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#good omens angelic language
somehow-a-human · 1 month
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Deciphering the Angelic Language
DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY
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Oh boy, I'm finally tackling a post on this! I haven't seen a ton of discussion about this or progress and I think that's because it's very complicated. I've done a bit of work on it and I'm hoping by sharing here we'll be able to combine our brainpower and make some more progress!
SO! Let's get into it shall we?
Let's start with what we've been told about the Angelic Language:
An SFX team member said that the pillars in heaven "don't translate into words" (so maybe it translates into something like hex? ASCII?)
A speaker at Ineffablecon confirmed that the language "contains meaning and can be decoded"
According to the Chapter 6 VFX Breakdown video, "The creative team broke down the symbols into an alphabet of about 140 runes"
I'm going to start with that last bullet point. An alphabet of about 140 runes, which math-wise narrows down what type of alphabet we might be looking at. Specifically, I think it might point to Consonant/Vowel Pairs, which gives you 126 characters, then add in numbers and punctuation, you've got about 140. That's my best guess anyway.
The next thing i did was look at the Heaven CCTV footage of Gabriel FRAME BY FRAME to analyze the runes on the screen in these scenes. I think this is the best place to start for a number of reasons, first of all, being that the CCTV footage seems to only use a subset of the runes that don't include and modifications like extra dots or ticks. I consider them base runes.
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Secondly, the runes cycle through a lot of changes here so it's a great place to look for patterns, and find patterns I did.
I found 4 sets of runes that cycle sequentially through a repeating pattern. Okay I'm going to do my very best to explain this.
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The above we will call set A
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The above we will call set B
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The above we will call set C
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The above we will call set D
The runes on the CCTV will *almost* always follow the sequence of their set, and when they reach the end of the set, they're marked with one of the following first two sequences below which I'm referring to as "indicator runes" after which they either repeat the same set or a different set.
The only time the runes change in the middle of a sequence is when they're denoted by the third row indicator runes before the change occurs.
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So there does at least seem to be some pattern to the runes, at least when it comes to the ones used in the CCTV footage. These however are only about half of the total number of runes, the other half are derived from these initial ones, and have additional tick marks and dots added to them to add some sort of meaning and differentiation.
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These screen grabs are from the Chapter 6 VFX Breakdown video, and during the lead in to these animations I think I can also say that the language is probably read right to left, as that's the direction the runes scroll in on the screen.
These scenes are also shown with a certain glowing overlay, so I'm wondering if when we can figure the language out, if there is an interesting message here to be read as well.
Anyway! If you have any other info or this has sparked any ideas about the language for you please let me know! I will continue to play with it and update when I have anything of note! :)
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grimsshelves · 26 days
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Angelic runes: Tamil alphabet
@somehow-a-human has made a wonderful post about the angelic written system seen in Good Omens. Go read it if you haven't.
I'm making this post because I've found a lot of the angelic runes are just Tamil symbols and even if I believe their phonetic value doesn't matter for the deciphering (Cause all the symbols used are from one Google image of an example of Tamil alphabet) I still want to have all of the equivalents in one place.
So first of all, the Tamil alphabet image I stumbled upon which most likely the person who worked on the angelic runes used.
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Now, in order we have, the i symbol, the ē, the al, the ka, the ņa, the na, the ra, the ja, the ŝa, the sri.
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i
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Ē
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al
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The ka, the futhark s, the ra
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The ņa
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The na
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The ja
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The ŝa
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The sri
--
I truly think the sound of the letters/symbols doesnt matter, however, the fact that so many symbols come from one single language makes me believe there was not a lot of languages used to compose the whole angelic language. Those are probably a bit obscure though.
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armageddidnt · 8 months
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Now we know EXACTLY what memory was running through their heads during that scene in season 1 👀
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ato-dato · 8 months
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Embracing the cringe via angel/demon sona
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crawley-fell · 5 months
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No one's ever given me anything before.
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thatineffablewitch · 3 months
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Feeling angsty about the Angel again…
Aziraphale was horrified to give Crowley holy water. He wouldn’t hear of it, he was terrified at the thought of Crowley using it. He didn’t want to give Crowley “a suicide pill,” in his own words.
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He was always terrified what Hell would do to Crowley throughout history. If Hell found out they’d been consorting and fraternizing…“They’ll destroy you.”
He was holding onto Crowley in Edinburg, totally and hopelessly in love having watched Crowley display more kindness and compassion and self-sacrifice than any angels Aziraphale knows, when Hell quite literally ripped him out of his arms.
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He fell in love with Crowley the moment he met the Starmaker. Even then, he warned Crowley of the dangers of questioning God. Aziraphale has always just wanted Crowley to be okay, to be safe.
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Think about it… Aziraphale met Crowley Pre-fall. Aziraphale wanted to keep Crowley safe even back then, “word to the wise,” and couldn’t protect him. He saw or heard about the Fall—one day Crowley was there, the next Aziraphale is hearing (or worse: watching) him be cast down to this new place full of unspeakable and terrifying horrors called Hell. Crowley’s fall was obviously traumatic for Crowley and the fandom does a wonderful job acknowledging that, but how traumatic is it to watch someone you love Fall? To be totally helpless in that scenario?
To watch this beautiful creature be cast out and labeled as unforgivable, to hear them accept that and start calling themselves unforgivable when you never thought they did anything to warrant a need for forgiveness in the first place. “I knew the Angel you were.” I know you didn’t deserve any of this.
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All he has ever wanted is for Crowley to be ok, to be safe. I read another meta where someone said Aziraphale purposely made the Bentley “our car” so Hell couldn’t pop in and grab Crowley anymore (property of an Angel + Shax couldn’t pop in anymore = safety), and told Crowley to watch the bookshop since he’s safe in there. Honestly I wouldn’t put it past Az to think that far ahead (he is intelligent and gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide).
These are a lot of half-baked ideas but I hope y’all see what I mean: Aziraphale wants Crowley safe because he has loved Crowley for 6,000 years, and in turn worried about Crowley for just as long. He just wants to take care of his love but the current systems of power in place make that utterly impossible and I think that breaks his heart every single day. I think the worry has been eating away at Aziraphale for 6,000—having such constant real and intense fear for your loved ones well-being is traumatic.
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clairedelune-13 · 9 months
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Whenever Crowley says “Angel”. 🥰
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ineffable-suffering · 5 months
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Ceci n'est pas une plume.
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(from this doc of all of Neil's answered asks)
The meta goes a little like this: I like nerdy stuff about language (and also Good Omens), so I wanted to elaborate on why Angels and Demons don't actually ever speak any language except their own. They simply have the ability to flick a translation switch and (make anyone) understand what's being said in whatever other language.
Also, I end up making a way deeper point of it and why it's so telling that Aziraphale would learn French (and magic) the hard way, in the end.
Find out with me under the cut!
(Word count: 1820 | Reading time: ~8 minutes )
Aziraphale and Crowley's exchange in front of Marguerite's restaurant started me down this path and I'm pretty sure that this is actually how it works. Because it ties together a few other loose strings that have been floating around in my head about the whole langue deal in Good Omens.
Let's structure this by the questions Neil has already answered about it.
The Lead Balloon
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I feel like the "in the beginning"-scene in S2 showed us that Crowley did not actually have much of an idea what exactly the plan for Earth and the humans were (instead, Aziraphale did). He might have found out later still, after asking his questions, but I feel like the second part of that answer is more likely to be true, since they both seem to understand this metaphor. This is further supported by:
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Ergo: They're speaking in the language of Angels but we understand it in English (or whatever language we selected on our Amazon Prime). Automatically translated for us because Crowley and Aziraphale wanted us to understand them.
"Ciao. It's Italian. It means Food."
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They sort of are, yes. Idiots who either forgot to turn on their own auto-translator, or idiots who aren't aware that they have one for other languages except English, or idiots who were miffed that Crowley actually knew-knew a word in another language and didn't want to admit that they didn't.
Où est la plume de la jardinière de ma tante?
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Right, so. The exchange that fuelled this meta. First of all, as a funny side note, the origin of that peculiar sentence:
La plume de ma tante ("my aunt's quill") is a phrase in popular culture, attributed to elementary French language instruction (possibly as early as the 19th century) and used as an example of grammatically correct phrases with limited practical application that are sometimes taught in introductory foreign language texts. As Life magazine said in 1958, "As every student knows, the most idiotically useless phrase in a beginner's French textbook is la plume de ma tante (the quill of my aunt)." The phrase is also used to refer to something deemed completely irrelevant. [link]
So basically, it's historically the most nonsensical and dumb phrase any student of the French language gets taught. And yet Aziraphale has been "wittering on about it for the last 250 years". Even looking smug about it, to this very day. Gave me a good chuckle.
Also:
In the 1973 horror film The Exorcist, Catholic priest Damien Karras interviews [...] a girl believed to suffer from demonic possession. While Karras probes to determine whether the possession is a hoax, the demon Pazuzu—who has possessed the girl—speaks in Latin and French, languages presumably unknown to the girl. When Karras demands "Quod nomen mihi est?/What is my name?" in Latin, the demon exclaims "La plume de ma tante!", using the phrase as a non sequitur to mock and evade Karras' line of questioning. [link]
Using that particular phrase to avoid answering a question you're being asked? Like: "You speak every language in the world perfectly ...
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Neil, Neil, Neil, *shakes head fondly*, is there anything that you don't give layered meaning to, ever? No. No, of course you don't. And I adore you for it.
The whereabouts of the aunt's gardener's pen questioned, Aziraphale then says "But you still understood me" when Crowley calls him out for his bad French.
This is curious and affirming of my auro-translator theory for two reasons:
1) Aziraphale wouldn't have said this if he'd uttered this sentence in the language of Angels and simply hit the auto-translate button. Because if he had done it that way, of course Crowley would have understood him. But the reason Crowley understands him is not because Aziraphale used his language auto-translate, but because, again, Aziraphale, for two hundred and fifty years, has been wittering on about the plume of his imaginary tante.
2) Point one is further proven by a tiny French nerdy fact I can provide because I actually did learn and graduate in French back in school, lol. Because Crowley actually makes a mistake while trying to not-automatically translate the sentence. He says:
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But "jarndinère" is actually a female gardener (le jardinier = male, la jardinière = female). So, when Crowley says "he doesn't have a pen", he actually gets it wrong, which further proves to me that he (as well as all other angels and demons) doesn't actually understand the phrase like someone does who has learnt the language in a human way.
Crowley doesn't have the automated translation on in this moment, so he doesn't translate it correctly. Because he doesn't actually speak French. At least not in the sense that us humans interpret "speaking a language".
Comment ça?
Basically, what I'm trying to get at is: Would you say that Google Translate speaks every language in the world? That it's native and fluent in every tongue ever spoken? Or is it simply a program that can access all the language knowledge its been fed and as soon as you hit enter, it translates any and every language back to you?
Google Translate never learnt any language, it never sat down and went through the onslaughts of vocabulary and grammar that studying a language comes with. It never got frustrated with seemingly nonsensical sentence structures, subjonctifs (French-learnes, you know what I mean) tenses and conjugations. It never spent ages trying to understand different dialects and accents, never spoke with natives to figure out the hidden slangs and sarcasms that would never be translated on paper. It never went to night classes where the teacher wittered on about pens and gardeners and aunts.
No. Google Translate is being told a sentence and it soullessly, programatically recognizes the language through its binary coded translation filter and mirrors the equivalent in whatever other language you want it to.
It's furthest any-a thing could be from speaking a language.
And exactly like that.
Exactly like that is how angels and demons "speak" every language in the World. Hitting an imaginary auto-translate-and-auto-recognition button.
Aziraphale and French (and magic)
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Just like with Aziraphale being giddy about the idea of human magic, of learning card tricks and pulling coins out from behind ears, Aziraphale chose to never hit his translate button when it came to French.
Why does Aziraphale learn magic the human way? Because he knows how to do it the ethereal way but that's "no fun."
And why does Aziraphale learn French the human way? Because he knows how to do it the ethereal way, but that's "no fun".
Let me recap real quick: Two of the very base principles of any angel's job and/or purpose (on Earth) is to 1) do miracles for humankind to ensure their souls will at some point be added to Heaven's tab and 2) be a being of Love and love all of Her creations.
Or, the condensed version: Magic and Love.
And what are the two things Aziraphale finds no fun (= boring and unsatisfying) to do the way it was intended for all angels?
Magic and (the language of) Love.
Aziraphale chose to try and learn magic as well as the language of love organically, without the God-given ability and the binary coded translation system Heaven provided his corporation with.
He wanted to learn it the human way. The hard way. The fun way.
Neil: "It's like magic tricks, which he is terrible at but loves to do, and miracles, which are no fun, but which he does very well."
Because that's the point, isn't it? Most of us think: "Wow, wouldn't it be great to be able to do actual magic? Simply snap your fingers and have any-a wish come true? Speak every and any language in the universe and never have to pick up a dictionary ever again?"
Sure, for the first few exciting moments, miracles and conversations maybe. But sooner or later, it renders everything meaningless. Soulless. Flavourless. And who loves flavour more than Aziraphale?
It's somewhat similar to why typing a sentence into Google Translate is never going to be as exciting as being able to finally translate it yourself after years of practising. Or why telling an AI to conjure up a picture of a beautiful landscape will never, ever be the same as working years on your own painting skills to one day finally be able to paint it yourself.
Heaven (and ultimately Hell) don't care about the process. The hardship. The pain and passion of putting work and effort into the journey. They only care about the end result. The means to an end.
Crowley: "They don‘t care how it gets done, they just want to know they can cross it off their list."
Want to speak any language in the world? There you go, automatic translator. Want to ensure humans will be added to the Heavenly/Hellish soul tab? Boom, you can do real magic. Get to work, then!
So, for Aziraphale to choose to learn the two things he was provided with to do his Heavenly work in the most efficient, soulless and flavourless way possible the human way instead, really says it all, doesn't it?
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But he learnt the most important one the hard way, without his auto-translator.
The one language all angels are supposed to know fluently and wordlessly anyway.
The one language that makes an angel.
The language of Love.
Except that when it's programmed into you with the intent to only ever work as a means to and end instead of the beautiful journey it is, it will never be the real, organic, passionate, hard and wonderful thing it was meant to be.
And Aziraphale knows this.
Which is exactly why he learnt magic and French the real, human way.
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***
Small addendum that I couldn't really fit into any paragraph up there: I think it's also really telling that Aziraphale only properly committed to learning French the right way by going to Monsieur Rossignol's (for those who haven’t seen it yet: rossignol means nightingale in French) night classes in 1760 after the first time we see Crowley rescue him (Bastille, 1739). There might have been a time before that where Crowley got him out of a precarious situation, but for all we know, it was the first one where Crowley really showed up for an angel in need who was absolutely swooning over it. Time to let the nightingale to teach you how to become fluent in Love!
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bluberryfields · 7 months
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"That's the kind of girl to make you wish you spoke a little French."
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Crowley: You speak every language in the world. We both do. Aziraphale: Yes. Crowley: So what’s with the French? Aziraphale: Oh, I learned that the hard way. I went to Monsier Rossingnol's night classes in 1760.
Cut to 1793:
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I'd try to learn from French the hard way for that beautiful supernatural being, too.
Bonus points for anyone who recognizes the quote
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xokurde · 7 months
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They just don't get it
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metatronhateblog · 5 months
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Was at a convention this weekend and met an SFX artist who worked on the heavenly trial in Good Omens 2. Really amazing work and it was an honor to meet them. But I am very sad to say that we were informed that the angelic language on the pillars doesn't translate to any words or anything. So sadly they don't say anything which....sucks but it also makes me feel mildly relieved cause that's one less thing to focus on.
Keep an eye out for more meta posts coming soon.
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quoththemaiden · 6 months
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I posted earlier wondering what the Japanese dub of Good Omens would do with Crowley's insistence on "our side," and it turns out it's a parallel to a fantastically-translated scene in the previous episode.
In English, it's "We're on our side."
In Japanese, it's "Ore-tachi wa ore-tachi da!"
"We are us!"
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Note
...Guys it's not in English. It's a sigil. Why would his name/initial be in English. If it's meant to be any language, it would be Hebrew. I don't particularly feel like pulling up the Rose Cross and seeing if it corresponds to anything. If not Hebrew or a sigil, it's just a random sign.
very true, great point!!!✨ counterpoint, perhaps?✨
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willgrahamscock · 8 months
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I need you all to know that in the Hungarian translation of Good Omens, Crowley calls Aziraphale 'angyalkám' which translates to 'my little angel' and this term of endearment is solely used between lovers
which had me curious about other languages and in fact Crowley calls Aziraphale a variation of 'my angel' in other languages, in french I believe it's 'l’angelot/mon ange' which means soft angel/my angel
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sing-you-fools · 8 months
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thinking about Good Omens 2. and stories, and the shape of them, and Terry Pratchett and his themes. and something clicked.
Aziraphale is cackling.
it's not just the ball. he spends the entire season trying to force the story into a shape it's not, and everyone suffers for it.
i've seen some less than charitable takes on Crowley's actions and they all ignore how much Crowley did try to talk to Aziraphale, did try to ask Aziraphale questions, did try to help, only to be ignored or brushed off. because his questions, his offers, they didn’t fit with the story Aziraphale was telling himself.
quiet, gentle, and romantic. it was, if you're our favorite Angel - right up until the end, at least. because he decided that's the story he was in. from the very beginning, he's off in la-la land, living out this romcom with a cute little mystery wrapped up in it, completely ignoring what's actually going on around him. i'll set Nina and Maggie up! (completely ignoring that Nina tells him she has a partner, and at that point, he has no reason to think she's anything less than happy.) i'll take ~our~ car to go do investigate this silly little mystery (he's not taking it even a little bit seriously!) while you stay here and run the bookshop and it will be so quaint and domestic! soon we'll dance and confess our feelings that we obviously share because we're already so clearly a couple we just need to finally say it!
Crowley knows the entire time that they're in a horror story but Aziraphale ignores every attempt he makes to point that out because it doesn't fit the story he decided he's in the middle of.
he brushes off Crowley's concerns and questions - his QUESTIONS! - like they're nothing. he doesn't want to see it, so he doesn't. and Crowley should have told him more?
why would he?
when you are CLEARLY in distress and it's being BLATANTLY AND WILLFULLY IGNORED, what the fuck are you supposed to do? "Crowley didn't comminicate" well okay if I were having a panic attack about something and my husband completely ignored it, chattering on about our dinner plans or whatever, that wouldn’t exactly make me want to open up about what was wrong! that would send the very fucking clear signal that he didn't want to know!
words aren't the only way we communicate and Crowley's body language, the entire season, is that of someone who is living in a horror story, knows he's living in a horror story, and is fucking terrified. if Aziraphale were paying any attention to Crowley instead of focusing all his energy trying to set things up just so for the big climax of his love story, he would know something major was wrong.
why would Crowley have told him how cruel Gabriel was about the execution when Aziraphale's already so thoroughly convinced that heaven is pure and good and has shown over and over through the millennia that he's not really open to considering that it can be cruel!
just look at them at the dance. Crowley freaking out because there's a horde of demons out there and Aziraphale giggling as they go to dance. that's the whole season!
you know who Crowley reminds me of this season?
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he's watching helplessly and with increasing levels of distress as Aziraphale shoves every plot point into the romcom hole even though it's obviously not remotely romcom shaped! and i'm sick of people saying he was abusive because he raises his voice about it a few times!
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lottachaos · 9 months
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GOOD OMENS SEASON TWO SPOILERS
Ok I’m gonna be deeply ranting and analyzing the kiss scene (mostly just the kiss itself) because OH MY GOSH THERES SO MUCH TOO IT
First of all here’s a gif of it:
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And also I don't have a gif of it but when Crowley releases Aziraphale, what struck me was that he didn’t make them burst apart he gently and almost sadly just stepped back. And then watched. Now. One of the biggest things I’ve been thinking about in this (because I’ve been obsessively watching it over and over) is how Crowley is kissing him. It’s a long kiss. It’s not sensual. It’s not eating each others faces. It’s intimate and very romantic. Crowley missed Aziraphales lips by a hair and is slightly kissing his chin. Crowley holds him there as they sway back and forth slightly. I can’t see if his eyes are open or not. But the thing that strikes me about this is how much all of Crowley’s body language and everything just scream about how much he doesn’t want to move. He finally kissed his angel and he wants to stay pressed up against him, finally locked in the embrace he didn’t realize he needed for so long. He just stays there. He doesn’t kiss deeper. He just stays pressed against him, not wanting to deal with how Aziraphale will look at him afterwards.
then he has to break apart. He does it gently, but suddenly. Like he had to force himself but doesn’t want to . He wanted to stay, but he knows he can’t. So he steps back with his heart breaking more than he thought possible.
now onto Aziraphale.
Aziraphale is shocked. His eyes go from open to closed to open to closed. He leans back so slightly you almost can’t see it. He doesn’t seem to know how to feel.
And then his hands go around Crowley. It almost seems like it’s an unconscious motion, given how he looks after they break apart. It looks like for a split second, he lets himself melt into Crowley, as his hand wraps around his back and slides across it. But then he hesitates again abd takes his hands away. He thinks he can’t melt into Crowley. But there was the one moment where he broke.
after they break apart, Aziraphale looks shocked, upset, desperate, and to me, even a little disgusted. Probably because he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He licks his lips and moves his mouth around abd seems uncomfortable. But then after Crowley leaves he presses a hand to his mouth. He holds it for a second and starts crying. He realized he liked how it felt. He realizes everything he’s been missing. He loved the feeling of Crowley’s lips on his. Most importantly, he loves crowley.
on the topic of people hating on Aziraphale and saying the metatron did something to him, I disagree. This seems completely in character fir Aziraphale. He’s not an arsehole, he’s in conflict. He thinks he’s not allowed to love Crowley. I get him.
ok Thanks for coming to my Ted talk hehe bye
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