Trickery Episode 2: Bigger (with Transcription)

Trickery Episode 2: Bigger

Alright, before I get into exploring the thresholds aspect, I have various other things to cover.

Once upon a time, there was a post by noneorother that has since been deleted.

This post speculated about Gabriel seeming to expect an appearance swap before the miracle that was about to hide him due to his reaction to Aziraphale's mannerism and movement with his hands.

This post probably contributed to putting the following idea in my head: That "edited" Crowley during the angry lightning walk was probably Aziraphale. His walk is too stiff. And if that were Aziraphale, that suggested that Crowley and Aziraphale are aware and acting with intention regarding the sideburns and whatever they actually do. It would also then be not the Metatron editing the Book of Life because these characters are the ones editing the story we are watching.

Now then...

With the thresholds matter in mind, I started to reconsider something about the park scene. Crowley's newspaper was like his way of making the space more his own because it was like the newspaper was his own personal door. Additionally, even though the park is a human space, it is a human space that Crowley is more familiar with, as far as we know based on season 1.

Let's move onto Muriel.

Due to how I'd found things so far, I felt that whatever was going on with the human and supernatural thing with the sideburns, Muriel's situation was very odd and throwing me off.

When Muriel first meets Crowley, Crowley's sideburns are short. While the sideburns were also short around Shax in the park, which was his first present day scene with her, that was a human space at the time with other humans around.

The bookshop is different, especially when Crowley and Muriel first encounter each other. Aziraphale is on the lower floor. Gabriel is on the upper floor. Muriel is with Aziraphale. There are no humans in the bookshop. As such, all other beings present within the space are supernatural entities.

So, I took to studying the scene, as if I would magically find a human element in it somewhere, just by looking at it really hard, and I did. I expected it to be something I could see, but it was still not what I expected in how I found it. It was something I could hear and so could technically be seen in the subtitles.

During the dialogue itself, the word "human" is emphasized when it is used. Muriel is lying and claiming to be human. Aziraphale can figure out himself that Muriel is not human, but he goes along with the lie. The bookshop is his own space and is familiar with Crowley. The bookshop ends up giving Crowley short sideburns since Crowley pretends to be human often enough. The bookshop took Muriel literally. The sideburns are kept short until Crowley is finally shown with Gabriel later in the episode.

The spaces read Crowley, and the spaces decide the reading based on things like character presence, movement, and likely memory.

Longest-length sideburns tend to show up around angels, even if not exclusively angels, and the story has a lot of clues that Crowley himself was a high-ranking angel before his Fall. So, could it be that such a length marked rank in the bookshop? Were Gabriel and Muriel like Crowley's wards or charges or some angel he had to look after "under his wing" because of their memory wipes? Muriel is never stated to have outright had one, but there are small clues they went through such a thing.

I liked the rank idea in general and felt it had merit, so I held onto it. I did not really hold onto the "ward" or "charge" idea and honestly forgot about it for a long time.

The more I examined the sideburns and the more I felt I was on the right track, the more I felt that Crowley and Aziraphale are aware the sideburns change. They look; it's hard to catch when they look, but they do. Aziraphale emphasizing "human" when Crowley meets Muriel helps indirectly tell Crowley the sideburns are short.

It's hard to summarize the supernatural zone, but I'll try.

In Good Omens 2, there are 3 scenes of Crowley being at or near his car with another demon. Each encounter ends abruptly, enough for someone like me to notice and think odd. These scenes are a clue about a supernatural zone that Crowley can manifest, further helped along by his car.

Instead of one person being two places at once, it's more like one place becoming two places at once. In the supernatural zone, humans are phased out. There is the Earth where they are and not being disturbed by Crowley. There is an Earth where Crowley is and not being disturbed by them. Crowley kicks out the visiting demon during each encounter. The first two instances seem unintentional, and the last one seems intentional.

With Shax the first time, she is kicked out when Crowley releases his touch on the car.

With Beelzebub the second time, Crowley exits the summon from Hell when he moves his back off the throne without asking a question he wants answered.

With Shax the third time, he revs up his car twice, looks where Shax was, and then Shax is gone.

That's why each interaction ends so abruptly.

For each of these encounters, there are no humans in the area. It's an isolated street. You can't really see humans through the windows either.

This zone is manifested during episode 5. Once Crowley himself enters the ball, there are no humans in the street, as far as we can tell. When Crowley later escorts some humans out, there still seem to be no humans besides those he is escorting. After they are gone, there still don't seem to be any humans in the street. The zone is deactivated in episode 6 and confirmed to be so only when Crowley himself returns from Heaven with 4 angels. My theory then went that this zone is being used through the connection that Crowley and Aziraphale made between homes.

Maybe that was why Crowley and Aziraphale move the border for the sideburns. Such a thing helped protect the street or was a trial run for something on a bigger scale for Earth overall later.

With all those things noted, we can now turn our attention back to the threshold elements that seem relevant to how the sideburns are working.

For Crowley leaving the bookshop in anger in episode 1, one of the reasons the thresholds are not the obvious component is because the sideburns lengthen and shorten based on the distance. It's not an immediate and obvious difference compared to when Crowley first entered the bookshop.

As an aside, the sideburns shorten with time from the car during a drive. When Crowley says "two minutes" for his first visible drive, the dialogue gives us a clue to the sideburns game in episode 1.

That rather fits with a game idea in general, to give the bookshop distance and the car time, to affect the sideburns. It also ties in with the home-borrowing idea. They have time and distance involved through such a shared loan.

As I worked on a main sideburns post with all of this incoming information, I gave a list of "activation points" for longer sideburns. Among those, I included Hell, likely qualifying through the Bentley and Heaven, likely qualifying through the pub.

Now, let's look at the pub.

Before the pub scene in episode 2, Crowley already had longer sideburns when speaking to Shax in his car. We don't see their length from when he exited his car and into the pub. All the same, they are long when he enters the pub. They are long when he and Aziraphale talk to Mr. Brown. They are long as he starts to follow Aziraphale back toward the door.

But then they aren't long just before Crowley exits the door.

By then, they are short.

Before the threshold element came into play, I thought the change might be related to Mr. Brown's position or a moving car outside.

But now we do know the thresholds matter, so is there anything we can figure out about this threshold?

Yes.

I certainly had to think about it over time and watch the scene repeatedly to get the answer, but the answer is Yes.

There is a panel that runs along past the door further in and ends at a certain point further inward. The end of the panel is the end of the threshold instead of just a standard doorway. The threshold is bigger than Crowley.

The sideburns stayed long for entry. They shortened for exit.

Based on looking at drafts, it took some further time for me to consider...the pub has two lanes with its doors and its panel. What Crowley possibly did was...switch lanes when the camera could not clearly see him do it because he was hidden by the panel.

Now what about the music shop?

This one was so much harder to figure out.

That one looks like a regular door, but Crowley's sideburns still stayed longer.

There is only one human in the space.

Crowley entered the music shop.

Well...he may have entered the music shop, but you see...he kept his touch on the door after he entered while he had his thumbs in his pockets. Based on the camera work, he could be shifting when the camera isn't looking, but when the camera is looking, he is always touching the door after he entered.

Well, that threshold isn't bigger than him though, is it?

That particular door frame isn't bigger than him, no, but...he walked through a hole in the wall that is in the shape of a door before he entered.

With that extra hole in the wall and the path toward the music shop, then that is the threshold, and it is bigger than Crowley.

Even though both thresholds are bigger than him, the situation is otherwise quite different, given what is known about entry and exit.

Crowley keeping his touch on the door for the music shop looks like he meant for that to happen, possibly even to learn it. Aziraphale looks over to Crowley twice for obvious plot reasons of wanting the eventual dance but not obvious sideburns research reasons. He's multi-tasking. Aziraphale is checking that the longer sideburns are on Crowley and are staying on Crowley.

Aziraphale literally places a visible mark on the paper on the clipboard to show us that he checked. No other location gets a mark! Just that one!

Again, a little time passed, and I came up with...Crowley never let go of the door.

Alright, we've got something going on with bigger thresholds in two human spaces causing longer sideburns.

And you know what?

Do you know what other threshold is bigger than Crowley where he has longer sideburns during the present day storyline?

The Heaven elevator.

It's not a human space, but still, there it is.

For my main sideburns post, at some point, I added:

So, if Hell qualifies through the Bentley, does Heaven qualify through the pub? Yes, but I'm not sure how. I'm sure based on intuition. This threshold is bigger than Crowley, just like the pub and music shop. I currently cannot explain the mechanics, but the mechanics definitely have some things that are noticed.

So, with the door thing in mind from our last episode, let me put forth the question, "Is there anything special Crowley does?"

Well, there is something that catches my attention above all else. It is the most confusing thing he does. Crowley enters first.

At the time, I made this mistake, "In the present day, he never does that. Aziraphale leads." This is not actually a big mistake that turned into something else later, but I am acknowledging I made it. Nonetheless, Aziraphale leads on entering and exiting the pub. He leads on entering the music shop. We don't see the exit from the music shop. So, it's at least true he was leading for what we saw of the other two bigger thresholds.

Crowley doesn't just enter the elevator first. He exits that threshold first once he and Muriel are in Heaven. Even on the exit from Heaven where we don't actually see him enter or exit the elevator, we're still given clues that he was first. He leads the walk of him, Saraqael, and Muriel to the elevator. He leads the group of the angels on the way into the bookshop.

Another thing he does is avoid touching the doors on the entrance and avoid touching the buttons. He is shown to maintain touch on the doors behind him on exit as he has his back to them.

So, we've got three bigger thresholds with Crowley having longer sideburns.

Heaven's a bit odd though since the sideburns are already staying longer, and for a supernatural space, so it's not like we can easily check that against the short sideburns with human spaces.

Speaking of Heaven, let's talk about the exit and then look back at the visit itself.

Those four angels are looking at Crowley, right?

They sure look like they are looking at him—at first glance that is.

This scene is ever so brief.

The elevator has reflective surfaces and heavy shadows, but Crowley's reflection and shadow cannot be found when we see the angels in the elevator.

Their shadows and reflections do not appear on his side either.

The four angels have mixed reactions to his presence with them, but Muriel looks sort of amazed and shocked with this mild fear in comparison to the others, in reaction to his place, not the angels surrounding them. They know who and what he is by now, so what's up with that? Michael looks incredulous. Uriel looks annoyed. Saraqael looks informed that this is expected business from the likes of Crowley and remains neutral.

Let's get that closer look of three of these four with Muriel in the middle:

Those eyes do not reflect Crowley, especially Muriel's. This is admittedly true overall for the characters of the story looking at other characters, but still, we're given some framing to show us that whatever these angels are seeing, it's still not Crowley reflected in their eyes. Saraqael gets a pass for their reaction to this part.

Then Uriel's, followed by Muriel's, eyes glance down as the light on Crowley starts to go up. Michael maintains their gaze.

Here is Crowley again after that light went up, and there are still no shadows or reflections of the angels in the elevator.

Crowley himself smiles as he remarks, "Funny old world, isn't it?"

We actually get a really good look at Crowley's sunglasses with the lights of the elevator reflected in them. The angels, however, are not reflected in those sunglasses.

Now take in the acting and the setting and think about it. Let's use our imaginations.

Those angels are looking at Crowley like he is a nothingness that is an amused Crowley.

He is also looking at them like they are a nothingness that is four angels staring at him with amusing mixed emotions.

They aren't reflected in the sunglasses. The lighting in this space could allow for it.

Aziraphale can be found reflected in the sunglasses in the street in episode 2. Muriel can be found reflected in the sunglasses in episode 3. Each time, they held an object to show Crowley.

But not here.

It makes no sense for each side to look at the other as if they are nothingness...unless they are invisible to each other.

Then it clicks. Maybe...possibly...they are invisible to each other?! That's why everyone is acting how they do. The angels aren't looking at Crowley so much as they are looking at his invisibility.

That's why Muriel is in this weird sort of amazed state despite spending the time they already have with Crowley.

That's why he thinks it's funny. They have to trust him, a demon, in that small space with him invisible in front of them. The light might have made him visible, or they can at least see the light itself.

This idea begs the question for if Crowley was invisible in the music shop in episode 5. I did not expect other people to believe me because I couldn't believe it, but I still felt the clues suggested it was possible, all things considered. I thought it was enough to say as much in the main sideburns post I had by then.

The idea also starts to clue us into something else: Crowley's sight. We don't see the angels reflected in the sunglasses, and that's actually how he usually sees the world as is. It's not a big deal for him that the angels are invisible because he senses with his eyes differently than humans and possibly angels and demons, anyway. He has snake eyes.

While Crowley was in Heaven for his overall visit, light reflected in his sunglasses many times but never Muriel. Muriel is wearing an all white Inspector Constable uniform in a very well lit space that is Heaven. They got a reflection in episode 3 in those same sunglasses. If there is any time and place Muriel logically should show up in the sunglasses, it is here in the scenes in Heaven and this elevator part. Muriel should be reflected given all the lighting available. But they aren't.

Alright, so now we have some ideas going. The sideburns thing is like a game, and this game is telling us that there is something of value when it comes to thresholds and that Crowley has some special qualities about his sight. Invisibility may have happened but not in secret. Even if such a thing were true, the angels knew Crowley was there, and he knew they were there. Michael is even hinted to be an exception since Michael doesn't look down as the light goes up.

Next time, we're going to find something else that rather looks like a game as well.

This makes a lot of sense!

There are two scenes that I think worth comparing.

One is S2e3, while walking with Elspeth. The argument over good & evil doesn't seem like one they'd want the humans to overhear.

The other is S1e2, when they walk through the police & ambulances unnoticed.

I think they might be on the supernatural plane for those two scenes.

So from what I understand, as remembered from nature programs and the zookeeper lecture, is that Old Bulls reduce the violence i young bulls by putting them through Elephant Finishing School.

This is better documented in African Elephants than asian ones because they're easier for elephant biologists to observe by the means of 'sitting on top of a jeep and taking notes' but the general scope goes like this:

Elephant herds are largely matriarichal as both a means of protection- elephants have a long childhood and it's easier to protect calves in a group, AND as a socio-political means of sexual choice.

An African elephant is pregnant for nearly two years, then she spends at least 3-5 years with that calf completely dependent on her, so she only gets a few opportunities to have babies before she hits menopause, and it's a lot of damn work so she is naturally EXTREMELY picky about who she mates with. And if she's younger, her mom, sisters and grandmothers will also be real picky about who she mates with and WHEN too- can't go around risking a teenage pregnancy, especially not with asubstandard male. Elephants also have a pretty clear idea of what they want out of a Male too: they have a marked preference for Large, Old, Socially Adept Males. Large males are HEALTHY males with all thier bones in place and functioning digestive tracts. OLD males are healthy, have good intelligence to stay alive, and have good teeth. Socally Adept Males can make friends, get along with her whole family, won't engage in dangerous behaviors like trying to kill her calves or grandmothers. It's a good system that produces robust, intelligent and helpful calves.

This means however, that most female elephants are into Dilfs, or even Gilfs. Which is extremely frustrating when you are a horny teenage boy elephant, so they go a bit nuts with hormones and social isolation and get involved in teenage elephant gangs and do things like murder rhinos out of sexual and social frustration.

BUT! If there are Large, Old, Socially Adept males about, they like being parents too, but are largely pushed out of the role by the matriarichal herds and their strict group politics that exist to prevent unsuitable mating. So They turn thier attention to these violent orphans and like your beloved Batman go "I'm gonna parent the shit outta that."

They mostly do this by herding the Lads around, pointedly demonstrating Behaviors like "How to dig for roots so you don't starve" or "How to knock over a tree" or "Greeting a Matriach Properly so she doesn't sic her descendants on you", and disciplinary behaviors like "Jabbing naughty Lads in the ass with a tusk" and "Hitting you in the face with a branch until you STOP THAT" . This is WILDLY beneficial for the young males under thier tutelage, who are less likely to die of accidents, and start mating earlier because they've had a Suitable Gentleman make introductions for them, like they are fancy men at a regency-era ball being intoduced to the debutantes.

Imagine some Fine and Respectable DILF wandering around adopting teenage delinquents and spraying them in the face with a windex bottle full of vinegar until they learn how to be proper upstanding gentlemen and you're getting close.

So you're telling me that Elephants have Schools for Wayward Boys and their journey into Gentleman?

I am OBSESSED with people telling me how they met the love of their life. Just found out my director met his wife through a misdirected email - that’s fate right there.

“I saw her last name was Jewish - and I’m Jewish, so when I corrected the email I told her Shabbat Shalom with a smiley face — this was the very beginning of the emoticon era, you understand. She had a watermark of a dog rescue at the bottom of her email, and I love dogs, so I found her website and there she was — all these videos of her rehabilitating dogs and talking about the organization. I fell in love with her just from those videos.”

“I asked if we could meet for coffee, told her I was looking for volunteer opportunities — which was halfway a lie — and she said ‘okay, but just so you know I have a boyfriend, so this is strictly business,’ and I was so disappointed, but I did want to meet her. We sat in that coffeeshop until they turned the lights out on us, and she broke up with her boyfriend the next day.”

MULTIPLE people in the notes have told me how important these tags are to them so here’s to keeping it in the main post.

Die temu ad die

Hmm. Accidentally looks like latin.

It accidentally is latin

Accidental latin is my new favourite thing.

Found this in the margins of a medieval manuscript.

Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.

The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an 'indicator species' in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesn't have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).

Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.

There is an unfortunately long history of humans dehumanizing other humans by calling them <insert animal here>.

Some animal terms for groups of people are clearly offensive to everyone: vermin, insects, rodents, dogs.

Some animal terms are scientifically related to homo sapiens BUT have also been used to degrade and demeab: monkeys, apes, gorillas.

So I consider it insensitive and rude to use those terms to refer to BIPOC.

I'm quite comfortable with using phrases like "not my circus, not my monkeys" for my own child, or a group of white children.

Even one brown or black child in the group would make me think twice.

I feel like human children do, in fact, act a lot like our distant cousins the great apes. We like to climb things, hang around. We're strong, we're curious, we manipulate objects & solve problems.

As toddlers in particular and children in general, it's easy for us to get into scrapes and odd situations. To find ourselves out of our depth.

I've seen it most often with groups of children, especially multiples.

Child safety structures designed for one kid, often do not hold up to 2, 3, or more of the same age & size, because they have more combined mass, more hands, teamwork, etc.

The Dance/Ball of The Forty-One

In Good Omens, we see only a handful of flashbacks from Crowley and Aziraphale's past but two of them-- arguably, two of the most significant-- have something in common: the number 41.

There's the big one that we're being shown in multiple parts-- 1941-- but that is also taking place nineteen hundred years after flashback set in the ancient Rome of 41 A.D.. The two also interconnect, with Part 2 of 1941 involving references between Crowley and Aziraphale to that night in ancient Rome.

So, why might Good Omens be repeating this number?

I think that this is a queer history reference to The Dance of The Forty-One-- also sometimes known as The Ball of The Forty One, which was a Mexican society scandal in 1901. Basically, the police raided a private party in Mexico City that turned out to be a secret, queer, high society dance. They busted up a party that had a lot of men in drag and some sex workers in attendance and it was the height of scandal at the time. The police arrested 41 people at the party, which is how the scandal got its name in the press.

Many of the people at The Dance of The Forty-One, though, were very wealthy and very well-connected. They were more than willing to buy the silence of the police and press and did just that. While some names got out and some people were prosecuted, not everyone was. Of the 41 arrested, 12 wound up identified and went to prison but many others were able to buy their way to silence and a lack of jailtime.

It's thought that the press didn't get manage to somehow get all of the information about who was at the party anyway because the government of Mexico wound up getting involved. Why did they? Because one of the attendees (and organizers lol) was apparently Ignacio de la Torre y Mier... the son-in-law of the then-President of Mexico.

The Dance/Ball of The Forty-One is thought by some to be the first time that queerness and existing queer community was openly discussed by most of the Mexican media, in large part because the nature of the story was so big that it couldn't be kept out of the normally pretty censured papers. There was plenty of the kind of hate that we might sadly expect. The group was often called (not just by the media but by people in general) "The 41 Maricones", a Spanish perjorative along the same lines of the English faggot.

This party is also responsible for a bit of one of Good Omens' favorite things-- etymology aka the history of word evolution. The Dance of The Forty-One is what led to the number 41 in Spanish-- cuarenta y uno-- becoming slang for a queer person across several Spanish-speaking countries.

So, on the very queer Good Omens, having some very significant years in the story contain the number 41 in a reference to The Dance of The Forty-One when this is the story of the secret romance of its queer main characters-- complete with them having a ball that goes a bit awry-- seems pretty fitting.

Other references to similar historical instances are already in Good Omens, like nods to the fate of Oscar Wilde and Aziraphale learning to gavotte in The Hundred Guineas Club, which had some ties to the eventual Cleveland Street scandal. Just as Crowley and Aziraphale have spent millennia dodging the supernatural police of their world, they've also been moving in queer circles on Earth where humans have been doing the same.

Additionally, there's a song that I don't think is being referenced here in Good Omens or anything but which goes along with this theme and is also very Crowley/Aziraphale. It's arguably the best song ever made by the Dave Matthews Band, and one which some have long interpreted as being something that is very Good Omens: a blasphemous love song queer-coded through use of etymology/word history. Which song? The romantic pine fest 'mysteriously' 😉 entitled "#41".

I would dearly love for more people to be capable of differentiating between public risk and personal risk.

Examples: drinking is a personal risk. Drinking and driving is a public risk. Going scuba diving is a personal risk. Running a scuba shop with faulty equipment is a public risk. Riding a bicycle without a helmet is a personal risk. Not maintaining public transport safety standards is a public risk. Foraging for mushrooms is a personal risk. Advertising a mushroom identification app that uses shoddy AI is a public risk. Elective surgery is a personal risk. Not wearing a mask in a doctor's waiting room when you are sick with a contagious illness is a public risk.

I could go on just about forever here. But it's a really important distinction and it drives me nuts when they get conflated, and it's so common.

"Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins"

This blog is pro tits and anti Nazi

official anti Nazi pozt

Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.

When we bought our car, I told Sean to let me handle it. I walked in and said "We have X for a down payment and cannot pay more than Y in monthly payments." My Y number had some leeway, but I didn't mention that.

First thing the sales guy did after I laid down the rules was turn to Sean and go, "What's your number?" And Sean said. "Oh, no, you negotiate with Gayle."

So, strike one for the sales guy. Could not divide and conquer us by implying THE MAN would not surprised at what I laid down.

Sales guy then had to confer with his manager and left us at his desk for several minutes. I have a vague recollection (this was 16 years ago) of Sean and I amusing ourselves doing bits about the other people there to look at cars. I am sure we did not give off the stressed or nervous energy they were hoping for.

Guy comes back. His first offer is fifty dollars a month more than I told him we could pay. I looked at him and said "I gave you our upper limit."

"Well, but what's another 50 bucks a month?"

"Something I can't afford."

He didn't know what to do with my open and unashamed admittal that I had a budget because my money was finite.

He went back to talk to the manager again.

It took two more rounds of "I told you what I can afford" before he finally came back 20 bucks under what I'd stated as my max.

The trick to resisting high-stress sales tactics is doing the math at home, knowing exactly what you can afford, and then walking into the room and stating that number minus 15%. Then refusing to budge from that number. Never, ever, meet then where they want. Always meet them where you want. Because at the end of the day, you can walk away and go somewhere else and say "I told the people at Z what my terms were, and they refused to work with me. Here are my terms. Meet them, and you make a sale today."

Thoughts (in no particular order):

Ehehehe ^_^

The more I rewatch the final 15 the more Aziraphale looks like he's being held at gunpoint. The way his eyes are wide like he's pleading for Crowley to understand what he's saying, the same way you would look at your friend when someone's being creepy towards you. A signal for help. The metatron is listening, and he already indirectly threatened Crowley in the typical heavenly blink and you'll miss it way.

Aziraphale can't afford to act like the shade of grey he is, he must act completely black or white for the opportunity to overthrow the system. He begs Crowley to come with him as an angel because that's the only way they can be together while the metatron is there. And everyone knows they're stronger together.

But Crowley doesn't get it. They've always spoke in subtext, but Crowley wasn't looking for the subtext this time because, for once, he is outright saying what they've left unsaid for decades.

Their relationship is ineffable. For better or worse.

YES Aziraphale is terrified and panicking through F15. He can't get Crowley to listen, the same way he himself wasn't listening the evening before when Crowley was trying to tell him about the demons outside and Aziraphale was only thinking about dancing with him (and telling him how he feels and that he would like more from their relationship). But if Crowley did not catch on, I am sure he will later. After all, he knows Aziraphale's 'something's wrong voice.' And I think he still wouldn't have gone to Heaven, but perhaps the whole thing would have been less painful if they were in the same mind space.

I think he realised right near the end of their conversation, and the kiss and the "No nightingales" was him saying goodbye (for now) and telling Aziraphale he understood that they were not safe, and in fact, were in immediate danger. (I think someone else has written far better and more at length on this than me!).

Hmm, I like that. Then Az playing the song for him in the car (cos Bentley plays whatever Aziraphale wishes) was to say - patience my love, we can get through even this.

The parallels between the 2 attempted confessions are myriad:

-Lack of communication (Azi not hearing Crowley, possibly vice-versa although maybe there was code-talking? as Crowley seemed to miss Aziraphale trying to explain the Metatron)

-Being watched through the window

-Wanting to confess but unable because the confessee goes up to Heaven

-Invasion of book shop

-No real chance to talk before the one goes to Heaven and leaves the other unsure when they'll return

I bet there's more but as usual Monday is approaching and I haven't worked enough. So please correct and add if you wish.

-The Final Fifteen is more than the argument scene in the bookshop. More happens after that.

-They both know they are being watched. Both look through the window at where the Metatron is presumably watching them during that scene.

-There is a layered hidden game in play throughout the entire season called Earthly Objects. The argument scene draws attention to this game by having them both avoid touching earthly objects, especially in comparison to the scene before the miracle to hide Gabriel in S2E1.

-A lot of people catch the look Aziraphale has toward Crowley before entering the elevator. Please don't miss that Crowley's left hand moved to touch the threshold of his car while he is already touching the threshold of his car in the immediate Crowley cut after Aziraphale has that look.

-I won't give the whole game away here, but I found a lot of things that I considered valuable and interesting in playing it. If you want to skip the whole thing, I'd say that, from my end, the ending looks like the two of them working together separately.

At that grad school happy hour, where I toasted everyone "l'chaim" and that Trevor jackass smirked at me and toasted "Free Palestine," he didn't see a Jewish woman bringing warmth from her own culture into a social event. He saw a Jew saying something in Hebrew, and therefore declaring her allegiance to the state of Israel. He saw an agent of the Israel state-building project, and took it as his sacred duty to let me know that he saw through me.

When I posted something here about my research on Jewish resistance during the Holocaust and someone replied AND NOW YOU'RE DOING IT IN GAZA. They didn't see an American Jewish woman posting about her research. They saw an agent of the Israeli state-building project, deftly molding Holocaust memory into an instrument of political repression to be wielded against Levantine Arabs.

When someone posted on the substitute teachers subreddit about a student doodling a swastika on their desk, and Jewish users in the comment started talking about their family's experiences in the Holocaust, someone commented GEE I CAN'T WAIT TIL GAZANS ARE POSTING ABOUT SURVIVING THE CAMPS. I asked them a. why on earth they felt that Gaza was relevant to Jews discussing their generational trauma; and b. what they were hoping to accomplish with said comment. In return I was verbally abused by multiple commenters who clearly felt that they held the obvious moral high ground, subjected to 102-level anti-Jewish speech, downvoted, and banned. Because they didn't see Jews engaging in collective mourning and healing. They saw agents of the Zionist state-building project making up reasons to ignore and speak over Palestinian pain and suffering. In none of those circumstances was I, were we, simply random Jews existing in the world. We were first and foremost, inherently, Zionists. Everything we do or say in English or Hebrew or any language about our family history, or the Holocaust marks us in the minds of these people as simply and completely agents of the Israeli State. Evil, hiveminded Jews, secret Elders of Zion, who will stop at nothing to forge their past into a bomb with which to terrorize Palestinian civilians.

We could never simply be individuals, each with our own unique, complex, multi-faceted understanding of those geopolitics and political appropriations of memory. No. We are Jews. Our existence is inherently political. And in the eyes of most of the world, we are--and always have been--guilty.

all of this said, i would choose the company of these assholes over Christo-Zionist MAGAts who pretend to care about anti-Semitism any day of the week.

"i'm tired of seeing-" use your filters.

"but there was an icky ship-!" use your filters.

"i don't like that tag-" use your filters.

don't like what you're seeing? use. your. filters.

Text: decoupling pregnancy from femininity means accurate and more inclusive language and treatment, but it also allows cis women to refuse motherhood without refusing womanhood, which is great for feminism and terrifying for misogyny.

–THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS. As a sterile cis woman who doesn’t want to have children anyway I feel this is every ounce of my being. “Define woman” types tend to do so in a way that excludes me too, so I got to stand with my trans sisters.

Your periodic reminder that “divine feminine” this “magic womb” that is just patriarchy in gauze and glitter. REJECT THE BOX even when it has a makeover.

TYSM! I know you put a lot of work into this.

I'm sorry for my delayed response, I had to travel for a funeral. I'm back now & on a more normal schedule once again.

The part of the bandstand shoe exchange that intrigues me, is how Aziraphale responds. Because he HAS found the anti-christ's name and address, but he's not ready to tell Crowley those. So he focuses on the part of the question that he doesn't have:

"His shoe size? Why would I know his shoe size?" And thus deflects the conversation.

One aspect of the connections that I hoped to pull in, connects to the interpretations of "uncover his feet" in Ruth 3:4, because I have heard that "foot" can also be interpreted euphemistically, very much in line with the Ineffable Husbands-speak. You do touch on it with the "cobbler" as slang for "testicles," but we can... follow that line of thought further.

Sex IS a key part (for many, but not all, humans) of "walking the earth," and also very much connected to Eden, Adam & Eve.

Much like "Small Gods" in Pterry's Discworld, GO treats religious faith as something to be careful with (treated with a mix of gentle humor + wicked satire where needed), not necessarily avoided. Believers are generally allowed to continue believing (although some aspects, like the televangelist in the book, are thoroughly mocked) while non-believers are likewise allowed to continue their dis-belief.

As someone who left religious Christianity behind, I very much appreciated how the Golgotha scene did not impose any particular theology. I've been contemplating how that not-necessarily-Christian treatment of Golgotha might affect GO's interpretations of Eden.

Because "original sin" is a uniquely Christian understanding of the apple, as is the sexual implications of it. Elaine Pagels traces the concept of "original sin" with it's implications of sex to the early Common Era. Christianity began to contrast Eve with the virgin Mary, thus developing the polarized "Virgin, Wife, or Whore" characterization, in that patriarchal sense you mention, of women in European art & literature.

I think that considering the "feet as phallic symbol" is part of Bildad's combined midwife-cobbler. It also fits the corn > horn connections.

I skipped commenting on your "shoelaces" analysis, because while your connections of shoelaces tying people together fit the above themes, the 1984 connections that Fables describes here do not.

I love your analysis of Crowley's gender expression through "Midwife/Cobbler" and other show-GO examples.

I also think your analysis of Aziraphale as a conjurer is spot-on.

Thank you again!