#GAIMAN EXPLAIN

[beaniegaebie]

i don't really have any solid conclusions about this yet but i noticed A Thing in a rewatch and i haven't found it mentioned elsewhere yet so here we go

(apologies for the appalling image quality you're about to see, i can't screenshot easily rn pls bear with)

OKAY so in the scene where crowley confronts gabriel about "shut up and die", something about the arrangement of book stacks caught my eye a little

the majority of the books are angled so that we mostly just see the page edges and not the spines clearly, EXCEPT for a particularly shiny and familiar colour combo right here-

but nothing too weird going on there, i thought, crowley coloured books in a bookshop so what? right up until i registered crowley's line when we get a closer look-

hhhhmmmmMMmmmm yes yes "everything just the way you wanted" huh, very interesting considering that we know how much thought goes into props huh

and for most of the shots we get of crowley in this position those freaking books are just quietly nestled right there in the corner-

look at that god damn framing i fuckin see you, you glorious bastards

so i paused to see if i could figure out what the hell was up with those fuckers and this is when i absolutely lost my mind, your honour

A and C you say?? in crowley colours???? framed like this?????? localised entirely within your kitchen???

anyway long story short they're two books from an Agatha Christie Crime Collection set (24 volumes, three stories per volume) and guess whats on the mfing front covers I'm-

(its a rant for another post but when paired with this other set of initials spotted in s2 i want to scream actually)

ANYWAY back to the books, through an absolutely unhinged comparison of the formatting of gold text blobs i reckon the two we have here are:

(on top) The Pale Horse; The Big Four, The Secret Adversary

(on bottom) 4:50 From Paddington, Lord Edgeware Dies, Murder in Mesopotamia

(I'm fairly confident but if anyone has a better image to confirm/correct this pls do)

now here is where I'll need a bunch of help from some Christie-heads out there bc I haven't read any of these and I've only seen the tv adaptation of one of them, so i dont know for sure if these are like A Clue, or A Cool Thing, or if I've just fully brainrotted myself into a fun lil corner here? wa-hoo

but here's some initial stuff that jumped out at me after skimming the basics:

(some of) the titles: Pale Horse/Big Four - death's horse ofc, the four horsemen mayb? the them+adam?? ; Mesopotamia is a very biblical choice bbz ; 4:50 From Paddington- azi likes trains i guess? idk that one's tenuous lmao ; honestly no idea with the other two but Secret Adversary feels a tad ominous

iirc Big Four just has kind of an unusual history, it was initially twelve short stories that she later compiled into one, and it was published fairly soon after christie's mysterious disappearance/reappearance

in Big Four, poirot fakes his death at one point and doesnt even let hastings in on it and I'm hoping sure its totally irrelevant to the ineffable bois

part of the Pale Horse story is a group of assassins that basically try to pass off all their murders as being actually caused by like ✨satanic powers✨ which is interesting

christie knew a fUCkton about poisonings thats why she wrote so many into her work and, while i don't believe the poison coffee theory myself, it sure is an interesting link with how cyanide is associated with almond smell/flavour and that metatron chooses almond syrup in particular

(ALSO random side note that is mostly meaningless but I've worked in a good few uk coffee shops and have never worked anywhere that stocks almond syrup; almond milk yes, hazelnut syrup yes, but never almond syrup...? prob just the places i worked though lmao)

EDIT forgotten point: I've seen some speculation that the bently's plate reading "CURTAIN" could be a reference to poirot's last story, along side that alternate scene of crowley ordering the sherry for "miss marple", its just one too many agatha christie references for my melted brain to handle and I'm SUS

so this is where i run out of idea steam and hand it over to you lot because i have no clue what this could mean, if it even means anything other than a cool set feature

is there something here actually or am i yelling into the void just for fun?

who knows, who cares!

[iamtheansweringmachine]

I'm never not thinking about this panel.

[hansoeii]

we go just right.

[davinaclare]

GOOD OMENS  | 1.02 “The Book”

[tennant-davids]

GOOD OMENS 2x01 - 2x06

We've been talking for millions of years! Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah... You never say what you're really thinking.

[ineffable-ezra]

[magnusbae]

"...You had to be able to show too much of yourself. You had to be just a little bit more honest than you were comfortable with. And if people judged you, if they felt they knew who you were, that was just something that you were going to have to live with. And what was strange is, once I started doing that, and I was expecting to be judged, or shunned, or people’s opinions or to have to deal with things, what I discovered was, actually, their opinions were, we really like this. We love this story. That’s a good story. It felt huge. It felt personal. And I realized that’s because I was being honest about me.“ —Neil Gaiman

[middnightlight]

so can someone give me the rundown of every character in #thesandman because the costumes, the characters, the lighting, looks amazing, but I have no fucken clue what’s going on

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

I've been reading through your descent into Good Omens and I am CACKLING

Welcome to the fandom and I'm sorry but there is no exit

thank you i have realised that but it will NOT STOP ME FROM MAKING AN ESCAPE ATTEMPT INTO DOCTOR WHO wait that's probably worse

[thatdelusionalnerd]

idk if im the first one to say this but, remember that burning bookshop scene in season 1?

it is so poetic that while crowley walks out, "somebody to love' plays in the background. he has just lost his best friend. his best friend whom he's been pining for for the last 6000 years. he lost the person he loved. and now he needs find somebody to love.

[queer-reader-07]

“tumblr changed this man” no. neil gaiman has been weird AT LEAST since he started publishing in the 80s. we all on tumblr are just all a bunch of weirdos (affectionate) and he just so happens to fit right in with us.

[beepbeepdespair]

breaking news: ineffable bureaucracy astounded by a pineapple. more at eleven

[yourlocaldragondealer]

idk where this comes from and im definitely not the first person to point it out but one thing i love about good omens is that its just so. Loving. Towards humanity?

like, aziraphale and crowley have been around for six thousand years. Theyve witnessed so much about humanity and a lot of it was bad, but a lot of it was good, too. They still want it to keep living, despite having an endless life, they still enjoy the changes and everything humans have to offer and all the inventions they make. Having human inventions, human music, human cars, windscreen wipers, books, all that around is better than even heaven. Theres bad stuff too, and its said outright that humans are better at fucking things up than even demons, but at the end if the day, the protagonists are literally defying heaven and hell for humanity, despite AND because. It takes this default mode that a lot of shows or books have started with, of "everythings dark and bad and fucked and technically everybody is somehow the bad guy" and instead acknowledges the greyscales of "people being fundamentally people" and decides that thats something worth fighting for.

its a very obvious message but i still wanted to gush about it because i think its beautiful

[imsickofpasswords]

GOS2 analysis: A New Hope (or… Guys, I think I cracked the ending !!!😳🤯)

SPOILER ALERT!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!SPOILER ALERT!!! (Even for those who watched both seasons several times!!!)

Hi! You are about to read a mixture between a theory and a revelation. Both could be figments of my mind making things up by dint of overthinking and overwatching (...is there such a thing as overwatching GO?) Anyway, I must warn you that if you DO see what I think I saw, the agony you endured for months (maybe you got used to it, maybe you befriended it, maybe you don’t want it to go), the excruciating pain that led you here, will come to an end NOW. For me, Good Omens is a work-of-art and NOTHING will take the passion/obsession away, trauma or no trauma. If you're like me, then read on! 

Before I dive into the thick of the matter, allow me to stress a couple of things. I know you know, but this is still very important. Please, bear with me…

Aziraphale and Crowley KNOW each other. 

They share a 6000 year-old friendship. Surely you experienced that, at least once in your life, with a long-time friend or partner: you finish each other’s sentences, you glance at each other and burst out laughing when nobody else understands why, you speak the same coded language that doesn’t even require words. That’s how close Aziraphale and Crowley are. Aziraphale can predict Crowley's every reaction. He knows how to manipulate him with just a pout or a frown. Crowley knows what makes Aziraphale tick. He knows what the angel holds dearest. He can figure out Aziraphale's state of mind just by listening to the TONE of his voice. He knows how Aziraphale SMELLS! 

They also know WHO the other one is, I mean deep down, what they want and what they’re capable of… 

Aziraphale and Crowley TRUST each other. 

‘I could always rely on you, you could always rely on me.’ 

And

'You could have walked away'

'You said trust me'

'And you did.'

So on… you know all those lines by heart and I'm sure you could come up with oodles of examples. 

Walls have ears(floors too).

Someone wrote somewhere (was that on Youtube?) that the 25 lazari miracle could have been performed by the Metratron, since the magic circle was once used to contact him and was probably never turned off properly afterwards. That's an interesting theory. 

Personally, I don't believe the Metatron was involved in the miracle. I already elaborated about this in my first theory https://www.tumblr.com/imsickofpasswords/732879204359847936/a-theory-of-the-ineffable-plan-by and sort of got confirmation when Uriel asked what the miracle was and Aziraphale answered 'love, it was love!' 

I nonetheless realized that the Metratron could indeed be using this channel to spy on Aziraphale. If so, since when? I don’t think it could be from the first time Aziraphale drew the circle, because Adam reset reality after that. Adam would have closed the portal, wouldn't he? Idk. My bet is the snooping began after the miracle, and the magnitude of the miracle is what scared the Metratron into trying to separate Aziraphale and Crowley.  

Such considerations had me wonder if what feels like altered memories isn't actually the Metratron prying into Aziraphale's mind (indigovigilance from Tumblr pointed out that ALL the flashbacks seem to emanate from Aziraphale). Or maybe the Metatron has been reading… Aziraphale’s diary. (Btw, does anyone know what happened to that diary?) The Metratron does brag about looking back over Aziraphale's "exploits" (translation: infringements). Plural. So, not just stopping Armageddon? What else? Saving Job's children? Helping out Elspeth? 

What's more, the Metatron compliments Muriel, the "dim one", on reading books. 'What a splendid thing to do!' and then he glares at the bookshop. 

Aziraphale is not always Aziraphale

I don’t know about you, but I shriveled in horror when Aziraphale promised to give away a book. Had I just slipped into another dimension?

One perfectly acceptable explanation is that love is more important to Aziraphale than books. Fine. Why then does he only offer to LEND a book after Crowley pointed out how IMPOSSIBLE it is for the angel to even THINK of selling a book? In the novel, people who insist on buying books from Aziraphale’s shop go missing FOREVER…

It feels like the usurper realized they made a mistake and tried not to make it twice. Also, what's with the French? Aziraphale spoke French when he was in prison, and he certainly wasn't struggling like that. Last but not least, he does move his hands a lot, but not in the same fashion as he usually does. This was NOT Aziraphale (I think).

We saw how supernatural beings can change their appearance without swapping bodies. Shax changed her face whilst hitchhiking when she HAD NO REASON TO (Aziraphale had never met her before). 

I believe the Metatron is the one who turned into Aziraphale. But just for a moment ( I burnt my eyes checking Michael Sheen's every facial expression and gesture and tone of voice throughout the entire season and I couldn't spot anything amiss outside that moment, let me know if I'm wrong). Just a short period of time, then. Why? To see if Crowley would fall for it. I don't know if our beloved demon did. 

The obvious objection to this theory is: surely the real Aziraphale would realize that some of his guests had already been invited by… HIMSELF? Well, Nina kept Crowley for a moment. We don't know that the Metatron didn't go around erasing people's memory of him. 

Ok, okay, admittedly,  it is far-fetched, probably complete bullshit. But I needed to mention this because it's also a part of how I interpret the ending. Nope! I'm not saying the Metatron is the one who got kissed by Crowley!!! That would be… OMG, 🤮

The bullet trick…

Aziraphale is a magician. And his magic seems to always work when he needs it most, providing he uses this formula:"banana, fish, gorilla, shoelace with a dash of nutmeg” the magic words that Mark Gatiss as a zombie reads from the angel's lips. 

And there it comes, the showstopper. Actually the "REHEARSAL of the showstopper", as I call it, and you’ll find out why very soon. Please, pause here and go fetch the scene, you’ll need to watch CAREFULLY. See how scared Crowley is when Aziraphale hands over the gun? Crowley is maybe wondering why the miracles aren't working and if he is not about to actually kill his only friend. Then, Crowley mutters something. No idea what, but something like, I can't do it. And Aziraphale, reading his lips, replies in the same fashion, lipspeaking. Whatever the angel says then, Crowley understands it, and it's enough for him to overcome his fear. 

The ACTUAL showstopper.

I think you got it by now: what I thought when I saw that, and what I wanted to do next. I didn't rush to the last episode although I was dying to. I didn't want to miss anything and I couldn't believe what I expected would actually happen. But it DID. 

The Metatron knows that people are predictable and that nobody ever chooses death over coffee. We don't see his entire conversation with Aziraphale but even if the Metatron doesn't flat out threaten to erase Crowley's name from the Book Of Life, Aziraphale is very aware that this is an option as Michael already said she was given permission to do so. Check Aziraphale's face the minute the Metatron mentions Crowley. Aziraphale hears the threat loud and clear. His face goes grim. He knows he doesn't have a choice but to play along if he's going to save Crowley. 

"Go tell your friend the good news!" 

Aziraphale smiles, but he is distraught and terrified. The ineffable husbands KNOW each other, remember? There’s no way Aziraphale thinks Crowley will follow him to heaven. Besides, Aziraphale is INTELLIGENT. He knows The Metadick (whoever invented that name, I love you) doesn’t want Crowley back. So all the pleading, come with me, to the light, we'll be doing good, yada yada… is FAKE. All Aziraphale wants when he enters the bookshop is to let Crowley know about the situation without raising suspicions from the Metatron who is watching from outside. That's why the angel keeps glancing at the window whilst using his "something is wrong voice". Now, dear reader, fellow victim who cried your eyes out for months, if you still have eyes, LOOK AGAIN. 

When Aziraphale starts to talk about the offer, Crowley frowns, not in disbelief or in anger but in intense focus on… Aziraphale's lips. Can you see them? The SILENT words at the end of the sentences? Tell me you see them too. Please. You do, right? Or do I need to seek help? 

Everything after that, every line, is a smoke screen meant for the Metatron (and poor us…) The Metatron is to believe that two lovers got into a fight and got torn apart. Even angels and demons are predictable! 

The kiss, of course, is a mean to conceal the moment when Crowley extracts himself from the timeline, taking Aziraphale with him so they can discuss away from prying eyes and ears. Hence the missing fifteen minutes on the clock. 🙂

I think Crowley's confession was genuine. But it was also there to make the fight more convincing. And no one here will say it wasn't convincing… My guess is there must have been another confession, maybe another kiss? A real, tender, passionate, romantic, heart-wrenching kiss that left Aziraphale pressing hard on his lips, aching for more. “Do it again.” But the Metatron would notice… so… "I…forgive you", you foul fiend who thought you could tempt me with such a lowly, dirty and pathetic trick (translation, I love you… and I don't want to leave you, go before I burst into tears, I don't have sunglasses…)

So. They didn't fight!!!!  They are still a team, a group of two, a couple, and more than ever!! 

Not done yet. There is one last thing that you saw. When the Metatron reveals his plans about the Second Coming, Aziraphale pauses before entering the elevator. And it may last less than a split second, but I can swear that his lips moved again as he was staring at Crowley. Someone crossed the street right after, but Aziraphale kept looking at Crowley although the camera was too far for us to see the lips. However, there was enough time to convey a lot of information. 

Now, did they swap? Aziraphale doesn't gesture much after the kiss. Crowley drives under the speed limit and for the first time while Crowley is driving, Queen isn't playing. But. Aziraphale is walking away from his friend-now-lover, not knowing if he actually saved him, or… knowing that he did NOT save him. Crowley is crushed, and probably worried sick about Aziraphale walking alone into an obvious trap. The demon can remember only too vividly how Heaven wanted to end Aziraphale. 

The Bentley is sad too, and not just because her master is. She (Yes, she!) grew feelings for Aziraphale, who allowed her to wear fancy yellow and took her to an exciting trip and managed to have her play something new… She likes him so much that she tries to follow him, like a puppy, remember? I think she's the one who played the Nightingale song, to comfort Crowley and herself. As Sendaraya predicted in one of her YouTube videos, we may find out later that this was the Ineffable Husbands' song, ever since 1941, when their relationship started to drift towards romance. 

Last but not least, the main reason why I don't think they swapped. I firmly believe the Metatron is planning to wear Aziraphale's face again. Metasick has unresolved issues with Crowley who, annoyingly, still retains some of his memories. Memories that may have become indelible because of Aziraphale's presence. But of course, to impersonate Aziraphale, Crowley's soft spot and only weakness, the Metatron needs to keep Aziraphale out of the picture…

To be continued… (Season 3!!! And for the record, great pustulent mangled bollocks to the ones who delayed it, and I'm NOT talking about the writers and actors…���)

Thanks for reading^^

[itsjustmethankyou]

So anyways, they like holding hands, and it makes my heart happy.

[fellshish]

preeples didn’t know it all meant sex ? any british word with a rhyme (see ‘hanky panky’) or ‘ey’ (as in ‘tomfoolery’) in it means sex