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aspoetssay · 2 years

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DOMESTIC COD CHARACTERS X GN!READER HEADCANONS alejandro, ghost, soap, price, valeria, rodolfo, könig, gaz

This comes from a request of an anon from my main account. Thank you so much for the request, anon! I thought that it was such a good idea that most of the characters deserve to have a few paragraphs! I hope you will like it!

warnings: curse words and tooth-rotting fluff.

ALEJANDRO VARGAS

Lazy Sundays are a must. As much as he is a passionate man, who loves to go exploring—sometimes the warmth of the bed and you make him feel so lazy. That man will whine, protest and create chaos if you’ll refuse to stay with him in bed and do nothing. A planned lunch with friends? Cancel it. In need of groceries? You’ll get order something. Just stay in bed with him if you don’t want to be suffocated in his arms.

Loves to prepare food but likes it too spicy. You can handle spice—but that man could easily get on the Hot Ones and not even shed a tear. For him, the seasoning is chilli peppers. The way you have to watch him like a hawk and force him not to put more spice into the stew - your doctor is already concerned about your health after you ate some stew he made—you almost ended up in the ER.

Loves it when you prepare him food. Yes, it’s not enough spicy for him, but he admires the variety of cuisines you can make. He won’t admit it, but the ravioli you make with mushrooms are to die for.

He isn’t much of a sweets-eating guy, but an occasional muffin goes well with a cup of coffee. His favourite are the triple chocolate muffins and once he almost burnt his hands because he tried to take the trays out of oven without the mittens. Your look was enough to scold him without any words being said.

Enjoys cuddling way too much. If you two are spending the evening together and watching a movie, you better know there isn’t any personal space between you two. Just try to scoot away from him. That man will give you the most hurt look you have ever seen, ready to give you the most dramatic monologue in Spanish that you don’t like him. His love language is touch—please be kind enough to kiss his insecurities away.

Has a garden in the backyard. Absolutely loves to grow his own vegetables and loves it when you are helping him. It’s the most domestic thing he does with you and it always makes him feel better. It puts his mind off the horrors he has to deal with in his job and just focuses on nourishing and growing something. A plus side for you—that man works in the garden without his shirt. And maybe that’s the reason why you’re so eager to help him.

Always will make you a warm bath when you are stressed. He isn’t the type of guy to threaten to hurt someone for making you stressed. He will more likely make sure you will feel better—a warm bath, fuzzy socks, a cup of tea and a cupcake. When it’s hard - he’ll listen to you, knowing just when and what to say to make you feel understood and better.

SIMON “GHOST” RILEY

That man is the definition of domestic. No mask around you, not a scent of gunpowder - nothing. When he is off the missions and with you - he is a different man. Not Lieutenant Ghost, but your Simon.

He really values quality time. Doing nothing with you, just being in the same room with you is relaxing. You couldn’t count how many times he has passed out into an hour-long nap just from how relaxed he was in your presence. He’d always wake up from a loud snore he’d produce, catching your giggle.

Not a very good cook, but he knows a few easy recipes that are divine. Somehow he manages to make an omelette so good that no other omelette compares—what the hell is he putting in there? In addition, he makes a hell of a good tea. It’s one of his love languages to just randomly get you a nice cup of tea without any words exchanged. Yet you know that the cup of warm liquid is his way of saying he loves you.

Loves working out with you. Especially after you two turned your garage into a working-out space. He was always very reserved and closed-up while working out because he usually did it among other soldiers, but with you it is fun! The way he puts you on his back when he is doing push-ups. The way he is looking at your ass without the care in the world when you are doing squats, just waiting to get his hands on your bum. When he’s working with you, he never wears a shirt—he loves seeing you getting distracted in your reps because he just flexed his muscles.

Enjoys reading anything. Some bullshit newspaper with dumb articles? He’s on it just so he could grumble like an old man that it was bullshit. Some gossip magazine you were reading? Hear him display annoyance over the Kardashian names. He loves reading Greek Mythology—it’s not complicated for him and he likes the way the hexameter flows in his mind. You could swear you heard him one night crying about Patroclus’ death, but you never mentioned it—

Big about back hugs. You making lunch? Back hug. You doing your skincare routine? His hands are around you and he is secretly waiting to be pampered as well. Only because of you he has a whole ass skincare routine because you were absolutely aghast once you heard that he washed his face a few times with dish soap.

Be sure that he loves cuddling. He’s very touch-starved and he needs reassurance about that. Can absolutely die when you kiss the top of his head or his forehead. Once, you scratched just the right spot on his scalp and you heard him purr—he gave you the look right there and then that if you’ll say a word - you’ll regret it. But you just continued scratching the spot and you confronted him later on—

Remember the way he loves taking naps? He loves napping with you even more! Especially when you are laying on him, already passed out. Once, he accidentally turned over in his sleep and squished you almost to death—it took quite some time for him to wake up and move away from you as you were just about to die. From then on, he’s always been a bit on guard while napping with you, but you always soothed him enough for him to drift off completely.

Not a fan of taking pictures, but you already have quite the collection in your drawer. Once you showed all of them, blabbering how perfect he looks and that was the first time you saw Simon flush. He was so overwhelmed with the compliments that he couldn’t handle them anymore. Grumbles and mumbles followed as he stormed out of the room and you were horribly sad that you didn’t have a camera back there to take a picture of his rosy cheeks.

JOHN “SOAP” MACTAVISH

Domestic Soap is a rare sight since he is quite the traveller and the chatter. He enjoys taking strolls with you, sightseeing, and travelling, but occasional evenings at home, doing nothing, are refreshing.

He loves to draw. He enjoys nothing more than sketching you when your attention is off to somewhere else - you always get too shy and too giddy when you notice that he is drawing you, so he does it secretly.

Once he gifted you a small sketchbook of sketches full of him and you. You started tearing up and he got seriously terrified—was he that bad at drawing? But once you clung onto his neck and expressed how talented he was, he was the one gulping down the tears. After that, you asked him to teach you how to draw—but then you quickly agreed that he should be the one sticking to it.

He is handy! Anything that needs to be fixed or changed will be done immediately. You don’t have to worry about flickering lights or getting new furniture since he can do it all himself! Yes, he does watch some tutorials on how to do something, but your garage is quickly filled with tons of tools and necessities for the household.

Shower time alone—what is that? You can be sure that once you even think about going to shower, that man will be already ready at the bathroom door. Once you were feeling too shy so you locked the door and he was whining like a lost puppy on the other side of the door. There was nothing more he loved than when you washed his Mohawk—even if he might seem like the 3in1 type of guy, he maintains a whole ass routine for his hair. You, taking care of it, means he trusts you.

Loves to watch reality shows with you. A little bit too invested in Too Hot To Handle, but he keeps on showing his concern when they keep breaking the rules. You always shut him up by asking if he’d manage to keep his hands off you, but he always says it is too different. And he boasts that his favourite couple always wins the money.

A big sucker for family celebrations. Can’t wait for Christmas or birthdays to gather with your or his family. He’s the type of person to make lame jokes around, but everyone loves him. He really is the star of any celebration except when it is another’s birthday. But most of it all, he loves to show you off to his family and friends. Can’t stop talking about you or giving you sweet looks. Couldn’t count on your fingers how many pictures you have where some aunty took a photo of you two—you laughing at his joke and him giving you heart eyes.

JOHN PRICE

Just like Simon, John is the definition of domestic as well. He loves having lazy mornings and lazy evenings as long as you are with him. If you tiptoe into the terrace while he is having his morning cigar and hug him from behind, that man will swoon instantly.

The one to bring you breakfast to your bed. He’s quite good at cooking and always surprises you with either an English Breakfast or something sweeter with a cup of tea of your liking. The presentation on the tray is always on spot—can do fabulous hearts on pancakes with Nutella.

Lets you take care of his beard. Now, listen—you see how well he takes care of his beard? It’s really important for him. You always eagerly help him to shave or to shape the beard, especially in the spots he can’t really see himself. There is just something about the way you sit on the bathroom counter, gently trimming his beard just the way he taught you.

Big on silly board games. Will absolutely crush you at Monopoly and Alias. Don’t even talk about any card games, because he might seem like he is an old man, but he quickly learns the rules and then no one can beat him. Every game night ends with you frowning and getting mad at him and him smugly saying that he will make it up to you.

Loves reading to you. Loves reading overall, but doesn’t spend much time doing so. That’s why, whenever you get on the couch into his arms with his book in your hand, he always smiles so widely that his cheeks start to burn. And when you admitted that his voice is the most pleasant thing you have ever heard—you can be sure that he will never deny your request to read for you out loud.

Big on dancing with you. Creating that cosy evening atmosphere when it is dark outside. When a stupid show is on the TV and he already goes to the Home Stereo and puts on some old, slow music, extending his hand to you. Either looking into your face or burying his nose into the crook of your neck while dancing—he just loves holding you close. Loves the way you giggle when he spins you around. Loves the way you wrap your arms around his neck and look him in the eyes.

Has a ridiculous amount of bucket hats. If it was up to him, he’d walk around the house you two share in them. But due to your protests, he only wears them outside. However, when you two are travelling and you put on his bucket hat to hide from the sunlight—that man is gone. Wherever you two are, you better hope your house or a hotel is close because he needs to show how much he loves you when you are wearing his hats.

VALERIA GARZA

It’s hard having Valeria over only for yourself. She is always not home. Always somewhere out there. Doing her business. Keeping you as far away from it as possible.

But some mornings, you would wake to find her all cuddled up to you—normally, Valeria would never admit that she loves cuddling up to you or being held by you. It was as if she always had to be on her guard, always to be superior and not show that she was quite fragile on the inside.

The way she would hum in pure ecstasy when you would pull her closer, gently stroke her hair because she knew well you won’t use the fact that she is without her guard against her.

You were the only person she shared her true smile with. No devilish grin, no mocking smiles—the first time you saw her truly smiling and her nose slightly scrunching - you were absolutely in heaven. You remember the way she absolutely demolished the pancakes you made one breakfast and the syrup was left around her mouth for you to kiss away. That’s when you received a smile from her and you knew it was only for you.

A big fan of your thighs. If you are sitting on the couch, watching TV, you better be sure that Valeria will lay her head on your thighs. You better put your hands to work and stroke her hair—make her time worth it.

Big on forehead kisses—there are countless forehead kisses you didn’t know about since she left in the middle of the night. She’d tuck you in, gently wrap herself away from your arms and kiss your forehead as if it was a butterfly’s touch. She’d admire you for a second—you were so beautiful.

Since she wasn’t home often, sometimes when she would come back - she’d find you waiting for her, drinking tea, doing some work on your laptop. She’d never specify when she is coming back, but it was as if you had a sixth sense for when she will come home. You better be sure that when she sees you late in the night, she will give you a kiss that will sweep you off your feet.

A whole different story is when you are sick. There wasn’t a time when you were sick and she wasn’t home. She was home all the time to take care of you. She’d spend restless nights just to make sure you were breathing and didn’t need something else. Your health was her priority - she couldn’t lose you.

At moments like these, she’d even show off her amazing cooking skills that only a sick state of you is allowed to see. She’d make you her grandmother’s stew which would make you feel better instantly, but you may or may not pretend to be sick just a tad bit longer so she would be beside you.

RODOLFO PARRA

This man does everything with you. He’s really big at doing chores together. Not only does he find that it’s far more efficient this way, but you two always make it far more fun than just swiping the dust—yes, the little dance breaks are a must.

Loves cooking with you. Anything really. Can be the sous-chef or can be the one giving you orders on what to do. It depends on which recipe you are making that day—if it’s yours, he will obey doing everything and if it’s his - he’ll let you do the easiest tasks because he doesn’t want to overwork you.

Definitely the golden retriever type of man so be prepared for his beautiful puppy eyes. He knows his power and he uses it against you. Just try to tell him no and face the way the consequences hit you on their own.

Always lets you have the last piece—I’m talking about anything. Last slice of pizza? It’s yours! Last piece of brownie? He’s already pushing it towards you. Last teabag of your favourite tea? Yours, yours and yours.

Really really big on hugs. Bear hugs precisely. Loves it when he can bury his nose into your neck and slightly squeeze you with his arms. The way your body fits in his always amazes him and he just can’t get enough of your warmth.

Always notices any changes you had. Went to the hairdresser? He will notice the one centimetre gone of your split ends. Changed your routine in makeup? Notices that you haven’t used that kind of eyeshadow before. Has all of the brands you used memorised and knows which product does what. Hell, he sometimes does your skincare or makeup for you.

Oddly good at handcrafting. If you are quite handsy with knitting, crocheting or sewing and you decide to show him how to do it, just know that he will quickly get the hang of it. He will even enjoy it and will never be ashamed to admit it. He thinks it’s amazing that you can create something with your hands and most of your gifts to each other quickly become something you two have made yourself.

KÖNIG

Domestic time with you means so much to him. Social anxiety can drain his energy and domestic time revives him. That doesn’t mean that you two don’t go out to have dinner or to watch a movie in the cinema, he just prefers to be home a bit more.

That man is a sucker for any romantic comedy. He will cry and laugh at any cliches and rewatch all of his favourite movies with you. If the couple is dancing in the rain, best know that he’s already looking at you with those eyes meaning that when it’ll rain - you two will be outside. Watching movies with you is relaxing - he knows you won’t judge the fact that he really isn’t into action or horror movies. His job puts him through enough. So romcom it is!

If you can sing or play any instrument, he’ll always listen to you do it. It’s very calming to him—hearing you practice, playing the chords wrong or hitting the wrong note always makes him smile. It feels refreshing to see you put your mind and soul into something so beautiful. Secretly, he takes some videos of you playing for him because he knows for sure that if you’d know he was filming you - you would stop playing.

Big on giving you massages. That man would do anything to get his hands on you, honestly… He enjoys the way you lean back to him when he gently kneads your shoulder blades. Please return the favor! If you want to put the giant man on his knees, a few gentle strokes down his back and he’s purring for you.

Really likes to colour with you those mandala colouring books. It might have seem silly at first, but you two are seated in the living room, only candlelight on the table as you two are colouring—one page for you and the other one for him. He always whines that he’s not able to choose the right colours, but always ends up with the most beautiful colour combinations making you rage out at him and poke his ribs. That man tends to doubt himself—praise him.

Likes to cocoon you into blankets and carry you around. No matter your protests, he will do whatever he pleases with you. Most of the time you just end up being placed on him during a movie, his lips buried at the top of your head and giving you small kisses.

If you take care of him of his fresh wounds, he will be very thankful for you. He never wants to make you worry, but with his size on the battlefield, he sometimes gets clumsy from the adrenaline overload. He appreciates how soft you are tending to him, placing kisses over scars and new bruises. Of course, after that, he receives a flick on his forehead from making you worry.

Big on asking random questions in the middle of the night. Just as you are about to fall asleep, comfortably wrapped in his arms, he’ll hit you with: “How many stomachs do cows have again?” The question makes you groan: “Four, my love, please sleep.” But that never shuts him up—then he will be concerned about the fact that you know the answer, and then he will google it and see some pictures that will traumatise him.

KYLE “GAZ” GARRICK

Loves to play video games with you. Yes, he is competitive most of the time, but if you are playing somewhere you two are in a team against others—you better know that he’ll protect you even in the game and praise you when you do a perfect headshot.

Despite him being a very outgoing partner, he sometimes needs quiet days. You know exactly when to give him his space and when to approach him with a cup of tea. He really appreciates the way you can read him as an open book.

Once you gifted him a huge set of Lego - Hogwarts edition and you saw his eyes sparkle like two shiny stars. He was seated all night putting it together and when he was finished, he was waking you up at four in the morning, getting you to the living room where the glory of his was standing. You swore you never have seen him smile like that.

Making sweets with him is quite frustrating. Because in 9 of 10 cases you end up with clothes dusted in flour or chocolate running down your nose—he’s playful. He’d do anything to make you squeal or laugh from the bottom of your heart. As an act of revenge, you always eat the last piece of cake you two have made together right in front of his face. Especially when he is already reaching for it.

Big on taking naps at a random time of the day—before going to sleep, he will kick up his legs on the coffee table and snooze out for ten minutes before joining you in bed. Likes it, even more, when you are the one to wake him up, but that ends up with you being on his lap, his lips peppering your body with small kisses while he is gently tickling you.

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casscainmainly · 2 months

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Bruce Wayne & Cassandra Cain in Batgirl (2000)

My last post covered the top 10 moments overall, but I had to skip a lot of my favourite moments involving specifically Batman and Batgirl. So here's a non-comprehensive, chronological list of great Bruce & Cass moments!!

Who Does She Remind You Of?

One of the most interesting things about their relationship is that initially, Cass doesn't have a name and doesn't know Bruce's name; they are purely Batgirl and Batman. This lack of alter ego allows Bruce to identify very heavily with Cass, and sets up the foundation for why Bruce acts the way he does later. He views Cass as a mirror of himself, which has both positive and negative repercussions.

You Can't Understand A Word I'm Saying

EXTREMELY underrated Bruce and Cass moment from Issue #2. Though I believe they fundamentally understand each other, there's still a disconnect between them (a disconnect Cass shares with everyone). But this disconnect goes both ways - Bruce is the one having trouble communicating here, saying 'I don't know how to say this' and pausing frequently (this speech pattern is very reminiscent of Cass' inner monologue towards the end of this run!). A great example of how neither of them are fully able to express the depth of their feelings towards each other.

Denial

A pivotal moment in Bruce's conception of Cass. When confronted with evidence that she killed a man, Bruce goes into complete denial. She's 'gentle', fully understanding his rejection of murder; how can she be a murderer? It's indicative of just how much he's projecting onto Cass, but also how much he genuinely cares about her. The second panel is underrated too - like David Cain, Bruce sees Cass as 'perfect', a word that will haunt Cass for arcs to come. This is where we start to see how Bruce's belief in Cass' perfection and morals negatively impacts her self-conception (as a perfect tool/weapon).

Good Answer

An incredible moment that's classic for a reason. Perfectly encapsulates both Cass' instinctive desire to protect, and Bruce's recognition of how similar Cass is to him. Also how his belief in her, however unintentionally, feeds into her death wish.

Jason Todd

Another underrated moment!!! This is the first major instance of conflict between death-wish Cass and no-more-dead-kids Bruce, and it's delicious. Bruce willingly opens up to her about Jason's death, and moreover, by comparing Cass to Jason, positions her as his child as well. It's sweet and sad and explains some of Bruce's more overprotective moments.

Denial 2

Not really denial but thematically it fits. When Bruce is framed for murder, the Batfam try to figure out what really happened. Cass sees that Dick has doubts, and helps him re-enact the murder so that he can believe in Bruce again. Not only is it a super sweet Dick-Cass moment, but it also shows how Cass believes in Bruce just as much as Bruce believes in Cass.

Good

A short and sweet moment that showcases how similar these two are. Bruce isn't exactly being a good dad here, but Cass genuinely DIDN'T enjoy that vacation. They just get each other. This is one of many, many times that Cass answers one of Bruce's questions perfectly (and makes Bruce smile).

Overprotective Dad Mode

In the second part of Batgirl (2000), Cass begins to explore her sexuality. This leads to issues of varying quality, BUT we do get tons of overprotective Bruce. A nice showcase of Bruce doing typical dad stuff, and Superman looking SO done. Also Cass in that first panel is hilarious.

Realisation

After lots of (rightful) heckling from Babs, Bruce finally realises that the way he's been using and treating Cass isn't right. Though this speech is couched in a lot of dismissive language ('disobedient', 'she was loyal'), I think that's just Bruce's inability to communicate. He cannot admit how much he cares for her. So he decides to fire her and tells her she jeopardises the MISSION (which, obviously, makes Cass feel terrible). Even when he's trying to put her first, his lack of communication skills only hurts her.

He Never Let Me Touch Him

The Bruce and Cass scene to END all Bruce and Cass scenes. Each panel is loaded with meaning. The first shows that despite Bruce's similarities to Cain, he still IS different; he is willing to be vulnerable around her, and allows her to do the same around him. The third panel is particularly interesting. Underneath all the ideological sniping between him and Babs, Bruce is jealous - he wants to be the centre of Cass' life and loyalty. Cass, however, doesn't fall into the trap. By pointing to the Bat, she both affirms her loyalty to his mission but also refuses any box he can put her in. She is his daughter, but she is not only his daughter, and never will be.

Honourable mention: the only reason I didn't put the Father's Day panel here was because I've already written about it. Also the scene where they mutually touch each other's faces and turn away of course!

#cassandra cain #batgirl 2000 #batgirl #batman #bruce wayne #the father daughter duo of all time #she's his favourite but that's not necessarily a good thing

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swiftcast-selene · 5 months

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✨ pre-dawntrail wol questions! ✨

over on our little server i've been asking a WoL development question a day until dawntrail and it's been well-recieved so far, so after a month of doing it i figured i may as well put them on here~

use them to draft your own posts! send each other asks about them! answer them in the tags! do whatever you want with them, as long as you're having fun!

how is your wol about personal hygiene? are they on top of it? always perfumed and spotless, a little messy sometimes, or do they have to be reminded to groom?

is there a texture your wol absolutely can't stand, either food or feeling-wise? or is it not something they tend to worry about? do they go to great lengths to avoid it or do they just power through it?

what is your wol's evening routine? do they prepare for the next day? do they just wing it? do any weapon or gear upkeep? just pass out because that's tomorrow them's problem?

how does your wol's echo manifest itself? do they see visions as they happen? all at once? delayed? do they get any physical symptoms from it?

does your wol have any siblings? how do they get along with them? is it a good relationship or is it tense?

how does your wol feel about romance? are they a hopeless romantic, waiting for The One, or are they more casual? do they believe in soulmates?

how does your wol feel about their hair? is it important to them? just kind of in the way? who cuts it? do they take good care of it or are they not particularly fussed about it?

how good is your wol at taking care of their armor/clothes? do they mend them themself? pay to gave it fixed? just change it when it gets old?

what's in your wol's travel bag? any trinkets? any vital items they cant go without? do they travel light and figure stuff out on the fly, or do they bring way too much with them? (bonus points if you have images!)

how does your wol sleep? very light? very heavy? do they need a specific item to fall asleep? is it easy for them to fall asleep, or does it take them forever? where do they prefer sleeping?

where was your wol during the last calamity? how did it make them feel? did it change their life, and if yes, for better or for worse?

shadowbringers spoilers: how did they feel being so... up and personal with another calamity? did they feel responsible? scared? did they feel like they owed the first to stop it, or were they more detached from the situation?

for the canon casters: what does casting magic feel like to your wol? how does being "out of mana" feel?

for the physical fighters: how does it feel when they do those impossible moves? the twirls, the jumps? do they supplement with aether? dynamis? is it purely physical or is something else involved?

what would your wol be if they weren't the wol? what would they do as a job or career? would they be happier?

is your wol good at cooking? what's their specialty? what can they never get right no matter how hard they try? what flavour profile are they good at cooking? what do they eat on the road?

out of all the scions, which one is the one your wol gets along with the best? what about the one they get along with the least? why?

how good is your wol with money? do they save up? scrounge around? spend it with wild abandon?

what would you say is your wol's greatest flaw? what part of their personality causes them the most problems?

what is your wol's best quality? what's the thing that they do that really gets stuff done of makes people like them? hard mode: their own perception vs. a friend or partner's perception.

what does your wol do to unwind? any hobbies? reading? sewing? croquet? sitting in a dark room in complete silence?

how good are your wol's table manners, based on their own culture? how does it compare to ishgardian table manners? eorzean? doman? steppe?

what is your wol's inner monologue like? do they refer to themself as "i"? "we"? "you"? is it organized or all over the place? are they kind to themself, or do they chide themself constantly?

what's your wol's relationship with food? do they skip meals or do they eat at specific times religiously? is food important to them, or is it just a means to an end to keep their body going? does food mean something cultural or personal to them?

what is your wol's relationship with their family? are they estranged? still very close? tense?

what does your wol think about lying? is it unacceptable to ever lie, are white lies okay, are they a pathological liar? how do they feel about people who lie to them?

how does your wol feel about allag in general? the tech, the experimenting, the crystal tower? any thoughts on allagan ruins? are they impressed, scared, resentful, neutral?

what sense does your wol most rely on? hearing, touch, sight, smell, taste? maybe even aethersense or dynamis?

how does your wol feel about mind-altering substances? do they partake? do they dislike them? are they neutral? do they take them socially, or anytime, or not at all?

how does your wol feel about children? do they want them? like them from a distance? hate them? no strong feelings?

how does your wol work out? lifting? sports? walking? how often do they do it? is it for fun or to keep up their physique? do they enjoy it?

#wol questions #ffxiv wol #character development #it's mostly self-development questions but a few are lore or relationship related~

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ploppythespaceship · 12 days

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Uglies - Movie Thoughts

On a whim, I decided to start re-reading the Uglies series a couple months ago -- so imagine my surprise when I found out it was getting a movie! Said movie is now out, and it was interesting to watch with the book being so fresh in my head.

Overall, it's... eh. It's not a complete train wreck, the way most critics seem to want you to think, but it is fairly bland and uninspired. It's a very watered down version of the book. It also has the misfortune of feeling like yet another a Hunger Games wannabe, despite the original book pre-dating that series by several years.

Spoilers for everything under the cut.

What I Liked

Based on reviews, I seem to be in the minority here, but I thought the cast was pretty good. People seem to hate Joey King as Tally, but I thought she was fine. Brianne Tju is easily the best in the cast, stealing the whole damn movie as Shay. Laverne Cox also gives an excellent performance as Cable, though I do think she should not have been given that role for other reasons (which I'll get into later).

I've also seen complaints that the characters aren't ugly enough. They talk about how ugly they are and point out their specific ugly features, when they don't actually appear that ugly. And I think everyone complaining about that is completely missing the point. The "Uglies" aren't actually ugly -- they're just normal people, who've been conditioned to think their imperfect features are hideous.

I was honestly unsure how the Pretties would be visualized -- in fact, I wondered if the book would just be fundamentally unadaptable because of it -- but they did a fairly good job. I think leaning on CGI and unnatural affectations was the right way to go. All the Pretties have this uncanny quality to them that suits the story perfectly.

The overall production design was solid as well. I like how Uglyville is all gray concrete and muted tones, while New Pretty Town is shimmering golds. Then upon reaching the Smoke, all the colors of nature finally come through. I do think that could have pushed that last one a little bit more, but it still works well.

Apart from that, I don't really have much to shout out. It's competently written, well-performed, well put together. I know it doesn't sound like I have much praise, but it is a competent movie.

What I'm Mixed On

By far the biggest change from the book is Peris becoming a Special. And I'm torn on it. On the one hand, it does make him a bigger part of the story -- he's honestly not much more than an inciting incident in the book. It gives him and Tally a unique arc that's probably the strongest through-line in the story. On the other hand, the Specials as a concept are so under-cooked (more on that later) and the actor is so bland that it still doesn't quite land the way it's supposed to.

What I Didn't Like

The pacing of this movie is by far its worst issue. We are flying through this plot. There is no time for anything to breathe, for characters to develop meaningful connections, for the bigger moments to feel earned. Some things do make sense to condense -- Tally's journey to the Smoke would have been incredibly boring without her internal monologue, so condensing most of that into a montage makes sense. But I do feel we lost too much. That's where a lot of Tally's characterization comes out, where we can see her bravery and ingenuity -- none of that comes across in the movie.

A lot of important beats are rushed. Tally agreeing to help Dr. Cable is over in a flash. It feels like Tally's in the Smoke for all of fifteen minutes. Tally and David barely interact, so their relationship has no real stake. Everyone is kidnapped by Special Circumstances, and then rescued immediately after. I almost think a 5-6 episode mini-series would have worked better -- but that might have introduced the opposite problem, where everything takes too long.

The movie also has frequent montages that don't really work. It seems like they were trying to show the passage of time, but it just makes everything feel even shorter.

The beginning of the movie has an exposition problem, as well. It opens with a montage explaining the entire setting... before leading into several scenes that also explain the setting through dialogue. We get fed the same details about the surgery and the Rusties and the flowers at least three times at the start, and it gets grating.

As already mentioned, Tally is pretty severely underwritten. In the book, she has a distinct personality and a unique presence. In the movie, she's just the main character because she happens to be the main character. Her intelligence and resourcefulness are pretty much gone.

I also think changing her motivation for going to the Smoke did her a disservice. In the book, Tally goes to the Smoke so she can have her surgery, and because she's convinced herself that Shay needs her help. In the movie, Dr. Cable tells her that the Smokies have a weapon, and she will be saving lives by helping to find them. I think giving her a more selfless motivation robs her of her character arc. She always comes across as someone trying to help, who wants to best for other people, rather than someone who had to consciously learn that.

The Specials are barely even a presence. I'm not sure they were even directly called Specials. People who hadn't read the book would never realize that there was an entire separate status of person here. You never see their disturbingly beautiful faces or their terrifying strength. Considering how pivotal the Specials are to the overall story, especially in the later books, it's really odd not to see them properly established here.

Like I said, Laverne Cox gives an excellent performance as Dr. Cable... but I think they should have thought twice before casting a trans woman. It's not necessarily that there's a trans woman in the villainous role, but that there's a trans woman in the villainous role who specifically wants to force people to have surgeries to brainwash them. Like... did the optics of that really not occur to anyone? At all? I think Cox could have played David's mother, instead.

#personal #uglies #uglies netflix

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vidavalor · 1 month

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Hello! 👋 Just dropping in for a visit to my favourite online pub: your blog *chews on all your posts and slurps down your analyses*

I love the way you spell out the Ineffable Husband SpeakTM for us, and I was wondering what you think about Crowley’s “You don’t dance.” in 2.06, when Aziraphale asked to dance with him?

Crowley is mumbling a bit here & I wasn’t sure at first if he said “you” or “we” or something else, so I checked the subtitles as well. That aside, we know by this point that Aziraphale has done at least 3 I-Was-Wrong dances, so I wonder if Crowley is referring to something else?

Hi, @procrastiel! How's it going, love? Wouldn't say I spell anything out-- I just give my opinion-- but I appreciate the compliment! 💕Crowley's line is definitely "you don't dance" and ohh, yeah, I can deep dive on my opinion on what it means to dance. Deepest of dives-- this went everywhere. 😂 Mother of all metas for the mother of all Good Omens questions... We're having sandwiches-the-food tonight in honor of where your question crosses into God's tongue-in-cheek monologue on how many angels can get down on the heads of those Mrs. Sandwich seamstressing tools-- pins.

This is going to take a route through some heavy analysis of the argument over Gabriel and The Apology Dance and a few other things to get the root of your question, so, grab a beverage of choice before diving in. TW: Brief mentions of Satan's attacks on Crowley.

*rubs hands together and cues up the disco music* 😂

What does it mean to dance?

When we talk about dancing, there are roughly four different meanings of the word to look at with relation to Good Omens' story.

One meaning is the first one that comes to mind for most people, which is a physical dance-- as in, moving your body, usually to music.

The music, if it exists, can be in your head, a song you're singing aloud, or one that is playing in the room-- it doesn't matter. If you're moving, any and all of it would qualify as dancing. By this measure? Crowley canonically had seen Aziraphale dance before Aziraphale asked him to dance during The Meeting Ball because, well...

...here is Aziraphale dancing in front of Crowley in the bookshop in 1941:

Crowley's shock in 2.06 cannot be coming from never having seen Aziraphale dance at all, right? They've known each other for thousands of years and if Aziraphale was doing this fucking adorable little shuffle of excitement in the bookshop in 1941 then it's not really a stretch to assume that these two-- who canonically listen to records together in the evenings sometimes-- have danced together before.

In 1941, we see that Aziraphale liking to dance is not something he's actually hiding from Crowley because he's doing this cute little dance in front of him without a second thought. This is also interesting because one theory was that Crowley has no idea about Aziraphale liking to dance at all because he didn't appear to know about Aziraphale learning the gavotte. S2 turns that on its head a bit by saying that Crowley might not yet know about the gavotte-- we don't really know yet either way-- but he definitely does know that Aziraphale likes to dance and he was unsurprised to see him doing so in 1941.

The key thing here is that when they have danced together or in front of one another before? It was likely only in the privacy of the bookshop or another place like it. It was just the two of them.

When Crowley says "you don't dance" to Aziraphale, he's not meaning that Aziraphale doesn't dance at all. He's meaning something more expansive, as we'll look at with the other meanings of dancing below.

The second meaning is a verbal dance. These are interactions between more than one person in which the back-and-forth of what is being spoken has the give-and-take quality of a dance.

There can be different types of verbal dancing. Crowley and Aziraphale's word-nerdy flirting is a kind of verbal dance. It's a birdsong mating dance, especially since they are so hot for words. Being able to verbally entice and keep up with a partner makes flirting-- especially their kind of it-- a kind of dance and it's one they've been doing for thousands of years and both enjoy.

Another type of verbal dance between long-time partners is one that could be dubbed, as Crowley and Aziraphale call it, an "I Was Wrong" dance. This is an apology between partners who had an argument but want to get beyond it. No matter what you think the nature of Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship is, they've known each other for thousands of years and are de facto partnership married at this point so they have An Apology Routine TM. People who have been together a long time and who have the occasional spat often tend to fall into a rhythm with their apologies, knowing what needs to be said to just get to the other side of it, which they'd like to do as soon as possible because they miss each other and don't like being in conflict with one another.

When Aziraphale says he wants "a proper apology... with the little dance" as Crowley tries to get away with not doing the verbal dance that he knows he's going to end up doing lol, what Aziraphale means is that he wants the back-and-forth verbal dance they do as an apology. He doesn't want to just ignore what happened because he was really pissed and he's telling Crowley that he'd appreciate an actual apology and a bit of groveling before he's willing to let it go and move on.

The "little dance" in question isn't a physical dance-- it's basically the same apology dance we saw Crowley do back in S1 here:

When Crowley claimed he doesn't "do the dance" in S2, they both knew that wasn't true and so did we, really, because *points to the above gif* there's Crowley doing the dance in the middle of the street in S1. Claiming he doesn't "do the dance" is sometimes part of the dance if Crowley is the one apologizing as, unless Hell is actively, in that moment, trying to kill him-- like they were in S1-- he gets squirmy about apologies, even if he always eventually says them.

The reason why Crowley does the physical dance that he does during The Apology Dance is actually off of Aziraphale being just as dryly self-deprecating about the two of them and their relationship as Crowley winds up showing he is with The Apology Dance. It's rooted in Aziraphale's use of the word proper.

That word falls into the category in their speak of words like wily, thwart, smitten, demon, fiend, etc.. that have wildly contrasting meanings where they can be said on one level to mean one thing that is acceptable to an audience of angels, demons, or humans, but that also, on another level and within Crowley and Aziraphale's speak, has a funnier, more sexualized meaning.

Proper has an understood meaning of being something that is correct, acceptable, and appropriate. It means decent and respectable. It has a connotation that suggests that something deemed proper falls within the generally-accepted social rules of a society.

Within that word, though? Is the word prop.

I probably do not need to further define that but one sense of the word prop is that it is a theatrical term to describe an object being used in a play. From this, it also come to mean an object being used in sexual play. The humor for Crowley and Aziraphale comes from the fact that proper is a word related to what is considered acceptable in society while bedroom activities involving props have historically been considered "deviant" by those same societies.

The word exists in the sexual meaning in several other scenes in Good Omens. Such as:

Aziraphale in 1941 flirting with Crowley in the magic shop by using the silver rings magic trick as an innuendo-laden stand-in for handcuffs and going on about having a "gift for prop"... and in 2019, when Crowley joked that Aziraphale did not need to do his literal magic act because: "You can do proper magic. You can make things disappear."

Words containing the word thin relate to Crowley and disappear/appear are words with a root meaning of to come into view-- heavy emphasis on the to come part. Crowley sounds like he's talking about Aziraphale's supernatural magic abilities (and he likely also is lol) but he's wording it in such a way as to be really referring to Aziraphale's other skills as a true magician in bed.

Aziraphale, hilariously, teasing Crowley back by joking that making him come is not as fun as pulling a coin out of his ear 😂:

This is also the joke around Aziraphale doing things like popping into view from around corners or doorways or, in my favorite, from the other side of The Bentley in S2, as well as things like Crowley apparating into a space to see Aziraphale. They're magical so they can apparate-- literally appear and disappear from view-- and would do so to meet up with one another at times, as we've seen. It's a visual joke on appear/disappear and the verb to come.

There is also the hilarious "only I can properly thwart the wiles of the demon Crowley" from the deleted 1800 bookshop opening scene-- a sentence made up basically entirely of words with double meaning that make them sound like Aziraphale is saying to Gabriel and Sandalphon that he's the only one who can correctly stop Crowley's evil demonicness when he's also, with the same words, trying to alert Crowley, who has just arrived in the doorway, to the fact that the angels are here to recall him by saying a sentence that is like: but you can't take me back to Heaven! I'm the only one who has the first clue how to shag Crowley right.

So, in S2, Aziraphale is being a bit arch when he says he wants "a proper apology." They both know that he means it in terms of saying he wants a genuine, decent apology and nothing more than that. His dryness in choice and delivery of the word proper is Aziraphale being tongue-in-cheek with Crowley and aligning their history of well-balanced, healthy, sexual power dynamics with the fact that their argument was, at the core, a lot about aspects of trust and control that they *both* struggle with outside of their proper bedroom, where things are very different.

The argument was really a perfect storm of triggering both of their traumas and they both, technically, were right and wrong about things. Aziraphale's apology dance is, essentially, the whole 'our car/our bookshop' that becomes the rest of the season. The reason why it's Crowley doing The Apology Dance, though, is actually less about the subject matter of their argument and more about which one of them fucked up when it came to the stuff the argument shows us that they're working on together.

The argument over Gabriel actually shows us the extent to which they're a couple, in that they've clearly talked about working on things they do which trigger each other's trauma and are trying to be better at it. They're proactively working at trying to get better at arguing, which is the most married thing in creation. This is also indicative of both of them trying to manage different traumas and PTSD that they have and doing the best they can do while still not yet able to fully escape the root causes of those difficulties. That is something which any therapist will tell you is nearly impossible to do but they are both trying anyway and doing a pretty good job of it actually, all things considered. Where can we see this in the argument over Gabriel?

It is in that they each both do something when upset that is a trigger for the other's trauma and has, in the past, caused their discussions to implode, and how they both handle that with one another during this argument. When Aziraphale gets upset and anxious, his anger can take the form of saying words he doesn't mean-- words that are often completely and utterly absurd from an objective standpoint. Think of the bandstand argument, for instance, and Aziraphale's ludicrous attempt to say that he and Crowley aren't friends and-- the best one lol-- that he doesn't even like Crowley.

The audience and Crowley alike know this is bullshit and so does Aziraphale but it's the product of Heaven being a place of emotional repression and Aziraphale's perfectionism, which makes him feel like he's not supposed to ever actually feel the depression and anxiety and anger that he does. When upset, this bubbles up in him and explodes and the results are words he doesn't mean that make him feel terrible, further contribute to his pattern of negative self-thoughts, and hurt Crowley.

In S2, we might also notice, Aziraphale phrases his go-to of telling Crowley it's over as a defense mechanism as saying that Crowley is "at liberty to go", which has an implication that a certain amount of staying was occurring. While Crowley isn't living in the shop to the extent that he's there in the mornings because they're still trying not to get caught, this plus things like "we both get plenty of use out of it [the bookshop], don't we?" indicate that Aziraphale never really notices that Crowley no longer has his flat because Crowley just kind of lives in the bookshop now. He's there every day, to a point that Aziraphale defaulting to his usual anger response of breaking up with Crowley when upset is now phrased in such a way as to try to kick him out of the house. Crowley, though, knows better-- just like how Aziraphale knows better where Crowley's own issues are concerned.

Even though Crowley knows Aziraphale doesn't mean what he says when he's upset and is patient about it (the not even batting an eyelash "you doooo" in response to "I don't even like you" in the bandstand argument), it still hurts. So, that's what Aziraphale is trying to work on and we see that Crowley is working on it with him, an example of that being when Aziraphale is starting to lose it during the Gabriel argument and Crowley's response to it:

Crowley is basically saying honey, you're doing the thing-- and it works. This is what they've agreed upon as a way that Crowley can help Aziraphale when he's upset. He points out that Aziraphale is doing the thing he does, which seems to be something they've agreed on as a strategy for communicating better. He gives Aziraphale room to take a breath and say what he really means. Expressing how he really feels when the emotions are not positive ones is hard for Aziraphale because it involves admitting that he has these emotions in the first place.

So, Aziraphale does his part in their agreement and he rephrases what he was saying into what he actually means: that he would love for Crowley to help him with Gabriel but that if he won't, he won't. He is open about how he feels, which is Aziraphale doing what they agreed to do, and is a world of difference from how they were fighting before. He also expresses it in an especially positive way, as he uses words like 'love' and 'help' to say how he feels and what he needs.

This is why it's Crowley who winds up doing The Apology Dance.

What Crowley does in an argument that triggers Aziraphale is to leave. While, technically, sometimes leaving for a breath is not a terrible strategy in an argument, Crowley's tendency to leave is a flight-or-fight PTSD response that stems from a lack of trust in anyone but himself (and, honestly, often not even himself) to keep him safe. It's honestly not how he really feels about Aziraphale, whom he actually does trust with himself, but he sometimes lets fear and anxiety overwhelm him when triggered by situations in a way that relates to his past traumatic experiences.

Just as Aziraphale's struggle with his more volatile emotions is understandable considering what he's been through, so is Crowley's tendency to panic and bolt. The problem is that, just as Aziraphale's angry words can hurt Crowley, even if he understands where they come from and knows Aziraphale doesn't mean them, Crowley's tendency to leave hurts Aziraphale because it feels to him that Crowley doesn't trust him to make decisions that would keep Crowley safe.

They both are aware that their knee-jerk reactions of running away or sniping in anger are trauma responses and not terribly logical but they're both working on trying to heal enough to not have those responses with one another. In S2, they're stuck trying to manage all of that while still living in an environment that is dangerous for them and in which Armageddon could be around the corner again at any moment-- making it obviously harder to deal with things and also making the fact that they are both doing reasonably well with it all the more impressive and an indicator of how good they are for one another.

(It also makes the end of S2-- a series of miscommunications, some of which are not even their fault, that led to epic fucking disaster-- even more devastating because it doesn't actually reflect the healthy relationship that the beginning of the season emphasizes exists.)

Compounding these issues and part of why they're trying to work on them is that both of them trigger each other's PTSD when they react like this.

Aziraphale's words in anger and his tendency to push Crowley away leave Crowley feeling less secure around the one person who otherwise is the safest person he's ever met while Crowley's tendency to bolt in a panic, instead of staying and working through things, triggers Aziraphale's fear of abandonment (both in general and with Crowley) and, even more so, his terror over losing Crowley.

He's never sure when Crowley goes out the door if he's ever coming back because it's not really safe for him out there and S2 illustrates that Aziraphale has real trauma dating back to the time Crowley was taken in front of him in 1827, shown in him going to the spot in Edinburgh in the present where he lost Crowley and needing to call him from it to hear his voice. And, well, also to get a bonus praise kinky little boost from his partner for a job well done on working on his trauma stuff:

So, long story short, the argument they have over what to do about Gabriel's arrival really illustrates the extent to which they're both trying to manage a great deal of trauma together and, to help one another to do so, they have put some strategies into place for trying to do that more effectively. Aziraphale kept to his end of the bargain in this argument. He used more productive and open words to express how he was feeling. Crowley, though, did not hold up his end of the bargain here. He did when it came to helping Aziraphale with Aziraphale's part of it but he didn't when it came to managing his own trauma.

To be fair to Crowley? This situation was basically the exact perfect storm of a trigger for his PTSD and neither he nor Aziraphale are really going to be able to get much of anywhere significant with healing until all of this Heaven & Hell stuff is over in S3. So, that he fucked this up here is both sympathetic and not terribly surprising. It's also the root of him then spending the season reassuring Aziraphale that he's coming back and part of why he goes out the door in the end of 2.06 but he stays by the car. But, when it comes to just this argument over Gabriel in 2.01, it was Crowley who didn't try and that made Aziraphale upset.

This is where, though, that The Apology Dance shows that they're actually pretty healthy about arguing overall. Just the mention of this having existing for ages is establishing that trying to be better at disagreeing and having this little routine for getting back to a good place and starting to talk more after they've argued is not just something that has existed post-S1 but has been going on for, at minimum, hundreds of years, if not a whole lot longer. In essence, The Apology Dance exists as a bridge back to a place where they are less reactive and can talk through what's upsetting them-- which a lot of evidence suggests they are actually very good at doing with one another.

So, when Aziraphale tells Crowley that he wants "a proper apology", he's already injecting some humor into the moment, even if he is serious about not letting Crowley just skip over genuinely saying he is sorry. He is upset but he also loves Crowley and he's aware that the situation was pretty much the ultimate trigger for Crowley. It's just difficult for Aziraphale to watch because he wants Crowley to feel safe enough to heal more from a lot of this and feels like that he can't fully provide that, even if he is doing everything in his power to help Crowley with it. In a way, it's a foreshadowing how Aziraphale is going to fall in the end of S2 over the temptation of power that he thinks might help Crowley be safe.

The reason why Aziraphale chooses to use the word proper in saying he wants an apology-- and in that particularly dry tone-- is because he is very, very pissed that Crowley walked out the door rather than trusted him to have not put him into danger with Gabriel and to help him manage the situation. He's pointing out that Crowley trusts him implicitly in so many other ways, with the use of the wordplay there being a reference to the fact that he and Crowley have a healthy balance of power and an enormous amount of trust in their relationship overall, for which Aziraphale is using their positive sexual power dynamics as an example.

As different scenes have illustrated, when they mess around with those dynamics, they switch off allowing one another a sense of control over the other, even if the overall dynamics of such situations are never as cut-and-dry as that. The point is that Aziraphale's use of proper here is a direct reference to the fact that Crowley went out the door in a panic-stricken fit earlier but they both know that Crowley does trust Aziraphale to a great degree, and a great example of that to Aziraphale is the fact that Crowley-- as eleven hundred scenes in the show suggest lol-- is very into letting Aziraphale restrain him in bed. The reason why we even know this is because of how the show uses aspects of their sexuality to illustrate the level of trust and intimacy in their relationship.

Just as the wall slam scene in S1 exists to make it abundantly clear how much Aziraphale trusts Crowley and how he has nothing to fear from him by contrasting that with Aziraphale's response to being jumped by the angels in the street, the scenes that are referring to them using restraints, while illustrating that they both do, are centered around Crowley's thing for it, in particular, to help illustrate that he has the same kind of trust in and feeling of safety with Aziraphale that Aziraphale does with him.

The reason why Crowley liking to be tied up or handcuffed is given weight enough that it's a recurring thing mentioned in the story is because of how it's a different level of trust for him than it might be for someone else. While the wall slam scene contrasts Aziraphale's safety with Crowley versus the abuse of the angels, the handcuff thing is showing that Crowley, who is a survivor of attacks that render him unable to move or otherwise assert any control over himself and who has demonstrable PTSD from it, trusts Aziraphale enough and feels safe with him enough to explore with him the complexities of being a survivor of attacks involving a loss of control who also finds sometimes being restrained and giving up some control in bed arousing.

So, Aziraphale's "proper apology" is dryly mocking both of their control and trust issues by use of an example of a place in their relationship where they handle those issues without conflict, and that's in the great communication and ease of care for one another in bed. With use of proper, Aziraphale is subtly pointing out that Crowley is an assault survivor who trusts Aziraphale to him tie him up but he runs out of other situations in a panic, which is an example of the lack of logic that can occur in the face of trauma sometimes. It helps to prove how ridiculous they both are really being in general.

Which Crowley agrees with. Because he knows he was. Trauma isn't logical, it's knee-jerk emotional, and he felt bad about storming out and even worse when he found out from Beez what the repercussions of not helping might be so he's come back, heard the 'proper' comment, and is like fine, yes, you're right. We're ridiculous. I was ridiculous.

This is healthy as all fuck:

It matches the humor Aziraphale put in around his genuine anger with additional humor. It's self-deprecating and ego-free, just an admittance of having messed up and showing he's sorry by being a little ridiculous because how he reacted earlier, he knows, was also a little ridiculous. There's the hearing of proper and responding to that with a mock-submissive, self-deprecating, little dance and a bow and scrape. There's a dry, affectionate mocking of the two of them and their long history of apology conversations that all boil down to the lyrics of the little song Crowley makes up here: "You were right, you were right, I was wrong, and you were right."

The tongue-in-cheek vibe of Yes, you're correct. Are you satisfied now, my king? that pokes gentle fun at both of them and that actually winds up illustrating just how much trust and love there is between them as a result.

Aziraphale finding it hilarious to a point that he's working hard not to laugh long enough to respond with equal humor with the little soft dom-ish "very nice" and then miming a kiss at Crowley showing that they are actually good at this. They allow each other to be imperfect, know how to talk openly about how that makes them feel, and can recover from an argument with humor and affection.

This is also a good example of Crowley being supportive of Aziraphale expressing emotions and of Aziraphale trusting Crowley as someone safe to do that around. Aziraphale told Crowley exactly how he felt and what he needed here in a clear way that expressed his anger and frustration without descension into anything harmful and Crowley listened, acknowledged those emotions, and responded in a way that was supportive and positive.

The argument over Gabriel and The Apology Dance is what their relationship is really like when they can speak openly and directly to one another because they have the safety and privacy to do so. They actually do know how to talk to one another and they do it very well. Their present situation as of the end of S2 is more of a nightmare of unfortunate events and misunderstandings and it actually took a lot to get it to go that wrong because, normally, as we can see? It's relatively easy for them to get it right.

So, Crowley's Apology Dance was both verbal and a literal dance, yes, but Aziraphale's bemused response to it indicates he wasn't expecting the literal dance and the fact that Crowley made up and did the literal dance off of Aziraphale's use of proper, as we looked at, indicates that it was something he did for the first time in that moment, rather than how The Apology Dance usually goes.

The usual nature of Crowley and Aziraphale's "I Was Wrong" Dance is strictly verbal.

We can tell this by one of the years in which Aziraphale mentions that he did an "I Was Wrong" dance in the past: 1793.

When Aziraphale shows that he's really hurt by Crowley leaving and needs him to apologize, he lists three, prior times when it was Aziraphale who had fucked something up between them and was the one doing The Apology Dance as a result. The three years he uses as shorthand are 1650, 1793 and 1941. While we don't know anything about 1650 right now... and while we know about 1941 but not how it ends so maybe not yet quite enough to say we know why Aziraphale was doing an apology dance (though I would argue that maybe 1941 itself is a bit of a joint apology dance)... the one year here we do know enough about to use to inform our opinion about what their apology dances usually are is 1793.

What Aziraphale is apologizing for in 1793 is the rescue scenario winding up a bit of a disaster because of Aziraphale neglecting to take into account that if Jean-Claude The Executioner was having that much fun cutting people's heads off, he probably was disturbing in other ways as well. While Crowley covers up his reaction to apparating into the room just as Aziraphale is saying "no" and Jean-Claude is trying to get his clothes off, by the end of the scene, we see that Crowley is more bothered than he was letting on.

Jean-Claude becomes the only human in the entire series to date that we ever see Crowley intentionally push straight towards Hell and, in doing so, he renders Jean-Claude unable to form more than muted sounds of protest-- not at all projecting his own experiences of assault onto him or anything. Crowley makes the very dark joke that's in the above gif, savagely mocking a so-common-it's-cliche victim-blaming response to rape, making it clear in doing so what's been brought up for him as a result of what he saw when he first came into the room. Crowley is half out of it for the last moments of the scene and, at one point, sniffs like he's trying not to cry. Aziraphale had meant for it to be a fun, dashing-hero-to-the-rescue type of thing but the torture-happy prison cell atop the trauma trigger is what would make Aziraphale feel the need to apologize afterwards, even though Crowley knew he didn't intend any harm.

So, ask yourself this: did Aziraphale apologize for that by doing a silly dance?

I really don't think he did...

It wouldn't have been appropriate. The last thing Aziraphale would have done then is make light of how they both were feeling about something relating to this kind of trauma. It's not to say there wasn't any humor involved-- particularly, their form of really dark gallows humor-- but not in the midst of the genuine, actual apology. Aziraphale's "I Was Wrong" dance in 1793 was a back-and-forth of him verbally apologizing and Crowley insisting that it was fine and then Aziraphale, more or less, you were right and I was wrong-ing with other words until they both were okay to talk more and move forward.

Both of them were alright as a result and clearly had a memorable time in Paris afterwards, as Aziraphale is referencing it as a good example of the two of them working through things together in a positive way when he tells Crowley that Paris, 1793 is what he "wants for lunch" in 2008.

It's really why Aziraphale says he wants 1793 in the first place, when they have a zillion other times he could have referenced. The scene in 2008 is taking place after Crowley went missing the night before on assignment for Hell. Aziraphale doesn't need to be told by this point that Crowley was hurt but they've been in public the entire time since they've met up so there has not yet been a moment to try to really acknowledge it. By bringing up Paris 1793 in response to Crowley saying he wants to lunch, Aziraphale is using it as a shorthand to convey both that he's aware and that they'll handle it, like they always do, and it will all be alright. Paris 1793 seems like it is a particularly memorable example of them managing that to them, so it's the one that Aziraphale brings up.

This also accounts for the discrepancy in Aziraphale's expressions in 2008 when he talks about this particular time. When he first mentions Paris 1793, his response is layered. There's regret mixed in there. Pain. Complicated emotions. His smile to Crowley is kind of flat, like he's trying to remain more upbeat than he actually feels.

It's very different from the cheer of we had crepes! that emerges after Crowley's response to the suggestion is positive. It speaks to Paris 1793 being more complex than only the fun, memorable romp in France that it also was.

So, this would mean that The Apology Dance is usually a verbal thing, even though Crowley did a literal dance along with it in S2. This actually is not terribly surprising because Crowley and Aziraphale's language is an exercise in the literal and the figurative.

Everything in it physically exists as well as figuratively exists and that's part of the fun of it for them. It all has to work on the surface level as well as on other levels. There are literal crepes and figurative crepes, for example, while we're on the 1793 topic. Literal fish-- sushi, gravlax in dill sauce, etc..-- and figurative fish, like the two of them. When Aziraphale asked for "the little dance" of light grovel with the apology, Crowley did that by also giving him a literal dance to go along with their traditionally verbal dance. Why? Because Aziraphale called their apology routine a figurative "little dance", so Crowley gave him a literal one to go with it. Eventually, all the figurative has to be at least a little literal in some way. It's why God made sure that an actual nightingale-the-bird was actually singing in Berkeley Square at the end of S1 as her last language lesson to us. There were then now literal angels dining at The Ritz so a literal nightingale sang in literal Berkeley Square.

The S2 Apology Dance is likely then the first Apology Dance that involved a physical dance. I'm not sure that there were others in the past but I think there definitely will be more going forward and that's a good thing since a bit of silliness is very healthy. 😊

Ok, so, back to the "you don't dance" moment... remember ten years ago when I said there were roughly four meanings of dance?

We've defined two of them already: a literal, physical dance and a verbal dance. The other two are the dance of society and dance as sexual euphemism. Historically, these weren't always mutually exclusive things and Good Omens overlaps them in some ways a bit as well.

The dance of society is being an open, active participant in your society. Even though Aziraphale basically built the society around him through being the founder of the street, we've seen how he tends to keep himself one step removed from life on Whickber Street.

It's best summed up by his relationship to The Whickber Street Shopkeepers & Traders Association: he is a member of it but, until S2, he's never hosted the monthly meeting. He doesn't fully see himself as one of them because, as an angel, he's not supposed to want any of this human living stuff, even if he desperately does. He has imposter syndrome for days, feeling like he's always about to be exposed as not really one of them.

Aziraphale does enjoy himself at times. He does engage with the world around him. He just doesn't allow himself to belong to it and his reasons for doing so are not only about his angel feelings.

The human world hasn't always been a place where he fit, either.

It's only been very recently in history-- and Aziraphale has seen literally *all* of history-- when it has been comparatively safe enough for people like him and Crowley to live more openly. It's still not completely safe, obviously and unfortunately, but there is more general acceptance now, more acknowledged human rights and more laws to help secure those rights.

The things that Crowley was hoping were around the corner in 1967-- when England decriminalized homosexual sex between men over the age of 21 and he suggested that maybe he and Aziraphale could go for broke and try being less of a secret-- actually are here by the present of the story in both S1 and S2.

A lot of that is at the root of the humor in S2 as Gabriel's presence in the shop forces Crowley and Aziraphale out onto Whickber Street in the daylight for the first time and creates scenarios in which the shopkeepers-- chiefly, Nina-- are throwing them off by being more comfortable with having their relationship be acknowledged publicly than they are. Part of the joke is that they're still closeted in London Soho in the year 2023 and the humans cannot understand why because Crowley and Aziraphale can't tell them that it's their supernatural world causing them to remain a secret.

It is only relatively recently in human history that people at formal social gatherings like the ones in England that Aziraphale has been to for years danced with anybody they felt like, regardless of relationship or lack thereof to that person. For many years, while someone might stand up with the occasional maiden aunt out of politeness or whatever, most of the time, a request for a slot on a dance card was a declaration of romantic intent. It was done within the public eye and, while matchmaking was often economical more than romantic, it was at the heart of how society functioned.

To dance, in that sense, was to be a part of society.

Aziraphale was never a part of society in that way. Not just because he's an angel who is supposed to remain above the human fray but because he is queer and society, for a long time, was not built to openly accept him. He was on the fringes of it for both supernatural and human reasons. From what we've seen, literal, physical dancing has always been something of a metaphor for this struggle for Aziraphale.

When Crowley says that Aziraphale doesn't dance-- and it's really more, as we've seen, that Aziraphale doesn't dance in public-- what he means it that Aziraphale keeps himself back from being a fully engaged part of the group, out of a fear that it's not for him because both the supernatural and the human worlds have been teaching him for a long time that it is not.

To host a meeting of the local business association and have everyone to his house for a party... to have Gabriel and Maggie under the same roof... to have everyone knowing that Crowley is his partner... to be able to openly dance with Crowley in front of others like the couple that they are, in the same way that the Chengs and Mutt and his spouse are?

That is to dance.

That is Aziraphale trying for a life he's never had before.

It is this form of dancing-- the dance of society-- that Crowley has never seen Aziraphale do before and why he is so in shock when Aziraphale asks him to dance.

This is where we have to talk about what this has to do with the gavotte, the photo from 1941, Mrs. Sandwich, Duns Scotus, and disco... 🪩Yes, I know. Lots to chat about. 😊

Back in S1, as Crowley traps Hastur in his answering machine, we are treated to one of the best parts of God's narration: Her cheeky take on the human philosophical debate around the question:

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

The phrase comes from Protestant theologians in the 17th century who were mocking Catholic scholastics like Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus-- whose name is quite literally the origin of the word dunce, so overt was the mocking of these dudes' ideas. The show via Crowley also is referring to Duns Scotus in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings when Crowley mocks the demons by spelling 'residence' as 'residunce' in Aziraphale's entry, joking with him about the fact that the demons will not be able to understand what the entries really contain. So, why the mocking of Duns Scotus and pals?

While it's not totally know if they ever did debate this question exactly, questions very much like it were debated in their circle and others in different parts of the world and these philosophers would get a bit in the weeds in the wrong direction with things. This isn't to say there is a right or a wrong way to think so much as to say the way they chose to approach questions like this was full of absurd focus on the least consequential things someone could look at and failing to really think about how considering these questions at all could impact their understanding of the world around them and contribute to making that world better.

They were not asking questions like: do angels exist in the first place? If they do, do they dance? If so, what makes them want to dance? What would it say about angels and living-- and us and living-- if angels did dance? Why the fuck would they want to dance on the head of a pin when they could dance anywhere? 😂 What does it say about us and our views on angels and ourselves that we're spending a great deal of time and resources debating questions about beings that we cannot even prove fucking exist in the first place?

Instead of considering anything like that, Duns Scotus and pals would spend time just working on the most arcane details of angelic and demonic existences-- on things like trying to figure out if angels could exist in more than one place at once or how small they could get and how they would get that small and how many of them could fit on the proverbial head of a pin and still dance on there?

You know... real, relevant, thought-provoking, big picture questions that we've all asked ourselves at one time or another. 😂

Those mocking questions like this made the question "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" a kind of catch-all for pointless debate and it has since become a shorthand phrase meaning basically a bullshit question of no relevance, the debate over which is a colossal fucking waste of time.

Some scholars went so far as to blame those engaging in this type of debate as being responsible for the fall of Constantinople, saying that basically these scholars were sitting around listening to themselves talk on absurd things of no importance to such an extent that it caused mass death and collapsed an empire.

It might be of note then that this question is so notoriously tied to the fall of Constantinople that Good Omens might be winking at the fact that angels dancing around a seamstress might be a prelude to Aziraphale's fall, which some of us think is what's happening at the end of S2.

So, when Hastur and Crowley go into Crowley's answering machine, God jumps in with a little wink to this question in an effort to prevent anyone from focusing on the single most non-important question in all of Good Omens:

How did they get into the answering machine?

The answer to that is that it doesn't matter. They're magical-- that's the answer.

It's not to say that there is not a ton of small detail in Good Omens worth exploring-- and other scenes encourage doing just that, like Shakespeare's "in your role as the audience, could you give us something more to work with?-- but the details worth looking at are ones that will underscore what the story is saying in a bigger picture, thematic sort of way.

God's point here is that if you're hung up on the Magical Technical Whateverness that is stuff like how the angels and demons travel, you're being a bit of a Duns Scotus and trying to solve a mystery that the show has zero intention of ever making be relevant to anything and doesn't really consider much of a mystery in the first place. You can sit there until you're blue in the face doing calculations and looking up scientific explanations and it just simply does not matter. You're barking up the wrong tree because the thing you're talking about has no significant relevance to the story.

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is basically the olden days, scholarly equivalent of rolling your eyes at half the comments in an online discussion for any sci-fi show that has ever existed. My friend and I call this kind of debate 'Photon Torpedo Jerk-Off' and what I mean by that is this: if you watch an episode of, say, Star Trek, and you think the most important thing to talk about that happened in the episode you just watched is whether or not these writers were accurate about the range of the photon torpedoes when they had the Enterprise blow up that Klingon warship, then you have missed the point of the episode entirely. If you're sitting around arguing about the sci-fi magical Whatever Tech and not talking about the story you've watched, you don't understand the point of what you've watched.

In Good Omens, the reason why God's monologue about how many angels can dance on the head a pin begins when it does is because it is a very sly joke on Duns Scotus-like debate, using the fact that the questions that were absurd to consider in real life are actually-- hilariously-- among the most pertinent to consider where Good Omens is concerned.

God brings up the pin-dancing question as a way to answer the question of what's happening with Crowley and Hastur going through the answering machine. She amusingly doesn't really answer the question and, instead, starts going on about the parts of "how many angel can dance on the head of a pin?" that should have been the bits being debated-- like whether or not angels dance at all and what if means that they do. Basically, Good Omens' response to how the answering machine bit works is "something something electrons" and they're proud of it and they should be because it doesn't fucking matter, which is why God's monologue in the answering machine sequence is really all about the bigger questions of the show and not the Duns Scotus-y question of "but how are they traveling through the telephone system exactly?" God simply just says that they are and moves onto more relevant things.

Even though the original debate over questions like "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" was theological and philosophical, the thoughts behind the absurdity of it very much apply to interpreting works of art. Because of its ties to religion and to angels, it makes for a very humorous way of telling the Good Omens audience that they will not really be explaining much of anything regarding to the technical whatzits of how angels and demons travel through electricity and things like that because that could not be less relevant to understanding the story.

The question "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?", at one point, also had several variants. One was the same question but wondering how many demons could dance on the head of a pin, while others involved whether or not angels were "sexless"-- a question that was so confusing at the time that several sub-variants emerged as a result because people weren't entirely sure what that question meant...

Was the question asking if angels had a biological sex-- and, if so, was it asking if they had sex organs? Was it asking if the angels had a form of gender which, at the time and with these theologians, was mostly a question of whether or not angels could be what humans would have called male or female, with gender binary ideas of what that would mean intact? Many others thought a question of whether or not angels were sexless might be more directly about whether or not angels had sex.

(Amusingly, that question didn't really ever get asked about demons, as the sexuality around demonic lore has always been pretty notorious.)

The problem with these questions being asked by theologians is that they never took the opportunity to reflect on what it might say about humans and our societies that we thought these the most pertinent questions to answer about angels and demons. They never stopped and thought about the fact that to ask these questions meant they were not sure that this supernatural world that they believed in had the same sort of structure when it came to things like gender, sex and sexuality that humans do and how that is where the more interesting thoughts exist. Just by asking those questions, you could start to follow a path that maybe suggested that they were different from humans and it might be better if humans emulated some of those ideas, right?

But that's definitely not where these guys took this...

When scholastics would approach questions like this, they'd do so to make the concepts of angels and demons fit more securely into the worldview they were promoting. The very conservative would usually say that angels were genderless and also usually "above" sex and things like this reinforced their holiness. The demons could usually fuck because they were evil and nephilim and the like made for the usual brand of good, scary, weirdly sexual Bible stuff. The ones that did think that angels did gender thought angels thought about it in the same very rigidly binary and traditional ways of most societies.

In other words? Theologians took the mythical creatures of angels and demons and made their theories about them fit human societies to further their own, human goals, instead of using angels and demons to reflect upon those human societies and consider how different viewpoints might improve them.

Good Omens is completely sending up this mindset.

In Good Omens, the supernatural characters are a way of poking fun at these kind of humans who approach ideas about what angels and demons might be like with such rigidity and treat their fellow humans in the same way. The angels and demons are basically all queer in human terms by default because, in Heaven/Hell, gender is a constellation, biological sex is a 'do whatever you want with that, if anything at all', and, just like with the humans, asexuality and sexuality and everything along every possible spectrum related to it all exist. For the most part, human prejudice does not exist-- though prejudice itself does, in the form of the "other"-izing of the demons. Some of that human prejudice has slipped through-- see: Sandalphon-- but it's not as ubiquitous as it is on Earth.

The angels and demons in Good Omens come from a world where everyone is sort of assumed straight-out-of-the-box non-binary by default and queerness is more normalized because when your concept of gender begins without rigid ideas about what that is, damn near everyone winds up being what humans would refer to as queer because that umbrella is then basically anyone other than a cisgendered, heterosexual person... and what is a cisgendered, heterosexual person when gender is design-your-own-concept-of-this from the get-go? How would anyone be heterosexual, when the definition of that is rooted in binary views on gender that do not exist in the supernatural world of Good Omens?

The point of all of it is that if humans thought this way about one another more, the world would be a better place. Good Omens is a story about angels and demons that is using them to ask questions about humanity of a lot more value than "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" but, ironically? Some questions that come about as a result of considering that question in a different way-- as God helps us to do with her monologue-- like the question of whether or not angels dance and consideration of what that might mean-- are examples of some of best questions to ask to get to the heart of what Good Omens is saying and what it's story is all about.

In Good Omens, neither the supernatural world nor the human world are perfect. The supernatural characters seek to learn how to really live from the humans but the humans have a thing or two to learn about themselves that the supernatural beings-- with their choose-your-own-adventure ideas relating to gender, in particular-- could show them when it comes to true freedom.

If we made like the supernatural world of Good Omens and placed less focus on defining and labeling gender and sexuality in such strict terms and just looked at everyone else as fellow people and let people present themselves as they like and identify as they like and be attracted to who they're attracted to and love who they love, we'd just be seeing each other all as people-- which is what we all are.

It's also the point of the intentional vagueness of Gabriel's whole situation during his naked arrival in 2.01.

There is a fuckton happening in this scene but one of the biggest is the decision to make it unclear as to what was behind the box-- and that's the point. Are there a couple of hints here and there? Sure. You can make arguments in different directions and, for sure, the decision to make it vague, instead of including a suggestion that Gabriel's for sure Don Drapering it in that moment is a whole decision in and of itself. The point, though, is not to fixate on determining what, if any, situation Gabriel was rocking during his rather challenging Monday morning in S2 but to just ask yourself why it would matter to know?

There's nothing wrong with some idle curiosity, I don't think, but the ambiguity is the point. What would it matter if Gabriel was running in angelic neutral or sporting, as I think the scene is suggesting, some lady parts for the morning? It doesn't change anything about Gabriel because only humans would look at Gabriel and assume that he has a penis and find it shocking if he didn't because many of us are that limited in thought. Only humans would box (bad, unintentional pun lol) him into pronouns as a result and try to tell him that he can't use he/him if he sometimes doesn't have that penis.

All these humans are looking at his body and judging it-- who gives them the right?

Whatever you feel about Gabriel, you do feel for him in that moment because no one deserves to have their body judged by a zillion critical strangers... and isn't that what many of us are doing online? Isn't that what a lot of humans do about everything from gender to sexuality to weight and looks? We categorize and label and put all of these parameters on meeting the standards of those categories when none of it matters and everyone is unique and beautiful in their own ways.

The genius of the supernatural characters in Good Omens is that, in so many ways, they are not free and a lot of their issues overlap with those of the humans but in real, fundamental ways, they have default mindsets that humanity could really benefit from adopting. The Gabriel arrival scene underlines it by turning the camera back around on us by showing us an example of a very masculine person by traditional human standards, implying that his genitalia might differ from what we've been conditioned to expect from a person with his looks, and then making us consider how we feel about that and if maybe the whole idea of these kind of expectations isn't bullshit in the first place.

So... while Good Omens is sending up the limited mindset of the Duns Scotuses of the world, the joke with God's monologue is that, in the context of Good Omens itself?

From the standpoint of this story?

The related questions about angels and dancing and gender and sex that arise from asking the question: "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" are excellent questions.

They happen to be questions that, if you're asking them, you're getting into many of the themes of the story and you're looking at how the story is using angels and demons to talk about the experience of human living. What does matter in understanding the story of Good Omens is, ironically, the dumbass questions that these humans were asking back in the day about dancing angels and demons and their relationships to human ideas about gender, sex and sexuality at which Good Omens is poking more than a little fun.

To add to this, we also have the very funny way in which God presents the answers to these questions to us and that involves a wink towards the last type of dancing-- dancing as sexual euphemism.

In the original question of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?", the reason why it's a pin is obviously that pins are very, very small but it was sometimes referred to as well as a question of how many angels could dance on the head of a needle? This was because the detractors of this school of thought were creating puns, so they could call the debate of the question things like a "needless point" in their writings-- very Good Omens-y humorous of them. 😊 We're also now bringing into to conversation via needles and pins language related to the make and repair of clothes-- seamstress work-- as being tied to questions of sex and dancing as sexually euphemistic.

The visuals shown to us during God's monologue include Crowley and Aziraphale dancing separately, in different eras, with other beings-- Aziraphale with some humans and Crowley with some demons-- but with an undertone of sex in both scenes that gets at dancing as sexual euphemism. In Crowley's scene in the 1970s/very early 1980s, he and Hastur and Ligur are in some trippy disco sequence in which they are dancing with a pin but the pin is being used as different kinds of sexual dance-related poles.

This is a visual parallel of the innuendo around seamstress-related language in the series, with a pin-- a tool used by those who make and mend clothes-- being used as a pole, highlighting a (hilariously-presented) aspect of sexuality in dance. Mrs. Sandwich runs a bordello but the coded 19th century-era speech of Aziraphale's magic during The Meeting Ball results in her attempting to describe the sex work menu of her girls as being coded in the language of those who make and mend clothes. This comes from sex workers writing on government forms the 19th century that they were seamstresses to evade authorities (why Mrs. Sandwich says her girls stand on their own two feet "like the government said") and a use of seamstress language as euphemistic for sex that overlapped into coded slang of, in particular, homosexual men.

In one part of the disco sequence, Hastur, Ligur and Crowley are going around the pin like it's a maypole, which were involved in courtship rituals and fertility dances. In another moment, the three of them then turn the pin into a stripper pole and bust out some exotic dancing moves, all less using the pin/pole as prop in a seduction of someone else but more seemingly in place of that someone else, with exactly zero awareness of one another.

What the living fuck is this scene, really? 😂 Is the pin really large? Are they very small? Why can I still not stop laughing at the fact that they aren't dancing on the *head* of a pin but with it? Is Hastur trying to make out with the pole? Did Ligur really invent part of The Macarena decades ahead of its time? What perspective is this scene supposed to be shot from? lol Are we all just assumed high at this point from the disco lights and general trippiness of the sequence? Are any of these the most important questions of this sequence? Not by a long shot lol...

*tilts head* hiiiii Crowley...

What's that? Oh, sorry, right, finishing up the epic journey that is this meta... Yes, yes, sorry. Got distracted by the dancing snake... Which reminds me!

We can't talk about dancing as sexual euphemism without mentioning that the little glimpse into Crowley's bedroom in S1 that we see shows us that he has a wooden figurine of a dancing snake on a table in the corner, which seems like a wink towards Crowley and Aziraphale joking about being like the magician or musician who would play music to "charm" snakes into dancing for them. Crowley kept the dancing snake figurine in his bedroom so that is probably the ultimate in dancing as a sexual euphemism possible and it's another indicator that it's hardly the idea of dancing together being a form of sexual overture that has Crowley so confused when he says "you don't dance" in S2. Dancing, in that sense, is not new to them.

So, God's monologue is winking pretty heavily at dance-as-sexual-euphemism. In showing the dancing this way, God is using dancing to mean both literal dancing (as in, when she describes that Aziraphale is the only angel who dances-as-in-moves-to-music because he learned the gavotte) and also as an answer to the question of whether or not some of the angels and demons have sex. While not all of them do or have interest in doing so-- just like with the humans-- having Crowley and Aziraphale both exhibit a sense of sexuality in the dancing scenes here is more than a little suggestive of the fact that they both do.

So, how does that fit into our whole idea of dancing as it relates to a being a part of society?

Both Crowley and Aziraphale are shown dancing in different situations in different eras in which queer people existing on the fringes of society found a place in which they could express themselves-- but they are very different ways of expression.

Aziraphale learns to dance in a private club for wealthy, gay gentlemen and that is the only place in which he dances because he can do so freely there without too much concern that it will have repercussions for him in both his supernatural and his human worlds. Everyone there in the club is someone who also has a sense of secrecy and a need for discretion in common and they're all well-connected enough to ensure that their privacy remains intact. It's through basically finding a safe space in this club that Aziraphale can have a microcosm of what it would be like to exist more openly in the larger society as a whole.

Crowley, on the other hand?

While Crowley also lived through all of these eras alongside Aziraphale and had the same types of social limitations, we see him dancing openly in the liberation of the disco era. Disco changed everything. It was full of people who had never fit into society and gave voice to, in particular, more female, Black and queer people than ever before. The eventual backlash to disco had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the changing attitudes about race, gender, sexual orientation, and sex itself at the heart of it.

The difference here is that disco was free to a point that you could dance with anybody. You and your friends could dance, you could dance with someone you wanted to hook up with, you could dance around to it in your house with your family. It didn't matter. While people had long since abandoned the formal rules of dance in mainstream society that existed in the eras of Jane Austen, by the time disco turned up, popular dance had freed itself to being just about self-expression and having fun. It was still sexy but it was no longer playing a formal role in the matchmaking process of people in society. It's about having fun and doing so in the open and much more free.

This is where we're going to look at what your question has to do with the gavotte and Aziraphale's cotillion ball in S2...

The gavotte scene in S1 is one of the most fascinating scenes in the series because nothing else like it exists in terms of how it is filmed. The scene of Aziraphale dancing the gavotte is filmed in such a way as to suggest we are actually watching a video of him doing so. Part of this comes from the lighting, the slightly jumpy 'old time movie' feel of the scene. But, it also comes from the fact that Aziraphale looks directly into the camera at several moments during the scene, in such a way that it makes it feel like he's not looking at *us* in a fourth-wall-breaking sort of way but that he's looking at a camera that exists within The Hundred Guineas Club and is filming them dancing.

This was likely possible at the time, especially in a club patronized by wealthy men. The Lumiere brothers patented the first movie-making cameras in 1895 so it could be argued that Aziraphale and friends are being filmed using a prototype of that technology. (A bit of film-related technology being a bit too early for the time by our human history standards is also shown on Good Omens in S2, when Furfur has a Polaroid camera just under a decade or so too soon, though some prototypes were in development not long after the time Furfur was shown with one.)

The point is that Aziraphale looks like he's letting himself be recorded dancing. Actually, the point is that Aziraphale looks like he is loving letting himself be recorded dancing and that's an enormous thing...

Think back to 1941 for a moment. Crowley and Aziraphale were nearly killed over the picture Furfur took of the two of them together. No audio/visual evidence of the two of them together exists. If they kept the picture, they've hidden it really, really well because they've been terrified of anyone finding them out. Does this recording of Aziraphale still exist, though? Does he have it? Was he going to show Crowley, maybe after everyone left The Meeting Ball?

Living-- existing-- can mean having a record of that existence. That's actually at the heart of the meta I wrote recently about Aziraphale's excitement over getting the Shostakovich record being about having a recording of a performance with history to him and Crowley.

Being a part of the world can mean letting yourself be a documented part of it.

We are shown that, in the late 1880s, Aziraphale let himself be recorded on video dancing with some human friends... which is to say that Aziraphale let himself live.

He let himself find some kindred spirits, learn something new, be an active participant in a group, and enjoy himself. He let all of that be documented and his kind of manic, unbridled joy over all of it is the mark of how rare a thing this level of engagement is for him.

So, why did he?

Why this dance? What does this have to do with The Meeting Ball?

Notice the backdrop of this scene. Other than Aziraphale and the other gentleman and the walls, there is really only one thing of note in the scene and it is in focus for much of the scene: the chandelier.

The gavotte is both a specific kind of dance and a kind of umbrella term for French folk dances from the 16th-18th centuries and a separate, different dance in the 19th century. It was apparently popular in the court of King Louis XIV, whose reign is referred to several times in Good Omens. (Crowley's gauche imitation Louis XIV furniture in his flat in S1; he was king in the time mentioned by Aziraphale in the French scene in S2; his mistress being Madame du Pompadour, historically credited with originating the hairstyle worn by Crowley since prior to Earth's existence, etc....)

Gavotte comes from gavoto, which meant mountaineer's dance or the dance of the mountain people and which, in turn, came from gavot, which meant a boor and a glutton. A boor is a country person or a farmer but it comes from the Latin bovis, meaning a cow or an ox. Etymologically-speaking? Of course this is the dance Aziraphale learned because the gavotte is a French dance of the ox glutton who enjoys a good "mountain" climb.

(The theory that they wrote The Sound of Music lives on. 😂)

Aziraphale learned the gavotte, of all dances, because he knew that Crowley would find the two of them dancing together to this dance in particular very amusing. He learned this dance in the late 1880s, likely with the intent of maybe, someday, being able to dance it with Crowley, which is likely why he was he was annoyed when it went out of style.

Still, we could theorize that one of the reasons why he allowed himself to be filmed dancing it is to have a record of his efforts to learn it-- not just for Crowley but in general-- and that maybe the chandelier in the bookshop is the one from his long-since-closed gentleman's club. It all shows that Aziraphale has wanted to dance, openly and publicly, both in general and with Crowley, for a very long time.

One of the reasons why he likely miracled everyone into 19th century speak during The Meeting Ball and brought down the chandelier and old style dancing was so that he could finally do just that. It isn't so much that Aziraphale needs to stick to old-fashioned dancing in general as it is that he just wanted to have an experience like those of other humans during that time that he wasn't allowed then to have-- by the rules of the human world, not just because of the dangers from his supernatural world.

But it's 2023 in S2 now. Queer people have been able to get married in England for a decade and partnership rights have been around for even longer. Mutt and his spouse's relationship would have been illegal in nine different ways barely a breath ago but they can live openly now. Gabriel has left Heaven and moved into the guest room. Things feel like there's a chance of change everywhere and Aziraphale has just had it and can't take one more night of Crowley slipping out before dawn so this whole "Maggie and Nina" party?

Do you remember how Aziraphale phrased the idea to Crowley?

Cotillion balls aren't just any ball. While cotillion was a style of country dance kind of like the gavotte, a cotillion ball was a coming out ball for young ladies in society. In parts of the world, they still exist, sometimes called now debutante balls.

What's so endearing about Aziraphale fixating on this idea is that a) Maggie and Nina are both women, which is not a match that would have been sanctioned by a cotillion ball in Jane Austen's day, which makes it sweet that Aziraphale is, in a way, trying to give this traditionally romantic idea of love at a dance to a pair of women who would not have had it be an option for them, historically, which is something to which he can relate but also b) Aziraphale is just really semi-consciously using the idea of a party styled after a coming out ball for women in society as his thinly-veiled excuse to have a coming out party of a different kind, of sorts, for himself and Crowley.

Aziraphale isn't closeted in the sense that he's not actively trying to convince anyone that he's straight (good Frances, what a waste of effort that would be lol) but he'd like to be just like everyone else and not have to hide his partner. In the scene where Mrs. Cheng tells him that she and her husband will be at the party, for example, Aziraphale has this kind of wistful look for a moment. He wants that. He'd like to just be chatting with the neighbors and tell them that yes, definitely, he and his husband will be by later on. It's a season of things like Muriel literally opening the door to them hiding in a closet to talk privately and Crowley insisting in the street to Nina that Aziraphale is not his partner but then saying nothing to correct her when she refers to Aziraphale that way when they're in the bookshop. It's Mrs. Sandwich knowing Crowley in part because she sees him slip out the bookshop side door every night but Nina not knowing him in 2.01 because they're hiding the fact that they're a couple so morning coffee is never a thing until it is in S2. The Meeting Ball is Aziraphale taking steps towards them no longer hiding it by having people over when Crowley is there and letting everyone know or assume that Crowley is his partner.

The party is really for Crowley. Having everyone speak outside of time, the theatre curtains, Gabriel circling with trays of food (which was honestly so funny-- The Supreme Archangel walking around all "try an ox rib" to everyone), the vol-au-vents (etymologically linked to nightingales and some of them seemed like they might have been oyster vol-au-vents), etc.. He did it all to dance with Crowley and ask him to stay.

These two are fucking adorable. Look at this angel, I mean, seriously:

Aziraphale has been hitting that since ancient Rome and he's over here, nervous and giddy like he's at his first middle school dance, so fucking excited to ask that dashing ginger currently having an anxiety attack to dance. They have been basically married for millennia and Aziraphale is standing there like I'm going to ask him, I'm going to really do it, I'm going to hold his hand and dance with him in front of everybody and they're all going to know he's mine. We're going to be like everybody else-- just people on Earth.

It's so damn cute.

So, lastly, there's one thing we have to talk about when it comes to dancing and that's the fact that it is a form of self-expression. This is where Aziraphale and his perfectionism come into play a little.

God, in S1, said that not dancing is one of "the distinguishing" features of angels and that Aziraphale, through learning the gavotte, is the only angel who dances (at least, in terms of literally dancing.) This contrasts with the demons, who all dance, though many of them are not particularly good at it. This is the fundamental difference between angels and demons.

The demons are all demons because they were all willing to express themselves as individuals, which is what dancing fundamentally is. The reason why Aziraphale is the only angel who dances in S1 is because the other angels who know how to dance are all now demons.

Dancing means putting yourself out there a bit. You have to be willing to make some mistakes. You have to be willing to look potentially silly in front of other people and learn to not care as much about it. You have to take some chances. You have to engage with others if you want to dance with other people-- so, you have to participate in the world around you a bit. You have to try new things, like hearing new music and learning new ways to move. You have to be your own person, in the sense that you have to have music you like to move to and decide what you'll look like doing that. You have to let yourself take up some space and work hard at shutting off your damn brain enough to enjoy it.

In the 1941, Part 2 scene that we started this meta out with, we saw Aziraphale openly dancing a bit in front of Crowley, a sign of how comfortable he was and is with him. He doesn't have to be perfect around Crowley. Just as Crowley doesn't have to be perfect around him and is willing to look ridiculous to around him, as in the case of The Apology Dance. Being able to be silly and vulnerable is a sign of trust. When you can lean on people you trust and have that kind of intimacy with them, it can make you feel braver to take some risks in the world as a whole. If you let one person in enough and learn how to dance in one or more ways with just them, you'll eventually feel like you can dance free, no matter who is watching.

In the same scene, Aziraphale admits to his conflicts over going to Goldstone's and how he worries that maybe the things in life that he enjoys are "for professional conjurers only"-- for humans only-- with Crowley helping to quiet that imposter syndrome noise in Aziraphale's mind. Crowley's gentleness and the care in his response are examples of why he is who Aziraphale chooses as a partner and why it's with him that he's long-dreamed of having be his dancing partner when he finally is able to publicly dance alongside others at a ball.

Aziraphale is equally considerate in how he treats Crowley and is not put off by spending their first dance in public together essentially trying to calm what he thinks at first is just Crowley's usual level of anxiety talking, knowing Crowley well enough to know that, for all his talk about wanting to live a more open life together, he's as afraid as Aziraphale is. Crowley is dancing anyway. Aziraphale wants to so that's enough for Crowley to do so.

Aziraphale doesn't need some perfectly smooth first dance out together-- though they dance easily and very well together. It doesn't matter how long he's waited. He cares more about trying to reassure Crowley and ease his stress. They actually aren't as safe as Aziraphale believes them to be at this moment but it's the intent that's sweet. He knows this dance is as scary as it is lovely and, as always, it's important to him that Crowley feel safe.

You have to admit that you're a person to dance.

That's what the dancing is all about.

You have to admit that you have a life and to start to accept that you are allowed one. You have to accept yourself as part of a community to publicly dance with a group. You have to feel ready to host the monthly meeting of The Whickber Street Shopkeepers and Traders Association because to do so is to be a participating member in a community and to be a participating member in a community is to be a person living a life on Earth.

It's not surprising, then, that when Aziraphale gets to a point-- a very delicate point but a point, nonetheless-- of feeling like it might be time for him to claim that life for himself, doing so begins with the first night that he's ever been able to be at a party and, just like a zillion other people before him, ask his partner to dance.

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #good omens meta #good omens 2 #good omens theory #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable husbands speak #etymology #good omens analysis #long post #tw sa mention

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artbyblastweave · 2 years

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There’s this one line in the first issue of Watchmen. This line in Rorschach’s monologue- “On Friday Night, A comedian died in New York. Nobody Cares. Nobody cares but me.” And it is such a perfect encapsulation of everything good and bad about Rorschach, and about superheroes conceptually.

Yeah, Rorschach. Nobody does care. Nobody but you cares because everyone who even lightly knew this guy in a professional or personal capacity hates him. By almost every metric you can apply the world is better off without him in it- including by the metrics you apply, Rorschach, because if you were anywhere near as objective in your dispensation of justice as you think of yourself as, you’d have broken into his penthouse and done this yourself years ago. You are very pointedly the only person in the second issue who has no direct flashback involving a formative experience with The Comedian; your investment in him in pure projection. Dare I say, Rorschach-like.

And yet. Blake’s absolute scumminess isn’t why he was killed, was it? It isn’t why the cops are soft-pedalling the case (they claim that they’re afraid of getting Rorschach involved, but I’m personally more inclined to believe that the case just seemed Weird and Hard.) Blake’s death actually is the tip of a monstrous iceberg; Rorschach is completely correct in taking the killing as seriously as he does. But he can’t claim any special insight-it’s a broken clock situation, because he takes everything that seriously. And there’s an impulse to say that’s a good thing- except the fact that he only takes everything that seriously because he’s wrapped up in an insane, self-pitying, self-righteous self-image. It is important to him, that he is the only one who cares about this, because it gives him ground to disdain everyone else who doesn’t.

But at the end of the day, no matter how you arrive at it, the concept of solving every murder- of no death going unresolved, of no murder, of anyone, going uninvestigated- is, full stop, aspirational. It is a good thing to want and a good thing to work towards. And Rorschach, for all his insanity, is actually making some degree of headway. He very pointedly immediately figures out the hidden compartment holding Blake’s costume after being in the apartment for seconds; the cops talked in circles for several minutes and didn’t pick up on the discrepancy. He blunders down false trails, he engages in completely unhelpful violence that stood absolutely no chance of advancing the case, simply because he’s inclined to violence; and he pursues the mask-killer theory above all others because it flatters his self-image, his self-importance, his self-appointed role as the last cowboy. But I suspect that Ozymandias wouldn’t have bothered feeding the fire on the Mask-killer theory if there wasn’t a risk of Rorschach eventually figuring it out what was really going on. He got closer than anyone else just by virtue of trying at all.

Rorschach is the fantasy of someone, somewhere, Being On The Case, whatever the case may be; however tempting it may be to ignore The Case. Someone who cares, someone who’ll fight tooth and nail to get answers that absolutely should be gotten at. But he’s also the dark side of that- an examination of the kind of neurotic who would care, always, about all of it, the ways in which the caring would need to flatter and feed his ego to be sustainable, and the sheer amount of collateral damage all that caring would do to anyone the neurotic considered the cause of the problems he cares about. Here’s the price of a crusader who’ll stop at nothing- you’re stuck with a crusader who’ll stop at nothing. That is not a quality that exists in a vacuum. That is simply not the kind of nice idea you get to have, without an eye for how a person gets that way, how they stay that way, and how much damage they do.

#watchmen #watchmen analysis #rorshach #walter kovaks #thoughts #meta #comic books

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thewertsearch · 5 months

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Oh shit, it really is Imaginationland!

[WHAT A DARING DREAM]

Well, it's probably not literally Imaginationland. I think what we're really seeing is an actual, natural dream.

WV isn't a Player, so his sleeping mind isn't transferred to Derse, projected into a bubble, or tortured in the Furthest Ring. He's just unconscious.

[TO COMBINE THE FINEST QUALITIES OF HUMANITY WITH THE ELEGANCE AND NOBILITY OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM]

Isn’t this Jade’s furry monologue? Why would WV-

[A MYSTERIOUS WOLVEN TONGUE INVITES] [WOULDN'T THESE EARS SUIT YOU?]

...ah.

WV seems hapless, but he knows a little more than he lets on. He's clearly aware, on some level, that destiny is conspiring to put that Ring on his finger - and he's dreaming of the moment he does so, and becomes the monster who murdered his comrades.

He also seems to have fairly intense memories of Jack’s bloody hand – an event we haven’t yet seen in our timeframe, but one we know will happen before he enters the troll session.

What did you see, Vagabond?

And what other horrors will you gaze on, before the end?

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #3272 #s115

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xerith-42 · 6 months

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Why Blaze is MyStreet's Most Failed Character

Blame the big bang discord for this post, I wasn't gonna write it until those fucks encouraged me.

Anyways here's an entire essay about why Blaze is the most wasted character in the entirety of MyStreet and I will literally fight Jessica and Jason Bravura with my bare hands.

To get us started on our harrowing tale of wasted potential and the best improviser Jessica ever hired, we need to go back a little. Back to Phoenix Drop High Season 2. We won't stay here long, I promise, I hate it more than you can possibly know. But the single saving grace of this absolute mess of a season is ya boi, Blaze. Introduced in the 18th episode of the season, airing on April 12, 2017, with the airing of Phoenix Drop High Season 2 Episode 18, Blaze was a character who started his brief tenure series with a bang!

Literally dude showed up and the first thing he ever did on screen as a character in a piece of media we can engage with is throw someone out of a window. We do not know this mans name yet and he's already left a lasting impression. Sure throwing people out of a window is common in werewolf culture, which I don't care what you say that's objectively funny, but it is bold to start a characters entire introduction with that. Blaze comes out of the gate swinging before he's said a single line.

And then after introducing himself he throws a dead bird at Aphmau to show off his hunting skills?? Okay so he's just that fucking weird and overly enthusiastic about things I guess! That's amazing! MyStreet always shines when it just lets it's characters be fucking weird without making a big deal out of it or talking them down for it. Dottie even says that it's romantic which is again just a great showing of Blaze's enthusiasm and lack of what might appear to be common social decorum because of said enthusiasm.

This is all punctuated and brought to a hilarious breaking point when Blaze's final showing of why he should be the new top dog at his school is when the crazy mother fucker rips his shirt off to literally flex about how he's one of the hottest guys in the school. And I'm going to be real with you, given Blaze's later characterization as a himbo, I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually care about this. He just says it because he thinks it'll boost his chances. Blaze is later shown to be a character willing to throw away his reputation for the things he cares about, but he does get a rather sincere moment with Aphmau, even if she's blushing the entire time.

It shows that Blaze is not only physically affectionate, but also weirdly comfortable with his shirt off. Because this is purely objective character analysis I will not be shoving my Blaze is autistic and has sensory problems with things touching his chest propaganda down your throats, but now that I've mentioned it once you won't stop thinking about it when this comes up.

The show admittedly fumbles the bag a little by having Blaze say in his internal monologue that he thinks Aphmau is cute and acts kind of like a tsundere, but this is Jesson writing so there's always bound to be a bit of That Shit. But in spite of that, Blaze is a character who has an instant impression that leaves a lot of room for comedy potential, and just good ol' fashion silliness. And while the werewolf plot of Season 2 is... bad, Blaze and the Werewolf Pups are stand out characters in the sense that their characterization leaves a lot of potential if they're in a different, better written story.

And even if the arc is bad, Blaze still is a quality part of it. His shallow but hilarious initial characterization gets built on in some really solid ways. Namely in how he acts as a force for good in Aphmau's life even if she doesn't realize or give him permission to do it. This entire season is about how the different men in Aphmau's life handle helping her in a crisis, and funnily enough, in a season centered around Aaron literally overthrowing Aphmau's new love interest, Blaze is the one who was consistently doing what was best for Aphmau.

Aaron fumbles the ball more than a few times, Ein is shown to be actively malicious, and Kai gets hate crimed. But Blaze, who's barely even a contender in this ship war, is constantly working to actually make things better while everyone else is pulling Aphmau away from what actively matters about her position. While Ein is manipulating her and Aaron is trying to prove that, Blaze throws caution to the wind and just does what he thinks is best to restore order.

But more important than that end conclusion is his true goal of standing up for Daniel. A wolf it is established he barely knew before this year, that Blaze is willing to throw his reputation and standing in a bull shit hierarchy because he's seeing how this hierarchy is hurting someone who doesn't deserve it. Blaze is the one who is baring his fangs and willing to throw hands when Daniel cowers away from bullies. By the end of the season Blaze has been given adequate screen time to not only show off his fun and maybe a tad out of touch side, but he's been given a real level of sincerity that's tied into the things he's enthusiastic about. He loves being a werewolf, and he extends that love to all the werewolves around him, until they start being dicks to other werewolves who are literally just sitting there.

At the center of Blaze is that inherent goofiness though. He's always cracking jokes, or the joke when he's on screen, and in a series that was originally pitched as a light hearted slice of life comedy in contrast to MCD's general misery, that sort of character is needed to keep the tone. Such is show in episode 22 when Blaze is reading a book on the Scientific Method to just learn more about science, but realizes the book is upside down.

But he actually understood it enough to properly apply the scientific method to this situation?? Iconic. It's played off as a joke of Blaze exploiting a loophole to get out of class, but even that's pretty smart honestly. Blaze may be a dumb ass but he's always willing to cheat an unfair system.

Episode 22 is basically a Blaze centric episode, which I did not expect, but now that I'm rewatching it for this post it might be the reason I love this character so dearly. It's not only the episode where Blaze manages to learn the Scientific Method upside down, but also stands up for Daniel in a really substantial way. Blaze is loud, enthusiastic, and strong, all traits that are celebrated by werewolf culture, and whether he realizes it or not, him just being around Daniel can do a lot to get bullies to back off. Everyone has seen Blaze toss a mother fucker through a window, they do not want to be on the receiving end of that.

He spends the rest of the episode trying to figure out what Ein's deal is when he hears that Ein went behind Aphmau's back on werewolf matters, landing Daniel in this situation. He hears Ein actively plotting against Daniel, but that is normal werewolf behavior. He concludes that he'll keep an eye on Ein. And this through line of "normal werewolf behavior" informs a lot of Blaze's decisions once he comes to the conclusion that Ein sucks and deserves to be undermined. He resorts to letting his actions speak louder than words and goes to violence after realizing that the wolves aren't listening to reason, they're listening to instinct.

He fights fire with fire, and while Aphmau might not approve, it's more effective than her soft rhetoric has been in getting people to be less of jackasses. This eventually lands him in hot water where he steps in for Daniel after Ein tries to get his goons to beat him up, and even if Blaze is fighting in a five v one, he still goes down swinging. And I'll say it, I think it's sweet that he calls Aaron after this happens. While it's clearly meant to be a thing of Blaze calling the last alpha because he's probably the only person who anyone will listen to, there's an important detail I think is easily overlooked.

He has Aaron's number.

He says he got it from the werewolf pups, but that means that Blaze went out of his way to make sure he could contact Aaron. He's the reason that Aaron even realizes Ein is playing all of them. Blaze is the catalyst for his undoing because unlike Aaron who's nearly imprisoned, heartbroken, and been hesitant to act in the plot as a result, Blaze doesn't actually care that much if Aphmau currently likes him because he's more worried about her physical and mental well being than whether she wants to kiss him or someone else.

How many Aphmau love interests can say that?

Can any of them say that?

Blaze can.

Blaze actually consistently shows a level of selflessness that's unfitting of how I've seen some people characterize him. He gives up his real chance to be Alpha because Daniel is so compassionate and earnest and genuinely deserves it. Blaze wants to believe in a future lead by people like Daniel and Aphmau where he might not have to keep fighting people to keep things sane. Blaze constantly gives up his pride, his power, his safety just to make sure that his friends are taken care of, or to effect real change in a school he's about to leave.

It wouldn't be long after Phoenix Drop High Season 2 ended that Blaze would make his debut in the main series My Street in the second episode of Season 5, airing only a few days after the end of Phoenix Drop High Season 2. Just like before he really shows up with a bang, literally throwing himself through the air between Lucinda and Kim just to catch a frisbee because Blaze is the most extra mother fucker ever, and then immediately proceeds to flirt with them. Iconic as ever. Short but sweet.

It's in episode 3 that it's revealed that Blaze and the werewolf pups kept Aaron company during his rehabilitation year. But from the way it's worded it sounds like Blaze was called in before anyone else by Aaron's parents. Based on the way they talked and actively planned together before, I wouldn't be surprised if Blaze was the first person who came to his mind when Aaron thought of a werewolf friend.

I think Aaron reached out to Blaze when he needed it.

And even though I've previously stated that I don't think Aaron's parents initially liked Blaze because by this era he's old enough to fully take on his persona as the cool stoner friend who's also a little insane in the most charming way possible, he has a good impact on Aaron. Aaron likes being around him, and maybe they smoke weed to help Aaron relieve some of the lasting pain when no one's looking.

Regardless of his methods, Blaze does an ultimate good in Aaron's life as a result of being there for him when he needed it. So much so that he was invited out to Starlight and is shown to be one of Aaron's main pillars of support. We are given scarcely little of this actual friendship, which is where the problem lies. While before Blaze was a surprisingly engaging part of an other wise terrible story, at least in season 5 the story is a lot slower and character focused. And Blaze can work in these moments, we saw him have real moments of sincerity before.

He gets some of it, but the issue is that Blaze isn't allowed to be alone anymore. The cast of MyStreet is huge, and Blaze is a character who is making his second major appearance, while some characters in the cast have been present since literally episode one. It's hard to justify giving him solo screen time when he's been in the series for such little time and we barely have enough time for certain significant characters to really have arcs (Lucinda). Most of Blaze's scenes are scenes with at least four other characters on screen, he's never allowed screen time without at least two other werewolf characters attached to him.

I don't object to Blaze hanging out with his friends, or even making new ones though out the season but... Would it kill the writers to let him have a scene with Aaron? Like. A single scene. Where it's just Blaze and Aaron. I mean just Blaze and Aaron without Aphmau there. They've done this before. They did it in the season Blaze showed up in. Just one scene where the two of them get to talk about literally anything would do so much. Even if they talk about Aphmau, it's better than nothing. It would strengthen both of their characters so much to be able to get a scene where they talk to each other not as conspirators who kinda know each other, but as real friends supporting one another.

Show that even though Blaze said Daniel was more compassionate than he was, Blaze still is a compassionate and even empathetic person. Show why Aaron was grateful to have him during his recovery. They have those scenes of Aaron at physical therapy, right? Why not have Blaze take him one time and just show how they interact then? The possibilities with this unrealized idea are endless, and that's genuinely upsetting. Opportunities like this present themselves every time Blaze makes an appearance, they even tease me by giving me scenes where Aaron is alone with a character he has little to no connection with, Maria.

Maria was a foil for Aphmau. And Ein was a foil for Aaron. And Blaze was a foil for Ein. There is no reason for Maria to really have a rapor that matters with Aaron. He doesn't really know her that well, she's clearly a friend by association, and it seems like an odd thing to focus on when Blaze is LITERALLY RIGHT THERE IN THE BACKGROUND OF THIS SCENE.

Why won't they let Blaze talk to Aaron? It's so infuriating. The closest we get is in episode 7 when Blaze attempts to calm down Aaron, but he's shown to be ineffective and it comes down to, of course, Aphmau being the one to talk him down. I swear to Hatsune the writers are making fun of me at this point. They're going "Oooooh you want Blaze to be an actually helpful and supportive figure in Aaron's life soooo bad." AND I DO!

I'm serious when I say the show is teasing me. I've been skimming through Season 5 and only watching the episodes when Blaze is on screen, and so far he has never been in a scene with less than 4 people in it. Never. And even in scenes where he gets to be at least a focal point, he's always limited because he has to share that moment in the spotlight with FOUR OTHER CHARACTERS.

Episode 14 is a great example of this. When the werewolf gang gets told they aren't allowed to eat at a restaurant because they're werewolves, Blaze makes it abundantly obvious that he's put up with this before and really doesn't feel like being hate crimed on his vacation. And he knows that actions speak louder than words and therefore joins Maria in saying they should "teach this establishment a lesson." Personally I think Blaze would've just thrown the manager through a window only to realize it's an outdoor establishment and throw him into the ocean. Which would be objectively funny and deserved because that owner was being cringe and racist.

I love the conversation that happens because it shows the unique way that Aaron sees things from passing as a human for most of his life. This has never happened, but he knows that further acts of violence as a result will only make it happen again. This is a great scene for Aaron. Not really good for Blaze, and the next scene makes him worse. I love the detail that Blaze is an instinctual person more than a planner, but it feels wrong that he doesn't even let Aaron consider planning. I know he wants Aaron to be more spontaneous but he should have more awareness of his friend and his habits and be able to accommodate it, not talk over it.

But it's Jesson, so misunderstanding even their simplest character is par for the course. At least episode 15 gives me Garroth and Blaze talking in the background, and I'm starved for good Blaze content, so I was eating this shit up. The problem with watching MyStreet this way is that Blaze... Just doesn't get a lot of moments... At all. There are some episodes where he doesn't even speak at all, and when he does get to talk in episodes, he gets a few lines in one giant ensemble scene.

I don't object to a show having an ensemble cast, or even a lot of characters with a few central ones, but it really is a detriment to the show that Aaron never gets a scene alone with any werewolf he isn't related to. Nana gets to talk to Blaze when she's having a crisis of her relationship history and experience, but it's just so Blaze can tell her the opposite of what she wants to hear. It's not a scene that feels like it was written for Blaze, because it wasn't. It was written for Nana.

And before some jack ass says it "Blaze is a side character he's not supposed to get a lot of focus" and I'm not asking for a lot. I watched every scene he's in in PDH to prove that it works

BECAUSE IT DID.

Blaze showed up officially in episode 18 out of 30, and he wasn't in every episode after his introduction. But the writers gave him a solid introduction, one good episode that spent most of its run time with him, and really good moments throughout the rest of his time in the series. All I'm asking is that Season 5 at least give me one of those things. Either a good episode where he and his relationship with Aaron is brought into focus, even if it's used as a vector to study Aaron's character, or just more sincere moments for him.

It feels like Blaze is a joke character now when he previously made it very clear he's far more than that.

And then they just forget about him. During the first part of the 3 part finale Blaze is there. He's the one who got everyone to gather at the docks because an mf wants to eat some scrumptious food. But when Aaron sees Ein and starts freaking out, Blaze is literally just not in the scene. At all. Not even as like a throwaway of someone who could've helped but failed, he just is not in the scene at all. It legitimately feels like the writers forgot about him entirely.

Blaze the minute the plot shows up:

He's there after Garroth gets turned and was apparently at Garroth's bedside trying to calm him down which I will be thinking about. A lot. I'll be thinking about how we deserved to see or at least hear some of it, about how the writers continue to tease me with an interesting scene that involves my favorite little fucker, about how heartbreaking it would have been to see Blaze and Melissa try to calm Garroth only for him to scream in pain and try to push them away only to reveal that Zane and Nana are able to hear the entire ordeal downstairs and Zane is panicking when he hears his brother screaming in pain. Just thinking about what we could've had if the writers actually cared about any of these characters.

And then after that he dies.

I'm not watching any of When Angels Fall because I know what's good for my health. I know what happens in Season 6 Episode 9 and that's all I need to know. It doesn't matter if the writers may have finally given Blaze an emotional scene, it doesn't matter if they finally gave him even a hint of character development, it doesn't matter if he made a connection in a real way. Because no matter what he did the result is the same. No matter what quality the writers might've pulled out of their ass, it would ultimately be in service of one end. From the start of this season these writers knew what they wanted to do. They wanted to up the stakes and add more drama to the show, and they wanted to do it by killing Blaze.

And I think I know why.

This is 100% a limited view, but I was on Aphmau Instagram at the time that this season was airing. And I ran a Blaze fan account. I talked to a lot of MyStreet fans during this time and I was constantly upset and disappointed that people didn't understand Blaze's character, or just didn't appreciate it as much as I do. Most people liked Blaze on a very surface level, or because he was attached to another character they liked. I found very few people who genuinely cared about him as an individual, probably because Blaze stopped getting scenes alone by the end of PDH, and because the Aphmau fandom (at the time) had more of a focus on shipping than character work and quality. Blaze was easily shippable with a number of characters, canonically shipped with Dottie a little, and had enough characterization that people cared about him, but not enough to get a large dedicated fanbase.

He was the perfect one to kill.

Enough people liked him because he was hard to hate, he was stapled onto Aaron's character with little regard for a story of his own, and his death could be eventually inconsequential. And it was! Blaze's method of dying is so bad it makes me physically angry!

I know the whole story for the last few seasons has been all about Forever Potions and turning people against each other, but just mind controlling Blaze and having him die while under mind control is such such a missed opportunity. There's been a disappointing lack of proper Aaron and Blaze friendship content, but they could have made up for it in this scene with just a few tweaks. Just have Blaze not be mind controlled at the end. He can still go on that rant about Aaron being the cause of all the bad that's happened, but then the words start to become... disjointed. Jilted. As if Blaze is struggling to say them because he knows that they're wrong. Aaron's his friend, there's no way he'd say that about him.

Have it break.

Have him look at his friend in a worse state than he's ever been in, and instead of approaching him with intent to harm, it's intent to heal. A final attempt at getting through to Aaron. And like the times before, it doesn't work. Aaron's angrier than ever and he isn't seeing or thinking straight thanks to Ein's bull shit. All he can see is an enemy in his way. Maybe he sees Blaze's eyes but Blaze's green eye is still Emerald Green, even if the control broke for a moment. Whatever reason, Aaron still attacks.

He doesn't realize that Blaze wasn't trying to hurt him until it's too late. Aaron's anger already ruined a friend's life, it already pulled all of them into the hell they're in, and now it's killed one of his best friends.

ONE CHANGE. THAT'S ALL IT TOOK. ONE SINGLE CHANGE TO MAKE BLAZE'S DEATH ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING.

Ideally I'd like it Blaze just didn't die at all, least of all before the finale, but if you're going to kill him off unceremoniously at least make it have some emotional weight. You've been neglecting him for an entire season and now you just kill him off? Just like that? Oh he gets to show up in heaven? How nice. Is it a scene where he gets to express regrets, remorse, or even give any insight into his feelings?

Of course it fucking isn't! Are you kidding me, that's not even close to what happens. I said i wouldn't watch When Angels Fall but

I LIED!!

I watched Blaze's death scene and his scene in heaven to make sure I knew well and good how badly they failed to kill off my favorite character! And man, the scene in heaven is just the worst! Blaze does a genuinely kind thing for Aphmau and decides to stay with her when she's alone because he doesn't want her to hurt. He saw how much pain Aaron was in without her. He just wants to fucking help her.

But Aphmau's too self absorbed to realize that and instead goes on a whole rant about how she always needs other people to take care of or protect her and how everyone else would be better off yadda yadda. What she doesn't realize and what Blaze eventually gets to tell her is that people were around her and took care of her because they just wanted to. Because she was nice to be around. And they never expected anything else, and never saw her as a burden.

And that's actually a really nice moment. Sort of. There's two major problems. First, Blaze gets cut off from telling Aphmau this at first because Irene has to go on a whole rant about Aphmau being selfish. And she is right in everything that she says, but it feels weird for Irene, who literally doesn't know her, to be making this judgement. This scene should have been Irene observing a conversation between Blaze and Aphmau were Blaze just tries to make her feel better.

And that would hopefully solve problem number two. Which is that what Blaze says is very genuine and heartfelt, but severely handicapped by the fact that he and Aphmau were only friends for a short period of time in High School, and an equally short period of time within the last few months. What Blaze says about why he likes being around her is true, but it would have a lot more weight if there was a chance for Blaze to have been around her as a friend more.

Fuck it, if you need Blaze to be on screen with at least two other characters, why was there never a scene of Blaze, Aaron and Aphmau just talking? Would a single scene of that fucking killed you? Just one scene would have made their friendships a lot more solid and therefore heartbreaking to lose when it gets torn apart.

Third problem, the scene ends with a focus on Irene. Blaze's words echo in her ears, and remind her of her friends. And I like that idea because I'm an absolute sucker for MCD, but it takes the scene away from the focus. This should be a scene about one of Aphmau's friends encouraging her to not give up even if it all seems lost. At least don't let her death be in vain by saying such awful things about her friends while they may be grieving. But Irene is brought into focus again because the show isn't about Blaze, or Aphmau apparently, I guess her Aphmau Main Character Powers overrides Aphmau's. She has more experience with them.

Blaze and Aphmau's very heartfelt dialogue is brought down by the fact that these two characters lives didn't intersect very directly out of high school. Through the course of Season 5 I never got the idea that Blaze was Aphmau's friend. Not to say they weren't friendly, I think Blaze adored her just as much as he did in high school, but as a viewer I was never shown that they cared particularly for one another. I believe that Blaze sincerely cared about her even after all this time, but that's not because of anything the writers did with him in these seasons. It's just because that's the kind of person Blaze is.

But their friendship not being strong really weakens the scene. This is a scene that I know for a fact worked as intended when I watched it as it was coming out. I was an overemotional mess of a 15 year old who hated how this series was going but kept watching it because it was almost over and I might as well get it done with. It pulled on my heartstrings and they sang and I cried. I cried a lot. This scene made me incredibly emotional, and it still got to me as an adult, but the devil is in the details.

Blaze and his arc might work on the surface. They work if you don't pay that close of attention to it. They work if you care more about the characters he's constantly around more than Blaze. And when I first watched Seasons 5&6, I still had a very deep attachment to a lot of these characters, especially Melissa, who he shares a lot of scenes with. So I felt... satisfied? I would've liked more, but I probably wouldn't have complained about what I got (his death scene not withstanding I always thought that was bad).

My my, how the times have changed.

If it wasn't obvious from the four thousand or so words you just read, Blaze is a rather unique case of these writers failing as writers. A rather unique case where the perfect character to fix a lot of problems with their show practically jumped up in the air waving his arms around and they still brushed past him to focus on a predetermined story he was shoved into. I don't think the writers ever really had a plan for where Blaze would go or what he would do.

A lot of Blaze's best character moments are when he isn't being written by Jesson. The reason I love the minigames so much is because there, Blaze's incredibly talented voice actor Jason Lord is actually really funny and pretty good at improv. Obviously some bits of the mini games are scripted, but a lot of them are just seeing how much voice actors can get into their characters, which he's fantastic at. A lot of Blaze's funniest moments come from this too, which is great when the writers turn him into a comedy character but the characters voice actor is funnier than they both are and is only a funny character when they don't have direct control of him. Lord is able to bring life to a character who may have been lacking it due to the simultaneously focused and unfocused way the series was written.

Blaze is proof of what happens when writers don't bother to develop their characters beyond the outline. The draft notes for PDH Season 2 said "there's going to be a wolf character who tries to become Alpha and instead stands up for Daniel when he's bullied." and then Blaze was born. The writers gave him some characterization as a treat to make the story work better, and then were done with it then and there. We fleshed him out enough, good character, time to put him in season 5 so people stop criticizing us for not giving Aaron enough friends.

But the problem wasn't a lack of quantity in friends, it was a lack of quality. It was a lack of scenes that let Aaron interact with other characters without Aphmau present. It was a lack of characters to point to that were real emotional connections Aaron had that weren't his last minute family or his girlfriend. It was a lack of attention given to the few characters that could've filled that role. Dante almost filled it in season 2, and Aaron and Garroth could have arguably become closer after everything in season 4, but at that point Aaron's entire arc became centered around Aphmau.

It was the fact that Blaze was one of the few people who ever directly reached out to Aaron and then was never given a scene alone again. It was because the writers wrote too many characters, tried to give the series a more direct focus, and then failed to account for the characters that were dragged along even if they didn't necessarily know what to do with them.

So when Season 6 came around and they decided to make the show super serious no really stop laughing, they needed characters to kill off to up the stakes. It's not like Blaze's character was going anywhere. It's not like they had a plan for him. Nothing was really being lost.

It's not like Blaze was one of the most sincere and dedicated characters in the series. It's not like he had one of the biggest potentials in regards to his relationship with Aphmau or Aaron. It's not like there was time spent proving that he could be a solid pillar of support in both of their lives even under dire circumstances. It's not like he was set up that way through individual scenes where he got to talk to each of them on a personal level. That definitely didn't happen.

TLDR: MyStreet peaked at season 2 and they fumbled the bag with the best chance to make it peak even higher and I'm forever bitter about it. Now get out of my house.

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