeah, well done team.

#fuck

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The 3 Main Schools of Necromancy.

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Rebologging because of the tag.

I’m silently screaming in interaction alone while being very very anxious.

The urge to bother my mutuals

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I hope Amazon gets their shit together and pays their writers and actors and renews GO because I fear no man more than Michael Sheen if he’s ever told GO3 isn’t happening.

#Michael will go feral #David and Neil are more accomplices than supervisors #Jeff you better sleep with your eyes open if you cancel in retaliation #Fear the Welsh

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So I was watching this old video again because the new Good Omens season triggered my obsession with Neil Gaiman's stories that creeps up periodically ( and his voice is soothing to listen to while I draw) And at about 1:25:30 there's a part that really made me giggle, cause this is what he says when asked about themes in his work:

"I remember once somebody asked me about the kiss that would occur in my books three quarters of the way through, to indicate that we were now moving into act three. And I said 'what'. And they said 'well you must be conscious of it, you do it every time.'"

And I mean...

#I have read a lot of Neil Gaiman is a mood #neil gaiman

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The show I want to see David Tennant and Michael Sheen co-star in once GO is complete: They each play a cop in neighboring towns. Each of them is also secretly a serial killer who goes to the town over to commit their murders in order to avoid detection. There’s a third serial killer killing in both towns that causes them to have to team up. So they’re both trying to find the third serial killer together while also trying to catch each other separately. Obviously this ends with them falling in love and when they find out they’re each other’s serial killers they decide to pin all the murders on the third killer. The third killer turns out to be Neil Gaiman.

#so basically….plot ex machina Neil #I wasn’t on board until I read to the end #now this is the only thing I wanna watch

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Who is it?💕

#my only options are #ineffable husbands 1941 edition #or their wine glasses #this is not a marriage this is an adoption #I am not disappointed

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THIS ENTIRE INTERACTION IS SO PURE

"I'm like you now....a Demon!"

("You precious, precious little cherub...")

*heart shattered*

(can't even) "Sorry! Sorry!" XD

(so innocent)

"You really think you're a demon?"

(complete toddler meltdown) "I'm a Fallen Angel!"

("Ohh, he actually believes he's going to Hell. Alright...let's de-escalate things a bit.")

"I LIED...to thwart the Will of God!" (this poor lamb)

"Well yeah, you did but...I'm not going to tell anyone. Are you?"

(You sweet, precious, dear, little cinnamon roll . It's going to be okay. Bildad the Shuhite is guarding over you.)

"Well....then nothing has to change!"

#bildad the father figure #bildad the guardian of wayward cherubs #bildad the patron shuhite of cinnamon roll angels #this post is complete with these prev tags #this whole scene has a it’s alright baby steps vibe #BilDAD confirmed

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Yeah.

This post is less Good Omens- related and more personal, but there's been a lot of arguing over "representation" in the fandom the past few days. The strong feelings people express are awesome but ALSO I really want us in the community to appreciate and listen to one another.

People want to KILL queer people. There are still many, many places where it is not safe to have any identity other than cis het. Fighting that means sticking together, not tearing each OTHER apart. Allosexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, cis, trans, nonbinary, gender queer, GNC... we're all part of this community and we're stronger together.

In Good Omens, Neil Gaiman gave us a glimpse of what a world could be if people got to decide for themselves how to present and who to love without the hate and prejudice that inevitably comes along with that in the real world. I know people are questioning exactly what Crowley and Aziraphale are and how they identify, which is fine (honestly I don't know that we'll ever find out for sure. It may be something private between the two of them). But saying things like "it's homophobic" (for them to be ace), or "it's acephobic" (for them to be gay) sort of defeats the purpose of "it's a love story", doesn't it? At the end of the day, maybe it doesn't matter what EXACTLY they are. They're unapologetically QUEER and their story is for and about all of us.

It's okay to disagree. It's okay to ask questions. I mean, that's the moral of Good Omens, isn't it? We don't have to be the same; we SHOULDN'T all be the same... there's strength and beauty in our differences. But even if we don't all agree with one another, let's support each other.

I see them as gay male coded beings who have chosen that identity for themselves and would enjoy sexual pleasure as much as any other earthly pleasure. If YOU see them as agender or nonbinary sexless entities who are QPR or ace or aroace and would never have sex, I SUPPORT THE HELL OUT OF YOUR RIGHT TO DO SO. I'm in your corner and I will fight for you.

Love you all. Love that we love the ineffable love story of Good Omens, whatever form that takes, and let's lift each other up rather than tearing each other down.

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Romantic expectations and the story we didn't see: A magic trick hiding in plain sight

Here's a hopeful meta for all my fellow celestial brainrot sufferers out there. Cheers! :)

This idea started as a dead end, trying to track the movements of Crowley’s sideburns/tattoo because I thought time travel shenanigans were afoot. I had to abandon that theory when it was pointed out that David was simultaneously filming as the sideburns-having Fourteenth Doctor, and in-universe Crowley can do whatever he wants with his facial hair whenever he feels like it. But hey - null findings are still findings!

On the bright side, pausing the show to make notations in a spreadsheet forced me to slow down and notice other changes I'd overlooked the first time around: acting choices, costuming choices, references to book lore. And possibly a few surreptitious flicks of the wrist, in places where we’re meant to be focused on the magician’s other hand.

@amuseoffyre and @ineffablefood had a great exchange recently about romance and “the significance of misdirection and three-in-one (magic) tricks” throughout the show. I suspect Neil has done something brilliant with the audience’s long-standing expectations (since the 1990s, really) for the love story between Crowley and Aziraphale to develop. And while it is a wonderful story indeed, playing to this expectation lets Neil distract his audience from the blink-and-you'll-miss-them seeds he's planting for the final chapter.

Continued below the cut...

Let’s start at the beginning of Episode 2. First, context: In the previous installment, Crowley stormed out of the bookshop, was whisked away to Hell by Beelzebub where he learns about the Book of Life threat to Aziraphale’s existence, then returned to the bookshop to dance a little apology dance and hide Gabriel with an unintentionally massive joint miracle. In S2E2, we and Shax catch up with Crowley as he's snoozing in the Bentley.

Shax: “You’re in trouble”

A. J. Crowley, cool as a cucumber: “Obviously. Former demon, hated by Heaven, loathed by Hell. How will our hero cope?”

Interesting! Sarcastic? Yes, absolutely; but that’s also a good 4500 years and an averted apocalypse away from “I’m a demon. I lie,” wouldn’t you say? Someone is sounding a whole lot less depressed and aimless and navel-gazey (do snakes have navels?), and a whole lot more like he’s got a project to focus on, since his "what's the point?" ruminations on the park bench in E1.

And of course we all noticed the costume change right away. Hello, black turtleneck. Feeling cute today, thought I’d cover up my graceful long neck? That sounds unlikely. Let’s put a pin in this one.

There’s also an interesting acting choice going on here. Crowley speaks to Shax in a funny, drawling, too-cool-for-you voice that we haven’t heard in a while. Specifically, not since 1967. If you go back and give the S1E3 scene in the Dirty Donkey a listen, you’ll hear it (and if you know of another instance of it that I've missed, please let me know!). In S2E2, he keeps up this odd voice (if anybody knows what kind of affect this is supposed to be, please do tell!) throughout this dialogue with Shax, except for the brief moment when she first surprises him about the joint miracle having been detected.

1967 was a fun year. Crowley masterminded a heist! And seemed like he was having a ball doing it, right up until his little caper was called off after Aziraphale brought him the thermos of holy water. Crowley spoke to his co-conspirators in that same funny, very 60’s-caper-film voice. He wore a hip 60’s turtleneck. He bought petrol for the only time ever, so he could get those sweet James Bond bullet hole decals for his car (per the book, seen on the Bentley in the show).

Those James Bond bullet hole decals would of course have been part of a promotion for this 1967 release, which you just know our film-enjoying demon went to see in the theater:

Starring this suave, be-turtlenecked guy:

And now - begging your forgiveness - a brief rant.

There are a number of posts out there that refer to Crowley’s S2E2 turtleneck as a flirtatious sartorial choice - actually, ‘slutty’ seems to be the favored accusation. There are even a few posts floating around commenting on how sweet it is that Crowley swaps out his slutty, kinky, throw-me-over-your-desk-and-take-me turtleneck for a more dressy and appropriate collared shirt specifically to attend Aziraphale’s Jane Austen ball. 

Now this is all in good fun, and Crowley does indeed look fantastic here, and I do love a good fangirling sesh as much as the next person. However, fandom’s collective tendency to interpret what we are seeing on the screen through the lens of romantic expectation can, at times, give rise to a kind of blinkered enthusiasm that obscures the original text in a haze that is part Mandela Effect, part unrestrained horniness, and part in-group code talking and identity reinforcement.

Respectfully, Crowley’s black turtleneck does not appear at all in S2E5: The Ball. In fact, it never appears again after the end of S2E2.

For Someone’s sake, let’s collectively pull our heads out of the romantic fog/gutter for a moment and focus on what we are actually seeing in the book and on the screen. For Crowley, this is an uncharacteristic within-period costume change. There is a surreptitious flick of the wrist happening here, out in broad daylight, and we are all missing it.

So here’s a thing. Aziraphale appears to have settled comfortably into life on Earth, his neighborhood, his books, using Crowley as an outlet for sharing his good deeds that he would once have reported to Heaven. Meanwhile, at first glance, Crowley appears stuck in a rut. There he slouches on a park bench with Shax in S2E1: a guy who lives in his car, stagnantly clinging to old familiar habits, mulling over the pointlessness of it all.

Setting aside the bit about living in the Bentley (I’m going to attribute this to well-documented issues between him and Aziraphale, discussed in many other excellent metas, and move on), Crowley has at least two very good, proactive reasons for maintaining his contact with Hell through Shax. First and foremost, it’s a source of information he can use to keep ahead of potential threats to Aziraphale and himself.

But also, I would posit…he kinda likes it.

Recall that book GO was first conceived as a parody, with Aziraphale and Crowley as spy-against-spy (but not really) field operatives in an ages-old cold war between Heaven and Hell. Their entire book dynamic is rooted in the trope of two opposing agents who have been in the field for so long that they now have more in common with each other than with their respective head offices. Their St. James’s Park meetings among other spies and ministers trading secrets are a sendup of what was once a well-known Cold War-era cliché. 

Our contemporary Crowley still likes slick outfits and hellaciously expensive watches and high-performing vintage cars and pens that write underwater while looking like they could break the speed limit. He coaches Shax on how to blend in as a demon on Earth, and he helpfully redirects the wayward contact looking for the Azerbaijani sector chief. He loves improvising and getting away with shenanigans under the institutional radar. And boy golly was he impressed with Jane Austen: master spy, brandy smuggler, and mastermind of the 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. 

And if you look at it a certain way, for as long as Crowley has considered himself to be on “[his] own side” - going at least as far back as Job - he could almost think of himself as a sort of double agent. It’s actually a very romantic sort of notion, befitting our hopeless romantic of a (professedly former) demon; but it’s romantic in a very different way than we, the audience, have been primed to watch for.

In other words, in a very “on my own side” kind of way, Crowley really gets a kick out of being a spy. Or at least, dressing up and accessorizing as one, and moonlighting as a good-doing double agent when he can get away with it. And also being a plotting criminal mastermind. Two sides of a coin, really. Just look at Jane Austen.

My point is: No, Crowley did not wait around for Shax to come find him in a turtleneck so that he could go flirt with Aziraphale later. He’ll flirt with Aziraphale no matter what. No, this:

is actually this:

Much like the one he wears to the Dirty Donkey in 1967: 

whilst holy water heist-plotting. Here's a clearer shot with gratuitous Bentley, because I love them:

…and which he'll wear again, with appropriate camouflage, while infiltrating Heaven in S2E6:

That is the 1967 planning a HEIST turtleneck for committing ESPIONAGE and STEALING THINGS in. Because turtlenecks are what modern human master spies wear to get their hands dirty - after all, he saw it in a movie once. 

Crowley dons his tactical turtleneck sometime during the first major break in the action (which doesn't happen until after the joint miracle to hide Gabriel) after he learns about the threat the Book of Life poses to Aziraphale. Loverboy started mentally preparing himself to go after that book immediately upon learning that it was in play as a genuine threat. 

Now let’s pick up at the S2E2 Dirty Donkey scene, reading the story from this angle. Of course, Crowley enables Aziraphale’s delusions about Heaven by hiding information from him, and does not disclose the Book of Life threat when they meet again. They go into the pub, Aziraphale shamelessly paws Crowley’s chest like the seductive Bond Girl he is, and Crowley gets to act all smooth and suave and intimidating as he chases off the interloping Mr. Brown (or Mr. Collins for the Pride & Prejudice fans, take your pick).

Ergo, theory: beginning in S2E2, Crowley is already thinking of himself as a Jane Austen/James Bond action hero (“How will our hero cope?”), psyching himself up to rescue Aziraphale by getting his spy game on and stealing the Book of Life.

Now, watch closely...This is where Aziraphale and Crowley brainstorm their plans to solve the problem they both know about: getting Maggie and Nina to fall in love and thereby get Heaven off their backs. Crowley’s vavoom plan is drawn from yet another movie (“Get humans wet and staring into each other’s eyes - vavoom, sorted. I saw it in a Richard Curtis film.”). But Crowley also implicitly shares his solution to the problem he hasn’t told Aziraphale about. And true to form, Crowley’s Jane Austen solution isn’t the same as Aziraphale’s Jane Austen solution. 

Two solutions that fail by the end of Season 2, and a secret third one that might still work...and there's our magic trick of three.

‘“I’m lost. Am I doing a rainstorm?” Yes, babe. And a heist, too - just not until season three. Can I get a wahoo!? 

I won’t spend time on A Companion to Owls during this meta, except to note that in all three minisodes, we get to watch stories that involve Crowley acting as a double agent on “his/their own side” - successfully making Hell and Heaven think he’s fulfilling their will while saving Job’s goats and children; failing to fool Hell when he does a good deed in Edinburgh; and of course, collaborating with Aziraphale whilst evading detection as an infernal turncoat during the Blitz.

(Because this is getting long, I'll also skip over Crowley's interrogation of Jim in this episode - I'll probably come back to that in another meta. But interrogating is a rather spy-ish thing to do.)

When we catch up with Crowley again later, he’s already slipped out of the bookshop, having left Aziraphale to his biblical reverie about Job. He saunters snakily down Whickber Street as usual, but with a very pointed and swift glance over his shoulder (see pic above). This demon is up to something - possibly something we didn’t get to see, something that may have happened offscreen while he stepped out. In any case, knowing there’ve been unfriendly angels in the neighborhood that morning, he’s rightly concerned about being spied on.

From this point until the beginning of episode six, there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity for Crowley to make any next moves. He babysits the bookshop, during which time he manages to wring some crucial information out of Jim; he follows his Crowley’s Angel around like a puppy, and downs a bottle of red like a good old fashioned lovesick boy once that’s been pointed out to him. If any plotting or scheming is underway, this occult being is keeping stumm for now.

This has been a long one, so I’ll wrap up with Crowley’s infiltration of Heaven with Muriel. The turtleneck disguise works (Archer fans, be vindicated!) long enough to gather some information that will be crucial not just to the denouement of S2, but also to Crowley’s journey in S3 (previous post on Crowley's Fall, Saraqael, and memory wiping). And Aziraphale gets to enjoy that view exactly zero times. The point isn’t oh, a turtleneck! How flirty! So cunty! So cute! Y’all. Everything matters. The costume change was a deliberate choice. In-universe, Crowley’s decision to wear his special spy turtleneck for spying in is a signal that he is out doing spy things, even as we watch.

In sum: Beginning in S2E2 and continuing through the end of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley are actively living out the scripts of two parallel, concurrent, and completely different Jane Austen stories. But you and I, dear fellow audience member, we came here for a comedy with a hefty jigger of romance, and that’s what Neil gave us to focus on. And right up until the Final 15, that was the only story we saw.

Meanwhile, Special Agent A. J. Crowley doesn’t have time to mope around at the end of S2E6. He’s kicked down, but he’s not out. He's got a Book of Life to steal, a very serious bone to pick with a certain memory-wiping angel, and his Angel and the world to save. 

“‘Heigh ho,’ said [romantic, optimist, former demon, hero, master spy] Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway.”

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Maher you do know that your bloody show relied on writers more than anything else right? Gosh I hope they desert you faster than you could say Jack Robinson after this you absolute fucking twat.

rooting for all his writers to desert him

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Yeah, and? Am I suppose to feel bad for you? Not gonna happen, you lit the thing up yourself, now enjoy the pyrotechnics.

okay and writers and actors are struggling to pay rent???

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They weren’t talking back in the 30s, so Aziraphale probably just knew Crowley would purchase a car, then decides to get license just in bloody case. Talk about knowing your significant other.

so, you know, a couple of things:

s2 is set in 2023 (ie around 4 years after s1)

voluntary uk driving tests were introduced in 1935, so around 90 years ago

bentley in the show is the 1933 model, and crowley has "had [her] from new"

im fairly certain im connecting dots here

this bitch

#ineffable husbands #good omens #the sheer audacity #the married vibe could be observed from outer space.

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What OP said.

I said once in a separate post and I’ll say it again here. I’m a firm believer in this one old Chinese saying basically says objects often bear characteristics resembling their owners. If the sword resembles its first owner even in the slightest……Yeah, things are about to get messy upstairs.

Crowley’s fatal flaw is curiosity. He is fundamentally an optimist, although he tries not to be. He likes to explore, and snoop around places he shouldn’t go, and ask questions, and use the funny new human technologies. He likes watching things grow. He’s a creator.

His first gift to humanity was knowledge.

Now Aziraphale is fundamentally a realist, even a pessimist. Before he even knew that it was possible to Fall, he was afraid about what seeming to go up against The Plan could mean. He worries about the potential horrible outcomes of everything, even going unarmed into the wilderness. He wants to keep everyone safe, even if that sometimes means doing hard things to ensure an ultimate good. He’s a protector.

His first gift to humanity was a weapon.

One of these beings usually sits in a shop devoted to the passing on of knowledge, but doesn’t actually want to pass it on to anyone. One of these beings refuses to bring harm any innocent thing when there is a chance he can reduce suffering.

Heaven has assumed that Aziraphale’s fatal flaw is that he’s soft, and weak willed. That he’s someone easy to manipulate. But they’re wrong. Because Aziraphale is not soft, and his fatal flaw is his inability to compromise on his beliefs.

Now, I don’t know about anyone else. But to me, one of those two beings sounds a lot more unpredictable and dangerous than the other, and it’s not the one currently crying to Michael Bublé in a car full of plants. The one I’m more concerned about is currently being given the tools to bring about the end of the world.

And God knows what he did with the last tool heaven gave him.

#good omens #aziraphale #there will be havoc in heaven #and I cannot wait to see it

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Someone is very protective.

The fact that hell’s directory of angels tells any demon who has had any interactions with Aziraphale to immediately report to Crowley is such a funny detail. They really have been playing the long game.

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I don’t think we talk enough about how the head demons used to be Crowley’s friend group up in Heaven. I really desperately want to know more about “Lucifer and the guys.” I want to know about him piggybacking around with Furfur and how he and Beelzebub used to tell scary stories to cherubs.

I want to know what happened after The Fall. Did they drift apart slowly? Did it start before that? Did it happen all at once? Did he tell them he never wanted this? When did the people he once thought to be his friends start dragging him down to Hell for punishment? When did Lucifer begin to terrify him? When did Beelzebub? Were Hastur and Ligur a part of that group? When did they decide he wasn’t worth trusting? When did he start to dread the next time they would meet? Did the loneliness set in gradually or did he realize with a start that he was all alone?

The more I think about the differences between the Crowley that we know and the Angel we met in the season 2 opener, the more tragic it becomes. They used to be his friends.

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hello, apologies if you’ve already answered this but i couldn’t find it elsewhere

there’s a scene where aziraphale says he’s using a new cologne, recommended to him by his barber. why does he go to a barber? do celestial beings grow and subsequently have to trim their hair? do celestial being grow at all? do their corporeal forms require self hygiene/maintenance?

i also thought it was kind of odd that mr “wears exactly one outfit for decades at a time” fell would just switch up his cologne on a whim. out of curiosity, how long ago was that suggestion actually made to him? long enough for crowley to have noticed the change and already made peace with it, seemingly

thats all, ciao

No, celestial beings don't. But Aziraphale likes doing things that people do, and he likes being pampered. He'll have been going to the same barber's shop for over 200 years now, after all. Probably the last stocks of the cologne that he's been using since 1970 just ran out and they needed a new one...

#Ooooooh