Uriel Doing What Has To Be Done

Uriel Doing What has to be Done

“Just because he told us his plan doesn’t mean that’s his plan. It’s Uriel.”

I’ve been thinking about Uriel. And I’ve been wondering how much of the pattern he could see at any given moment. Because he’s an angel; an immortal. A human minute is not the same to an immortal being who doesn’t have to live within the concept of a lifespan of perhaps 80-90 years. Does Uriel see patterns of days? Yes; he claims pressing the key will kill Chloe in two days. Does he see months? Years? Is it a clue that, when talking about Mum, he says, “She’s been here, what? Three minutes? Now you’re already defending her.”

Because here’s the real question: Why does Uriel bring Azrael’s blade to Earth? (And why, for that matter, does Azrael let him? Death is always watching.) We, the audience, think it’s because he’s going to use it to kill Mum. We think that because it’s the conclusion Lucifer jumps to, and even though we have seen Lucifer jump to many many wrong conclusions in the past, we believe him. Not only that, Uriel’s very appearance, I believe, plays on audience-held prejudices and biases. 

Before Uriel, every celestial we meet is tall and strong and beautiful. We trust Lucifer because he’s our POV character, even though we know that his own feelings and emotions and history make him an unreliable narrator. We have seen the beautiful favorite son, firstborn angel Amenadiel fall in slow motion and then crawl haltingly back toward the light. We’ve seen Amenadiel do good things and we trust him, too, especially when Lucifer grows to trust him.

When Uriel shows up, he’s shorter and thicker than either Lucifer or Amenadiel. His human form is older; he is not young and beautiful, his clothes are drab and either too baggy or too tight. And if first impressions don’t ensure we already dislike him, Lucifer’s attitude toward Uriel takes us the rest of the way—disparaging Uriel’s trenchcoat as “pe/do/phile chic,” for example. That’s a laden word.

We, the audience, think we know what Lucifer thinks he knows: Uriel has come to hurt Chloe. Like Lucifer, we love Chloe and hate anyone who would hurt her. We distrust Uriel because his clothes, his appearance, his New York accent, his Mafiaesque vibe, like relying on ‘accidents’ to get what he wants and ensure his outcomes (Hell, the actor’s connection to The Sopranos) encourage us to. Kimo breaks legs for the Mob in the same episode we’ve got an Italian American actor known for major gangster-related roles pulling strings; these things are rarely coincidental with the Lucifer writers.

This episode is about appearances. Lying about them. Changing them. Pretending to be something you’re not. Amenadiel pretends to still be a powerful angel; Chloe pretends she’s not as upset about the accident as she is; Kimo pretends he still has movie star money; Jamie Lee pretends she still loves Kimo; the manager pretends he has Kimo’s best interests at heart; Kimo and Wesley pretend to be enemies; Chloe reads Coraline–appearances!!–to Trixie. What is Uriel pretending to be? How, perhaps, is his appearance at odds with his truth?

Uriel pulls out Azrael’s blade after explaining, “Dad’ll do the same thing [forgive Mum], he’ll let his guard down, and then she’ll destroy him. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.” If we look at the events of “God Johnson,” this is exactly what happens. The God we see in God Johnson may not be the full power of the Almighty, but we know He has some of God’s essence, some of His memories. It’s not just the healing power of life; God knows Lucifer as Samael without prompting. And we know that iteration of God is willing to forgive. Mum is the one we know isn’t interested in forgiveness because she tells us again and again that she’s got an axe to grind and boy she can’t wait to get at the sharpener.

God, after all, is still an enigma—as “The Weaponizer” reminds us with Lucifer’s angry speech about how no one knows what He wants, and the various grace notes peppered throughout the episode reminding us everyone is essentially blind when it comes to God’s actual wants/plans/needs—”Nobody bloody knows because the selfish bastard won’t just tell us!” That this is immediately followed by “There’s my Lightbringer” in an episode that is going to introduce us to the flaming sword is not a coincidence. Mum means Lightbringer as truthbringer, I think; shedding light in the darkness. It’s one of the many meanings of Lucifer’s name and his insistence on never lying.

But back to Lucifer and Uriel at the church. Lucifer is the one who points out it’s Azrael’s blade; he explains its power; he says, “No Heaven, no Hell, just gone.”

Uriel replies, “Finally a moment of clarity between us.”

But is it the clarity we, the audience, think it is? Is it the death we (and Lucifer) assume Uriel is planning? Because when we get to the finale (Uriel says, “Maybe I’m working up to a big finale.”), isn’t that what happens? Lucifer slices open the universe and Mum leaves. No Heaven. No Hell. Just gone.

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@All the northerners making fun of Texans rn:

Our houses are not built for temperatures below 30°F. They’re also designed to shed heat. Good design for when it regularly gets to 100°F in the summer and winters are mild.

Homes here generally do not have furnaces. We rely on heat pumps and resistance coils, the former of which is not effective below 25°F, and the latter of which use lots of electricity

The electrical infrastructure is designed to meet demand in the afternoons in the heat of the summer, not frigid winter nights. Also, while we have a shit ton of wind and solar capacity, it’s currently crippled by frozen turbines and snowfall.

Combine all of the above and the electrical grid usage is astronomical, even when people are barely reaching 50°F indoors. The stress on the system and reduced generating capacity has caused ERCOT to start rolling blackouts as a way of preventing a mass uncontrolled blackout ala the Northeast in 2003. So that means no heat in houses that naturally shed heat, when it’s 7°F out.

Since we live in a warm place, many people don’t have clothing for this level of cold. Means a lot of people are really, really cold, and their houses are already losing heat fast.

Speaking of homes shedding heat, this also means pipes are not heavily insulated, and without proper measures taken (which many people are unaware of) that means no water.

We don’t generally keep equipment like ice scrapers and snow shovels handy. Most hardware stores don’t stock rock salt for ice. Meaning we can’t leave our homes and go anywhere if the car and roads are covered with ice. The cities don’t have snow plows. Nobody here has chains or snow tires to be able to drive safely either.

As if all of this is not already bad enough, the local plants are not evolved for this kind of freeze, including snow. So many trees are breaking under the weight and causing damage.

We’re not wimps. We’re simply not built for it, don’t have the gear for it, and don’t have instinctual level response of what to do in these situations. It’s like how the Northeast had a lot of issues after Hurricane Sandy.

Some eaiser variations of push ups to help you build the strength to do a traditional one!

i was like “jiang cheng’s courtesy name could be translated as Nightsong River” and asma said “that sounds like a unicorn name” and that, NATURALLY, got me thinking about unicorns

[images are three paintings of unicorns. the first resembles a warmblood or andalusian, with a kirin-like horn and an pale, icy-grey coat; his mane, tail, and feathering are white and stylized to look like clouds; a long white ribbon is wound halter-like around his face and trails off from where it’s tied behind his ears. the second resembles a fine-boned arabian in a rakish pose, jet black and backlit with eerie red light, mane and tail so long they tangle like smoke. a bold red ribbon is in his tail. the third has an athletic build, a roman nose and an angry expression, is black with purple highlights, a silver chain around one stomping hoof and purple lightning sparking off his horn and raised forehoof.

the fourth image is several sketches of further unicorns: a blustery alicorn colt; one with an overgrown mane, shackled hooves and blank eyes; one blindfolded with a broken horn; a stout, bearded one communicating disgruntedly with a much smaller, delicate-looking one; and a secretive-looking one with curled mawari ears. the ears are labeled, “these instead of dimples.”]

It’s the Dose that Makes the Poison: Lucifer Thoughts and Speculation

I’m going to throw the entirety of this under a cut because spoilers. I’ve been rearranging the pieces on the table and I have some meta and a plausible(?) theory about how things might shake out.

…this is almost four thousand words long, and frankly? I feel I’ve barely grazed the surface.

Also, I put it on AO3 for ease of reading and/or in case anyone wants to have, idk, threaded conversations ;D

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What I think is interesting about the “First they came for” poem is how people don’t really mention who the author was because Martin Niemöller was actually a conservative pastor initially and the point was that Communists, socialists trade unionists and Jews were all groups that the circles he ran with disliked (even if it wasn’t to the murderous levels of the Nazis) because of their shared godlessness and after the war he pivoted hard towards the left while also making it clear that he should’ve realized his errors when only people he saw as godless degenerates were being effected