I just watched Hot Fuzz again and I need to talk about it.

The writers for Hot Fuzz have said several times that Nicolas originally had a female love interest but she took up too much time without being connected to the murder plot so they removed her completely and instead gave her core dialogue and scenes to Danny, making him the love interest.

The movie constantly makes connections between Danny and Nicolas’ ex-girlfriend. For example, she complained about Nicolas forgetting her birthday so later on Nicolas panics when nobody told him it was Danny’s birthday. She told him he has to find someone he can love more than work and by the end he chose Danny over working in London. He gifts Danny flowers and wins him a stuffed toy. They spend the night out together followed by Danny inviting Nicolas home. They have a romantic theme that only plays during their emotional scenes. We even see the exact moment Nicolas realise he’s in love with Danny when the old lady asks if he’s buying flowers for a special someone and he says “….Yes” with a shy little smile.

The only thing missing is an actual kiss but in the Cornetto trilogy romantic relationships are rarely sealed with a kiss. In Shaun of The Dead the main romantic couple Shaun and Liz never kissed once and they had as much physical contact as Nicolas and Danny.

It’s funny to watch this movie and realise it has more queer content than some more modern movies and shows that are hailed as good queer media.

Like, I’ve never heard anyone accuse Hot Fuzz of queerbaiting but because it treats Nicolas and Danny’s relationship the same way most movies treat straight romances in the genre (it was literally originally written as a straight romance) people just didn’t notice it was a queer movie or thought it was a joke on homoerotic buddy cop movies. If it came out today it would absolutely be on the queer movie list.

The power is still out so I guess I’ll get started on that meta now.

One thing that I think is really fascinating about this season as a whole is that it’s really, really emphasizing the power Nandor and Guillermo have to accidentally hurt each other. It’s kind of fascinating, tbh, because this whole show it’s been Nandor purposefully but also accidentally hurting Guillermo — but this season, it’s been very much the other way around.

Let me start with Nandor’s history of this. It happens in almost every episode, being honest with you, but two of the clearest instances were in 1.01 and 4.09.

In the very first episode, we’re introduced to the relationship that Nandor and Guillermo have by how they behave on their 10th anniversary as a master-familiar partnership. Guillermo is practically giddy at the idea that his beloved master is finally going to make him a vampire, and he’s hurt deeply when he not only does not do so, he appears to have forgotten altogether how long Guillermo has been there.

We feel bad for Guillermo here, but… well, let’s look at it from Nandor’s perspective. Yes, he forgot how long Guillermo’s been there, but… being real with you, the vampires seem to have a very shaky grasp on time at the best of times. They don’t understand human lifespans at all, they have very fuzzy memories for when things happen, and almost every time they make time estimates they’re off by a hilarious amount. I don’t know that we can fully blame Nandor for not realizing that an entire decade has gone by — he, like the other vampires, tends to live simultaneously in the Long Time Ago and the Right Now and any time in between those periods is ?????

So to him, he’s remembered when their anniversary is (already a success) and has put hours into making a handmade art project for his very endearing familiar. He is sure that Guillermo is gonna love this. He thinks he is absolutely acing this being-a-vampiric-master thing.

But we know that his gift depicting the two of them as vampires together is really just rubbing salt in the wound, because we’re approaching this thing as humans — like Guillermo.

Then again in 4.09, Nandor straight-up steals Guillermo’s boyfriend and inadvertently puts the events in motion that will lead to Guillermo’s boyfriend leaving him for his own clone. Terrible behavior! This hurts Guillermo deeply! His very first boyfriend cheating on him (sort of) with the man he’s been in love with for over a decade and then leaving him altogether for another man he is cheating with (definitely) who also happens to be his own clone.

That’s traumatizing!

But… again, let’s look at it from Nandor’s (very stupid) POV. He knows that Guillermo losing his boyfriend will hurt him, but he also wants to have said boyfriend. So he comes up with a solution that, to his mind, will make everyone happy: let Guillermo keep his boyfriend but also make a clone of him so he can have him, too.

I think it’s very important to note here that, catty as it was to say, Nandor was right. He definitely could have stolen Guillermo’s Freddie without too much work. The guy’s a philanderer. But instead of doing that, he used up one of his last three wishes to make his own Freddie specifically to avoid hurting Guillermo. And then he seemed genuinely confused when Guillermo was hurt anyway. He then tried to do whatever he could to make Guillermo stop hurting, including offering him his own Freddie, until he ultimately gave up a toy that he truly loved so Guillermo would hurt less.

Again, from Nandor's POV he has made a significant sacrifice for Guillermo’s well-being. He has given up a man that he really, really liked so Guillermo would stop being so heartbroken. Moreover, this is a man that, to his mind, he got the hard way instead of the easy way that would have hurt Guillermo more.

So he still thinks he’s doing great at this relationship, even if we know he is ultimately breaking Guillermo’s heart.

(And as an aside here, I think it’s fascinating that Guillermo really did seem to understand exactly what was going on, too. He knew that Nandor’s decision to clone Freddie wasn’t about Nandor wanting Freddie, it was about Nandor wanting all of Guillermo’s attention on him at all times, and that’s why he was angry.)

Anyway… that’s all a really long way to get to my point, which is this. We’ve seen Nandor play this out a hundred times, doing something he thought was fine only for it to devastate Guillermo. We understand human lifetimes, relationships, and emotions, so we understand why Guillermo is upset. But, and this is key, Nandor doesn’t.

So season five finally shows this happening in reverse. I’m not going to say that Guillermo hasn’t hurt Nandor before, purposefully or otherwise, because he has. But boy did he really fuck things up this time.

Like Nandor, Guillermo didn’t do any of it on purpose. He was never trying to hurt Nandor or upset social norms when he paid Derek to bite him. But vampiric priorities are as foreign to Guillermo as human priorities are to Nandor. He did something he thought was totally fine and value-free only to find that he didn’t just transgress a social norm, he transgressed the big one. He didn’t just do something that would hurt Nandor, he did something that will destroy him.

He didn’t mean to. His misunderstanding was understandable to us, fellow humans. But that doesn’t make it okay. Just like it wasn’t okay when Nandor stole his fucking boyfriend.

It's almost like this was tailor-made to force the audience to think about how the vampires have been interacting with Guillermo for years. This time Guillermo didn't know something about their culture, and obviously we didn't either. So we felt that same dawning horror when we understood how big the accidental fuck-up was — and we had to come to terms with the fact that this is how Nandor feels about Guillermo all the time.

Anyway... Guillermo’s big angst trigger seems to be being undervalued by the people he loves. It’s when someone who he loves with everything he has does not love him back. We see that devastation hit him both of the times that Nandor accidentally hurt him in this post, along with a thousand other times. I think, in fact, it is his main drive as a character: doing everything he can to be valued. It’s why he wants to be a vampire. It’s why he serves the vampires. It’s why he lies to his family. It’s depressing and it’s codependent and it’s unhealthy, but that’s Guillermo.

Nandor’s big angst trigger, on the other hand, seems to be abandonment. He is so fucking terrified of the people that he loves leaving him, and that seems to be rooted pretty firmly in his experiences when he was still alive. (Jehan, his wives running away, etc.) He’s so scared of Gail leaving him that he just tries harder to win her back when he discovers she’s cheating on him. He’s so scared of Laszlo leaving him that he gets angry when Laszlo makes new friends. He’s so scared of Guillermo leaving him in 2.08 that he’s willing to humiliate himself to bring him home. His primary drive really seems to be hoarding the people he loves close — too close for comfort sometimes. He tries so hard to force a connection that he ironically tends to sever it. Just look at his poor descendent Madeleine. :’)

And just as Nandor constantly sets off Guillermo’s devaluation trigger, Guillermo constantly sets off Nandor’s abandonment trigger. Every time he leaves or even just threatens to do so, Nandor goes ballistic. But it seems like the only thing that sets him off more than Guillermo leaving is Guillermo staying where he is but being emotionally absent. He doesn’t know how to handle a Guillermo who has replaced him while they’re still living in the same home. Right now he thinks that Guillermo has replaced him with Laszlo as a hang-out buddy, and that’s bad enough — how will he respond when he finds out that Guillermo has replaced him with Derek in a much more intimate way?

Guillermo’s doing everything he can to spare Nandor’s feelings in this season, but it seems like every decision he makes just upsets Nandor more. Nandor feels replaced, abandoned, and neglected, and he’s going to feel that way a hell of a lot more when he sees the truth.

Guillermo has always been shown to be capable of hurting Nandor in intimate ways that no one else can. From the very first episode, we’re made abundantly aware that Guillermo chooses to take Nandor’s shit. He twitches that curtain to the side and we realize that no matter how strong Nandor is, Guillermo has the ultimate power in this relationship. Guillermo can hurt Nandor like no one else can because Nandor trusts him to protect him while he’s asleep.

Then Guillermo becomes this legendary slayer and he can actually physically hurt Nandor like no one else can just because he’s stronger than even the most powerful and respected vampires in the Tri-State Area.

But we’re seeing now that Guillermo can also hurt Nandor emotionally like no one else can. Nandor gave him that power, too, didn’t he? This whole series, Nandor has been the one hurting Guillermo over and over, but this season is making it so fucking clear that Guillermo has the power to do it right back. Even if he doesn’t mean to.

Especially if he doesn’t mean to, maybe.

The two of them are so terrible at communicating with one another. Just. So fucking terrible. And that’s a lot of how Nandor accidentally hurt Guillermo over and over throughout the years. And it’s how Guillermo has just straight-up gutted him now.

It's about Crowley bearing witness to Aziraphale's desire, about the way that desire is animal and visceral and enormous and terrifying*. And about how Crowley sees that and wants it. Crowley offers the ox rib and watches Aziraphale eat because eating provides them no sustenance, it's purely for pleasure, sensual, selfish. And Crowley introduces Aziraphale to this, and thousands of years later still takes obvious pleasure in feeding Aziraphale, in watching him eat. In watching Aziraphale's pleasure.

And I think it's significant the things we see Crowley put into his body in s2, and why: six shots of espresso, as something bracing before seeing what it is that made Aziraphale call him in his "something's wrong" tone; whiskey, because he has to give Aziraphale some bad news; wine, because they "might as well get comfortable" during the storm coming down on Job, after Aziraphale learns that Crowley is actually pretty unhappy with Job's suffering; and poison, to dispose of it so Elspeth (or Wee Morag, I've fogotten which is which) doesn't die. Crowley doesn't take Aziraphale's "something that calms you down", only consumes things that not only don't bring him pleasure but are an attempt to prevent pain. Crowley, who introduced Aziraphale to this important physical, sensual, selfish pleasure, denies it to himself. He denies himself the eccles cakes, he denies himself partaking in food, and he denies himself Aziraphale.

And we see throughout the rest of the season other things he's denying himself: the comfort and safety of a home in the bookshop in favor of the mobility and ready-made escape of living in the Bentley, the surety of saying what he really means during the confession. He cannot bring himself to admit what he wants, that he wants. Gabriel and Beelzebub "going off together" is not what he wants. He wants Aziraphale, but he doesn't say that, because he's never, in the years and years and years we've seen this season, let himself want or be seen wanting. "Going off together" is as close as he can get to speaking it. "A group of the two of us" is as close as he can get. So he has to watch as Aziraphale leaves and takes his pleasure in the world with him.

season 3 aziraphale taking crowley’s glasses off sweet passionate kiss in the rain BAM hard cut to them making out on every surface in the bookshop like it’s a shitty 2008 teen movie

“they wouldn’t have sex they’re not humans” aziraphale ate half an ox

stede bonnet is weird about touch

The beginning of a four-part journey of overwhelming nonsense, featuring more research than was strictly necessary. But fuck it, here we go.

Figure 1. Local man commits to least possible physical interaction imaginable with new fiancee.

Because it was driving me bananas that I was picking up on this thing that very few others seemed to notice, and also because I am desperate for a particular brand of hurt/comfort Stede-fic in this fandom:

I watched the entire series again and made up a bunch of charts detailing all the ways Stede is touched, touches others, and the degree of "closeness" of those touches.

You can find the finished product here -- first page is an overview, and remaining pages are breakdowns of each episode, including notes. If I missed something, or you disagree with a classification, pop in a comment. (You can also see my progress and original notes here.)

Broadly, though:

Stede is both touch-starved and touch-sensitive. And you can see it on the screen.

Because there's so much here, this essay got ridiculously fucking long. As such, I've divided it into four parts -- links to each section will be at the bottom of each post, but I encourage people to engage with whatever part of it they want.

Why is this important, though? Why go to all this trouble?

And with that, finally:

-----

1. Stede wants to be touched, but is afraid of it.

Stede expects either violence or withdrawal from loved ones (or ones he's supposed to have a close relationship with, at any rate) if he's done something to displease them.

Figure 2. Totally okay and not-at-all concerning body language in response to an upset life partner.

Interestingly, this means that Stede will sometimes initiate the withdrawal if he perceives that someone's displeased with him.

This could be for a couple of reasons: if he does it first, it makes it a choice on his part rather than a rejection on theirs; likewise, if he does it first, then perhaps that might placate the other person (by removing his "wrongness" from their presence). Most likely it's some kind of inseparable combination of the two. We see how this maladaptive practice bears out with:

Figure 3. The subtle tragedy of a man whose best friend has just said that maybe his interests aren't actually that cool.

Finally, one of Stede's ways of withdrawing from someone else's "space" is by losing eye contact.

Figure 4. Local baby gay in middle of sudden revelation as to own sexual orientation is faced with object of said revelation asking for a life-changing decision instead of just, like, double-checking the kissing thing some more

-----

ONWARDS:

-> Review the raw data and notes

-> Go to part 2: Stede will avoid touch to protect himself.

-> Go to part 3: Stede has found/developed "safe" ways to physically interact with people.

-> Go to part 4: The top three people who touch Stede, or who Stede touches, are Ed, Mary, and Izzy.

@softest-punk ‘s amazing writing was the inspiration behind this, ( the text here is from the fic) !please go read their work it is divineee!

Still stuck on how Aziraphale ate that meat like he was starving. Like he’d been starved for millennia, and he hadn’t even known it, because he’d never once been fed. But we know they don’t have to eat (nor sleep, etc.), so what he’d been starved for is pleasure. Being present in his body, feeling the joys and longings it could feel. Understanding what taste buds were made for. He hadn’t known; he’d never learned to miss it.

Now imagine what a kiss has done to him.

Everything Is Meant (long S2 analysis, part 1)

I cannot figure out for the life of me how to make gifs so this will have to be a gif-less essay. If anyone more tech savvy than me wants to reblog with relevant media, please do!

I've seen a lot of people saying how Aziraphale's actions in the final ten minutes come out of left field and are OOC, and when I first watched the episode I felt the same, but now I think I couldn't have been more wrong. And I don't think Aziraphale is being controlled... I think the entire season showed us exactly what was going to happen.

On first watch, what struck me was the number of plot points that seemed disconnected. I couldn't figure out how Job related to the present, or the Victorian era, or the Nazi zombies (still at sea on the zombies part tbh). I didn't know where the Maggie/ Nina subplot was going, or why we were bothering with it. Then I put my "psych hat" on and it was like seeing one of those 3D pictures come into focus. It's a psychological networking rather than a plot-driven one, which is what Neil told us to expect.

Detailed analysis under the cut, with spoilers:

Everything Is Meant (long S2 analysis, part 3)

Part one

Part two

There's SO MUCH excellent meta out there right now, and I'm going to try not to reinvent the wheel too much, but I want to keep going with tying the episodes/ elements up together because on first watch it wasn't entirely clear how everything fit. I also strongly recommend a rewatch, no matter what you felt about the ending... if you need to stop it 10 minutes early, do that, but you pick up so much more the second time around.

So: Maggie and Nina. I spent most of my first watch wondering why we were bothering with them, honestly. Later in the season Nina, and then Maggie and Nina, gave Crowley some insightful advice, but their actual relationship didn't progress despite all the meddling, and the amount of emotional investment BOTH Aziraphale and Crowley had in making them get together was frankly strange.

I started thinking in terms of mirror couples, since that was such a big deal in S1 and that's clearly what they were set up to be, but I made the mistake that all of us made on first watch: that Nina was Crowley and Maggie was Aziraphale. It still wasn't really coming together.

Then I put the psych hat back on and started to think about displacement. Displacement is a defense mechanism, and it consists of satisfying an impulse (usually an unconscious one) with a substitute object. At the beginning of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley aren't really in a good place, and I think on some level they know that. Aziraphale is trying to SHOW Crowley that he wants to take the next step through all the casual touches and phone calls and inviting him in, and feeling frustrated because Crowley doesn't seem to be taking the bait. (I absolutely think that Aziraphale tried to get Crowley to stay with him at the bookshop instead of living in his CAR, and Crowley said no. That's a whole other meta.) Meanwhile, Crowley, I think, is waiting for a Grand Gesture. Where did he go, as soon as Aziraphale brought up trying to get two humans to fall in love? Romantic tropes. Getting caught in the rain under an awning. A dramatic kiss that opens someone's eyes. That's the sort of thing he's always done, right? Big rescues, impassioned pleas on the street, fancy dinners, "give you a lift anywhere you want to go". He's defensive and guarded and unlikely to let someone in unless he's CERTAIN he won't be rejected, and Aziraphale's approaches are just too... quiet. No one's fault, they just don't speak the same language.

Then, they're handed the opportunity to make two humans fall in love, and they're both All In immediately. Look at Crowley's face when he summons the rainstorm. This is HUGE for him. Why? Because of displacement. Look at Aziraphale arranging the ball and being borderline deranged about it. They're both desperate to demonstrate what they think it takes for two people to move past their misunderstandings and fall in love. They can't do it for each other because the stakes are too high, and if either of them shows their cards unequivocally the vulnerability feels life-shattering. They're codependent and terrified of rejection and also, importantly, have no idea what they're doing when it comes to love. "Saw it in a film", Crowley says. Aziraphale's read about it in books. But they have zero practical experience.

Instead of learning to communicate, they try to say what they want to say through the medium of Maggie and Nina, up to and including the questionable moral decision to exert control over people's actions and thoughts during the ball. If I can just make this come out right, they both think, then things between us will be alright too. It HAS to come out right. They're attempting to gain some control over their own lives, over something that feels so overwhelming and shattering they can't look directly at it.

It doesn't come out right. Nina's relationship falls apart, but that doesn't mean she's in love with Maggie. While Crowley's stress-cleaning the bookshop to the music that played when Aziraphale got his books back in 1941 (just fuck me up David Arnold), they come in and tell him so. "I don't understand", says Crowley. Because it should have worked. Why didn't it work?

They tell him, of course. "You need to talk to each other. Say what you're really thinking." But here's the thing about communication: you have to learn it. You need to get the hang of expressing your feelings without blaming your partner, and separating intent from impact, and staying away from getting defensive and lashing out. No one has ever taught Aziraphale and Crowley how to do this. It's like Maggie and Nina put Crowley in front of a loom and asked him to recreate the Bayeux Tapestry. He doesn't have the skills; he's always going to get it wrong, even if he tries his hardest.

And he does try. But that's where Maggie and Nina the mirror couple, rather than Maggie and Nina the displacement relationship or Maggie and Nina the Greek chorus, come in. Aziraphale, as Nina, has just ended an incredibly toxic, invasive relationship with Heaven. A relationship that invaded every facet of his life, isolated him, and prevented him from being close to anyone else. "Rebound mess," Nina says. Aziraphale is a rebound mess. He's transferred the responsibility for his emotional wellness to Crowley. Crowley is the person he calls when he's in trouble, or (and this is key) when he wants to report a clever/ good thing he's done, or when he's bored. (At no point did Crowley reference Aziraphale calling him for a solicitous reason-- another problem.) Crowley is meant to take care of him. He forgets, I think, that Crowley is a person with his own wants and needs, just like Maggie and Nina are people with their own wants and needs who don't appreciate being messed with. (I think things would have been much different had Aziraphale BEEN THERE for Maggie and Nina's talk with Crowley, but he wasn't.)

And Maggie-as-Crowley? Lonely. Behind on rent, at risk of being evicted (it's important to note that Aziraphale saves Maggie from losing her record shop, as he couldn't save Crowley from losing his flat). Pining. Awkward. Revolving around Nina like a planet, to the extent that we don't get much of an impression of her otherwise. They realize, there at the end, that they both need to round themselves out before jumping into a relationship. Aziraphale and Crowley need that too. They need to take time apart and learn to be healthy on their own. Unfortunately they don't have the skills to get to that conclusion in a healthy way, so it all explodes in their faces and everything falls apart.

Aziraphale tries to teach Nina and Maggie to dance as a substitute for communication. Nina and Maggie try to teach Crowley communication as a substitute for the dance they've been doing around each other. That's the reason they're a part of the plot: they exist to demonstrate the way Aziraphale and Crowley might have succeeded in forging a better dynamic. Sadly, the boys' dance is too practiced and they got sucked right back into it.

It's okay, I think, that Nina and Maggie's storyline never really went anywhere. It wasn't supposed to. It's an allegory, not something that needs to stand alone.

Okay so... clearly people want to make sure I saw the Hanged Man imagery in 5.05...

Putting aside that I think it's very funny that this is apparently what people associate with me now, the reason I haven't really talked about it is because I'm not really sure what I think about it.

Yes, I saw the post. Yes, I saw the imagery while I was watching. But what does it mean? It's not that I don't have any ideas; it's more the opposite? I'm still not 100% convinced that all this is being done on purpose (though... it's certainly starting to feel more pointed the more it happens) but if it is being done on purpose... god, it could mean so many different things.

I talked about what The Hanged Man means a bit in my WWDITS tarot series, but it's one of those cards with a lot of different implications, and it's hard to know whether these things are being applied to specific characters, the overall narrative, etc.

So... some possibilities that immediately come to mind:

Honestly... these are my initial thoughts, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. The Hanged Man is a card with a lot of different meanings attached to it, and it could be applied very broadly to the cast and overall events of the season. I have a lot of ideas, but like... it's hard to know where to direct them!

in conclusion

if you think about the plot they've set up for s3, some form of which they must have had in mind for quite a long time now... a very naive, low-ranking, ray of actual sunshine angel with basically no experience of earth has just been assigned to look after a vast library of human knowledge and ideas.

not only this, but a particular demon -- known for performing the original Temptation in the garden of Eden -- has chosen a particular book to offer her. a demon named crowley, a fallen angel, has handed this angel a book called 'the crow road'. a book whose synopsis (without having actually read it) is: "Prentice's efforts to make sense of Uncle Rory's fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to understand the world and his place in it."

and if s3 featured this angel solving some sort of plot problem while trying 'to make sense of the world and her place in it', wouldn't it be interesting if this gift of a book, this gift of a library, of knowledge, this recapitulation of the original Temptation, resulted in the sweet, naive, sunshine angel we've come to know reading too many books, asking too many questions, until she's eventually cast out of heaven to become a demon herself. gone by the crow(ley) road.

wouldn't that just be a clever and powerful indictment of the entire system of heaven and hell that could make even the chief archangel finally chuck his faulty worldview and go get his demon.

wouldn't that have been a fun and thematic plot thread to include in a sequel to the original good omens novel

i’m gonna be so normal about this for just a second, okay? bear with me—it's a long post but i promise it's worth it

first of all aziraphale and sondheim kills me a little (or a lot)… because like, aziraphale and dissonance? right? yes?

aziraphale is all about dissonance. the dissonance between what he's supposed to be / expected to be and what he really is; between how he would like others to perceive him and who he truly is on the inside. the dissonance between being being a warrior and a hedonist. between being an angel and wanting to indulge, wanting to experience earthly pleasure. the dissonance between being good and being a little bit of a bastard. the dissonance between heaven being the side of truth and aziraphale's being very earnestly dishonest quite a lot of the time. the dissonance between being both soft and rigid in how he creates dichotomies between good and evil/heaven and hell/himself and crowley (when in the end, crowley's the soft one, and aziraphale's the ruthless one)

so there's that. [insert john mulaney "we don't have time to unpack all of that" gif] and then there's also the songs themselves in this specific musical, augh

i mean... aziraphale loves the musical where an artist gets so engrossed in his own purpose and vision that his lover who keeps trying to get him to Live Life gets fed up and asks for declarations? okay, michael sheen. once again... drop your location... i just wanna talk

"Sunday"? “Move On”... and then “We Do Not Belong Together”???

y'all. i'm so normal. so very normal because fucking Sunday in the Park With Crowley

THIS IS SO FINE. I'M FINE.

This is deeply comforting to me. It’s not “wait and see”. It’s “not yet.” It will happen. They will have a happy ending, and live in a little cottage in South Downs together 🫶

Crowley isn’t Lucifer or Raphael. He’s Baraqiel.

@angelic-bee-enthusiast made this post that got the gears turning.

Exhibit A:

Baraqiel is in this for a reason. He’s also a (sic) ginger. And a Dominion, which explains Crowley being able to open Gabriel’s file. Angel of the Sky could refer to the marvels that Crowley put in the sky for the humans to watch every night.

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

In Judaism, Barachiel is an Archangel. He is also one of the Princes of Heaven. I don’t think Metatron was referring to Lucifer during Gabriel’s trial.

AN ANGEL ON A MISSION

I just realized what Michael Sheen's face was doing during the end credits and OMFG he is beyond amazing! *o*

I already did an indepth analysis on why Aziraphale acted the way he did after that heart wrenching kiss scene.. but it wasn't until @charlotteharlatan post about the Nightingale song on the car's radio could have been that got my brain into a tizzy.

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong."

Many people paint Aziraphale as this gullible innocent character but don't forget.. he is highly intelligent. Completely traumatized by his past abusive relationship with Heaven but intelligent.

When Metatron told him of their Second Coming plan.. how quickly he put things together before stepping onto that elevator. He turns toward Crowley to give him one last look and heads up to Heaven.

And for the next minute.. we watch as Michael Sheen micro-contorts his expression through the stages of grief.

Shock from hearing Heaven's plans for the Second Coming. Anger for realizing what he was just tricked into doing. Despair for what he gave up when he thought he was making the right choice. And then reorganizing his thoughts and acceptance of his current situation. And that final smirk.. ;) oh.. OH! That is the face of an Angel on a mission against Heaven. And he's already made up his mind. Stop Heaven's plans (again). Get revenge on them for forcing him into this situation. And of course, to get his Crowley back.

GO S3 is gonna be INSANE :D

Hey guys. Here’s some (maybe) hope if you need some.

****SPOILERS BELOW*****

The Bentley plays almost exclusively Queen when Crowley is in the car; this happens regardless of what Crowley would actually like to be listening to. Even when he puts other cassette tapes in, they morph into Queen in a matter of hours if not minutes, like we saw with “I’m in Love with My Car” in S1.

But as we saw on Aziraphale’s little solo road trip this season, the Bentley is much more amenable to the angel’s musical requests.

So it’s very unusual that “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays on the stereo right after Crowley brought up the song during their last conversation. It’s the absolute last thing Crowley would *want* to hear at that moment, and there’s a second where he seems to sit and process the fact that it’s playing, before he turns it off without much fuss. If it just happened to be playing, I think Crowley’s reaction would have been much more dramatic.

Which is why I think Aziraphale was responsible for it. I think he was actually under duress - others have already pointed out how threatening and manipulative the Metatron actually is, how much danger his presence means to Crowley and Aziraphale. How it’s possible this was a hostage situation and Crowley didn’t even realize it because Aziraphale was protecting him.

But if Aziraphale was trying to get a message across to Crowley without tipping off the Metatron, this was actually a brilliant way do it. It’s a message only Crowley would understand.

He may have been saying, “I’m still on our side.”

The Forbidden Fruit, Choices and Fear

[A GOOD OMENS META ANALYSIS OF AZIRAPHALE POST S2] I know everyone is still upset about that gut punch of an ending to GO S2.. and many are also extra upset at Aziraphale.. I'm in so much pain over it too but.. I have to rationalize that damned "I forgive you" line that broke all our hearts to comfort me until we get S3.. I basically overanalyze our favorite cocoa loving Angel to explain his reaction to the kiss and why we all need to be a lil kinder to him.

2500 BC in the Land of Uz.. Aziraphale, the Angel of the Eastern Gate, had the fear of God put into him. And this affected the rest of his immortal life up until that kiss.