#the mysterious bookshop

[richardarmitagefanpage]

New photo of Richard at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York. (October 20, 2023)

📷: TheMysterious

[theglitchos]

@jonsmisu (even tho i know he doesn't particularly use tumblr anymore)

[embracing-the-ineffable]

The circular bookshop rug CHANGES?!

(Edit: this is the rug that rests on top of the portal, under the chandelier. I think(?) there's only one of those!)

I saw someone mention this in a comment, but haven't seen any pics or discussion about it yet, so I checked. It's another inexplicable (ineffable?) "continuity" error:

S2e1, prepping to do the half miracles to hide Jim!Gabriel:

S2e5, as Nina enters the ball:

(More pics, including the season ONE rug, which was used for an s2 promo photo, and some discussion, below)

S2e5, prepping to defend the bookshop from the demons after Crowley walks most of the humans out:

S2e6, Crowley tidying the bookshop while Azi has a chinwag:

And sure, Aziraphale could have enchanted it to look more "Jane Austen-esque" for the ball, but then why did it change back in e6? It looks like Nina and Maggie's clothes for the ball stayed throughout e6, so it's not like the ball enchantments expired, Cinderella-style, or something...

Like the two different wigs for Crowley in Job, it seems superfluous to have two different rugs for the bookshop. And yet ...

It seems like it must be a Clue about something! Unreliable Narrator(s)? Another magic trick we didn't see? What do you think?

Edit 2: @rebeccasteventaylor had a good question about the rug in s1. I checked, and you'll perhaps be unsurprised to learn that the rug in s1e4, when Azi talks to Floating Head Metatron, is similar to s2e1 when they do the half miracle, but definitely not the same. The chairs also look similar but not exact:

And here's a wider view of s1e4:

And a wider view of s2e1:

I understand they Actually Burned the bookshop and everything inside during s1, and then had to recreate it for s2 (there's a really wild post about recreating a hand painted antique tiled sink that talks more about that), so I don't know if the similar-but-not-exact chairs, big red rug, and round rug are more casualties of that, or are meant to look different...

Edit 3: EXCEPT. They USED the season 1 rug in season 2 promo photos!

So... they didn't burn it? Or they did burn it and then they recreated it and didn't actually use it for s2??

I can't think or even breathe, this is SO WEIRD.

Interested in diving further into all the Good Omens mysteries? I have lots more of my own posts plus Clues and metas from all over the fandom, here.

[kimberleyjean]

"Surrender the Angle!": Two signs, two different angles?

In an effort to catalogue all the continuity "errors" in Good Omens, here's another to add to the pile:

When the demons attack the bookshop, they throw a sign through the window saying "Surrender the Angle". When it lands, does it look like this first image or the one underneath?

Take a close look at the carpet. See where the sign sits in relation to the carpet pattern? Here it is brightened and outlined:

That sure is a different 'angle', right?

What about the amount of glass in either image? The first image has large chunks of glass shown, whereas in image two there are only a few small pieces of glass.

These images are being shown only seconds apart. You think the second, static shot of the sign on the carpet (drawing attention to angles no less!) would be a pretty easy shot to get right, continuity-wise.

However, just like Gabriel's statue, missing store signs from multiple shops, Crowley's overactive sideburns and a Bentley which changes shape and colour, they just couldn't seem to get anything right in this show!

Or did they, and we just don't have the full picture yet?

Thanks to everyone at @ineffable-detective-agency for motivating me to keep finding things, and to @embracing-the-ineffable for her feedback on this post.

[omaano]

Last one for @bobadinweek's bingo - A Gravity Falls AU for my FREE square! I'll make a whole post to sum up all my contribution to this bingo a bit later (I made 10 artworks for this event in the past year omg!) - but I'm really pleased to end it with this one - just look at how cute they are as babies! There are some musing about this AU (and another variant) under the cut if you're interested ;)

I'll admit that I don't actually know much about Omega (aside from how she appeared in some fics and what I saw of her on this site), but I already felt bad enough for taking her bow and giving it to Boba (if it's up to Grogu he won't be able to keep hold of it for long, lol), so I felt it best to let her keep her hat and give her the journal. She seems more like the type to pour over it, while Boba just jumps headfirst into any and every kind of adventure. (Also imagine Boba with a pig-sized mini rancor. He'd lose a limb to it, but he would also LOVE it!)

I know that it's usually headcanon'd that Din and Boba are about the same-ish age (with usually Boba coming out a year-or-two older), but for the sake of fun here let Din hit puberty and his growth spurt a bit earlier and be just a bit older, and let Boba have his gay little awakening that summer.

(Just imagine that episode where Dipper makes multiple copies of himself (I know the roles don't track perfectly, shush!) to try and ask Wendy out for that dance/date at the party - and make it Boba trying his very awkward best [insert clone joke here], and, say, put an equally teenage Cobb in Robbie's place, except Cobb turns out to be cool, and now Boba is in all kinds of trouble, and surrounded by too many cute boys wow (but Din is still the cutest with his weird frog-eating baby troll). This idea's kept me entertained through the struggles of trying to keep track of my lineart and flat colour layers with the background here lol.)

ALTERNATIVELY I also entertained the idea of Boba and Fennec running a con mystery shack because they try to lie low for some crimes and not get caught (they are just the ideal type of chaotic-dumb-but-secretly-competent combo, who would play super dumb about any supernatural shenanigans going on while casually leaning against a rancor under a way too small sheet in the corner); and Din is the handy man helping out around the shack, trying to cover for his weird slightly green son who should not be allowed near frogs or you will see something you can never unsee after, and baby Rey, Finn and Poe could be the ones to get into all kinds of supernatural trouble (with Hux as Pacifica, and Kylo/Ben as Lil Gideon lol that would even work with Han and Boba having an archnemeses kind of situation going on). Plus Boba has an endless supply of lost competent twins so...

[ineffable-detective-agency]

Doctor Who and Aziraphale's Bookshop: a Crossroads Through Time

We're not saying that the setting of the Doctor Who episode Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead has anything to do with the design of Aziraphale's bookshop - from the dome skylight and the central columns, right down to the magic circle on the floor - but it DOES, right?

Welcome to the Round Room, which was once part of the Swansea reference library in Wales. "the room is quite extraordinary. The dark wooden panelling, the gallery with the high dome above, and the magical pattern on the floor all combine to create a dramatic, but mysterious ambience." "The gallery and the wooden pillars are edged by an intricately patterned and scrolled, white metal balustrade."

The Doctor Who episodes set in this library tell the story of thousands of people trapped, without their knowledge, in a life-saving virtual simulation that they believe is real and experience like a dream, skipping from moment to moment without experiencing time as a steady flow.

Are there parallels in not only the setting, but also the stories, of Good Omens and Silence in the Library? Here's a quote about how Aziraphale’s shop is built on a crossroads:

“I designed it on a crossroads because I felt that Aziraphale was [at a] crossroads through time”, Production Designer Michael Ralph tells Den of Geek. A crossroads is a “place of pause, so you don’t know which direction to go in”. [link]

A crossroads through time. A place of pause.

Is there something strange about Good Omens' time? For sure. Is season 2 happening within a time bubble or virtual simulation while time outside the bubble is paused in 2019? Maybe. What do you think?

Featuring contributions from the lovely members of the @ineffable-detective-agency, including @thebluestgreen @theastrophysicistnextdoor @noneorother @maufungi @kimberleyjean @ghstptats @embracing-the-ineffable and @bbbitchvibbbez

And with special thanks to @portraitofalonelydyke, for the post which inspired us to write this up! If you're interested in whether the center of the bookshop might be on top of the mysterious peak everyone is climbing towards in the s2 opening credits, please check out their post!

Find more of our posts plus clues and metas from all over the fandom, here!

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.” ― Agatha Christie, The Clocks.

[gollancz]

SPECIAL EDITION ALERT!

Fans of @victoriocity, check out this gorgeous edition of HIGH VAULTAGE, available only through Goldsboro Books' SFF Fellowship.

Signed by the authors

Limited, number editions

Digitally sprayed edges (fade resistant!)

Exclusive foil stamping under the dust jacket

To get on the waitlist for the Goldsboro Fellowship, you can email them at gsff@goldsborobooks.com

Don't mind me just frothing lightly at the mouth at this beautiful book. I was doing proof checks the other day and kept finding NEW JOKES.

If you would like to pre-order a standard HB (which will still be beautiful, just without the additional foiling and edges), you can do so here!

[the-anxious-acrobat]

bookshop regular\book lover concept! 📚📖

[howlingaround]

Incredible how Book of the War is better than House of Leaves and yet its obscure and out of print and not mentioned in ergodic metafiction lists

[apologydanceenthusiast]

What on earth is Crowley doing with the books he carries around?

I mean, obviously he ends up throwing them across the room in a way that would let Aziraphale discorperate on the spot, but is he sorting them? Is he planning to give them to Jim so that he can keep sorting them in alphabetical order? Is he just trying to keep busy? Bc he's obviously not selling them.

[periodically80s]

[lgbtqreads]

Shopper's Delight: Independent Bookstore Day (Tomorrow!)

In honor of Independent Bookstore Day tomorrow (April 29th), here are some of our favorite indies along with some handy links to special, signed (including bookplated), and/or personalized editions that can ship right to you! (Stores are listed alphabetically by state.) Please note that some of these are preorders, and some are already published titles.  Note: Make sure you request the copy be…

[embracing-the-ineffable]

Hello,

Just wondering if you can discern what might be written on the exterior walls of the bookshop near the columns the extra seems to be marking with her hand. The red paint seems to have a yellowish splodge (or maybe it’s just my eyesight and my phone and those gifs).

Cheers!

Thanks for writing! It says "Book Sellers" on each of the square support posts around the bookshop, is that what you mean? Here's a behind the scenes photo of the Bentley, with a clear view of several of the posts:

For anyone who wonders what you meant about the extra/background actress marking the columns, here's the post about that!

[totopopopo]

I have so much distain for people who are into the dark academia aesthetic lmfao