@flyingfish1 / flyingfish1.tumblr.com
The cracks are starting to show... :)
See this thread at Twitter from John Dellaporta for more discussion of what this means. (But tl;dr: "Significantly, AMC has a streaming platform, which means they are the first platform to agree to 2% profit allocation and data-sharing.")
I’m trying to remember to add alt text to my photo uploads more often. I’m not exactly versed on best practice here but I feel like 95% of the image descriptions I see on tumblr seem like they’d be less helpful than nothing at all… when I imagine what I would want to know about an image that I couldn’t see (exception: images of text), it’s not an exhaustively-detailed word-picture. Isn’t it better to give a to-the-point explanation of the essential qualities, rather than a full description? I think I’d get bored and irritated after the first ten words of most image descriptions.
this article has really informed my praxis on image descriptions; the rule of thumb ive been using is to describe it as you would to someone sitting in the same room as you when you just dont want to get up and show them your phone. if it takes longer than 10 seconds to read an image description out loud (barring eg screenshots of text), something has gone terribly wrong.
Actually I also think that people participating in Dracula Daily should watch Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a fictionalised account of the filming of Nosferatu which imagines that Max Schreck (the actor who played Count Orlok) is actually a real vampire
Specifically, everyone should watch the scene where he’s asked what he thinks about the book, Dracula
also Schreck is played by Willem DaFoe and every second he’s on-screen is a delight
Someone pointed out that Crowley’s listed in the book’s personae as “an angel” (who didn’t fall, so much as sauntered vaguely downwards...). But there’s another, similar reference to his nature in the song at the end—“There were angels dining at the Ritz.” What I mean to say is that if Heaven’s angels were bad angels, maybe Crowley wasn’t. Maybe he was exactly as good as he was meant to be—a match for Aziraphale, anyway. Crowley asks Aziraphale at the bus stop if everything might have happened as God had ineffably planned it after all. And Aziraphale said he wouldn’t put it past Her. Maybe they were both God’s honest angels in the most ineffable sense, by being honestly themselves.
Also this bit! They’re the same kind of thing. Crowley knows it, when he’s not thinking too hard about it. And Aziraphale knows it:
He expected Crowley to be able to sense love, too, just like he can. That’s his real, instinctive opinion of Crowley. It’s only when he’s theorizing instead of feeling that he says Crowley wouldn’t understand love.
Which means the central conflict of their relationship is summed up beautifully in Crowley’s “You’re an angel—I don’t think you can do the wrong thing” and Aziraphale’s eager acceptance being followed immediately by “it’d be funny if you did the wrong thing and I did the right one,” and Aziraphale’s horror.
Crowley can believe in his angel’s goodness long before he can begin to trust in his own again; but he still knows in his core that his misalignment with Heaven isn’t a moral failure. And Aziraphale wants to be comforted and reassured in his rightness; but he won’t ever be able to believe in his heart that Crowley is wholly wrong.
Yes absolutely, this is exactly the point. I once saw a shitpost that described Crowley's relationship to angelhood as "right species, wrong political party" and that's a perfect summary of the situation tbh. Ultimately demons are not all that much different from their Heavenly counterparts.
The difference with Crowley, though, is that he hasn't embraced bitterness like the other demons we're introduced to. He's still hurt, he's still angry with God and a dedicated up-fucker of shit, but he ultimately refuses to be soured by hatred. The other demons we see hate Heaven, hate humans, hate each other, hate themselves, and are subsumed by that. They are not evil by any inherent nature, but because they're in pain and making that everyone else's problem.
Crowley, though, has made a radical choice to love, instead. Love the world, love Aziraphale... still working on loving himself, but he's getting there.
And I use the word "choice" deliberately, because the whole point of both Aziraphale and Crowley is to prove that however much Heaven and Hell preach to the contrary, angels (fallen or otherwise) absolutely have free will. Heaven and Hell are both terrible. If Hell is loveless out of pain, Heaven is loveless out of fear (and the reason for that can be laid squarely at God's feet for failing to handle Their rebellious little shit of a firstborn with grace... but the trauma all the angels on both sides are suffering from is a whole meta in and of itself). Point is, neither of the sides have any real, substantive love for anything, but Aziraphale and Crowley choose to love anyway, and choose to act in defense of what they love. It's not so much that Crowley is closer to being a "good person" or that Aziraphale is closer to being a "bad person" than others of their kind, and more that they're both closer to being real people.
They are, ultimately, the same kind of being. Despite the propaganda of Heaven and Hell preaching that they're diametrically opposed and different from each other in every way, it's clear that neither of them has been able to look at each other and truly believe that in their heart of hearts since almost the beginning. It's the old "we're all only human" concept, but in this case the refrain is "we're all only angels." Their differences are superficial at best, and deep down, when they're not thinking too hard about it, both of them recognize that. They look at each other, and when they're not trying to cling to the lies they've been fed about "the opposition," they instinctively feel it.
"Oh," their hearts say, "he's just like me."
BUT WAIT I'M NOT DONE!!!!
It's also worth examining that, while Crowley has nothing in common, politically speaking, with Heaven, he is much closer to a human concept of what an angel should be than he is to the modern concept of a demon.
He owes something, certainly, to pre-Reformation and/or non-Christian depictions of demons as scholars and bringers of wisdom, and even perhaps a little something to trickster gods in non-Abrahamic religious traditions. But the more modern concept of a demon as a malignant entity gleefully bent on possession, death, and destruction? We wrestle with Crowley's role as a demon because that's not recognizable in him at all (and for that matter, so does Crowley, I think. "I'm just doing my job," he says, so that he doesn't have to emotionally deal with what Hell asks him to do).
But when the chips are down, we can recognize in Crowley and Aziraphale a pair of guardian angels for the whole world. Their role in Nopemageddon begins with Crowley's intercession on behalf of humanity, his pleading with God's representative on Earth to take action, to do something, anything, to save this beautiful planet that he loves so dearly. And it ends with Aziraphale convincing Crowley to put his own skin on the line, to back those words up with action and defend humanity not just intellectually but physically as well.
And that full-circle balance is worthy of a whole essay in and of itself but the point is that both Crowley and Aziraphale are more like what modern humans expect angels to be than they are like the reality of what the other angels and demons in their universe actually are.
This is such an interesting meta, especially when you consider Crowley's reaction to... What was it, the Spanish Inquisition?
But, and I'm just gonna put this out there...
Hell's Angel.
The above touches on “non-christian aspects” of demons but I think fails to recognize that Neil Gaiman is Jewish so a throwaway line doesn’t do justice to *how much* the non-christian concept of demons may have influenced this story. Jews pick up story concepts from the common/normalized culture (aka christian culture) just like everyone else, but we have our own stories and myths that impact how we see angels and demons that can’t be lumped in with Christianity. Our stories are more closely related to what is mentioned above as “non-abrahamic” religious traditions - because Christianity and Judaism view things VERY DIFFERENTLY from one another.
In Judaism, demons that simply “do evil” are incredibly, extremely rare, and actually pretty modern. Collections of historic Jewish folktales (Elijah’s Violin and Other Jewish Fairytales is a great starting place) mostly show demons exactly like trickster gods. They’re more powerful than humans but sometimes they act just like humans - but with the ability to get their comeuppance if someone wrongs them (see The Demon Princess) - and sometimes they act like trickster gods who teach you lessons about yourself (see King Solomon and Asmodeus).
Judaism doesn’t have a Satan. The angel (yes, angel) who is called “the satan” in Jewish literature is often labeled The Prosecuter, as in, the lawyer during a trial.
And these roles are ones that we see Crowley filling perfectly.
Neil has actually stated explicitly that Good Omens is how it is because he is Jewish and has read the Mishnah.
I would suggest the following of the show, actually:
GOmens!G-d, “the almighty”: Catholic perception of G-d
GOmens!Satan: Catholic perception of Satan
Aziraphale and Crowley: Jewish perception of G-d and Satan.
Think about it. Aziraphale is deeply loving and welcomes questions, even when they make him uncomfortable. He doesn’t recognize Jesus as divine; when Crowley asks why Jesus has been crucified you’d expect something about the biblical prophesies being fulfilled, but instead it’s “he said to be kind to each other,” which is the whole sum of Torah, as expressed by Hillel. He delights in Earth and its people; he is a constant seeker of knowledge, and while all that can be known is known by G-d, his attitude toward books is reminiscent of the good Jewish scholar. Indeed, in his complete shunning of modern technology, we can also draw a parallel to the Jewish concept of tradition and ritual among the Orthodox, which is a pretty rare thing to see in media. We even see him acknowledge his own fallibility in debate, which is something shown time and time again in the midrash.
Crowley, meanwhile, fits this on two fronts. First, two actions the Christian canon attributes to Satan are attributed to Crowley: the temptation in Eden, and showing Jesus all the nations of the world. (Jewish tradition does not hold that the snake was Satan.) To a Christian unfamiliar with Judaism, this is a way to, for lack of a better word, Satan-code him; he’s now a stand-in for Satan in the Christian eye. Thing is, Judaism doesn’t conceive of Satan the same way; he’s a judge and trickster, basically ‘tempting’ humans because, as Aziraphale points out, you can’t truly choose good if there’s no choice to be made. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. And Crowley does—you could even argue that it shows subtextually in his Hamlet miracle, given that Hamlet is about the struggle between impulses. None of the truly evil stuff can be laid at his door—he’s disgusted by Nazis, depressed by Caligula and baffled by the aftermath of the French Revolution. Perhaps most central to this concept is his prayer as he seeks to leave Earth to escape Armageddon: pleading with G-d always in the form of a question, such that this is even his own description of his crimes: “all I ever did was ask questions.” Is there ANYTHING more Jewish? Indeed, the prayer itself is reminiscent of Abraham’s, pleading for the lives of Sodom and Gomorrah: “I know you’re testing them, but must you test them to destruction?” He tempts, he tricks, but he’s not by any means “evil.”
Played out on a grand scale, one could then argue the show is no less than a struggle of ideologies, as written by a Jewish man.
Loosely based on this discussion.
I’m a little late to the party on this but I was re-watching 11x02 and Billie’s words jumped out at me because just earlier myself and others had been discussing the significance of square circles in relation to professional wrestling as a possible theme for 11x15, the hyperreality of the wrestling in itself and what this could mean for Sam’s ‘Cage match’ with Lucifer. (@postmodernmulticoloredcloak also wrote how square circles relates to the philosophical idea of something that can be conceived of but also can be proven not to exist which brings another great aspect to the discussion).
The bars, the grids and the holy fire in the gifs above work as part of the ongoing prison imagery we’ve seen during this season in particular around both Sam and Dean, showing how the two are trapped and imprisoned by both outside forces (i.e. Lucifer and Amara) and also their own internal demons (for example the idea of them both being trapped in a never-ending cycle or stuck behind a sort of invisible wall that separates them from the facade that they present to others).
But I also wanted to extend this imagery, in Sam’s case, to include that of a game. The phrase ‘circle gets the square’ is a reference to an old gameshow (Celebrity Squares) in which two players, a circle and a cross, play a game of noughts and crosses (tic tac toe). If the circle player got a question right they’d win a mark on the grid - hence, the circle gets the square.
I’ve talked earlier on how the (sort of) Cage is set like a stage performance with Crowley and Rowena as the audience, but imagine the Cage as a the grid on which the game is played, with Sam and Lucifer as the players. This all was wonderfully foreshadowed by Sam’s fight in the elevator in 11x07 against a masked opponent (bringing us back to wrestling), which all ties into the idea of the confrontation in 11x09 wasn’t entirely real, like a game or performance being played out. Like the clown Lucifer is Sam’s worst fears come to life, but also like the Clown Lucifer may hide behind a scary mask but without a vessel he is just smoke, this is also in fact how he describes himself.
Anyway back to the game imagery, the cross behind Sam in 11x08 becomes not only a visual reminder of the criss-crossing chains of his visions of the Cage but also a sign that Sam is about to make his next move in a game started by Lucifer when he sent Sam the first vision, or Billie depending on how you view events. Also (sorry to keep coming back to this), but the hospital signs seen behind Sam in 11x02 not only include the three figures traveling up and down but also a Crucifix (cross) within a square, which is focused upon after Sam decides to ask God for help - a move he makes after meeting Billie.
I guess that makes Billie the host, which is fitting when you consider her power as a reaper and potentially even more so if she helps to free Sam or ‘finish the game’ so to speak.
However there’s also a good chance that this next ‘Cage match’ (questions of whats real and what’s not aside) between Lucifer and Sam is not a fight to win the game at all but only to catch another square, to make a step forward in the battle that will progress along with the next half of the season.
7x22, 10x03, 10x10
BEST RE-USE OF FURNITURE EVER.
I would assume that Wanek just re-used it because and it would cost money to make or buy a new ornate chair. Then again, this is Supernatural, where very few things are ever random, and I honestly think that there’s a reason they pulled it out of storage.
In 7x22, the Alpha has been lied to by Dick Roman, who assures him that they can share the supply of humans once the Leviathan take control. Of course, Sucrocorp is poisoning the vampires’ food supply, and the Alpha is thus losing control over his thousands of years-long “reign” on Earth as the supreme monster. Meanwhile, Crowley in 10x03 and 10x10 is faced with the question whether to trust his henchmen and Rowena, and his hold on his own kingdom is slipping. This chair seems to signal treachery! treason! perfidy! etc., specifically vis-a-vis royalty (the purple fabric), and that the chair’s owner is losing control of one’s kingdom.
Here’s another cap of the rest of the room in 7x22 where the chair first appears, in case anyone’s interested in trying to further parse a parallel between the two scenes. (The painting of Michael slaying “the dragon”/Lucifer, which itself is reused from 4x23, is across from the chair, interestingly enough.)
P.S. I fucking love that chair, by the way.
P.P.S. Whatever happened to the Alpha, anyway? We never see him die. Adding that one to the long list of loose ends on this show.
tldr: Carver hit the reset button because season 7 painted them into a corner.
"When leaving that storyline, the idea was that they were leaderless but still around us," notes executive producer Bob Singer, "so if somebody pitches a Leviathan story that sounds good, we have that option available to us." [The Essential SPN]
“It was sort of like an ex-girlfriend; every now and then I’d check in,” Carver tells TVLine of the years he missed while working on Being Human.
Although Carver says he was “really, really impressed with the job [executive producers] Sera [Gamble] and Bob [Singer] did over the last two seasons,” he did notice something during his marathon viewing that he felt could be improved upon. “The one thing that struck me [while] watching Season 7 was I felt like the show got a little bit buried under its mythology,” he says of the year that found Dick Roman trying to start a Leviathan takeover of the human population. “It became a little hard to tell exactly what was going on at times. The longtime fans all deserve intricate plot, but it felt a little burdensome.”
Carver says that he hopes to grip viewers by starting Season 8 with something familiar “like a flashback that lifelong fans or early fans will hopefully appreciate the magnitude of, but new fans can also grasp onto.”
“Resetting our mythology was one idea that I tried to bring into [the show],” he adds.
(more end of season 7/pre-season 8 bits below the cut)
From August 1976 through April 2009, Starlog Magazine kept its finger on the pulse of science fiction in film, television, and beyond. It was one of the pre
AWESOME!! :)
OH WOW
For those of you unfamiliar with the magazine: it was one of the primary sources for sci-fi show information, photos, and interviews, some of which never appeared anywhere else unless someone managed to scan it and post it.
