#master spy

[drconstellation]

Inside the Dirty Donkey

**Warning! This meta contains spoilers and speculation for S3. Do NOT tag Neil!**

Time to get comfy, folks. Get your drink of choice, be it a cupperty, coffee, or nip of sherry, and find a seat. You’ll definitely want to be sitting down for this one. We’re going to the pub!

The name is apparently a favorite of NG’s, used in his short story “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale.” And it also appears in the Sandman AU.

In the short story above the protagonist is a jilted lover who tries to organize an assassin for his fiancé who is having an affair with another man at their shared workplace. He meets the ‘salesman’ of the firm he contacts at a pub called the Dirty Donkey, and it escalates from there. The story is freely available online, so you can search it up if you really want to read it, it won’t take long. It mentions a pale horse, which is usually what Death rides in on, and is appropriate in the context of that story.

The question we need to ask is how does the name The Dirty Donkey apply to the Good Omens AU? Are there any context to the name at all?

There are several meanings for a dirty donkey:

Its a slang or joke name for a black horse (not particularly a dark horse, that has a different meaning altogether)

A cocktail

A sex position (I’ll let you look that one up yourself…)

Probably the first thing we need to talk about, though is an actual donkey itself, in relation to Jesus, as S2 is full of Jesus references and hints to the Second Coming in S3. Yep, it was all there in front of us, but we were too focused on other things. If you remember your Bible teachings, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, because he came in peace. In ancient times leaders rode horses if they went to war, or if they came in conquest. But arriving by donkey meant you came with peaceful intentions.

But Jesus didn't turn up in S2, you say. And certainly not on any hairy beast. Ah, but he did - metaphorically. Gabriel as Jim turned up - he came up the street, by (the Dirty) Donkey, walking through spilled blood tomatoes, then mentioned his arms were no longer sore (because he had been taken off the cross.) MrPeriod talks more about how Jim represents Jesus here, and it might be worth revisiting it at length another time, as there is quite a bit to unpack there.

There are also the two big golden lions perched on either end of the bar inside the pub, that look rather ominous. The lions are strongly connected to Jesus and his resurrection, representing his return. (I'm still planning to have a better look for more lions in both S1 and S2, but that is still a WIP at the moment.)

There is also the scene in 1941 where the Nazi zombies stagger into the Dirty Donkey and spy on Aziraphale and Crowley through the windows through to the book shop, but all they manage to get is “Banana, fish, gorilla, shoe lace with a dash of nutmeg.” It sounds a bit like a cocktail reference – well, the nutmeg is definitely a GO ref to a certain cocktail – but the cocktail called a Dirty Donkey has cinnamon in it, in the form of cinnamon schnapps, not nutmeg – plus chocolate liqueur and rum. So maybe not.

But perhaps the most important thing we have to examine is the conversation about Jane Austin that Aziraphale and Crowley have in the pub, in S2E2. Because its got so many levels you just about need a break for extra oxygen half way down. Ha! And you thought it was a couple of funny throw-away lines about how Aziraphale saw human romance...

OK, this is the section of dialogue we are going to look at:

AZIRAPHALE: If you're going to invoke fiction, you might as well do it properly. CROWLEY: Properly? AZIRAPHALE: You remember Jane Austen? CROWLEY: Yeah. I'm not gonna forget her in a hurry, am I? The brains behind the 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. Brandy smuggler. Master spy. What a piece of work. AZIRAPHALE: She wrote books. Novels. CROWLEY: Jane? Austen? AZIRAPHALE: Yes! CROWLEY: Whoa, bit of a dark horse. Novels, eh? AZIRAPHALE: Yes. They were very good. CROWLEY: Well. No, I'm just surprised, that's all. You think you know someone. AZIRAPHALE: She had balls. CROWLEY: Well.... AZIRAPHALE: Cotillion balls. People would gather and do some formal dancing and then realize they had misunderstood each other and were actually deeply in love.

Ready to dive into the levels on the Jane Austen conversation? Let's go...

Level 1: It’s a conversation about the novelist Jane Austen, and it sounds like they both met her, but they remember her in different ways – and Crowley’s memory is rather surprising!

Level 2: There is a mention of a robbery. This makes the parallel with the 1967 scene in S1E3 Hard Times, where Crowley has a secret meeting in the Dirty Donkey to plan a robbery to steal holy water from a church. The robbery in the above conversation involves diamonds (are you taking note/s? This is important!) from Clerkenwell, a district of London of some notoriety. It was famous for it watchmakers and jewelers, but it was also the home of Oliver Cromwell, who has a link to the 1650 date mentioned in S2E1 and the Eccles cakes, to Charles Dickens (author of A Tale of Two Cities, a book of note for GO) Oh, and both times Crowley is wearing a "Tactical Turtleneck", which others have noted he wears when he is doing his own master spy work, such planning or discussing robberies, or sneaking into Heaven to rob them of information!

Level 3: There is Aziraphale’s idea about how a romance should be conducted, by hosting a cotillion ball with formal dancing, because he's read all those romantic novels by Austen. And we get to see that played out in S2E5 in the eldritch ball. Crowley's idea of a romance was to get caught in the rain and kiss, then - vavoom!

Level 4: Why mention this apparently fictional side to an author of fictional romance? Well, on one hand, it’s an interesting but dark set-up for a joke later at the beginning of S2E6. I ended up discussing it at length here, but the short of it is that it is our usual human custom not to speak ill of the dead, and this is a form of extreme black-and-white thinking. Here, Aziraphale speaks of the good/white side of Jane Austen, that is well known, but Crowley speaks of the black/supposedly forgotten or unspoken bad side of Austen.

Level 5: Here’s the S3 information. Have you been paying attention? Did you take note? The parallels were the robberies between a church, and diamonds? That she was a brandy smuggler? Do you know where they smuggled brandy from? And do you know where Austen actually lived? On the South Downs, overlooking the Channel to France…

Whew. I think I need a drink after that. Cheers!

[Edit: I've recently finished a meta on the Bentley and how that relates to black horses, and it's occurred to me why the ethereal lift, or "hellevator," is in the entrance to the Dirty Donkey. Black horses are symbolic spirit guides between the worlds of the living and the dead, so this makes the perfect place to put the lift!]

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #good omens analysis #the dirty donkey #the pub #hard times #holy water heist #1967 crowley #jim as jesus #jane austen #cottage on the south downs #master spy #a sherry for me #tactical turtleneck #vavoom

[marshvlovestv]

Each MBTI Type as One of the Last 50 Games I Played (Part 5)

ENFJ: Saltsea Chronicles

ENFP: Slay the Princess

ENTJ: One Step from Eden

ENTP: Citizen Sleeper

ESFJ: Chants of Sennaar

ESFP: IMMORTALITY

ESTJ: Strange Horticulture

ESTP: Monster Prom

INFJ: Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

INFP: Cartomancy Anthology

INTJ: Master Spy

INTP: Genesis Noir

ISFJ: Promesa

ISFP: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

ISTJ: Black Book

ISTP: Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

#my bag of games #mbti #saltsea chronicles #slay the princess #one step from eden #citizen sleeper #chants of sennaar #immortality #strange horticulture #monster prom #harmony: the fall of reverie #cartomancy anthology #master spy #genesis noir #promesa #stray gods #black book #turnip boy commits tax evasion

[kneedecker]

Neil Gaiman’s Jane Austen spinoff series when?

#neil gaiman #jane austen #good omens #1810 clerkenwell diamond robbery #brandy smuggler #master spy #dark horse #she had balls #go2

[all-action-all-picture]

Free Gift from 40 years ago in April 1983! New Banana flavoured Bubblicious! Only in Tiger! Treasury of British Comics.

#02apr #1983 #bubble gum #bubblicious #tiger #treasury of british comics #fisty flynn #master spy #billy's boots #hot shot hamish

[tutchando74]

Master Spy little review

This game is pretty fun, but hard.

The style of the game is very good. Being a pixelated with a VHS aesthetic makes this game very beautiful. Aside from the style of this game alone that is pretty cool.

The music for this game has a style to it that makes the game much better.

The gameplay is pretty simple. It's a stealth, plataform game. It can be very hard and infuriating to play this game, because it's a fail type of game, where you fail a lot of times before you actually complete it, but there is a story mode, that makes you invencible and you literally cannot fail a mission, wich is pretty cool.

#master spy #game review

[aerequets]

anya knows all the cuss words 

(edited with my watermark that i forgot oops)

buy me a coffee

#spy x family #sxf #spy x family art #spy x family comic #sxf art #sxf comic #sxf fanart #spy x family fanart #sxf anya #sxf master henderson #sxf henderson #henry henderson #sxf yor #sxf loid #sxf bond #sxf damian #damian desmond #anya forger #yor forger #loid forger #bond forger #my art #my comic

[gearbroth]

Didn't know what to draw so I doodled a lil bit of everything on my mind :D

#tf2 #engiespy #miguel o'hara #spiderman 2099 #gordon freeman #tf2 engineer #tf2 spy #twilight sparkle #sunset shimmer #geralt of rivia #vernon roche #geroche #twiset #practical espionage #emperor belos #he's sortve there hfdsjk #galaxia #eyelander #master sword #idk im just rifling off things i spy ahjsdka #anyway ye #what happens when i dont draw for a week i guess sdhfjkds #myart

[deadsetobsessions]

DCxDP Writing Prompt: (I wrote some myself but yk)

Ghost was Gotham’s first cryptid. That’s right. Even before Batman. He’d established himself in the city as someone who takes care of things, helps the weak, aid some of the strong trying to do good. His information network sprawled the expanse of the city. In between the day the Waynes died and Batman’s reappearance, Ghost set up shop and slowly began to remove the sludge clinging to Gotham’s spirit.

Danny thought the name was a little bit on the nose but as someone who used to go by Invis-o-bill, he definitely wasn’t complaining.

Besides, people had accidentally aligned with ghost culture when they began calling Gotham his haunt. It was, and having people recognize that helped to boost his core. It was his haunt, and while he was taking down mob bosses, they were also considered his to take care of.

Which meant Danny felt it the moment Batman stepped into his haunt. He stayed his immediate violent reaction only because Gotham herself materialized to stop him from scalping the guy. She whispered to him how his parents died on these streets, how she wanted to choose him as her Knight. The Lady Gotham looked at her King, and asked him to withhold his judgement, bowed her head and pleaded.

Danny, eyes glowing a toxic green, stared at her until the rage from Batman’s presence- invader! trying to steal his haunt!- had calmed.

And he agreed, probationally.

The Ghost stood back and watched, commanding his network of people to assess and judge the Bat as a possible asset. A possible ally.

And so the Ghost’s continent of people, from prostitutes to white collar workers, from street kids to socialites, watched.

And Lady Gotham’s knight proved himself. And he found one of Ghost’s informants. And Danny?

Danny tilted his head back and laughed, glad he allowed Bruce Wayne to live despite his unknowing transgression.

#danny phantom #bamf danny phantom #Danny Phantom is Ghost King #Lady Gotham #batman #bruce wayne #Danny is a cryptid #not shown is Danny dipping a quesadilla in booze #Danny made Gotham his haunt to help the cursed Lady Gotham #dc x dp #dc x dp writing prompt #before the robins #Danny is like a spy master that kicks ass on the side #baby Bruce Wayne who doesn’t know his fate was decided by a teenage ghost king #Bruce gets Danny’s approval when he decks a clown

[tonsillessscum]

#doctor who #dr who #dw memes #doctor who memes #the doctor #theta sigma #13th doctor #thirteenth doctor #the master #koschei #spy!doc #dhawan!master #sacha dhawan #missy doctor who #missy!master #missy #Michelle Gomez #12th doctor #twelfth doctor #twelfth #Peter Capaldi #twissy #thoschei #12 x missy #tenth doctor #10th doctor #david tennant #martha jones #freema agyeman

[yuarru]

#doctor who #doctor who fanart #13th doctor #dhawan!master #spy master #thoschei #spydoc #thirteenth doctor

[sanyuyuyu]

We are drawn to this blue planet, knowing one day we'll meet again and the miracle of time and space converging everything

#ninth doctor #tenth doctor #eleventh doctor #twelfth doctor #thirteenth doctor #rose tyler #donna noble #clara oswald #river song #dhawan!master #spy master #bad wolf #doctor who #doctor who cosplay #cosplay

[marshvlovestv]

I kind of thought I would be looking back at games #201-210 with disappointment, but no, all in all, this was a pretty solid bunch. A lot of these games just had little quirks that kept them from being perfect experiences but were still decent overall.

1. If Found - For a game with not much game to speak of, this one was by far the best of the bunch. An emotional story with beautiful visuals; the only other thing I could possibly ask out of a visual novel is a little romance, but this isn’t that kind of story and that’s okay.

2. Sundered - This should not be ranked as high as it is. It’s in a genre I can’t stand and I had technical issues that meant I couldn’t finish it. But the thing is, I so thoroughly and completely enjoyed the time I spent with it that to punish it for those things would be disingenuous. This will probably be the last metroidvania I ever play, but what a sendoff.

3. Soma Union - I have a Switch now. I really need to play Earthbound. When people follow in the tradition of Earthbound they only create bangers.

4. Super Meat Boy - I wanted to rank this lower out of sheer spite. But. This is a really fun game. No getting around that. Even if the devs are edgy assholes who hurt my feelings for using keyboard controls. I really want to finish it but I don’t think my poor heart can take more of that bullying.

5. Soft Body - Conversely and yet along the same lines, I wanted to rank this one higher out of spite, to prove to the devs and any other PC queens interested that this game is perfectly playable with the keyboard. There were other games I just liked better, but this was still a really cool experience. Gotta love a bullet hell.

6. Shrug Island - A strange but still pretty interesting little puzzle game

7. Master Spy - I’m not amazing with stealth and there was that one seemingly impossible jump that made me put the game down. But there’s some pretty good platforming here

8. Robot Island - I kind of wish this was just a visual novel instead of a 3D exploration game because the controls for that segment were weirdly slippery.

9. IMMORTALITY - The more I think back on it (and watch analyses and stuff) the more I appreciate the bizarre twist, and now I think I’ve figured out where the real disconnect between me and this game happened. It’s a love letter to the medium of film and I don’t like movies. Just not about that kino scene. I’ll only drag my butt to the theater for the newest Pixar movie and even then I haven’t watched Lightyear yet. 

10. Gordian Quest - I’d readily recommend this game to my more hardcore D&D friends. But for me, a newbie, there’s an awful lot going on here and I found it overwhelming.

#my bag of games #if found #sundered #soma union #super meat boy #soft body #shrug island #master spy #robot island #immortality #gordian quest

[writeups-org]

Wrath

View On WordPress

#1980s debut #Gotham City #Hitman #Master Acrobat #Master Detective #Master Intruder #Master Pugilist #Master Schemer #Master Spy #Serial killer #Super-vehicle #Terrorist #Urban Decay

[nomaejie]

The little master got lost

#I guess master and maid AU again ? This is when they were children Damian strayed into Yor's garden and met Anya. #Master and Maid AU #damianya #damian desmond #anya forger #spy x family #my art

[lokittystuckinatree]

Out of every single relationship in the Whoniverse, whatever the Doctor and the Master have going on just hits different. Like a rock. I’m sure everyone feels this way about their fave Doctor ship, but my experience is that once you go Thoschei, you cannot go back. Given the narrative symmetry, character foiling, interwoven parallels, tragically dramatic irony, frustratingly unspeakable ambiguous romance that defies traditional ship canonization in the true chaotic spirit of Doctor Who, and a unique backstory setup that allows the characters to have history that other individuals cannot match, while fate (and the format of the show) pushes them together over and over again indefinitely, without hope of lasting reconnection lest the setup break, the Doctor and Master’s codependent anti-soulmate life or death partnership arguably (narratively) cheapens every other pairing beyond comparison. Their tragedy never leaves you. (And keeps you up at night)

#everyone else is in a space opera or spy thriller and Thoschei are in a Greek tragedy #no thoughts only Thoschei #frey’s timey wimey whovian era #I’m really new here but FUCK they gobbled me brains like a flesh eating infection #Thoschei #doctor/master #doctor who #is Thoschei technically canon? yes. does it still feel like a fever dream? yes #if they ever kiss (romantically) again it will send the world into shock and frenzy #Twissy #spydoc #tensimm #etc. #and by cheapen every other pairing I mean ‘best pairing to study in a literature circle” #not “the Doctor’s relationship with the master is their most important” although - #aka I think they’ve got the best combination of concept and execution

[they-hermes]

the transformers fandom really needs to talk more about brainstorm as a double agent in order to access decepticon technology for his little science project, because could you imagine? try lifting your hand and name off as many decepticon scientists from the top of your head that aren't just shockwave. who's fucking lab did that man invade? who did have to talk to in order to get his resources? did he have to enlist? did he personally work alongside shockwave? the implications are astounding

#ravage is the master spy among did the decepticons and somehow didnt know about Brainstorm #how bad is decepticon security that any old autobot can come and claim they changed sides #transformers #maccadam #this is mostly a joke #i want to see brainstorms epic failures at being a decepticon #brainstorm