vidavalor

[vidavalor]

Hi Dear Philosopher! Really interesting parallels here. I'm learning quite a bit about Baldur's Gate from you. 💕Thanks for the new knowledge!

Good Omens/Baldur's Gate 3 character parallels

As the title says! :D I am delightfully deep in the Ineffable Brainrot (affectionate), and while I'm unlikely to be able to play BG3 unless it gets ported to Switch, many hours going down rabbitholes on TVTropes and the wiki have convinced me that a) the game looks damn fun and b) there're some interesting unintentional parallels between the Ineffable Husbands and the horde of feral gremlins (affectionate) who are the main playable cast!

...Look, my brain just makes weird-ass random connections sometimes, ok? XD

Have fun reading, stay safe out there, send cat pics or Gale Dekarios/Mr Brown (of Brown's World of Carpets) slashfic* or something, etc

Rambling under the cut :) Tw for discussion of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and loss of bodily autonomy in Astarion's section, and discussion of psychological abuse for Shadowheart.

Massive BG3 spoilers abound

*Why this specific combo? Check the BG3 cast list against that of GO S2 :)

Aziraphale:

Gale -- comparatively light on the parallels here; both Gale and Aziraphale are very intelligent, like books a LOT and have magical powers that can make the very fabric of reality itself sit up and beg. Aziraphale isn't nearly as reckless or ambitious as Gale, though, and is on the whole fairly well-grounded; he'd reject something like the Crown of Karsus out-of-hand. They also both have an endearing dorkiness and hella Autistic vibes! <3 As well as being generally soft-spoken, courteous and fond of food and cooking -- in Gale's case this is made pretty explicit through dialogue and various points, while for Aziraphale the enjoyment of eating is shown on-screen but the skill at cooking is left as a very obvious background implication (he likes food, as does his beloved serpent, and given how long they've been around it seems more ludicrous to assume that they *haven't* learned a thing or two about the noble art of food-wrangling!).

Lae'zel -- Hoo boy! Aziraphale and Lae'zel are a lot more alike than you'd think, both being fierce, skilled warriors raised in a rigid, dogmatic, militaristic culture that places great emphasis on conforming to dogma and maintaining loyalty to a divine or divine-adjacent figure whose claims of such are in fact a steaming crock of rothé shit. Vlaakith (an insane, power-hungry lich) seeks to be a god, and certainly demands that the githyanki worship her as such; meanwhile, all of the magic she's ever shown using, even the reality-shaking wish spell, is arcane magic (such as mundane wizards can learn through rigorous study), not divine. The Metatron, of course, claims to be the Voice of God, the only being able to have direct speech with the Almighty, and uses that as the basis of his iron-fisted control over Heaven. His is, of course, lying his non-corporeal arse off. The key difference between them is that Aziraphale has known since before his universe was fully formed that the Metatron is a lying tyrant concerned only with his own benefit; his crisis of faith is therefore more or less fully resolved and his main concern now is how to destroy the oppressive system and fully claim his freedom. Lae'zel, by contrast, is a true believer until near the end of Act 1, during the interaction with Vlaakith and the Astral Prism, and her crisis of faith and potential rebellion are the primary focus of her character arc (which seems to position Gabriel as a parallel to Prince Orpheus!). And if you're questioning my description of Az as a 'skilled warrior', I'd recommend the meta I wrote a while back about his military experience -- under that soft, cuddly, scholarly exterior is an unshakeable core of ferocious steel.

Shadowheart -- like her, Aziraphale is a fundamentally kind, caring person who was raised in a fanatical and psychologically abusive cult by people who had no care at all for his personal well-being, while secretly doubting and ultimately rebelling against the dogma. The biggest difference is that Shadowheart was abducted by the Cult of Shar as a child, and memory manipulation and erasure were significant parts of the abuse they heaped upon her to mould her to their design. By contrast, Aziraphale was (unwillingly) in the cult of Heaven from the start, and the psychological abuse he endured was primarily in the form of pressure to embody a perfect, ascetic holiness, with memory erasure as more of a background threat of punishment for failure. Aziraphale's overt claims of loyalty to the cult are also much less sincere than Shadowheart's; he's consciously paying lip service to the dogma to protect himself and Crowley, while she's trying to convince herself as much as anyone, having been outright brainwashed in a way that has not (yet, player choices notwithstanding) snuffed out her innate good nature. Their respective crises of faith therefore progress at very different rates. One other heartbreaking similarity between the two is the way their respective cults use loved ones as hostages against them. The Coffee-Wielding Villain in the Final Fifteen (whosoever it turns out to be) uses veiled threats to Crowley as a means of manipulating Aziraphale into the elevator and probable (no way in heck is it going to stick!) death, while the climax of Shadowheart's personal quest sees the evil goddess Shar presenting her with her captured parents and trying to force her to choose between killing them or being forever subject to Shar's painful curse. I get the feeling that Az and Shadowheart would have a lot to talk about...

Crowley:

Wyll -- Wyll is an all-round decent guy who was manipulated into a warlock pact by the cambion Mizora, who continually exploits his desire to do good, holds the threat of eternal damnation for disobedience over his head to keep him in line, and forces a permanent and very obvious bodily change on him when he goes against orders and chooses to spare Karlach rather than killing her. Not so different from Crowley, really -- our serpent is another decent sort whose desire to do good (in Crowley's case, advocating for positive change in Heaven) was exploited by a devilish figure (Satan/Lucifer) to manipulate and control him, which has a causal connection to a permanent and visible body change. There are a few differences; Crowley's 'demon' traits and snake aspect didn't come about as the result of a direct pact or a punishment from Satan, but rather were almost a side effect of Satan dragging his followers/dupes down with him (so far as I can tell from the evidence available thus far). Their respective infernal manipulators also differ a bit -- Mizora holds the threat of damnation in reserve, while Crowley is (as far as the celestial/infernal orthodoxy is concerned) already damned. Furthermore, while Mizora sees Wyll as a tool to use and tends to get personal when her control starts to slip, but still sort of slightly acknowledges that Wyll has his own thoughts etc., Satan doesn't see Crowley as a separate being at all and is a hell of a lot crueller with his violence, manipulations and targeting of loved ones. Overall, though, Wyll and Crowley would definitely find a lot of common ground.

Karlach -- Everyone loves Karlach! She's a beauty with distinctive fiery red colouring and yellow-orange, vertical-pupilled eyes who, despite spending a significant amount of time in literal Hell after a cruel betrayal, is an absolute sweetheart who's determined to live life to the full in the mortal world, free from the clutches of her infernal tormentors. Not so different from Crowley, really :) There are a couple of caveats, though; Crowley, so far as we know, was never forced into actual combat (though the threat of it, via Armageddon, is definitely there) and Satan didn't rip his literal heart out -- just his metaphorical one, first with the events leading to the War and the Fall, and later with the Final Fifteen (his fingerprints are all over that one). Karlach, though, had her actual heart torn out and replaced with machinery (that will malfunction and kill her if she leaves the Hells for too long) by the archdevil Zariel, before being forced to fight in an endless war. She was also betrayed by a third party, while Crowley's betrayer is the same individual as his infernal abuser.

Astarion -- Hooooooooo boy. This is where the content warning from up top really comes into play -- proceed with caution. ...... Here goes. Astarion and Crowley have a fair bit in common. They might initially give the impression of being carefree hedonistic rakes, but in both cases it's a self-protective facade put up in response to horrific and violating trauma (which is, in part, only one letter different from the word 'rake'). For both of them, this trauma started when they were subjected to an excruciating, violating bodily transformation as the result of another's manipulations -- Cazador making Astarion a vampire spawn when he was in no position to refuse (having been beaten to a pulp and left for dead in the street, Satan dragging Crowley and the other Fallen down with him after the War) -- and its continuation involved regular violations of their physical and mental autonomy. Astarion (as Cazador's spawn) was flatly unable to disobey his sire's commands in any way before being tadpoled, and was forced to "entertain" certain of Cazador's guests and seduce hundreds or thousands of innocents and bring them back for his master to feed upon (in addition to all the torture torture). Likewise, since the Fall, Crowley has been subject to Satan treating him as his property and stealing control of his mind and body from him on what's implied to be a somewhat regular basis (look at Satan's sheer casualness about it in the Bentley in S1E1) -- and given how much of an absolute arsewipe Satan is explicitly noted to be, it's nigh-certain that there're no lines at all that Old Scratch would refuse to cross in the exercise of that kind of power (see, for example, the way Crowley falls when Satan is approaching the airbase in S1E6 -- to his knees, then very nearly full prostration; given that they were able to keep certificate 12, it's safe to say that this was very much on the milder end of Satan's playbook, even with the humiliation factor of doing this in front of the Them and Aziraphale). In short, Cazador Szarr is to Astarion what Satan is to Crowley. Of course, there are differences -- Astarion at the start of the game can charitably be described as an amoral prick (a direct result of/reaction to his trauma), while Crowley has always been a very moral person, retaining that trait in the face of all of Hell's and Satan's bullshit, and only tends to advocate for less-moral courses of action when the immediate situation is making his PTSD do backflips. Crowley also has a long-term, healthy, loving, mutually supportive, monogamous relationship and inevitable happy ending with his true love, while Astarion's ability to break away from his abuser and find lasting happiness, safety and the beginnings of trauma recovery is wholly dependent on choices made by the player. A certain set of these choices leads to Astarion finding a sort of catharsis by near-disembowelling Cazador after borking his Evil Ritual(tm) to sacrifice 7000 souls for complete immortality -- no word yet on how the Ineffables will eventually remove Satan (and thus Armageddon) from the equation for good, but it *probably* won't involve stabbing. As a palate cleanser, consider the adorable Starmaker who was so excited about his nebula building and hold it up against the name 'Astarion' meaning 'little star' <3

I'll close by noting that, of course, the Ineffable Husbands differ from the BG3 cast in many more ways than I've noted here. The coincidental parallels are interesting nonetheless, and if any of you reading this post want to use it as reference for GO/BG3 crossover fanfic, go right ahead! That combination has the potential for some truly delightful batshittery :D

Further reading: This meta by @vidavalor about proskynesis elaborates on what I alluded to earlier vis-a-vis Satan's attack on Crowley at the airbase

Actually, check out the rest of Vida's GO metas as well! (link leads to masterlist/pinned post) Loads of good stuff there, mostly revolving around etymology and the oodles and oodles of subtle, clever wordplay in the Ineffable Nightingale Cant and in the show generally <3 <3 <3

[vidavalor]

I've really been enjoying this story and can't wait for more.

Yall. I just got to talk to someone who worked at NASA about my GO Space AU.. I'm fine. I'm fine.

If you're interested, here's the fic! It is a fully finished work, 47 chapters in total. Chapters are posted 1 to 2x a week. I hope you enjoy it!

You and I, Stargazing

[vidavalor]

Gabriel is definitely going to be back in Heaven at some point in The Finale because that archangel stashed his tailor-made threads Up there before he ran. Ain't no way he's permanently parting with that suit. 😂

[vidavalor]

[vidavalor]

Hello I love your posts and I'm wondering if you have one on the numbers on Azi's phone? What do you think they were for?

Hi there 💕 Thank you. I haven't done one specifically on that already but I will do one here for you & you can see what you think.

I think I have a similar opinion to most people, in that I think they were the combination to Crowley's safe. I can show you a few Clues from both seasons that led me to think that was the case.

Lock combinations are pretty much the only things in the world that come in trios of two-digit numbers like this. In the same season as when we first saw these numbers on Aziraphale's phone while he was dialing in the "666 is an area code" scene in S1, we also saw Crowley's wall safe for the first time, suggesting that the two things are connected.

Now, could Aziraphale have his own safe that this is a combination to? Sure, but I'm not actually sure that he does. Aziraphale's whole bookshop, in some ways, is a safe. We also know that he likes to hide things in plain sight, like the Derringer in a hollowed out book. Aziraphale was storing the lost Shakespeare plays in Jim's moving box during S2 😂 so that doesn't immediately make me think that he might have a safe, since those would probably be one of the things he kept in one.

He does have a cashbox, per Good Omens: Lockdown, but I can already tell you where that probably is, and it's not a safe. You know the antique shoe shine valet in front of the pair of dressers near the sink? That amusing item to have in the home of the professional cobbler? 😂 Shoe shine valets have cashboxes in the back of them that lock with physical keys. The bookshop's cash is most likely kept in the shoe shine valet.

If Aziraphale does have a safe of sorts or a place where he stores most important documents, it's probably in the dressers above the valet. There is one spot in the center of those dressers that does look like it could be something of a safe if you were to open the door but the size of it makes me think that it's either accessible by key or maybe by a computerized lock. If it's the latter, Aziraphale could set the combination on that and then not really need to write it down, as it'd be something he could remember. More than likely, he's full analog, and everything he has opens with a physical key.

The combination on the phone was also written in red ink, which feels suggestive of those numbers being related to Crowley.

As for why Aziraphale would have need to have Crowley's safe combination? They would have had to have a plan for the possibility of what would happen if Crowley was killed. Aziraphale would have to know the combination to the safe in Crowley's flat so that he could go get the holy water back, as well as take care of any odds and ends in Crowley's life.

(The safe in Crowley's flat also could have had more things in it than just the holy water, as well. When you look at it from the front, there's a drawer on the bottom that we don't see Crowley open, as well as the fact that the back inside frame of the "Mona Lisa" has hidden flat item storage.)

At first glance, the numbers on the phone appear to be: 51 38 16. If you look closely, though, the numbers can actually also be read as: 51 38 46, because that number 1 is written to really be seen, upon closer inspection, as a number 4. Why would this matter? Because when we see Crowley open up the wall safe to retrieve the holy water, one of the numbers he lands on to open it when spinning the lock appears to be 46.

Additionally, we see him land on another number and it appears to be 32. You might say but the number on Aziraphale's phone is 38 and, yeah, it is, but the number eight is ate to the homophonic pun happy couple so, it's two ate -- a number 8 can mean a number 2. They wouldn't leave the actual combination lying around in the open without altering at least one bit of it.

Coding numbers and letters so that they appear to say one thing with a quick surface look but really, upon further inspection, say something else, is also all over the place in Good Omens. Crowley's name on the envelope in Lockdown, for instance, is also a whole little note in and of itself when looked at a bit more closely. This post gets into how we can tell that Crowley really wrote the message inside Aziraphale's copy of Modern Magic that we saw in S2 and what that message is actually saying.

There's also the specific location of where the combination was seen in S1, which was on the phone. Nowadays, most of us carry cell phones that are programmed to make it easy to call a specific, three-digit number for help, but that used to be a lot more complicated until during the 1970s.

As a result, in the pre-cell phone & pre-internet days of everyone using landline phones, the phone company or the phonebook people would send everyone these little cards or magnets that they could put near their phones which had their local emergency phone numbers for police/fire/poison control, etc., on them. They often also had extra lines so people could write in numbers relevant to them in an emergency, like their doctor's phone number.

It would have been only in the event of an emergency that Aziraphale would have needed the combination to Crowley's safe so him keeping that number on his phone, where emergency numbers had always gone, would make sense.

Finally, the last Clue is that the safe combination is no longer on Aziraphale's desk phone in S2. Instead, there is a standard paper that lists 999 as the emergency number to call for police, fire, etc..

I'm sure Crowley & Aziraphale could remember that but it probably also amuses them that 999 is 666 upside down, especially given the events of S1. The emergency numbers being how to call humans for help was also very fitting with S2 thematically, and which has a lot of 'it's S1 but backwards/mirrored' aspects to it.

This does show that while Aziraphale didn't know for sure that Shax had taken the flat until about midway through S2, Aziraphale did know that Crowley wasn't using the safe in it anymore because the sticker with the combination for it was taken off the phone sometime between S1 and S2.

This goes along with how, since Crowley didn't need to live in that prison cell of a place anymore, that Aziraphale didn't really realize that Crowley didn't have it any longer because Crowley was just basically living in the bookshop. Aziraphale probably assumed that he went to the flat on some mornings when they didn't see one another but Crowley was just with Aziraphale getting plenty of use out of the shop basically every afternoon and night.

Since they were no longer communicating with Heaven and Hell, it would make sense to Aziraphale for Crowley to have moved anything that he might need out of the Hell-owned flat pretty soon after S1, and then not spend much time in that unsafe place. Crowley not living in the flat much after S1 would mean he wouldn't need more holy water to keep there, which means he wouldn't really need the safe, and would explain why they took the combination off the phone.

[vidavalor]

Reblogging for some lovely open-mindedness and especially for this:

<<They DEFINITELY see each other and treat each other equally and with respect!>> ...which made me smile considering that I also just saw someone normalize-- yet again-- the idea that Crowley would and should hit Aziraphale for the end of S2 and felt nauseous.

At the end of the day, I think the majority of us would agree that the only wrong fanon or interpretation of canon is one where you don't think that C&A treat one another equally and with respect, as Soleil has said.

If you've come to the conclusion that theirs is an abusive relationship, well... I have no idea what show you've been watching and I'm worried for you that you think violence is normal and acceptable in a relationship.

A thought about Dynamics in relationships

I enjoy queer stories. The few that we have I have loved. Mainly that would be Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, and .... Well those are the ones that I have watched currently.

Crowley and Aziraphale have so many layers to them. Those layers have been explored by many people. I quite happily hold multiple, sometimes contrasting, head cannons about them.

Some of those head canons is about their sex life. Of course. Sexy bitches like them are going to excite our minds like that! I myself prefer that Aziraphale is a top and Crowley is a bottom. Understandably, other people have their own ideas. That's ok! I also see them as switches! They DEFINITELY see each other and treat each other equally and with respect!

A parallel to A&C is Stede and Ed from Our Flag Means Death. If you haven't seen that, you should. If not, I'll draw you a parallel. Edward Teach aka Blackbeard, is canonically topped by his lover; blonde, easy going, gentle Stede.

Blackbeard is canonically a bottom. And still strong, tough, scary, and unequivocally Captain. A very strong man, that bottoms. Nothing at all wrong with it.

Being a bottom doesn't make you weak. Crowley and Aziraphale are very likely switches. I like to view Crowley as a bottom. But he probably lays his angel down and rocks Aziraphale's world regularly. Just like age is just a number and skin is just a colour, sex positions are just temporary if you want them to be.

Besides, these guys aren't like us at all. They are celestial. They are mighty entities wearing human bodies like a mask. They can do and be anything they like

[vidavalor]

Would Crowley have a Miami Vice blazer in a 1980s flashback?

Hi there. 💕 Fun, random question! I don't know but I'd imagine so at one point, maybe? They were pretty much everywhere. When he takes it off, though, he would be all Jennifer Beals in Flashdance underneath it.

[vidavalor]

One of my favorite parallels in the story. 🥰

Aziraphale and Crowley + toasts

[vidavalor]

Orthorexia Nervosa

TWs: eating disorders; perfectionism; religious trauma; abuse; depression; anxiety.

Orthorexia Nervosa: from the Greek ortho, meaning correct, and orexi, meaning appetite. The most underrecognized form of eating disorder and, increasingly, one of the most common types.

Orthorexia Nervosa is an obsessive focus on healthy eating, with health parameters being defined by a dietary theory or set of beliefs that can vary with the individual. It often appears to others to be a desire to be fit and lose weight but weight loss is not truly the primary goal-- a compulsive need to remain "pure" is.

It is a preoccupation with living up to unhealthy standards around consumption.

Orthorexia Nervosa is especially common in those raised in strict and religious environments. It can result of feeling pressured to meet the expectations of that society-- to remain "free from sin." Sufferers view their body as a temple that they must keep free of what they perceive as pollutants-- denying themselves comfort, satiation, pleasure, essential nutrients, and a healthy mind-body connection in the process.

Orthorexia Nervosa sufferers pretty uniformly exhibit a behavioral hallmark of the angelic-- severe cases of perfectionism. They know, deep down, that they are torturing themselves to meet unhealthy standards but they feel a societal pressure to project infallibility. This is especially true of soldiers, who are valued by a society for their bodies, and people in very visible roles in a society-- like those near the top of society (but, often, not the ones at the very top)-- as well as those held up by society as examples of ideal beauty.

So, ya know... him:

Orthorexia Nervosa can also develop as a result of being subjected to abuse, as a form attempting to control one's own environment in unconscious response to the loss of control of having been abused.

Common indicators of coming from an abusive environment include showing you are absolutely not ready for kids by telling an eleven year old antichrist who won't start a war that he is a "disobedient little brat" in a way that couldn't sound more like it was something that was once said to you if you tried.

Other common indicators include the fact that you come from the same environment as this equally fucked up one:

Many sufferers of Orthorexia Nervosa also exhibit other control-seeking behaviors, like a lot of fasting and being hyper-focused on exercise...

...a lot of a preoccupation with maintaining a sense of order and getting frustrated and anxious by that which is perceived as being out of their control, leading to feelings of failure...

... and a sometimes obsessive focus on cleaning, categorizing, and organizing as a self-soothing means of feeling in control of themselves.

While Orthorexia Nervosa can affect anyone, it is often especially overlooked in people commonly perceived as men, where symptoms of it are often rewarded by patriarchal societies.

The most vulnerable of these people are those who are capable of projecting an image of themselves that carries a perception of meeting the standards of traditional masculinity within patriarchal societies. It's a type of person Jon Hamm is an expert at portraying.

These men are uniformly perceived by others as white, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual, "masculine" men, who are considered sexually desirable within their societies. Many are lionized for a status they often didn't choose or earn and held up as examples of supreme perfection to be emulated by others.

That contributes to Orthorexia Nervosa, as since they are often made into a symbol and viewed by others as a model without them actually choosing to do that or earning the looks they were born with, sufferers of this disorder are so obsessive about their bodies, in part, as a result of also having a bit of imposter syndrome.

They feel like frauds, being recognized for something for which they didn't really want or choose to make an effort to achieve, causing them to then double-down on obsessively trying to "earn" the recognition.

This fixation with their own bodies is really a reflection of their overwhelming insecurity about them.

It is almost always, though, mistaken by others for vanity and self-obsession.

This level of status mixed with a lack of real power to change anything exacerbates orthorexia nervosa, as the powerful image that is projected to others conflicts with internal feelings of powerlessness. Boxed into lives where others think that they have it all-- all the power, all the looks, all the resources-- these people are really left isolated.

For them, a person who is aware that the image they project is a carefully crafted construct and who makes them feel safe enough to let down their guard is necessary if they are to have any shot at recovery and happiness.

Finding this person or people can often be an especially difficult challenge for people in this category as it is, let alone for those who are also suffering from Orthorexia Nervosa.

The illness has a tendency to cause sufferers of it to become very accustomed to their own, toxic thought patterns... so invested in torturing themselves with these thought patterns to try to meet these unhealthy standards that they have convinced themselves are healthy that they lose a level of social awareness where this issue is concerned.

They will feel a compulsion to try to 'help' anyone they see as failing, in some ways, to meet these standards, which... doesn't exactly help with the isolation 😂... because people don't like feeling like their bodies and what they choose to do with them are being judged.

Not only can these comments cause distrust in others but they can cause confusion because, very often, Orthorexia Nervosa sufferers will say something that sounds like they're judging someone's body or their food choices... but then also be that same person's first line of defense.

It's how this guy:

Is also this guy:

The confusion comes from the fact that Orthorexia Nervosa goes so unnoticed in people that those exhibiting symptoms of it are often mistaken for garden variety jerks-- especially since many of the sufferers are people steeped in very alpha male worlds and genuinely do project a kind of don't fuck with me air for self-protection.

In reality, the negative self-thoughts of Orthorexia Nervosa are a compulsion for the suffer, and that compulsion extends to the inability to not mention something related to their ideas about consumption when the topic comes up.

Some compare it to being like having a kind of situationally-specific version of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, where the sufferer has to see through the compulsion to share their consumption-related thoughts. It is how otherwise socially aware and politically shrewd people-- like Gabriel-- are blind to how others will perceive their food-related thoughts.

Orthorexia Nervosa is so pervasive that the sufferer believes that they are being protective and showing affection by sharing these food standards of theirs with others. They lose sight of the fact that they are judging other people's bodies and what they are choosing to do with them in the process... which is then what makes those same other people not view them as on their side and trustworthy.

The ironic thing is that many Orthorexia Nervosa sufferers are very empathetic, sensitive people who are open-minded about others and believe strongly in bodily autonomy. Gabriel is this, even as he's also the same person who judged Beez's snack and commented on Aziraphale's weight.

So, how does a guy like this-- a fundamentally decent person who has shown in many scenes that he believes that everyone's body is their own-- also someone who then does say judgmental things to people about food-related stuff sometimes?

The Orthorexia Nervosa has convinced Gabriel that these unhealthy health ideals that he as internalized are the only way for him to look at consumption and his body. The compulsive nature of them then means that they are triggered pretty much anytime he is presented with something related to the body and consumption.

People with this eating disorder might perceive certain foods as especially unhealthy or impure-- like, say, sushi or bags of chips/packet of crisps, for totally unrelated examples lol-- and say so to others, being wildly inappropriate in doing so.

They are sick but, to others who aren't aware of this, they can come across as just mean.

In their mind, they are trying to help the other person. They're imparting what wisdom they feel like they've learned from the great deal of mental energy they've been expending on all of this consumption stuff. They feel like it is their responsibility to give others these pointers on how to live up to these standards because, in reality, they're terrified. They're afraid for themselves and the people they care about and see it as working towards trying to help those around them avoid the social consequences of failing at consumption.

There are, though, obviously social consequences for the Orthorexia Nervosa sufferer for making these remarks. Friends might pull away from them, feeling judged. Even those who suspect a mental health component to these remarks (and I think Aziraphale does) might feel, understandably, pretty hurt by them. This is a kind of poison that can spread, triggering insecurities in others, as all the 'Aziraphale feels lousy after Gabriel commented on his weight' fics accurately get into.

Not only can this impact work relationships and friendships but it can impact romantic relationships as well. Orthorexia Nervosa sufferers on a date might well go so far as to buy their partner's choice of food but then still be unable to not comment on that food.

On their date in The Resurrectionist, Gabriel, in true Good Omens form, used the food to reassure Beez that he didn't have any expectations. He was really sweet and being a consummate gentleman (sorry the pun was irresistible lol) but the scene also winds up being Beez reassuring Gabriel just as much-- only especially about the literal food.

Gabriel was talking about the food itself but he was also talking about sex. In the process, though, he had a complete Orthorexia Nervosa moment over the packet of crisps/bag of chips, for which he was absolutely not ready. That one bag of chips that Beez was going to share with him was setting off a nuclear bomb in his mind and he couldn't stop himself from expressing his discomfort.

What is sweet about the moment was how Beez showed they were very much aware of what was going on with Gabriel. They took it in stride and were just reassuring and gentle about it.

They had been helping him with this since they began easing him towards food by moving their meeting places to restaurants but they were quick to reassure that there was no pressure to go faster than he was ready for and consume something. Beez was easily able to soothe Gabriel's potato chip freakout and make him feel as safe as he was making them feel.

They were more comfortable just sitting together with the food they had ordered, listening to their song, so that is what they did. That is very good care of someone with Orthorexia Nervosa.

Recovery from Orthorexia Nervosa is often compounded by the fact that the sufferers are as conscious of the loss of social power that would happen if they were to publicly break away from the often cold image they have cultivated for themselves.

While some might want to hang onto it for how it benefits them, many others are like Gabriel, and try to remain in power because they-- not incorrectly-- see themselves as the only thing standing between those that need what protection he can give them and those who are harming all of them. Many, also like Gabriel, keep their social power as long as they are physically able to do so because they think sacrificing themselves for the needs of everyone else is all they're really good for.

This means that they might sometimes be forced to sacrifice the few to save the many and that will then gnaw away at them, too. They'll blame themselves for their failure to protect everyone. They didn't keep it all in order. They tried to save everyone but the books? Sometimes, they don't stay where you put them. It's hard for these people to learn that they're people, too, and that they're not responsible for everyone.

To break away, they need the help of others around them being willing to view them in a different way and allow them the space to forge a healthier path.

Treatment for Orthorexia Nervosa sometimes first requires a patient friend-- one who likely knows what it is to be a bit weird about consumption, too-- suggesting that it slowly be worked on together. Perhaps by moving the secret meetings to cafes and bars for the foreseeable future-- getting out of comfort zones together, with each other for support.

Current treatment for Orthorexia Nervosa involves learning a more mindful approach to food as a way of healing the sufferer's relationship with their body, lessening their mental health struggles, and increasing overall, true well-being.

This is best achieved with the support of someone with knowledge of these struggles who can help the sufferer learn to see food and their body in a new light-- one that focuses on curiosity, sensuality, satiation, and joy.

This is all likely to be most effective if the sufferer is in a safe environment and is also working on treating the underlying trauma that might be at the cause of their Orthorexia Nervosa, as well as any other, related issues, like anxiety and depression. In addition to therapy, having the support of people who have suffered the same or comparable issues and who can be a source of understanding is critical.

Treatment is most effective and recovery is most likely when the Orthorexia Nervosa sufferer is supported by a group of understanding people who will help reinforce the more mindful approach to health.

[vidavalor]

As would I! She's a ton of fun and a force to be reckoned with.

Crowley, professional midwife/cobbler, was parking the-car-that-is-him-and-Aziraphale under the only partial canopy on a cobblestone street. 😂

This was all before finding out about Aziraphale's lie to the angels and suggesting Operation Canopy to try to get Maggie & Nina to vavoom.

While Crowley's plan for Maggie and Nina was to get them to shelter from the rain under a different type of canopy-- an awning-- the original definition of a canopy is a covering of trees, like the one he under which he was parking.

Crowley also later parked the car on Whickber Street in front of the canopies over the fruit and flower market and, rather memorably, planted one on Aziraphale when the angel came home from Edinburgh.

So, either Crowley and Aziraphale's first kiss was long ago, under a canopy of trees, or someone needs to take that demon to the park in the rain and smooch him under a big, leafy maple because he seems to be a bit fixated. 😂

[vidavalor]

Crowley, professional midwife/cobbler, was parking the-car-that-is-him-and-Aziraphale under the only partial canopy on a cobblestone street. 😂

This was all before finding out about Aziraphale's lie to the angels and suggesting Operation Canopy to try to get Maggie & Nina to vavoom.

While Crowley's plan for Maggie and Nina was to get them to shelter from the rain under a different type of canopy-- an awning-- the original definition of a canopy is a covering of trees, like the one he under which he was parking.

Crowley also later parked the car on Whickber Street in front of the canopies over the fruit and flower market and, rather memorably, planted one on Aziraphale when the angel came home from Edinburgh.

So, either Crowley and Aziraphale's first kiss was long ago, under a canopy of trees, or someone needs to take that demon to the park in the rain and smooch him under a big, leafy maple because he seems to be a bit fixated. 😂

[vidavalor]

Pratchett's hat and scarf visible as already hanging up in the bookshop in 1941 is the most Good Omens of Good Omens reveals.

It's like... you thought the in-universe explanation was that those are Crowley's things and he hung up his hat in 1941 and they kept it there and have been a thing ever since?

Well, you get partial credit for knowing that's got to be Crowley's hat in this world but, sorry, that's not quite it.

It was already there. Just like how they've already been a thing, since long before 1941. 💕

[vidavalor]

The mark by the bookshop's side door

Some of you may have heard of Hobo Code, which is a visual cant-- a secret language-- that is used by transient people, migrants, and the like, to help one another find resources and stay safe. Based on what I can see of that symbol on the side of the bookshop, A.Z. Fell & Co. has been marked in Hobo Code. What does that mean exactly?

The purpose of Hobo Code is to either warn people in need to stay away from certain places or, conversely, to tell them that they've found a place where they will be safe to approach to get something they might need.

How it works is that a person who has had an experience at a specific location will mark an appropriate symbol of the code that represents that experience onto a business or residence to tell the next person who comes along what they might expect to find there.

These marks are usually made near the door or mailbox-- though usually not on the door or doorframe itself (just like how this bookshop mark is not) because property owners tend to pay more attention to those locations and would be more likely to erase it. If a business has a visible delivery door, like the bookshop does, the marks are more likely to be put near that door, since many seek discretion in asking for help.

So, if you are a transient person and you went to a business and asked them for food or help and they called the police on you? There's a Hobo Code symbol that you could come back and mark on that business to let future people know to not ask there for help without fear of arrest. There are marks for all sorts of warnings-- vicious dogs; property owners who pull a gun or get violent; people who will give you nothing but a religious lecture, and so on-- but there are also symbols that let you know if a place is safe and what kind of resources you could find there.

There are sometimes people who are not transient but who know Hobo Code and would like to share resources so they mark their own property in it, which is actually what I think Aziraphale did.

The mark that is by the side door of Aziraphale's bookshop appears to be a circle with an x in the middle of it. In Hobo Code, that conveys that food can be found at this location and that it's a safe place to ask for help.

It indicates that the owners of the property will feed anyone who rings the doorbell and says they need a meal and offer them what help they can.

Aziraphale and Crowley also seem to have drawn the ring here to be a wheat/laurel wreath. To us now, wheat is a symbol of abundance and prosperity-- it's probably the foremost food symbol in the world. Using wheat in the symbol emphasizes the food being offered more overtly than the original Hobo Code does.

Crowley and Aziraphale likely made the circle more of a wheat wreath look so that someone wouldn't necessarily need to know all the old symbols to understand that they could ring the door bell and get food at this location. A symbol of the letter x in a ring of wheat conveys that pretty clearly on its own.

The wheat/laurel, though, originally, was a Roman symbol of glory and victory in battle and war. It had that connotation in 41 A.D., when we saw Crowley wearing a laurel crown after having just come from a day with the Roman military. Christians adopted the laurel for its connotations of forcefulness and power-- not the more peaceful food it eventually came to represent.

If any angels or demons looking at the bookshop from the outside ever happen to notice the symbol, they would see the laurel as a being related to Heaven and Christianity when, in reality, its presence on the side of the shop is serving a much more Earthly purpose.

[vidavalor]

Awww! That's such a cute idea. You should write an Outsider POV fic about that. 😉

[vidavalor]

Hi Rouge & Dalliance 💕 Hope you're both having a great week. Thanks for thinking of me, Rouge. Sure, I'll share some thoughts. Dalliance has seen some of them before, I believe, but you & others might not have so they're below, if you're interested. Dalliance wrote a great post, as always 💕, so there's plenty to muse on here while we await The Finale news.

<<But I don't think Aziraphale is easily manipulated.>>

Louder for the people in the back! 😍 Aziraphale has vulnerabilities, like anyone else, but he's far from stupid, and he's cunning af, in a good way. It's not a coincidence that the last two episodes of S2 are basically a two-parter (the bookshop attack rolling between the two episodes) and that the start of the two-parter (2.05) is literally nothing but Aziraphale going around, lying to everyone on the street about what he's offering them, and tempting them to come to The Meeting Ball. His intentions are good and it's just a party but it's a parallel to the much darker end, when The Devil shows up and does the same thing to him.

Mah point is that we have a whole slew of scenes of Aziraphale being crafty with the Whickbers that shows that he's anything but naive about people, and that's just one example of that in the story.

<<To me, Aziraphale's behaviour was never odd in F15. Crowley's was.>>

Yes.

<<When Aziraphale looks back to Crowley, I think it's a mix of things, but he is not asking for permission as some metas would have him do (or as Crowley seems to assume?) - like that's not how our couple operates at all, why would he ask Crowley if he can go?>>

YIKES. That's a theory?? God, I'm glad I haven't really come across that one before... I mean, it seems very obviously like you're coming too, yes, please don't leave me alone with him?

You bringing up the interpretations of the relationship in that way made me realize that is actually yet another really good Clue that it's Satan with the coffee and here's why. We know that Aziraphale wouldn't be asking Crowley's permission to go somewhere. We also know that Crowley wouldn't assume that would be what Aziraphale would be doing. Crowley's response not making any sense on any level does make sense, though, if you go with the idea that it is because that's Satan and he's in Crowley's head. Crowley's not really in control of what he's saying. The villain music goes insane in that moment to underscore that, imho.

This scene is the moment when I think we're supposed to know who that is for sure, even if we've been suspecting something is off prior to this, just because we know that protective Crowley would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let Aziraphale go anywhere with The Metatron alone. He would never just lounge in the chair like that and be so casual about this. He's not himself, right? Something's wrong. What's wrong? The thing that we've seen happen in the story already so that we'll understand it when it happens in this pivotal moment.

Just like you can't set up a gun in Act One without it going off in Act Three, if you make the central place and main character a safehouse for another character in Act One, that villain is going to get into that safehouse before the end is out.

When Aziraphale turned to Crowley, he seemed to me to be asking him to come with him and help him. That all made sense-- that is in character for Aziraphale. Under normal circumstances, Crowley would totally have interpreted it that way. I don't think it would have occurred to him to interpret it differently. You're right that this doesn't match how their relationship works. That is what makes Crowley responding as if Aziraphale is asking for permission extra-weird-- Crowley never would. He'd never reply like that. It's all off.

But the response makes sense if it's really Satan who is actually responding, and not Crowley.

<<Aziraphale's behaviour reminds me of, sorry to mention abuse (in general) but Aziraphale right then acts like someone leading a violent/angry/revenging person away from someone they love and care about to take on whatever punishment is coming by themselves.>>

100%. When Crowley wasn't acting like Crowley, Aziraphale knew who that was and what had just happened and he went with Satan alone to get him away from Crowley. We can tell that, too, by the fact that Aziraphale didn't try to nudge Crowley into joining them.

He didn't say "why don't you come with us?" to Crowley-- he just headed for the door and, as you pointed out, looks over his shoulder repeatedly to make sure that Satan is following him. Crowley doesn't even get out of the chair until after they're gone and then he's mumbling "they'll be back soon" to himself, like it was a thought implanted in his head-- because it was.

If you go Mr. Harmony and lip read, you can see that what the villain mouthed at Crowley as Aziraphale walked away is "good. boy." which just... *shudder*... It's another thing that proves that Crowley is being controlled in that moment.

I think that the motivations of the bad guys in Good Omens are really simple: they want to remain in power and they want their Armageddon. The main characters stand in the way of that. To get rid of them, you have to divide them up. To do that, you've got to get Aziraphale and take the bookshop so none of them are safe. To get Aziraphale, you've got to temporarily let Gabriel & Beez seem to go free to help with the temptation for Aziraphale. Then, you've got to divide Crowley and Aziraphale. To do that, you've got to stop Crowley first or you'll never get to Aziraphale.

How do you stop Crowley? Satan.

<<What does Aziraphale mean by 'making his position clear'? When was that?>>

After he blew up his halo, in a scene they intentionally held back for The Finale because the cliffhanger wouldn't have worked if we had seen it in S2. It's part of the explanation of what happened in The Final 15 that's coming.

Aziraphale said "is anybody there?" into The Circle, blew up his halo, discorporated demons, left The Circle open. There's no way The Metatron didn't get on the celestial Zoom after all that. We are missing Aziraphale's entire night after the halo. All we need to see of it, though, is the scene in which he told The Metatron to go pound sand, which is what I think the moment you're talking about is implying. It's a Clue to make us say wait, when did that happen? and know we are missing it. When did they already have this talk where Aziraphale made it quite clear to The Metatron that he was done with Heaven? We haven't seen it but it's coming because it's the one thing that could tie this all together really easily and relatively quickly.

This would then be what started everything in the end of S2 into motion. Aziraphale tells off The Metatron. He starts expecting that The Metatron will take the next logical step and send Satan after him. The Metatron does do that but he and Satan are working together on this one and it's Satan who shows up pretending to be The Metatron because that's the only person who can offer Aziraphale the one thing that could tempt him to Hell and get him out of the way.

So, Aziraphale is expecting Satan to show up from the start. He has a plan (details of which are in the linked post in a response down below). He hasn't had a chance to tell Crowley the plan because they're not alone. That isn't an issue until our coffee-wielding villain shows up. Aziraphale is looking at this guy and he looks suspicious. He watches as the other angels can't recognize him. Then, Crowley says he knows who it is and describes The Metatron.

Aziraphale is nervous no matter who this is but who this is now comes down to one of two possibilities: this is really The Metatron, apologetic for how he acted last night on the celestial Zoom, here to make amends, with a peace offering of a coffee from the shop, which seems... unlikely lol... but would be lovely, if true... or this is Satan, pretending to be The Metatron, for reasons that become more clear to Aziraphale once the job offer temptation enters the picture, and Aziraphale is sure that he's going to fall, if he can't get Crowley to understand what's happening and help him.

He knows it's the latter; he hopes it's the former.

When Crowley just let Aziraphale go with The Metatron alone like that, Aziraphale knew for sure who it was. He had known prior but that was the worst kind of confirmation, imho. Imagine how Aziraphale felt having done everything he could to try to both be and make safe havens for Crowley for millennia and then Crowley is attacked in their house, in Aziraphale's own desk chair, right in front of him.

This is also why Crowley gets a pass from Aziraphale for being, from Aziraphale's perspective, a completely up and down, totally scattered and illogical mess in the scene where they try to talk while being watched through the window.

<<Aziraphale just learned that Crowley was in Heaven all night, and apparently saw Metatron, right?>>

That's an interesting thought about The Metatron. I assumed Aziraphale thought that Crowley meant that he had last seen The Metatron when The Metatron cast Crowley down to Hell but, you're right, he could think that Crowley meant in Heaven the prior night.

<<Aziraphale does not know that Crowley saw Heaven tried to initiate Second Coming already>>

True. Imho, Crowley was less immediately concerned about Armageddon than The Book of Life, which he saw as the big threat.

Saying that the angels wanted to "fire" Gabriel when Gabriel had technically already been fired was a way of trying to say to Aziraphale that they wanted to hellfire Gabriel-- as in, kill him. Crowley knew that The Metatron was lying during the trial and had no intention of letting Gabriel live, and still doesn't. That would trigger The Institutional Problem Revolution even more than just killing him quietly & making up a story would.

<<Why didn't he nor the Archangels recognise Metatron at first though?>>

Because that's The Devil, and the only familiar of him in the room was Crowley. See also: Gabriel could not recognize Beelzebub with a new face in the Ineffable Bureaucracy flashback until Beez said their name. Then, new sight seemed to happen behind his eyes and he was able to see the demon in front of him. The difference being that Beez wasn't lying & wasn't trying to manipulate Gabriel. They were no threat to Gabriel, whereas Satan is a big threat to Aziraphale and Crowley.

<<Aziraphale is very confused by the notion of Metatron giving him coffee, and he does pause at the description of it (we have no evidence that Aziraphale likes almonds or would prefer oat milk, so those words definitely are warnings to heed imo).>>

The words are definitely important and @obligateweirdo, the most lovely and patient of the people kind enough to read my posts, has been waiting approximately 17 years for me to finish a meta on the oat milk so more on that separately. I do think Aziraphale's pause, though, was more just a response of what the absolute fuck is happening right now? than heeding the words as a warning, exactly.

That coffee sure feels threatening-- and it is, symbolically anyway-- but it's mainly because this is like... imagine your boss is a cult leader and a dictator rolled into one and he shows up at your door-- this genocidal maniac responsible for the deaths of thousands who once tried to kill you, and he's trying very hard to come across to you as Ebeneezer Scrooge after having been visited by three ghosts. It's all threatening, and it's also very, very weird.

<<So why is Metatron warning Aziraphale? He could have just make him have a chat, no 'coffee from the shop' required. ("Are you going to take it?" Coffee or Death?) Is he pretending to be nice to get Aziraphale to come quietly?>>

Satan & The Metatron are dividing and conquering the main characters to keep them from starting a revolution. The key to this plan is Aziraphale.

They know that when it gets out that Gabriel and Beez have mutinied, that they have a matter of hours to try to stamp out any potential rebellion that will occur as a result of that. The main characters can really only come at Satan & The Metatron if they do it together so the only way to stop them is to kill them, which means that they first have to separate them. So, how would you separate Gabriel, Beez, Crowley, and Aziraphale?

You'd go after Aziraphale first. Why? Because you need to take the bookshop to make sure that there's nowhere safe for any of them to go and that means you have to get Aziraphale to leave it. This also happens to be the best way to divide the main characters. First, you let Gabriel & Beez seem to be able to get away without a problem because that will help sell to Aziraphale the idea that Heaven can change, even if he knows deep down that this is unlikely as it currently is.

Then, you offer Aziraphale the one thing he thinks he can't provide Crowley because the only way you get at Aziraphale is to come after his love for Crowley. You watch them implode and get Aziraphale in the elevator. Once you've got Aziraphale and the shop, the rest is easier. Heaven and Hell send some soldiers after Crowley, Gabriel and Beez. The villains have miscalculated a bit overall but that's their plan and, so far, it's working.

<<"No one's ever given me anything before.">>

You're bringing up a great contrast between a pair of demons offering things to angels, imo. Beelzebub offered Gabriel love and protection; Satan, in the form of The Metatron, pretended to offer Aziraphale recognition but the real, genuine recognition that Aziraphale gets is from the third demon in the equation-- Crowley. Instead, Satan brought pain and death to Aziraphale. You can also toss into this parallel then Crowley with the hot chocolate. The Devil brought Aziraphale The Coffee of Doom with a whole, false, 'we're so sorry' from Heaven; Crowley offered Gabriel a gesture of true remorse and genuine friendship with that hot chocolate.

<<Is Aziraphale less cynical than Crowley? Absolutely. Is he more trusting (of humans)? Yes. Is he more hopeful? Also yes.>>

It's funny, I think that, of the two of them, it's really Crowley who truly believes more in magic and people being genuinely good than Aziraphale actually does. They're both jaded and hopeful, both cynical and both there for magic, but I actually think that Nina was wrong to put them into such neat boxes where Crowley was the jaded one and Aziraphale the soft one.

Crowley is not as cynical as he tries to seem like he is. He's the hopeful one, the romantic. They're both very romantic but Crowley is a romantic, is what I mean. They both are in love with the world and that mix of jaded and hopeful I think is part of the secret sauce of their appeal. Neither of them are naive about people but they're also amazed by them. Crowley's net optimism and his refusal to cede his curiosity and close up his heart in the face of what he's survived is one of the places where his strength shines through.

In a lot of ways, I think that Aziraphale, strong and brave as he is, is more broken-hearted by the world than Crowley is. Still hopeful, still curious, still crazy about it, just even more guarded than Crowley. Just my view, though, obviously, everyone's interpretation is their own & valid.

<<or talk about what happened to 'Jim' who almost got wiped out>>

Right??? They can't speak openly because they're being watched and you know they're being coded about their speech when Aziraphale gets back from the chinwag because at no point in there does Crowley just try the world's most obvious argument: explaining that The Metatron still can't be trusted because he tried to kill Gabriel and that Beez said that Heaven is going to erase everyone involved from The Book of Life.

Even if The Book of Life thing isn't real and Aziraphale knew that? Crowley is no longer sure he knows what's true so it would make sense for him to bring it up. Michael had just been talking about it in the bookshop. It's top of mind.

Does Crowley say anything that, though? No. He's talking about their relationship and nothing else while there are threats every which way they look.

I think that he does have a plan that he's trying to convey to Aziraphale at that point but there have been too many unfortunate events by then that lead to too many miscommunications. So, no Nightingales. Just for now.

To Protect

To summarise today's thoughts: Aziraphale just learned that Crowley was in Heaven all night, and apparently saw Metatron, right? Aziraphale does not know that Crowley saw Heaven tried to initiate Second Coming already (which they both knew and expressed worry about in S1). And we don't know what Metatron knows or what he saw of the events that just transpired.

My questions are:

What does Aziraphale mean by 'making his position clear'? When was that? I think Aziraphale means after his failed execution, meaning he'd like to be left alone and apart from Heaven and that has not changed.

Why didn't he nor the Archangels recognise Metatron at first though?

Aziraphale is very confused by the notion of Metatron giving him coffee, and he does pause at the description of it (we have no evidence that Aziraphale likes almonds or would prefer oat milk, so those words definitely are warnings to heed imo).

So why is Metatron warning Aziraphale? He could have just make him have a chat, no 'coffee from the shop' required. ("Are you going to take it?" Coffee or Death?) Is he pretending to be nice to get Aziraphale to come quietly?

"No one's ever given me anything before."

I know people think Metatron is (easily) manipulating Aziraphale by giving him something, by saying he 'ingested' things in 'his time', etc. But I don't think Aziraphale is easily manipulated. He's the one who (manipulates, or, as I don't like that word applied to Aziraphale as it's heavily misused imo - likes to get his way and knows how to tempt) saw what Heaven was, clearly, even before Crowley started up his Nebula.

Is Aziraphale less cynical than Crowley? Absolutely. Is he more trusting (of humans)? Yes. Is he more hopeful? Also yes.* But he is not easily manipulated. And he knows what Heaven is. *Are these negative qualities? No.

When Aziraphale looks back to Crowley, I think it's a mix of things, but he is not asking for permission as some metas would have him do (or as Crowley seems to assume?) - like that's not how our couple operates at all, why would he ask Crowley if he can go?

Just minutes earlier, Crowley asked Aziraphale if he'll be alright with the Archangels and Demons in his shop while he pops out with the humans and Aziraphale reassured him that he'll be fine. And he was fine. Why isn't Crowley asking if Aziraphale will be fine with Metatron? Surely that's a step up? And Aziraphale is visibly nervous, almost stuttering.

This is after his partner started a war protecting their home and the second to last boss of everything showed up wanting a chat with him. It's very strange. To me, Aziraphale's behaviour was never odd in F15. Crowley's was. I think Aziraphale hoped a little that Crowley will use his ADHD jumping charms to come with, much like he understood the assignment in the pub. But Crowley just sits there and waves his hand.

Crowley seems to think everything will back to normal after all that and they'll go for a boozy breakfast. Not plan how to stop the new Armageddon or talk about what happened to 'Jim' who almost got wiped out. Or whether any punishment is waiting for them after all they've done. Again.

Aziraphale seems to check 3 times that Metatron is following him after he fails to get Crowley to engage. At some point when I saw that, I thought he was eager to get Metatron to follow him away, even if he did not quite see that creepy smile (which still does not seem to rouse Crowley's suspicions). Crowley can't possibly think that Metatron would only have beef with him so if he stays away, it'll be fine (?). Aziraphale's behaviour reminds me of, sorry to mention abuse (in general) but Aziraphale right then acts like someone leading a violent/angry/revenging person away from someone they love and care about to take on whatever punishment is coming by themselves.

I mean Aziraphale didn't know what Metatron wanted. What did Metatron come for? He interrupted Michael who was talking about punishing Aziraphale for helping Gabe. Was he coming to punish him for starting a war instead? Or both?

But now Aziraphale probably thought as well - what if Metatron is here to punish Crowley for whatever he did in Heaven (even for just basically breaking in there in the first place) since Aziraphale did not know what Crowley did there.

Two years on and still so many questions.

[vidavalor]

Same. Always. 💕

[vidavalor]

Crowley. Anthony Crowley.

Remember this shot below from early S2, where we lingered on the open driver's side door of The Bentley? There's a huge James Bond reference in it that I don't believe I've seen mentioned yet-- and, possibly, an even more huge bit of foreshadowing.

After Shax left, we saw the reason why Crowley was standing by his driver's side door when we saw the car door open. Visible under the driver's seat in The Bentley was a storage box-- a drawer that pulls out. In the James Bond novels, Bond hid guns in his cars, including under the driver's seat.

In Casino Royale, a particular gun (one Ian Fleming invented for wordplay reasons in the novels-- so, the most Good Omens-y gun in the Bond stories) was hidden in the dashboard of Bond's Bentley but, in Goldfinger, that same gun was hidden beneath the driver's seat of Bond's Aston Martin. Split the difference and you have Crowley hiding guns under the driver's seat of The Bentley.

Furthering the suggestion of this is the fact that Crowley scrapes his heels above the box before getting into The Bentley, which is one meaning of to scrape. Another time we heard that word in S2? When Aziraphale talked about the hidden Derringer he keeps in the bookshop:

While we've all been focused on the Chekhov's gun that is Aziraphale's Derringer in the 1941 plot, we might have been overlooking that the story in the present in S2 set up another one-- and that is especially significant when you consider where we last left Crowley at the end of S2.

Crowley was last seen in S2 driving away from Whickber Street in The Bentley that we're now saying seems likely to have at least one gun hidden under the driver's seat-- and all of this right when he and Aziraphale are in big time danger.

This seems to suggest that Crowley and The Bentley are minutes away in the story from getting into the kind of trouble that means us seeing those guns Crowley has hidden. Someone's going after Crowley and there could about to be a car chase with The Bentley.

If this is all correct, it would also suggest something pretty enormous about The Finale, which is that a time jump is pretty much non-existent. That would go along with theories that S1's Round One of The Last Week of The World took us through Sunday and, since S2 left off on Friday morning, that The Finale is set during the rest of that weekend.

If Crowley having guns in The Bentley is accurate, could this also help to explain that This Is Very Much Foreshadowing line of Arthur Young's back in S1?