#LWA anon and now 🌙 anon!!!

[thesherrinfordfacility]

hehe im the muslim anon here again!! [waves] we have a few similarities with good omens :0 there's the story of job! we call him ayyub and he's a prophet, not just a devout worshipper, but its functionally the same story. islam and christianity share a lot of stories because we have the same important people so to speak and so there's a lot of overlap in the biblical stories we see in good omens :)

what you said about aziraphale potentially being raphael really interests me though! especially since metatron (who in islam is called the guardian of the veil and is the only one who knows about the beyond - sounds godlike but is decidedly Not.) said "we need an angel of your talents [to bring about the second coming]" so the dots.. they are connecting...

though i will say that israfil doesn't bring about the second coming in islam; he blows the trumpet (twice) to bring about armageddon. we also have a version of the second coming, but our jesus/isa lives at least 40 years on earth and dies before the world ends. (i do not think thats the same in christianity uh but. my two cents! not sure what they are worth, but you can have them anyway) - 🌙 (is it ok if i sign off with that? just because i feel like i might want to say more things in future heh)

hello again, lovely!!!✨ welcome back! (and of course, sign off with whatever you like!!! thou shall be my 🌙 anon - im curating a little group of specific anons, it seems!!!💕)

also, i hope it's okay that i might ask a few more questions - i promise i will do my own reading, but i find personally it's easier for me to have some general context, and then go into more detail in my further research, and helps me not fall down the dreaded research rabbit-hole... so hope that's alright with you!!!

re: book of job, etc: that's again really fascinating (and just shows my complete ignorance of religion in general tbh) - to learn that there is indeed that level of crossover, but given they're abrahamic actually it should have been a bit more obvious to me (bit of a duh moment, there!).

metatron: now that is... intriguing. so, if metatron is definitely not at any deific level, does his knowledge of (from what im understanding?) the state beyond death make him omniscient? does Allah also know what lies beyond the veil - and if so, is Allah considered omniscient too? because from your previous ask where Islam (again, please correct me if im entirely misunderstanding this) encourages free will, wouldn't that potentially conflict with omniscience? or is Allah omniscient but resolutely 'hands-off' in letting humanity make choices and ergo mistakes?

so sorry - barrage of questions there! free will is a very interesting philosophical concept for me and one ive ruminated on a lot, so to have an alternative view is really helpful!!!

re: israfil: aaaah i just read back my previous answer; i had meant the day of judgement, not resurrection, my bad! but cool, thank you for clarifying about the second coming anyway!!! so if the second coming does somewhat exist in islam, does it not in fact precipitate the day of judgement? if not, is there any particular trigger (ie an equivalent of the second coming) that triggers israfil to blow the trumpet? or is it simply the order from Allah straight into the main act, so to speak? and actually, just out of curiosity, is there significance attached to two trumpet blows, as opposed to - say - just one?

thank you so much again 🌙 anon, im really enjoying learning from you!!!✨ (and feel free to nope out if you get fed up with the questions, totally understandable!!!)

[thesherrinfordfacility]

coercion/choice middle ground anon again! your response and also that other inspired meta have given me so many thoughts. i couldn't get them into a sort of unified statement so i'm just going to go through with a line-by-line approach:

well, what about the miracle blocker? how did i forget about this. oh shit. add that to the loooong list of Stuff That's Going To Come Back To Haunt us. chekhov's everything. someone ought to make a list.

so much so that he was potentially taken in by it too possibly not just him but crowley as well. yes they lived through austen times. they could have theoretically learned to dance like that. based off the season 1 head of a pin segment i don't think so though. aziraphale knows the gavotte and crowley knows the horrible disco dance and that seems like it's it.

why would he be sat there waiting for a call? could he have known a call would be coming? in a surveillance state way not a collabing with demons way. would fit with the way he just shows up apparently fully informed about everything the next morning. speaking of surveillance state i know a lot of people compare heaven to a cult and i agree but my first thought back in season 1 was actually dictatorship.

the explanation for that can only be, in my book, that metatron has been watching... and possibly has been since the first time the portal opened. well that's not at all ominous. but again it would fit with what he seems to know. did he actually go back over their exploits or has he just spent the last four years eavesdropping and put together the pieces?

i think he knows that metatron might have eyes and ears everywhere. hmmm. yeah. ominous. especially if he makes the connection to the bookshop portal because that would mean it's targeted. i do think he clocks the metatron as potential threat regardless of how kindly he's presenting himself. he's as you said not stupid and he's just too nervous around him not to have.

but because if aziraphale walks away, without crowley, crowley has nowhere safe to go. ohhhh shit. his decision's not at all only about crowley's safety but it is the only decision where crowley's safe.

(1/?)

oh hello 🦭 anon!!!✨ first of all, of course you can offload braindumps and thoughts and suggestions and whatever you like to my inbox!!! i love interacting with people like this so please do so whenever the inclination arises, you are very welcome here!!!✨

further screenshots below the cut:

for you to have gone through that meta practically line by line is... alarming!!! but moreso in that i cant believe you took the time to do so and reflect on each point, im very appreciative of that - thank you!!! and i love seeing your own responsive thoughts, they certainly kicked off a couple of my own!!!✨

why would he be sat there waiting for a call? could he have known a call would be coming? in a surveillance state way not a collabing with demons way. would fit with the way he just shows up apparently fully informed about everything the next morning. speaking of surveillance state i know a lot of people compare heaven to a cult and i agree but my first thought back in season 1 was actually dictatorship.

funnily enough this is nearer to how i see heaven, too; i completely understand the different analogies that others have drawn, including a cult or an abusive family (and all are absolutely true, none are wrong!!!), but i personally see heaven as a police state, or at the very least a totalitarian state with similar power/capabilities. it strikes me as being rather orwellian, to say the least.

as for collaboration with demons, i do think that there may be an element of this involved (for anyone else, context on this discussion is here), but maybe not in this exact instance of the portal opening in s2. i think there's perhaps been some high-level orchestration going on that could involve using the demons and the whole gabriel situation to an advantage, but in this specific scene, yeah i think its a case of metratron having an eye on the whole thing.

the explanation for that can only be, in my book, that metatron has been watching... and possibly has been since the first time the portal opened. well that's not at all ominous. but again it would fit with what he seems to know. did he actually go back over their exploits or has he just spent the last four years eavesdropping and put together the pieces?

oooookay so basically, i think its a combination of the two. i think the last four years - definitely possible he's been looking through the portal. we don't have any narrative confirmation that aziraphale has actually opened the portal before s1, and he doesn't recognise metatron's head. that being said, im of the mind that despite what is shown to us as the human audience, in heaven all the angels are in true form... so metatron (Inc his stupid floating head) may have looked very different pre-fall to aziraphale - hence why he doesn't recognise him.

anyway! i think yes; he's been steadily watching ever since aziraphale piqued his interest in s1 (calls metatron, ignores him, sucked up to heaven, yeets himself back to earth, and then stops the ordained apocalypse? man's practically a heavenly terrorist)... but then i think metatron has potentially used the surveillance system to basically back-research, and had a particular angel to help him do it (or perhaps he was watching all along? who knows).

i think he realises that metratron is potentially dangerous. he's smarter than metatron has given him credit for the metatron thinks he's reindoctrinated aziraphale into heaven's way of thinking when really aziraphale's planning to form heaven according to his way of thinking. crowley gets it wrong too. as so many people have said he hears i can fix you instead of i can fix heaven and i'd like your help. and look he's got issues and i don't blame him but i do think it's why a lot of people got mad at aziraphale and i have a lot to say about all of that. like a lot a lot and potentially somewhat ranty so while i'd love to share i shall appropriate vampire culture and wait for permission (also have quite a few thoughts about the fall that i'd love to vent if you don't mind being on the listening end) before i turn this endless.

listen. 🦭 anon, my love, my darling one. first of all - unreliable narrators? it's my girl dinner; both of them are unreliable to frankly incredible extents. idk how familiar you might be with my ramblings, but where you want to peruse, take a look at my masterpost tags, specifically the #crowley meta and #aziraphale meta ones, because whilst i am frankly an aziraphale defender (mainly in reaction to everyone shitting on him immediately after the premiere - me too, for about like 30 minutes and then i had a Realisation), i wax fairly lyrical about how much of a Problem these characters both are. i try to be balanced (but will fully admit im more biased towards being critical more frequently of crowley), but they are both very problematic.

the LWA responses (also linked in my masterpost) get very much into narrator critique too.

consider this absolute blanket permission to drop anything in my inbox, especially concerning the fall! it's the main speculation that i love thinking about (however much it hurts me in equal measure), but i'll chat about, and parse out, anything really!!!💕

and not until possibly clocking this dirty look thrown at crowley, just for good measure ooh good catch. i had not yet considered the possibility that he picked up on the weird tension there. (seriously do they have history?) there's something to be said about that i just don't know what.

my #the fall/the great war spec explores this a bit more across various posts and asks, but i absolutely do think this. not only because of the dialogue where metatron references crowley ("always did want to go his own way... always asking damn-fool questions too!"), but also from the way that crowley speaks about god in both s1 and s2, and - what appears to be - gaps in AWCW's recollection about the fall itself.

AWCW - Angel Who Crowley Was

come scream at me about this. seriously.

will leave it there for now, but again - do feel free to come back at any time!!! i rarely have one set opinion or interpretation of any given scene/line/etc., and love to consider alternative points of view - yours was a case in point!!!

i was originally vehemently against aziraphale having been overtly threatened or coerced, because a) it felt so superfluous to what was otherwise a subtle and masterful manipulation, one that seems to lead to aziraphale making the decision for himself, not metatron forcing his hand, and b) i think being threatened/blackmailed into ascending would potentially shit on a number of aspects about aziraphale's character, and reduce him to only "i'll go against my own character development just to protect crowley uwu", which is also... well, it's possible, but i hate it. aziraphale however suspecting that something else is happening, and being scared as a result - that feels a lot more in line with his character, imo!!!

anyway, hope to see you again soon 🦭 anon!!! you're welcome anytime!!!✨💕