some of my favorite details and easter eggs from the Telltale Back to the Future game (spoilers below):
while looking for Edna, Marty gets distracted and goes into the arcade to play wild gunman. like just walks offscreen and plays it for a minute before coming back
when we first meet Artie McFly, he does the exact same "run it on over" awkward mini-run gesture that George does in the first movie
the casual references from Doc about Clara and the boys going college-hunting in time
the random poster with a shark on it in the 30s (shoutout to jaws ii)
when Marty returns to the Doc Brown dystopia, George is eating peanut brittle (peanut brittle always spells doom for george mcfly)
George is also literally a peeping tom again (doing surveillance for the state)
there are so so many things about how everyone is animated that I love and think are so thoughtful and accurate, but I'm particularly fond of how Marty's eyes wander all over the place and he looks confused when he's waiting for the player to make up their minds. no reason to make that fun and in-character but it's SO fun and in-character
everything about how the dystopian logo is actually the flux capacitor. losing my mind
marty and the pinheads graffiti moment
box of used pinball machine parts in the de-cycler only there for people like me to start screaming about
when Marty is casing the speakeasy he gets challenged by a guy who thinks he's trying to steal his girlfriend. Marty calls this guy "chicken"
the "home of the future" at the expo involves a fruit basket descending from the ceiling
there's literally no reason to go all-in on the Canadian floozy thing, it's clearly just there out of love for MJF
Grandpa Willie saving Doc and Marty also just reads as a huge amount of love. like we WILL put him in this movie he WILL save the day and you WILL ALSO get three of him at the end, fuck you, he belongs here
i'm sure there's many more but i'm just obsessed with the level of care and detail everyone clearly put into this game. every chance to include a fun callback to the movies is seized, every reference stacks with the movies but also builds out into new directions so it's not endless recycling of the bits we already know, it's true to the characters and also takes them somewhere new. all my love and adoration to the team who worked on this because they really hit it out of the fucking park
random question: do you have any favorite headcanons for any drv3 characters? (specifically kokichi but HEADCANONS ARE HEADCANONS, TELLME EM ALL >:3)
Naturally!!! I'm actually working on a little series of "refs" for some V3 characters where I'm putting a lot of my headcanons that involve their physical appearances. And then there's some stuff I still want to save for future writing.
But here's some random bullets pulled from my headcanon doc for now! Mostly Kib & Kokichi...
K1-B0
I have an OC for the protoype of K1-B0 (the one that injured the professor). His name was K1-A (Kiia) and Kiibo was taught to view him as his deceased older brother until he was old enough to learn that they actually lived in the same body.
K1-B0's voice comes out of speakers, but it isn't a text-to-speech sort of thing. Instead he has a constant background process that calculates his voice based on the position of his tongue/lips/mouth and a couple digitally simulated muscles for 'sending air' and 'contracting vocal folds' etc. Nerve signals he sends to those "muscles" don't do anything but go into these audio calculations. This is why he can make nonverbal sounds like screams, 'oof's, and breathing pretty naturally. But if something foreign is involved it won't affect his voice - eg if you put a hand over his mouth, his voice wouldn't come out muffled. Basically, go look at Pink Trombone (https://dood.al/pinktrombone/).
^^^ He isn't very conscious of how his voice works, so when he tries to sing he reads all this stuff about "using your air" and tries to create sound physically by sending his hand-dryer air through his mouth. That's why it's awful and makes Shuichi throw up.
Instead of fans he's cooled with tubes of blue coolant. If he was murdered this is what I'd draw for his blood.
The processes that keep his body functioning (analogous to our heartbeat etc) are separate from the processing unit in his head. They take place in an "autonomic processing unit" or APU which is in his chest.
It takes him like at least 10 seconds to go from standing to sitting or sitting to standing, balance is difficult for him in general.
He doesn't experience disgust, attraction, or cuteness (things I see as biologically based that I don't think his programmers thought of). He has a good sense of what is considered attractive or cute due to socialization. He's a little more clueless about what's considered "gross" because people don't like to talk about these things, but he starts to learn during the killing game.
He didn't have a gender but upon reflecting during the killing game he starts to identify as male. Likewise, he didn't have a sexuality but started to figure it out with Miu later. He's kind of okay with she/her but would be offended by people using "they/them" for him because he thinks it's robophobic at first.
He learned to use a lot of robot words even though he doesn't have any particular reason to use them. For example talking about "logic" all the time, "I'll save that to my memory bank" & referring to remembering something as "getting a hit." And my personal favorite, saying "100%" with seemingly no basis.
He's a philosophical zombie. Not a very generous headcanon but I find it interesting.
Kokichi
Physically speaking, he looks extremely plain and forgettable. I draw him with like two freckles to emphasize how unremarkable his face is. He doesn't like having markings on his face/body though because it makes him feel less like a 'blank slate.'
He has 0 sense of identity and is generally very unhappy with life. I think that unhappiness would be much more obvious outside of the killing game, because the game gave him a sense of purpose that he normally lacks.
^^^ There's very few things he considers to be constants/part of his identity, and everything else he considers part of some facade or another. What I have written is this: liar, smart, crazy (mentally ill), crazy (zany), gay, & a couple moral beliefs. But whatever those things are, they're the only things he's prideful about.
He thought Kirumi's murder scheme was pretty well-planned and it inspired him to create another murder where the body was destroyed.
Right before he died, he couldn't help turning his head away/hiding his face against the platform. So the press hit his shoulder first and then the side of his head.
Non-despair: When he's older he has generally decided to act more agreeable, but he's restless and misses the days when he got to be a giant prick as god intended. He does something dramatic to upend his life several times a year, just in a way that's less destructive to other people.
Kokichi is the Ultimate Lucky Student for this class. He just took the liberty of making up another talent for himself.
Alternative older crack headcanon: he wasn't scouted as the Ultimate Supreme Leader, he's like the Ultimate Glassblower or some shit like that because he got into the Ultimate program by lying his ass off and the evaluator was impressed enough with his commitment to the bit that they let him in.
Another crack headcanon: Kokichi is a heavily revised version of an OC Tsumugi made when she was 12 for a Komaeda selfcest roleplay forum (I call it "the Maedaverse"). He was Komaeda's little brother who had terminal Liar's Disease.
Shuichi
He's great at solving cases because he can't stop thinking about them for weeks on end until they're solved with 99% certainty. He loses massive amounts of sleep and his grades drop slightly during these times.
Sometimes he'll dig up old cases and solve them from scratch, then check this against the real verdict to affirm that he didn't wrongfully accuse someone years ago and that he isn't a stupid idiot who does everything wrong.
Shuichi's uncle sent him to a counselor when he was ~7 years old because he was getting unreasonably anxious about his parents being overseas for the first time. This is the same counselor that he and his uncle sometimes refer clients to --- Shuichi always wonders if counseling will really help them, because it didn't do much for him back then.
He never understood how his parents could get so caught up in their love for each other that they neglect him, but for a brief moment when he's with Kaede, he gets it.
He's straight, and then later a lesbian.
He's not attracted to Kokichi, but is slightly jealous of Kokichi's “lithe body” (which is a phrase he says twice for some reason). These thoughts make him uncomfortable and confused, but he attributes that to the fact that he doesn't like Kokichi hitting on him (also true!).
Crack headcanon me and @cloudysonder have: The random "no that's wrong!" "that's true!" "that's not true!" that you can make him say throughout the game are his verbal tics. This is why everyone knows to ignore them and continue the conversation as though nothing happened.
Himiko
She mostly socializes with younger kids since they're less judgmental about her mannerisms (and more likely to shower her in praise), so she's used to having an easy time making people believe her "real magic" spiel. It's just having a very low success rate in the killing game because everyone here is her age.
^^^But also her master told her never to "ruin the magic" and she adheres to this strictly.
She became massively depressed around age 10 for no apparent reason, which made people pretty unsympathetic to her. Then she was bullied in middle school. She was probably bullied in elementary school too but she didn't actually notice that happening because it wasn't overt yet.
She and Kiibo explore religion together postcanon.
Also postcanon, she's a lot more liberal with her interpretations of what Angie and Tenko would want for her than the others are with their lost friends (especially Shuichi who worries about distorting Kaede's image).
Other
Tenko always loved cats as a kid. She still wears that pink collar + bell because of this, and despises any insinuation that it's sexual.
Tenko would also dress less femininely after she unpacks some of her hangups on gender. Currently she views girls wearing boys' clothes as "giving in to the enemy."
Crack headcanon(?): Kaito is secretly really weak. Team DR gave him all the astronaut smarts he needs, and the *memories* of being yoked, but they didn’t pick an actor who was athletic because they knew they were going to poison him. So he just sits down to do 100 pushups with Shuichi the first night and suddenly realizes he’s made of noodles.
This could be another false alarm or another crisis averted, but if ex-staff are sounding the alarm, I should probably take it seriously. My mind hasn't even been on my personal blogs because I'm currently getting help and step-by-step tutorials for backing up utmvarchive.
I'd said before that if I were code-literate or could afford to hire someone who is, I'd've already cloned the archive off-site. But I'm not code-literate, and I can't afford to hire a web-builder, and that'd be too much to ask someone to do for free.
So what I'm asking for instead is this: if you can, I want help from the utdr community to collect/make docs saving all available credits, dates, lore and references of as many Undertale alternates as possible. If you have the time, please save as many posts and early versions by the original creators as you can.
If you're on pc, you can view the sidepages utmvarchive.tumblr.com/progress to see which alternates I've already covered (reblogged all og posts I could find, linked backups of abandoned/deleted works to docs/wikis/etc and summarized) and which ones I haven't yet. If you're on mobile, you can dm me for a link to the Google doc where I've copied over the indexes, the sidepages and all of tagged/txt (story mode).
The alternates I have links to docs saved are, according to the list at the bottom of citations, Abysstale, Birdtale (pending translation from hangul), Dusttale, Fatal_Error, Fluffytale, Inktale, Killer/Something New, Othertale, Storyshift, Ultratale/Vitaltale, Underfell, Underfresh, Underpray and Underswap. I've lost the link, but there was also a Korean wiki page I'd found with all the details about Negativetale, and my next task will be saving all the links I can to preexisting backups of other saved AU fanworks, such as Underplayer. I already put the doc in its own drive folder, and the utmvarchive doc already has a lot of tabs, so I'm thinking I'll save all those links in another doc.
I made utmvarchive last year because I didn't want the first Undertale AUs to become lost media or else simply forgotten, and I'm very grateful already for the help I'd gotten from @apyrisol, @rainbowut, @what-have-i-unleashed, @wickjump, @xxtha and all the attendees of @thevioletbanquetutmvrp, in sharing lore or sending works that I thought were scrubbed or lost to time; but I was working under the assumption I could take my time and treat this as a hobby. But if I may need to hurry, this is just too much for one user to do by myself. It's just me running the blog, hence why it's had pauses according to my own availability.
UTMV may be more niche, but I want to continue doing my part in media conservation even if my blog's future has become uncertain in recent days. Any help at all would be appreciated.
Smith and Jones: THEE perfect intro for Martha, the Judoon are great new antagonists they're literally just space cops, big fan of the sexual tension. 10/10
The Shakespeare Code: I love when doctor who is like "there's no such thing as witches, they're just demonic creatures who use wordplay as a weapon" whatever, doc. I love how Shakespeare is characterized and his dynamic with martha and the doctor. Unfortunately two harry potter references are two too many. 7/10
Gridlock: fascinating episode, very emotionally moving, I like how the Macra are barely relevant and the homophobic cat was funny. 7/10
Daleks in Manhattan/ Evolution of the daleks: Tallulah is a fun character and there's class commentary, but evolution is really where it gets good, Dalek Sec is I MAINTAIN the second most interesting dalek character in all of dw, I like his stilted way of speaking and his rapport with the doctor. Honestly Sec carries this one for me and the end where they save Laszlo is sweet, 7/10
The Lazarus Experiment: this one isn't good per se, but it had something to say with the direct parallels between the doctor and Lazarus and the main plot vs the subplot of Mrs Jones trying to convince Martha the doctor is bad for her. Whatever. 4/10
42: now we're talking. I wear ship goggles when I'm watching this one, I love when the doctor is screaming for Martha's help 👍everyone is sweaty and hot. Capitalism. In space. 9/10
Human nature/ the family of blood: I don't give a fuck how well done the plot is I physically cannot stand this one because it is so goddamn racist. Nurse Redfern is such an unnecessary fucking character and I'm definitely not the first one to say that John Smith should have fallen for Martha instead. The fact that I'm supposed to feel any sympathy for John Smith for losing the life he could have had with Redfern is so insulting when not ONCE did Martha appear in his vision of the future and he still offered to take Redfern with him after she was racist and dismissive towards Martha (which she never apologized for) are you fucking kidding me? Does Martha mean nothing to him? 2/10 I don't care if it's mean.
Blink: still a solid episode, a certified Steven Moffat classic, what do I say? It's blink! 10/10
Utopia: this one is one of the best setups for a finale and the best setup for the masters return, it's so cleanly written and put together I'm so in awe of it. The "you are not alone" connection with Yana is pretty weak but who cares, the doctor stares at Jack's biceps. Derek Jacobi as the master is severely underrated even if he's only there for five minutes, I love chantho, 10/10
The sound of drums/last of the time lords: sigh :/ sound of drums is pretty decent, with the master as a looming political threat, but then last of the time lords... listen why did the master have to make the Joneses his slaves. Genuinely. Why. And I maintain that Martha should have gotten the Jesus power up instead of the doctor, it makes more sense. The scene where the master kills himself is still good. I think Martha's exit puts too much emphasis on "unrequited love" rather than the fact that shes a doctor and she has to take care of people. Whatever. 5/10
Verdict: one of the most well set up overarching plot lines, I think. Great except for when it's racist.
Reiker: How could I show you the murder weapon when you're already holding it!?
Axel: W-w-what? You mean this h-hunk'a junk? I mean… C'mon, it's broke! It can't do anything!
Reiker: You're right. It can't do anything now, because you broke it when you drilled out the strip screws inside of Flash!
Axel: Oh, this is ridiculous! You really believe this guy over me, Eggy?
Reiker: (… Eggy?)
Eggman: Do you have a rebuttal as to how this drill was compromised?
Axel: I… I-I mean… It just broke! You know how flimsy these things are! One little knock and somethin' in there comes loose!
Reiker: When you consider the maintenance appointment and the murder together, it all makes sense.
Reiker: Axel seemed to have this planned out ever since he saw the components Yanshu made for Flash.
Reiker: First he tried to remove them with his own tools, and when that didn't work, he stuck his tracker onto Flash before Yanshu came back in the room.
Reiker: Once she left for the day, he stole her tracker to frame her for the crime, grabbed his drill, and went after the victim!
Axel: I-… You! You don't have proof!
Bailiff-Bot: OBJECT RETRIEVED. TRACKER ID #5 PRESENT ON UPPER LEFT CHASSIS.
Eggman: Number 5, hm…?
Eggman: Have anything else you'd like to confess, Mr. Bolton?
Axel: … You know what, doc? I think I do.
[Vrrr...!]
Axel: I got this thing workin' just a few minutes ago. Upgraded it, too. Gave it some real power.
Axel: This thing could bore through the toughest metal you've got. Can only imagine how well it'd cut through meat.
Axel: So all'a you are gonna let me go back to my apartment, grab those parts, sell 'em to my buyer, and get the hell outta here, or else you're gonna get-!
[VRRRRR!!]
Axel: Oh- Ow ow ow OW OW!!!
Eggman: Bailiff, grab that mutt and his little toy before he causes any more damage.
Bailiff-Bot: YES, DOCTOR.
Eggman: Well, that was a mess. Prosecutor-
Eggman: … Where is Payne.
Yanshu: I-I think he left during the c-c-commotion…
Eggman: [Sigh] Figures… Well, I just got word from my SWAT-Bots that they were able to find the components in Axel's residence.
Yanshu: Y-… You mean I can fix him?
Eggman: Yes, I'm sure you can. I'll have the parts delivered to the courthouse so you can pick them up later today.
Eggman: But for future reference, next time you feel like pursuing some sort of personal project, be sure to run it by me before you activate it. It would've saved a whole lot of trouble, at the very least.
Yanshu: N-... Next time...?
Eggman: Yes, yes... Do you understand or not?
Yanshu: ... Y-yes, doctor…
Eggman: And Strait… Good work today. You fared much better than the other screw-ups I had working that desk.
Reiker: Oh! Um… Thank you, doctor.
Eggman: Now then, unless either of you have anything left to say on the matter, I pronounce the defendant, Yanshu Dryll…
That abbot pov q had me wondering about your process for writing - sry if you've answered elsewhere. Do you do notes/plot plan/what non pov character is thinking in one doc and then write in another? Do you go linearly?
I think just about starving tonight is one of the most compelling and thoughtful pieces of fic we have in that tag and the whole time i was reading it i was like damn... how do i do that. I have a plot idea I'm obsessing over but it's the most complicated thing i've ever wanted to write (ie it's not just pwp) and i bow at your feet honestly
Also when you get an idea how small is it and how do you build it out from there?
Full disclosure: the real answer is you just gotta try. You have to sit down and think about it and just keep plugging away until it's done. It sounds fake to say it, but my audience is always me. In six months, when I have gotten through the stress of writing and the adrenaline rush of posting, what am I going to want to sit down and read? Lean into your id. Write the jokes that make you and your friends laugh and the character development you care about and the kind of banging you want to see in the world.
Unfortunately, I write linearly. (Mostly. At one point this fic did have a section that just said [BONING????] because I wasn't in the mood to write that part so much as the conversation after and I was having an internal war about whether or not I could fade-to-black it.) My problem is that it's hard for me to write something if I don't know where it's going, so a lot of times I will get an idea and then sketch the bones all the way through so I know how I want it to end. That ending changes a lot as I write my way through it, but 95% of the time I have an endpoint in mind. When I'm actively writing, I put this at the top of the doc, just a paragraph of word salad that sounds like I'm talking to someone else (which I am, I'm talking to the me in the future who still needs to be excited about writing this when it feels like it might never end). This gets longer as it goes because at some point I will go back and flesh that out with more scene ideas or emotional beats or lines of dialogue, until it's half-outline, half-serial-killer-manifesto. I keep it at the top of the doc for reference and will cut out the chunks I'm writing and slap them at the bottom of the fic so I can kind of see them without scrolling. Ultimately I move those bits to a garbage can doc, which is also where I put scenes that aren't working or other notes to myself that seem important (there are screenshots of the ERAS timeline and calendars, for example, because at one point while writing I tried to figure out what days Samira would have been working and then realized who gives a shit!), so in the end the monster paragraph/outline is all dissected and honestly looks kind of crazy. All the cutting and pasting is because I hate switching between tabs when I'm writing lol.
Coming up with ideas and fleshing them out is kind of like that, but also a little "who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear!" I wrote the first part of this -- Samira and Jack ending up at training together, up until "I'm gonna need to borrow a pen" -- thinking that it would be something short and sweet and he would cheat off her for the final test and they would like, hook up at the bar after or something. But for some reason I thought oh maybe you want to do something longer and trope-ier, so I threw a bunch of dumb comments into the notes app on my phone (the bit about the blizzard, him being a baby about annual flu shots, Samira getting tricked into the fundraiser, her saving him an empanada when the hospital has food trucks come by one day). And as I was thinking about that I realized oh, duh, you want to write an actual slow burn.
At first I thought that was going to be about Samira freaking out about being bumped up to an R4 and dealing with Robby being a hardass, but for some reason I thought about Dancing in the Dark (I ain't nothing but tired / man I'm just tired and bored with myself) and that 30 Rock quote Remember: nothing that happens on Leap Day counts. Real life is for March and all I could think about was how Samira's whole life has been this single-minded focus on her career and she's saving everything else for later, figuring that she can settle down once she's gotten there, and how interesting it would be if her life slowly changed while she wasn't paying attention and suddenly she realizes she's in love with this old man and her game-of-Life-esque plan has been blown to smithereens. Which made me think of the Adrienne Rich poem, and the psych-out of it, how it redefines loneliness, and this honestly all makes me seem a lot deeper than I actually am. Because all that meant was I sat down and sketched out the year in that outline, at first only broken down into seasons because I knew it had to straddle the academic year, too, and that's when I started filling in all the stuff with Ellis -- because there's no way Samira's changing her plans just for some dude, she needed to have friends and an actual life outside of work -- and then as I started to write I added in bits with Mel and Robby and all the other beats, and I would go back and flesh out the paragraph-outline with scene ideas or jokes that came to me and watch the word count balloon. Mel taking over the TikTok wasn't in the outline, neither was 90% of the stuff with Langdon; that all came out kind of organically as I was writing.
And sometimes the story changes! Like at first the Robby stuff was about him holding Samira to this higher standard as a senior resident and how she was so frustrated because he had never been like that with Collins, and Jack was like "Yeah, try sleeping with him and see if that changes anything." And at that point I thought the revelation near the end was going to be Abbot saying to her "Don't take this the wrong way, but you'd be wasted in research," and the more I wrote and worked through it and thought about it, the worse it sounded. I was halfway through writing when I realized it should be Robby that casually mentions that the field would miss her, because that would worm its way into her brain and never fucking leave, and so I went back and re-wrote that scene and that unlocked everything, emotionally, all the way up through the end. (Which also changed from what I had originally sketched out, but for the better. That only happened because at some point I sat down and looked up far too many research fellowships until I found something that had one foot in each world for her.)
Basically: outlining helps. Having an end goal in mind helps because then you can keep yourself honest about the emotional arc. I'm bad at pwp and keeping anything short because I'm always like but WHY would they do that? HOW did the sex pollen get into the hospital? HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THEIR RELATIONSHIPS? I never throw anything away because even if I didn't write Samira making fun of Jack for being a baby about his flu shot, it's still fun to think about her going to Peds to get him a lollipop "for being so brave" and how hard he'd have to clench his jaw so he could pretend he was mad at her, and how twenty minutes later she'd spot him eating it at the hub, his lips cherry-red and his tongue rolling the stick to the corner of his mouth so he could talk around it, and she'd have to go stand outside in the October night to freeze the dangerous thoughts out of her head.
Really interested in whatever is going on with Steve, Dustin, Jonathan, and Nancy falling into the Upside Down with the antenna on their car.
It's definitely a callback to the farm stuff in season 2 when Joyce, Bob, and the boys went to rescue Hopper through Will's 'now-memories' which made him 'remember... remember all the time'.
But it's also a contrast to season 3 when Steve tried to drive them up the hill to Weathertop for Cerebro - the highest point in Hawkins - so they could communicate with the adults way down in the Russian lab.
While your love keeps lifting me higher and higher plays.
Which was also a reference to the ending of Back to the Future which they were watching earlier, where Doc arrives to take Marty and his girlfriend to the future to rescue their children.
Except while Marty saves the future, he screws up the present, and has to go all the way back to the past again.
And while Dustin and Erica went left in the vents, Murray has to go right because he's going in the opposite direction.
Same with the way to the farm in season 2 - while Will tells them to turn right, Lucas tells Max to make a left later. And Bob also says that Will's tunnels aren't roads, but they act like roads.
Same motif in season 4 with Nina. Except instead of making a sudden turn like the others, Jonathan stops them before they can get too lost.
It doesn't make sense to him, but Suzie is right.
Just like Steve and Dustin later with Lovers' Lake. Confounding! But both of them were right.
The Russian lab in season 3 is a remake of another lab though, just like Nina in season 4. Joyce, Hopper, and Murray go through the 'real' Russian lab in season 4.
@/reo-bylerwagon pointed out that the tunnel to the vault in the Starcourt lab looked like a Stop sign, which is interesting because the Nina tunnel looks like the Russian machine! With a road. Because El is journeying into the past, like so many other characters this season.
But we've only seen people 'above' helping those below navigate their way through so far. Dustin guided Murray through the vents, Owens guided Bob through the lab basement in season 2, Jonathan gave Hopper the signal to close the gate in season 2, and Dustin again helped the teens get back to the real world in season 4.
They did figure out how to establish contact with the Upside Down in season 4 with the music and the lights, so the last thing left is figuring out how to boost the signal that's coming from inside the Upside Down without El's help(?) Without that connection getting fried or cut short.
I'm also pretty sure this grouping is meant to loosely parallel Joyce, Bob, Hopper (and Lonnie) in TFS with their D.A.D. device which they were using to find the pet murderer. That group got it wrong, but maybe this group will finally solve the mystery.
Anyway. The fact that season 5 is anchored by this radio show construct - just like with Bob in TFS - and you have the two established 'radio' guys in the Upside Down is so special to me.
Dr Constellation's Good Omens Master Post of Metas
(Updated 4 June 2024)
See my Google Doc for a full list of Tumblr posts of interest.
Future Echos of the Past
The story of the Great War in Heaven as it appears in the present
#1: The Great War of Tadfield Manor
#2: The Newton/Crowley Mirror/Parallel in S1
#3: "Not Even At Gunpoint"
Archangel Gabriel
Supreme Archangel Gabriel often stands on the demonic left-hand side in scene blocking, rather than the angelic right. He’s also fond of taking center stage!
Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S1 Study
S2 Study Part 1: Ep.1 The Arrival and Ep. 2 The Clue
S2 Study Part 2: Ep.3 I Know Where I'm Going and Ep. 5 The Ball
S2 Study Part 3: Ep.6 Every Day
First-Order Archangels Part 1: Maybe You'll See An Archangel
Gabriel and Crowley act as both parallels and foils to each other in S2. In Part 1 we look at some of the ways they are alike.
First-Order Archangels Part 2: Foils of War
Part 2 takes a look at where Gabriel and Crowley oppose one another, as well as highlighting some parallels between their respective partners, Beelzebub and Aziraphale.
First-Order Archangels Part 3: Seeing Eye To Eye
Gabriel and Crowley both have an interesting connection to time.
The Assistant Book Seller
Jim’s knitted vest holds a wealth of symbolic information - and a surprise nod that you didn’t expect.
Giles the Herald
An interesting parallel to Gabriel at the end of S1.
Aziraphale's Edinburgh Journey
Part 1: Detective Aziraphale
One of the reasons Aziraphale goes to Edinburgh is because it is a narrative parallel to Crowley’s trip to Heaven. There are also a couple of other things we need to consider, too.
Part 2: Aziraphale-Beelzebub Parallels
While Gabriel is Crowley’s mirror in S2, Beelzebub is Aziraphale’s. And there is a third character that makes an interesting mirror-triangle analysis that combines and reflects both major characters together as well.
Part 3: Stocktaking in the Basement
Aziraphale does a lot of reflection about the past while he’s on his trip to Edinburgh. How can this help him in the future?
Part 4: Judgement Day
Aziraphale's trip to Edinburgh - and most of S2 - is filled with hints and references to the Second Coming. Gabriel's statue is one of them, but it has another role as well (and it's not for hiding anything under, sorry.)
Part 5: I Know Where I'm Going
Named after a Powell and Pressburger film, and an old Scottish folk song, this title sets the theme for Ep. 3 in S2. It's a discussion about Fate versus Free Will, the dangers of trying to escape fate, and looking at things from a different angle.
Archangel Rings
All the Archangels have golden rings, as well as Aziraphale. Find out what they reveal about each character.
The Golden Lions of Heaven (includes Aziraphale's Lion ring)
Michael the Watchful
Uriel's Star Ring
The Brutal Truth about Sandalphon's Ring
A Companion to Owls minisode
Goats, Crows and The Flood
Crawley turns Job's goats into crows to save them. Why crows? And how does this link to the Flood?
Angelic Sheep and Demonic (Scape)Goats
Understanding the link between goats and demons gives you a deeper insight into Crowley's story - and also some of Aziraphale's.
Come Back When You Can Make A Whale
Take a deep dive into the Book of Job - and find out what it might be foreshadowing for S3
Aye, a Newt
Why Job’s children are turned into geckos, and a S1 connection.
Crossing the Threshold
Inside the Dirty Donkey
We’re going to the pub! What secrets does the Dirty Donkey hide behind its name?
Lifting the Veil on the Bentley
Peering behind the meaning of the Bentley’s number plate.
Memento mori
This is one of the major themes of the series - Remember that you die.
Obligatory Reminders and Crossing the Lines
Have you been wondering why Shax tries to do a mail delivery to Crowley as he escorts the shop keepers to safety from Aziraphale's Eldritch Ball? It seems a pretty random thing to do at that moment.
Stand-Alone Metas
The Ineffable Ducks
What are all those ducks doing? Ever got the feeling that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you…?
The Altar of Eccles Cakes
The Eccles cakes don’t look like they are doing much, but they are there for a reason - so is some of the other food you see.
The Cupperty Ceremony
Every bit of food and drink in both seasons has a metaphorical significance. Tea is no exception. It’s one of the few times an eastern philosophy creeps into Good Omens, but still meets with a western ideal.
When Crowley Met Jesus, and The Other Demon at Golgotha
Aziraphale suggests not one but two demon names to Crowley when they meet at Golgotha. Together they make a clever joke about the Third Temptation that most people miss.
Being Kind to One Another
Some clever and subtle word play on kind, linked between two scenes in the S1E3 Hard Times cold opening.
Once and Future Royalty
There’s a King Arthur and Camelot sub-theme running through parts of S1 And S2. Grab your coconuts and saddle up for a crazy ride through time and space!
Portable People
Crowley's yeeting them around while stress-cleaning the bookshop, Jimbriel is trying to sell them to the investigating archangels, and Muriel just wants to read them all. Should we give a second thought to any of these books?.
Bebop and the Book
Why can Anathema always put her hand on the right card at the right time?
Chiastic Structure of S1
Chiastic structure is a literary device where the story line is mirrored in reverse around a central point. S1 has an amazingly detailed chiastic structure, which actually reveals and confirms some meta speculations!
Chiastic Structure of S2
S1 was a fantastic example of a mirrored story line. S2 …isn’t. But there are still a substantial number of chiastic pairs to be found.
Liberty versus the Tree of Life
A philosophical look at the choices between coffee, freewill and death compared to access to the Trees of Knowledge and Life in the Garden of Eden.
Taking Things At Face Value
How our internalized values influence the way we judge people, often based on their outward appearance alone.
The Rules of Engagement
The Technicalities of Licenses, Permits and the Limits of Authority in Good Omens
A Tale of Two Peacocks
A look at the relationship between Gabriel and Michael: what they think of each other, and how they act as foils to each other.
If you are looking for more metas there is a group effort on this google doc here: Good Omens Crackpotting Theory Tracker This brings a lot of ops together in the one place.
