honestly the power and influence of billie piper playing rose tyler. she had both chris eccleston and david tennant wrapped around her finger. her chemistry with both of them is to this day insane. the other actors in doctor who long after her bring her up in conversation and she continues to be brought up in the show. on a zoom reunion, she was snatched up as ‘companion you’d want to travel with’ instantly. she’s an ordinary girl but there’s no one like her. her arc is so good that they regularly try to recreate or deconstruct it. some of the episodes she’s in are terrible but it doesn’t matter. the doctor loves her so much it both saved him and killed him. multiple times. she lives rent free in every doctor who fan’s mind. love her, hate her, or indifferent to her, she’s the basis for comparison. she’s at the tip of the tongue of people who gush about the show and people who complain. billie piper still affirms her unpopular (correct) opinions about rose and the doctor. she was the consistency, the heart, and she redefined the entire fandom.
Why Aziraphale is completely ridiculous in the Bastille scene (and I love him so much for it)
A while ago I posted a comparison of Aziraphale and Crowley's costumes in the 1793 flashback in Good Omens and I wanted to add these little tidbits. (Because they haunt me.)
I feel like most people know this but IF YOU DON'T, Paris in 1793 is right in the middle of something called La Terreur.
HISTORY LESSON
If you didn't learn this in school the French Revolution was when, after years of escalating social tension, a coalition representing the working classes of France revolted against the monarchy, violently overthrew King Louis XVI, and declared France to be a republic.
The new National Convention governing France ruled that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were traitors to the people of France because of how they had spent ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries for themselves while vast numbers of the lower classes were literally starving to death. (keep the bold in mind - wealth and class disparities were one of the key causes of the whole-ass revolution)
In 1793 (year of the flashback) both the King and Queen were executed by guillotine for their crimes.
This kicks of something called The Reign of Terror (La Terreur if you want to be French about it). A multi-year-long period in which the National Convention goes on a bloody witch hunt for any and every member of the middle or upper classes who could even possibly be considered a traitor by those same standards.
If you A) had money or privilege, and B) had ever used your money or privilege to treat yourself, you were getting executed. Over 25,000 people died during the Reign of Terror, half of them by guillotine. In fact, the iconic guillotine was used because it was physically impossible to keep up with the sheer number of people they were executing in Paris every single day.
Some things that could get you killed (actually and completely seriously) during the Reign of Terror:
Implying in any way you were sympathetic to the monarchy
helping or sympathizing with anyone who did any of the above
a working-class person saying you were mean to them once
And then there's this bitch...
I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME
So we have established that Paris in 1793 is in the middle of a frenzied, state-sanctioned bloodbath in which the working classes are massacring everyone even remotely nobility-adjacent. And in the middle of this frenzy, Aziraphale proceeds to roll up in Paris in this outfit:
How will this outfit get him killed? Let me count the ways...
First off- at this point everyone with even the tiniest shred of self- preservation is hiding the fact that they are in any way associated with the monarchy. The wealthy are straight-up abandoning mansions. The middle-class are plastering over decorations to make their house look 'poor'. The only people dressed remotely decent are the guys leading the National Convention and that's just because nobody can stop them. Everyone else is in 24/7 peasant cosplay or else they are covering themselves in cockades and sashes on to show they're pro-Republic.
Aziraphale is basically a giant shiny white sign saying I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME.
First off the lace jabot and lace cuffs are both associated with the old-school wealthy in the 1790's.
His coat is also decorated in gold braid and silver buttons, which are both marks of wealth and luxury.
He basically looks like he works for Louis XIV - not just rich, but old school rich.
We know it's his natural hair color, but hair powdering (with clay and starch) had been a big trend with the rich all throughout the 18th century to get that clean white venerable look . To someone who doesn't know it's natural, it would very much look like he's wearing hair powder.
He's wearing shades of cream and white, which are very hard to keep clean and clearly states that the wearer is rich and can afford the upkeep necessary to keep an outfit like that stain-free.
He's wearing white knee-breeches and stockings, also called culottes. See above about laundry and how rich you had to be to wear white, but also working-class men wore long pants like this:
A large faction involved in the Revolution were the Sans-Culottes (no-culottes aka we wear long pants LIKE GOOD OLD WORKING MEN). Culottes are specifically associated with everything the revolution hated. That's right - Aziraphale is literally wearing The Fanciest of Fancy Pants in a city where a group called The Men Against Fancy Pants are running around murdering people.
And then there are his shoes.
Oh god his shoes
I could do a whole post about Aziraphale's blessed little white satin pumps and how ridiculous they are.
Actually I might just do that because this is getting so long and I still have to talk about the brioche.
So I can't remember if it's in the script book or if it's from Neil Gaiman's tumblr, but it's apparently canon (?) that Aziraphale was going around in that outfit asking people where he could get crepes and brioche when he was arrested.
The Affair of the Brioches
So... uh... we've all heard the line attributed to Marie Antoinette- how when she was told that her people were starving because there was no bread left in Paris, she famously said...
It's morphed into 'let them eat cake', but the line is first recorded as, "Then let them eat brioches."
While it's unlikely she ever actually said it, the important thing is that... people in 1793 would have thought she said it. It was used as political smear to show how arrogant and out of touch the monarchy was. Marie Antoinette in particular was reviled by the people of France, who thought she was the main cause of their economic problems. That's why she was executed too.
Bread and brioche and the lines between poverty and privilege were a big thing in Revolutionary France. There was a lot of political connotation to what you ate. The French Revolution came about because of decades of suffering among the lower classes of France. It wasn't something that some dudes just decided to do. The people of Paris have been through years of the absolute worst, most oppressive poverty and starvation you can imagine, all while watching the rich throw money around crazy.
So let us recap.
Aziraphale is dressed so ridiculously posh that he looks like a joke parody of a nobleman... and he is bumbling around Paris during the Reign of Terror. Asking people. For brioche.
How I imagine everyone looked at him:
It is so astoundingly tone deaf and tactless. He is basically cosplaying as Marie Antoinette and then going around asking the poor for cake.
I just.... Aziraphale. babygirl. no. oh no. You're lucky they even bothered to take you to prison. I am amazed Crowley ever let him live that down.
I have no conclusion other than this. Aziraphale is ridiculous and I love him so much.
Need to tell you guys about the dream I had recently. Christopher Eccleston was dancing to Spice Up Your Life on stage in a bright red wig and he was crawling around on the stage and arching his back and twirling around a pillar and I was the ONLY one in the audience. That is all
I was wondering today, why do (some) people still think that Aziraphale said this (and many other things he does/says) meaning that he doesn't want to stay at Crowley's place because he's still beholden to Heaven, it would be wrong etc etc.
Just as (some) people say he says I forgive you after Crowley kisses him because the kiss was a sin, a temptation and Aziraphale is offended by Crowley for doing this to him...
I'm genuinely perplexed.
He's not saying, Oh, I don't think I should, Oh that would be wrong, Oh, are you out of your mind demon?
He's saying: 'I don't think my side would like that.'
He spent 6000+ years worrying Crowley will get punished if their friendship/partnership/Arrangement/love was discovered.
His first instinct here is the usual - I couldn't possibly, it would put you at risk.
We've seen how Heaven treats him. We have seen how he lies and deceives them repeatedly; S2 even starts with Aziraphale hiding his former boss from Heaven cos he knows he must be in BIG trouble to show up in his shop and he'll be damned (literally) before he gets them to do as they like with someone asking him for help without knowing what happened.
So why do (some) people assume he's helping Gabe out of some duty TO Heaven?
It's not that Aziraphale is not scared. He is.
He knows Gabriel wanted to kill him a few short years before.
He is not an idiot (this is a line I seem to be repeating in most of my posts).
He's not as dramatic about it as Crowley, but of course he's afraid.
He is not missing Heaven in S2.
He's still terrified of them.
And that's why he's going there. That's why he's going to face his fears and save his life and his love or die trying.
You say you want a sensitive butch but are you going to hold them when they sob uncontrollably from the traumas in their life, are you going to make sure that the voice in their head telling them off for being that vulnerable isn't the only thing they can hear, are you going to reward their vulnerability by stepping up and being an active caregiver in their life?
So many butches I know just like me are controlled and contorted by their fear. Their fear of being othered, of being perpetrators of hatred and aggression, of showing any number of their personality traits that are considered unbutch and weak.
So please. If you are lucky enough to have a butch in your life this is your sign to reward their vulnerability. Reward it with your touch with your time and your thought.
[This post is written by and for trans women butches, fuck off my post]
