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Janet Fish, Daffodils and Spring Trees, 1988, Oil on canvas

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They are happy, everybody is loved! The end.

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Do you think given demon culture that they understand tax reforms and welfare systems? or do you think Qinghua shows up to work bags under his eyes holding up a diagram desperately trying to explain that this social welfare program will ultimately go towards improving quality of life and he's trying his best pointing at his graphs and charts and looks to the room of other advisors and one of them goes

'I still think we should increase military spending. More big phallic war objects!'

And Mobei-jun is totally on board for his darling husbands policies but also he's like thinking in his head about a giant flying war boat and how it be cool and Qinghua absolutely knows he's thinking this so he's like time to rebalance budget again as I slowly plot my autocratic takeover so I no longer have to deal with these morons

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Esteemed bookseller Anthony J. Crowley

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Husky getting nervous at his first swimming lesson

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I know the lyctors ascended without the benefit of a myriad of necromantic scholarship but it’s still funny to me that even after 10,000 years it took direct evidence for them to go “what?? you can do it both ways??” whereas Palamedes strolled around Canaan House for a few weeks and went ‘hm. seems fucked up. bet I could improve on this’ and then he did while trapped in death with one romance novel for company

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Okay so I wanna take a moment to talk about gravity. Now I know what this sounds like, but bare with me here I promise I'm looking to do a physics lecture. But I've been rotating this around in my head for a couple days now and I think there's something really critical in the way the show presents it to us.

For example: it's one of the few things actually listed in our introduction to this show individually while our protagonists build the universe, right between matter and everything else.

The show draws our attention to it here fairly bluntly by naming it but there are other incidents that, while I would not call them subtle, are not quite as on the nose.

There are at least three times Crowley chucks something he's holding his hands across the room. They're played for comedic bits but they all feel very weird and pointed to me - especially both times he does this to books that he seems to have no purpose for holding other than to chuck them later. It caught my attention mostly because everything in me recoiled at the idea of him doing that, but the more I thought about the way they're so visible and pointed was important. They almost feel like weird hiccups in the scene they're in.

We also get gravity as an implied threat with Gabriel climbing out the window and, of course, with every mention of a Fall. But there's also more mundane uses of gravity in the season that while not odd in isolation, the fact we get it popping up so notably is interesting tobme. There's also the scene with Nina and Maggie under the awning where rainwater's weight gets pulled down by gravity, the scene in 1941 where Aziraphale drops the picture of them onto the floor before they have their gray area talk, Gabriel dropping the matchbox, and I'm sure there's more. The point is the show is littered with reminders that gravity exists.

Now I know what this sounds like. I know it seems like yeah. Duh. They're on earth. Which has gravity. Of course gravity is a factor in nearly every physical action they do. Why are you even talking about this at all?

Well, it's because of a scene that is one of my absolute favorites in the whole season: the Gravity Lesson.

The scene opens with Jim throwing a book (My Best Games of Chess, an interesting title that feels pointed) repetitively at a desk. He's testing gravity himself, looking confused.

Crowley then descends from the upper level, carrying a stack of books. He pauses his descent on the spiral staircase and notes what Jim is doing.

Then we get this shot. Notice the light here. Jim is in the light from the windows but relatively in the middle of the shot. He's an angel still, though not nearly as in the Light as he was as Gabriel. And he's notably at ground level, on earth. Meanwhile Crowley blends into the shadows of the shop itself. He continues down the staircase, sauntering vaguely downward, until he finally hits earth level to be even with Jim. There's symbolism here, in the lighting, in the way they move through these frames, in the way the staircase spirals like an orbit.

Crowley continues this same sweeping circular pattern to come around the bookshop and place him in front of Jim. Unable to resist a question, even one that wasn't asked out loud, Crowley tells him about gravity. He moves center toward Jim here. A meeting in the middle. This is the first scene we see Crowley interact with Jim in a way anything near amicable. He explains how gravity works. "It's, um... A thing that happens when objects are pulled together. In this case, they're all pulled downwards because Earth is the largest thing around."

As he speaks, Crowley moves away from Jim, toward the back of the bookshop. But he stops very rapidly because Jim goes and asks him why. Crowley frowns to himself. He says he can't remember. He says it seemed like a good idea when they were all talking about it.

He walks back to Jim, giving this question some real thought, and settles on, "So things would stay where you put them, not just drift off." And Jim, backlit by the windows still, kind of frowns and drops the book again and points out. "But it doesn't stay where I put them. It goes down."

When the book hits the table it also visibly down not land precisely over where Jim dropped it either. It settles out of place, bouncing slightly from the force of it. This is what drew my attention to this scene more than anything else.

Because it's interesting isn't it? They're both right in their assessment here. And so much of this story is about people not fitting quite where they're dropped. Aziraphale and Crowley are both caught in Earth's gravity, jostled out of their respective places. The very first shot in the intro sequence emphasizes this idea. Crowley and Aziraphale meet in the middle on earth (where Crowley then says let there be light and lights a flame to guide them going forward).

Gabriel and Beez too fall out of line as soon as they get caught in Earth's gravity. Memories are deleted, but can't entirely escape the gravity of their old home. Memories are added, but you can't predict exactly the way they'll form. Miracles backfire and don't land quite as they're expected. We obey Heaven or Hell as far as we can, but not necessarily exactly as they'd like. These shifts eventually become predictable and eventually we learn w can calculate the odds of how gravity can impact something, but as Jim shows us here a little bit of the drift still happens. In the end it's all just firing bullets at ears and pretend to catch them in our teeth.

And there's viewing this line of thinking from the perspective of God. God who functionally dropped the universe into the gravity of Fate and Choice just to see where it would land.

And then there's the Fly.

As Jim points out here, some things actively resist gravity, at least temporarily. Flies go up. This is very fun, given Beelzebub's arc this season, but I think it's getting at more than just that. Crowley and Jim both pause to watch the fly rise upward, drifting away from Jim and toward the dark half of the shop. Crowley says Jim makes a good point and then shifts into "Right, the plan, Operation: Lovebird."

Given the plot of season 1, I find the use of the word plan here pretty interesting. Especially given that the event that follows this is Crowley trying and failing to get Nina and Maggie to recreate his own meet cute. Like the idea of these two being drawn together will fix everything.

And that got me thinking about Crowley's line at the end of season 1. About what if God planned it that way. What if they're God's own Operation Lovebird. We know that together they can do very powerful things. This whole season starts with them, while trying to keep their power under control and contained, do a miracle so big it could've brought someone back from the dead nearly 25 times. Last season ends with Heaven and Hell thinking they've become something impossible. The Metatron here goes out of his way to separate the two of them like he's afraid of what they're capable of together. And he seems to have successfully managed to do this.

But a Fly can't stay in the air forever. The Fly is always drawn back to Jim. Because not all gravity is about Earth itself. The same way Gabriel's memories are drawn back to him. The same way Beelzebub and Gabriel are drawn to each other in the first place. The same way Aziraphale and Crowley have been described time and time again as drawn in by each other. They're Alpha Centauri. Twin stars orbiting each other. They're constantly going in circles around each other. It's a dance. With the hands touching in the middle. Because that is a gravity too. They complete each other the same way the Fly completes Jim.

So what about choice? Think about the Ball episode. Think about how everyone in the shop is being influenced by some sort of miracle. Their clothes and behavior shift and change and Nina in particular shows us that this is Noticeable. Forcing something in a gravity it doesn't like or want makes it have a hard time settling. It doesn't go quite where you drop it.

And then there's the chat Nina and Maggie have with Crowley. "We're not a game. We're real people," says Maggie. And Crowley tries to argue this saying that they both needed help and they both push back that it is still not his right to meddle with. A game. Like the title My Best Games of Chess. Like the thing we know God has been using as a framing device since season 1. A thing the narrative always has pushed as a bad thing.

Maggie and Nina are choosing to not let beings above them influence their choices. They actively resist being compelled by Aziraphale in the bookshop together because they know what's right. His gravity is not enough to overwhelm their choices. And at the end maybe they're not together but they're working on it. And, maybe, if they do come back together (when they do, according to Maggie) it will be when they are ready and when they are choosing each their free of the constraints of the game or higher power. And that gives me hope that's where we're headed for the Ineffables as well.

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Both the opening scene and “Every” share a small theme/musical melody that creates a deep emotion context to the pairs inner feelings.

Listen below to how the notes ascend and descend:

Pre-Fall Crowley’s still has an angelic choir, a holy radiance and innocence we haven’t heard associated with him before. The theme sweeps into a bright major as he laughs at the joy of his hard work and the birth of something bright and new.

However, Crowley making a nebula fills him with the same joy as a kiss with Aziraphale. The melody plays in dramatic strings that cry out with a smaller choir which slowly drags away. A melodic interpretation of the fallen angel. Yet, the music falls to minor after the initial hope of the kiss. Sadder. Slowly falling apart.

This isn’t a birth of something new like his joyful nebula, but potentially a loss.

In conclusion: Season 2 is actively slowly killing me. David Arnold went insane this season.

More GO Analyses:

- The Metatron is a Parallel to Original Sin/the Serpent of Eden

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Not much longer now...

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Starting the big bang or facing down Satan: the car crank is a multi-functional piece of machinery

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know your enemy : he likes to sleep. a lot

let's make it a sin

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So

For those who follow me for non-FFXIV reasons, I bring a crumb of internet drama to your door:

As with a lot of MMOs, roleplaying is a big thing. A BIG thing. Another big thing is the modding scene, so you can get your character looking just how you like. Squeenix does not best love mods, but it's broadly a don't-ask-don't-tell situation: as long as your mods don't give you an unfair advantage and you don't rub them in anyone's face, they'll look the other way

Guess what's the explicit direct polar opposite of not rubbing it in anyone's face

Buying four entire billboards in a major US city about it

A roleplay group bought out multiple billboards to advertise an event, and used both a modded screenshot (edit: that apparently uses a datamined unreleased outfit holy shit) and the official game logo on it

This Has Gone Well For Them and last I heard people had been banned temporarily over it pending more severe action, the modding scene is having very real fears that Squeenix will crack down on mod use over it, and apparently the organizers are pitching a hissy on their discord

No one is happy

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Made recently a Good Omens painting with acrylic paint and this is how it turned out! ✨

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i’d like to think i’m funny 

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in modern aus i see people having suibian and bichen as like pets, but what if it was just their laptops. wwx and jc have matching laptops and wen chao gets wen zhuliu to throw jc’s laptop in a river and wwx just like changes his password and wallpaper and is like dope i found your laptop. jc is like wow! i dont remember having so many memes on my laptop but my laptops back! lwj is on a quest to find out why wwx is doing his entire thesis in the notes app on his phone. wei ying come to the it department with me and all that. 

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good omens + text posts (part 3)

can you tell i'm having fun making these