yowlthinks

[yowlthinks]

-

Patreon | Ko-Fi

[yowlthinks]

But to add to this: Charles educates Edwin on this, he has clearly been working on not just brining him up to speed on historic events, but also on the social change.

And with hysteria: Edwin knows that it is unacceptable by modern standards, but he uses it to repulse Crystal, and also possibly this second living girl (who they are trying to help, but look how this went with helping Crystal! Now he is stuck with her!). Note how he cuts himself short in the Case of the Twoo Dead Dragons

You know how sometimes it’s hard to tell whether something is brilliant writing or just really bad one?

Remember the attic scene, specifically the following exchange:

Charles: I mean, I’m half Indian. Why am I so different?

Edwin: That is a fair point. They were the same country back when I was alive.

I like to think Charles’ words aren’t just about him being specifically half Indian and the boy Pakistani — they’re about both of them not being fully British. His feelings, his decision to protect the boy, would probably be the same if he were, say, Chinese or Algerian.

But Edwin? Don’t get me started.

That line is like some russian guy saying, “What’s the difference between an Armenian and an Azerbaijani? They used to be parts of the same country.”

Never mind the fact that they have completely different cultures, languages, and religions.

Edwin is a product of his time. But please — don’t mistake his response for what it clearly isn’t. His inability to see any difference isn’t empathy; it’s the ignorance of someone raised by an empire, blind to the diversity and identity of the people in its colonies.

(that’s like hysteria in ep2, but more subtle. i’d love to see both topics explored, btw)

[yowlthinks]

Wow, some very interesting thoughts, and while I might not agree with all of them (I do think that Gabriel is rather more like one of those Sales bosses: he is a complicated character and he van be both afraid and protective, and also selfish and acting as a bully to the same people he tries to protect on other occasions. I have observed a few peacocks like that at work, and if you get them alone, they can be all charming and human, then puff their chest out and throw you under the bus), I think there very much is something in the thought of the Metatron and Lucifer in round 2. Is the Metatron looking to get an even higher position and rule fully over everything, ideally without involving God at all?

Gabriel defended Crowley in shutting down Michael's "Shua" slander...

Just after Bildad joined the group scene to help Sitis, Michael was bothered by how Gabriel was willing to allow Bildad to join them. She saw herself and the angels as superior to whoever this bedraggled, black-clad interloper was and was irritated by the fact Gabriel didn't just instantly dismiss Bildad's presence.

Michael-- a character who, in the present in S2, ordered the death of a pair of humans for simply being in the room with the immortal beings-- thought she would try to remind Gabriel with a little hint that they were superior beings to Bildad the Shuhite and that he didn't have to treat him as an equal.

Michael did this by jumping in with a know-it-all tone to draw attention to the etymology of Bildad's self-professed surname. She said: "'Shuhite', of course, means 'from the land of Shua"... which is an example of an angelic-world microaggression because what it was really doing was bringing up among all of them-- without directly saying so-- what it is that the word shua means-- and calling Crowley one.

While shua can mean prosperity, it apparently derived that meaning from an earlier sense of "sinful" opulence. It also means a series of other things, like... to cry out for salvation, to prostrate oneself, to have low morals, to drown, to be at the bottom of society, and to fall to a lower position.

Some of the definitions of shua indicate that she might have suspected he was a demon but, either way, it didn't matter to her because her point was that she thought Bildad wasn't someone she and the other angels should be associating with. Bildad wasn't "their kind" because he was from "the land of Shua"-- the bottom rungs of society.

She seemed to be saying to Gabriel that this Bildad person who had just arrived was likely a demon in the supernatural sense or, if not, was just a similarly low class, immoral, human person of no consequence, and that, either way, he was beneath them and not worthy of their time and respect.

This comment was both classist and racist and she said it aloud to Gabriel, right in front of Crowley, adding to the insult by assuming that Crowley wouldn't be as intelligent or educated as she is (lolololol) and so maybe wouldnt understand that she was insulting him. She didn't seem to care if he did.

That is why Aziraphale looked ready to murder Michael for saying that. He was glaring at Michael, furious, his teeth grinding from anger at one point. It was not just that Aziraphale was irritated that this could have gotten in the way of saving the kids-- it was that she was insulting Crowley to his face.

Unlike Gabriel and Aziraphale, Michael reacted to Crowley's presence the way that The Metatron would have expected them to behave to anyone they suspected was outside of their species or rank. She was trying to telegraph to Gabriel a warning that she thought he should not be willing to listen to whatever this Shuhite person had to say. She wanted Gabriel to shut this down.

Instead, Gabriel shut Michael down-- hard.

Gabriel threw up a hand and one of his patented withering looks and said "yes" in that fuck all the way off, Michael tone that said he knew what 'shua' meant, thanks, and it didn't bother him there might be someone from a different part of society in their midst.

His response was just instantly a reaction of don't even with the bigotry, Michael. Bildad is a person and we will be treating him respectfully.

This is the Jim in Gabriel showing up. Jimbriel had no issue with spending time with and befriending people of different species and social classes in the present of S2, just as Gabriel didn't think it inappropriate in the past that they should allow Bildad the Shuhite into their conversation.

Gabriel was always walking a tightrope with his position, trying to throw suspicion off of him long enough to hold onto the role that gave him just enough power to help as many as he could, even if it was really always The Metatron who was in charge.

Gabriel was the only one with power enough in this scene to put a stop to Michael's bigotry and he did so without a single hesitation.

Without Gabriel being open-minded and principled enough to stand up for Bildad? Job and Sitis' kids would have died because Aziraphale needed Crowley's help to save the kids and Gabriel was in control of who was in the room. Without Gabriel being fundamentally decent and overriding Michael to ensure that Bildad was treated with respect, there would have been no path for Aziraphale to help Job and Sitis.

It's also clear that none of Michael's insult escaped Crowley's sharp notice-- not that we would expect someone as clever and into words as he is to have not understood what she was saying. What Michael's bigotry blinded her to was the fact that, in trying to use etymology to insult Crowley? She had basically challenged Serena Williams to a tennis match. 😂

Crowley's response to Michael was to easily beat her at her own game. He had the space to do so after seeing that Gabriel might be a lot of things but he wasn't a bigot. Gabriel supported it by not interjecting and was probably pretty bemused by the response.

"Indeed, it does," Crowley told Michael about how being Bildad the Shuhite meant that he came from "the land of Shua", with a tone and an eyebrow raise that said he knew exactly what Michael was saying about him by bring up shua's etymology...

...where, as it happens, I am a leading shoemaker.

The Serpent of Eden, bitch. Prince of Hell. Not just a Shuhite, Archangel Michael, but *the* Shuhite. 😂

Crowley was pointing out that there's are whole worlds in various lands of Shua, too-- in Hell and places like it on Earth-- and that where Michael comes from is not the center of the universe. "What, you think they don't wear shoes in Shua?"...

You don't think we aren't people, too, Michael? You don't think we have social classes and prejudices and power struggles and all the same bullshit on Earth and in Hell the way you have them in Heaven, Michael? The same wants and needs of all people? Gabriel seems to have clued into the fact that we're all the same but it doesn't seem like you read that memo yet...

What's also of note here is that, during this reply of Bildad's? Gabriel didn't say a word. He didn't interject. He didn't tell Crowley to knock it off. He didn't flex any political muscle in the scene here at all. He thought Crowley was within his rights to sass Michael a bit and his way of supporting that was to not say anything and let him speak. He also then did something else helpful: he basically handed control of what was happening in the scene over to Aziraphale.

By the time Crowley was on "shoes in Shua," Aziraphale had his plan so he interjected with the "yes, well, it would be really helpful if you were an expert in human births" that ranks in the Top Five Most Obvious 'Shenanigans Are Afoot' Moments Imaginable. Gabriel, quiet, was just raising his eyebrow at Aziraphale but letting him run the show.

Gabriel didn't have to be basically just standing there for this moment and, at any time, he could have said enough was enough but he let it all play out. His response to the leading shoemaker suddenly maybe also being a midwife was basically just to turn to Crowley and wait patiently to find out if he was going to declare himself a birthing expert. 😂

Gabriel was just going with it by that point, letting it be The Aziraphale and Bildad Show, tacitly helping them by prioritizing Crowley's sense of safety and actively choosing to protect him over pandering to Michael's bigoted discomfort.

He used his power to defend Crowley and help him and Aziraphale save Job and Sitis' kids from Heaven, taking on great risk to himself in doing so.

That was obviously the right thing to do but it came back to bite Gabriel in S1 when Michael took a swing at him by going after Aziraphale and Crowley and showing Gabriel pictures that forced them into not ignoring the fact that they both knew that Bildad the Shuhite had been the demon Crowley.

Michael was letting Gabriel know that she knew that he had known that for a long time-- that she remembered his empathetic response to Bildad and support of Aziraphale and suspected Gabriel of having known Aziraphale was in a relationship with Crowley and having been protecting them from being caught by Satan and The Metatron.

These actions of Gabriel's during Job also add an interesting layer to the recurring thing in S2 about Crowley's long-held little pash on The Supreme Archangel that Crowley otherwise does enjoy mocking-- even if he will admit, a little moony-eyed, that he thinks Gabriel is beautiful.

It could be argued that said pash might have been helped along a bit by the fact that, from what we've seen? Gabriel was pretty much the only angel not named Aziraphale to ever really treat Crowley with respect after his fall. Crowley appreciated Gabriel standing up for him to Michael and admired the risk he took in doing so.

It adds additional layers to all the emotions he has over how S1 led to a lot of misunderstandings and missing context between them that begin to get worked out during S2.

[yowlthinks]

Suitcase

And once I am trying to note down all the theatre plays I watch this year, I should add last week's occurrence here as well.

I went to see the Suitcase, it is a play based on a story by Sergey Dovlatov. I must say, I should have read some of his stories, but I somehow never got to them, so this was my first encounter with his prose. The entire play is basically a series of stories, both fun and heartbreaking at the same time. The main character stumbles across his old suitcase with which he emigrated and goes through the things in it, each having its own story. It is not so much immigrant prose, but rather memoirs, something your parent or friend might tell you as theh clean up their desk, and who can't relate to that?

It was also the first play I saw in my mother tongue in about... 17 years, which is both odd and not really odd at all.

I enjoyed the acting, especially by the two younger actors, one was an understudy who performed after just two rehearsals!! I seriously hope he gets noticed and has a bright future because damn, he was good!

[yowlthinks]

Red

Tonight I decided to watch Red (on NT at Home), it is a play about Rothko and his young assistant and is entirely their dialogue about art and colour (how it is perceived and used and the associations it has and how different colours interplay with each other and create a sense of movement and emotion). It is a rather short play, but so good, and so full of emotion!

The acting is great, and the stage and the lights are set in a way that really plays the backdrop of the paintings to the dialogue.

I also really liked how the assistant doesn't even have a name, Rothko never calls him by name, even though he talks to him all the time, almost like there is no space for any other person in his studio, it is all about him, and then at the end it is not. It goes full circle: from self-awareness, to losing yourself in illusions and then back again.

I really enjoyed this one, 9/10

[yowlthinks]

Oh my god 🤣🤣🤣

ベントレーをこなしているウワバミ

[yowlthinks]

Happy Pride!! :D

Have a piece I did for the charity calendar coming out soon! halo highting is the epitome of homoeroticism to me if you hadn't guessed by now

[yowlthinks]

But consider: Edwin inspires this sort of unwavering devotion. It is not like he only goes for that type, it is just that att the available options are... well, trying to emulate Charles

A verbatim thing I just said to @anything-thats-rock-and-roll || Dead Boy Detectives (2024)

[yowlthinks]

This!!

[yowlthinks]

The same artist made these two 35 years apart:

1750s Henry Robert Morland (British artist, 1716-1797) A Girl Ironing Shirt Sleeves

1785 Henry Robert Morland (British artist, 1716-1797) Laundry Maid Ironing

WHICH IS SO COOL and also shows the change of fashion.

[yowlthinks]

“Charles, it’s alright.”

[yowlthinks]

And in every image he still looks so kind

capricorn™

[yowlthinks]

Another banger from /r/stupiddovenests - at least the tag is appropriate this time

[yowlthinks]

One of my favourite scenes

I can’t. 🥹

[yowlthinks]

[yowlthinks]

🚨IMPORTANT🚨

IF YOU POSTED THE CONCEPT ART / THE POSTER, REMOVE IT

[yowlthinks]

My two yr old is looking through a book about prehistoric art and she saw a picture of those cave painting of hands and she held up her own and said "hand!" And I gotta be honest. That hit