liquidlyrium:

akinmytua2:

liquidlyrium:

liquidlyrium:

joan-daardvark:

I have never noticed how Aziraphale’s instinctive reaction to being called Crowley’s friend is to smile at him:

This is the moment right before Aziraphale remembers that they’re not supposed to be seen together and starts explaining that they have never met before. So, even in Shakespearean times he already considered Crowley to be his friend. Which makes the bandstand scene and the “We’re not friends” even more ridiculous. This angel is so good at lying to himself.

Also, as I’ve already said somewhere, Crowley then proceeds with the famous Age does not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety. By saying this, he’s playing on Aziraphale’s ridiculous excuses about having never met before and not knowing each other. Basically Crowley is emphasizing the fact that, firstly, they are friends indeed and, secondly, that each of their meeting is like discovering each other anew. 

In other words, he says Yes, Aziraphale, one could really say that we’ve never met before because your infinite variety makes each of our meetings feel like the first one. 

Also I just realized the other day… This sentence that Will plagiarizes ends up in Antony and Cleopatra. Like I knew that before, because @drawlight pointed it out, but I suddenly made the connection “Oh, so Anthony wasn’t a random choice for a first name then, huh.” Like wow. Naming yourself after the titular character in a play that didn’t exist yet but you contributed to on one of your dates. How sentimental!!! (Especially when you consider the terms on which they parted… Happier memories… I wonder if the name is a sort of apology/olive branch. ‘let’s start over/dial it back, remember the good times?’)

God I just can’t stop thinking about this now!! Crowley, waking up after his extended nap. Getting back in the saddle, maybe still spending a few years apart from Aziraphale depending on when you think exactly he woke up. Suddenly he’s busy and he needs a name…. And maybe enough time has finally passed that he regrets the argument they had. He knows why they can’t come to terms, and he won’t ask for it again, but he misses his angel. So what better way to signal to him, “If you hear about me, please, I’m ready to talk. I’m ready to make up. Please, I’m going to build up a reputation until you can’t ignore me. I want to meet you again and discover how you changed in my absence” than to pick the name Anthony???

“Remember when I said that about you? When I talked about meetings and knowing? I’m ready for that again.”

Except. He went by some version of Tony with Da Vinci didn’t he?

…… That I think is true (I think it was Antonio maybe??? Idk if that’s a book reference or something they added for one of the special editions), but consider… Anthony and Cleopatra did exist. And their romance was defined, as much as one can glean any truth about such mythologized figures, as an arrangement becoming something more. Something real. Being on their own side against a great power that ultimately vanquished them.

And I also don’t think that necessarily precludes Crowley advertising himself as Anthony as a means of communicating all these feelings to Aziraphale. (In any case, Aziraphale doesn’t seem to know about the moniker prior to 1941….)

Select additional comments:

@ambular-d​comment: So does that mean when Aziraphale said ‘Anthony??…I’ll get used to it’ at the church, he was implying 'Wait, you’re seriously casting me as Cleopatra?? … all right, well, if that’s really how you feel about it then who am I to contradict’

@a-ginger-in-black​reply: The Roman dude’s name was Antony, not Anthony, though in British English they’re pronounced the same.

In the novel, there’s mention of the Mona Lisa cartoon being dedicated to Antonio, so he was using the name by 1503 at the latest.

@joan-daardvark​ reply: This makes me wonder why this alias didn’t come up until 1941. Not to Aziraphale, in any case.

joan-daardvarkreply: Upon further consideration and discussion with @forbiddenmadrigals… What if he’d already taken this alias in Rome? He could have witnessed Antony and Cleopatra’s romance and heard Antony say these same words to her in real life. So he didn’t come up with Age does not wither, but rather repeated it. He thought that this description suited the angel well and then uttered it at a convenient time (at the Globe). All that was left was to nudge Shakespeare to write a play about the events which Crowley had actually seen himself.

Another thing excites me though. The details below confuse me more than actually clarify anything but I think they’re worth mentioning anyway:

Original sin, serpents… May I go completely nuts and suggest that Crowley could, in fact, be Cleopatra? This doesn’t explain why he chose Antony as an alias but still it’s a fun thought. Or maybe he was present at her court? Who knows but it’s curious nevertheless.

Also, knowing my obsession with solar/lunar symbolism (Aziraphale = Sun, Crowley = Moon), I found this so very endearing:

Helios meaning sun and Selene meaning moon, ofc.

@liquidlyrium​reply: Yes! I saw that in my frantic wiki reading as well!!! This is all extremely good!!!! (Also if we’re being honest Crowley is not the soldier of the two)

I mean let’s also consider that we know that they view each other far better than they see themselves yes? At the trials, Crowley plays Aziraphale as brave and strong under pressure… Yes he is Cleopatra clearly, but maybe he took that name because of what he sees in Antony (Aziraphale) in the hopes that he’d take on some of those qualities 0:

But he never let on until 1941 I’m still dying at all these Implications

joan-daardvarkreply: …in the hopes that he’d take on some of those qualities

You mean, like, as if they were able to… become each other?? *le gasp*

liquidlyriumreply: but also counterpoint: Crowley adopted the name so that his initials would be AC so that way he could always see them next to each other. Esp when he thought it would never happen because SIDES and all

joan-daardvarkreply(): Knowing his propensity to symbolism, I don’t see why not. We’re talking about a person bringing stone lecterns to his house in memory of his forbidden love, he could absolutely do that.

I am also convinced he sees it as something stylish.

theniceandaccurategoodomensblog:

Soft or BAMF?

Alright here’s my two cents in the is Aziraphale soft or BAMF question: he’s both. He’s fully both and he’s always been both because, in spite of what we get told, there’s a certain kind of BAMFness that comes from softness. They aren’t actually opposites. Softness (compassion, kindness etc) is not weakness. It requires great strength and it generates strength.

There are two kinds of BAMF. There’s the one we usually see: the hot-headed, competitive, let’s take on the world and win, aggressive, ambitious kind of BAMF. That’s all bravado and hot anger. You know, the kind of anger that calls you to destroy, to conquer? And then after you may well regret your actions?

But there’s the other kind too: a protective, ruthlessly determined, aggressive yes, but in a defensive way kind of BAMF. It is a whole different thing. It isn’t a hot anger at all, but a cold one. It never calls you to seek out and destroy but it is the certainty that you must do what you must do to protect what needs protecting. And when it is moved it is absolutely ruthless. Actions taken are not regretted. They are, after all, simply what had to be done. This is the BAMFness that grows out of softness (compassion, kindness) because part of all of that softness is ruthlessly and fiercely protecting what you love, those you are compassionate towards. It is a kind of righteous anger (appropriately enough!) motivated not by ego but by correcting wrongs.

Think of a mama bear. From the cub’s perspective she’s all love and kindness. All softness. If all’s well she’s happy fussing about with her cave, her world, her cubs. She’s not interested in ego-related aggression like expanding her territory. Far better to make peace, to forge the kind of alliances that allow for a peaceful world in which her cubs can grow. But if you step into her cave and threaten her cubs you’ll see a very different side to all of that softness because she will kill you without hesitation. Not because she’s aggressive in a hot-headed way but out of compassion and love for her cubs. You simply must be eliminated and that’s that.

That is the BAMFness of Aziraphale. It isn’t in opposition to his softness. It grows out of it. His is a righteous BAMFness. He will do everything he can to forge the kind of peace his cubs (Crowley, humanity) need. He’s had no ambitions on anyone else’s territory. But if you step into his cave (the world) and threaten his cubs he will do whatever he thinks is needed to eliminate that threat (break his alliance to Heaven, possess a human, kill a child, argue with the highest authority in Heaven).

And that, for me, is a key lesson Aziraphale gives us: softness is not weakness. That is a lie. There is a kind of ruthless and righteous strength that grows out of softest parts of ourselves. Aziraphale is a soft BAMF.

Select additional comments:

@aethelflaedladyofmerciareply: I absolutely agree.

I think in the series, we see Aziraphale trying to reject and deny his BAMF side a bit, just really fall into being the soft cuddly sofa person, “the nice one.” I think he loses sight, at times, of the fact that he can be both, that he is both, that denying one side or the other is denying himself.

Somewhere between “I’m not fighting in any war” and taking care of the soldier, he rediscovers his BAMF side. Not all at once, not at one specific moment, but action after action shows he is pushing away from his soft side because the world (and Crowley) needs the BAMF angel.

But then he goes too far. He forgets his soft side, and now he’s all-in on killing a child. The BAMF side is where he keeps his strength, but the soft is where his compassion is. He tried to put that side of himself away, and it was nearly a disaster.

But.

Then he finds the balance point. BAMF enough to debate theology with the Archangel fucking Gabriel, soft enough to comfort a scared 11-year-old and help him find the courage to save them.

And…that’s who Aziraphale really is. In that moment, he’s found his best self - the self that is as strong as those around him need him to be, and soft enough to know how to wield that strength.

It might take him some time to get comfortable with the way the two halves occupy his self, but the hardest bit - accepting they are both him, knowing he needs to lean on both sides, seeing them as his inner yin and yang not some dichotomy he has to choose between - that has come, and he has survived it.

@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: No, no — I disagree with this. My whole point is they are NOT separate sides. His is the kind of BAMFness that grows out of softness. His willingness to kill Adam—in that absolutely extreme situation in which he honestly believes it is the only way to save the world—is an act of compassion—for the world and everyone in it—it is the fierce and protective side of compassion. Think: mama bear killing to protect her cubs. He isn’t balancing two sides. It is all one thing. But it is a kind of BAMFness that is rarely portrayed or talked about and so we find it hard to recognise.

@aethelflaedladyofmerciareply: Hmm, I think I didn’t articulate very well and now we’re talking past each other. Let me try again.

Agree:

• Aziraphale’s strength comes from his protective instincts and compassion
• There is a strength in softness
• Soft doesn’t equal weak
• They aren’t two sides that need to be chosen between

However:

• Heaven’s strength is generally very aggressive, as is Hell’s. This is the lens through which characters see and understand “strength”
• This includes Aziraphale - he doesn’t know his own strength, he thinks he’s weak BECAUSE he doesn’t show that kind of strength (I’m soft!) - he thinks he has to play by Heaven’s rules, be one or the other.
• And as a result, he feels the need to be less compassionate while saving the world - he is still being protective of the world as a whole, but he THINKS his natural compassion and desire to protect those in front of him is a weakness
• This leads to him almost shooting Adam, when a more measured assessment of the situation would have made him realize that he should be trying to help the child.
• Then, while watching the Them beat the Horsepeople, he realizes his mistake. He recognizes their strength, and his own, and is able to embrace the balanced strength that comes natural to him

(What I’m reminded of is how in martial arts, people think of being calm and being active as two separate states - you’re calm/at rest/patient, or you’re active/emotional/strong. However, practitioners know you get the best strength from that calm state - they aren’t opposites, you use calm to fuel activity. Acknowledging this and finding your strength in the calmness is an important early step.

(The kind of strength Heaven shows is an opposite of compassion; Aziraphale’s flows from compassion. When he accepts his own strength, he rejects Heaven’s and becomes the better version of himself. It feels like balancing two sides when you do it, but it’s not - it’s rejecting the part you don’t need and learning to draw your strength from the right source.)

I hope that makes more sense…this is very hard to put into words!

@angel-and-serpentreply: He’s a level-headed BAMF. He believes in sacrificing one for the sake of many, if that’s what it takes. He wishes it wouldn’t come to actual violence, though. Destroying the Antichrist isn’t a nice job, but somebody has to do it and Crowley is too busy crying over his car, really darling I could use some help here!

Once he sees that Adam isn’t the unholy threat that they both imagined, but a child - a human child, no different than the other humans he’s been charged to protect - his priorities change then and there.

@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: Yes. While he honestly believes—a totally reasonable belief at the time too—that the only way to save the world is to kill Adam, it is a morally reasonable step to take. It isn’t a failure of softness, it is motivated by compassion. If, when faced with the same scenario, he refused to kill Adam he would have had to live with the death of literally every other child on the planet.

This list is from the spreadsheet for the 2016 worldwide results, where there were 3055 useable responses, and 179 unique identity words or phrases entered.

Most commonly entered at the top, with number of times entered and percentage in brackets.

• Nonbinary (1975, 65%)
• Genderqueer (1243, 41%)
• Trans (1063, 35%)
• Agender (944, 31%)
• Transgender (943, 31%)
• Fluid gender/genderfluid (942, 31%)
• Enby (477, 16%)
• Demigender (452, 15%)
• Transmasculine (434, 14%)
• Neutral (420, 14%)
• Questioning or unknown (397, 13%)
• Androgyne (380, 12%)
• Woman (or girl if you are younger) (363, 12%)
• Trans* (272, 9%)
• None/I do not describe my gender (259, 8%)
• Man (or boy if you are younger) (232, 8%)
• Neutrois (207, 7%)
• Transfeminine (200, 7%)
• Bigender (123, 4%)
• Third gender (84, 3%)
• Intergender (47, 2%)
• Cisgender (26, 1%)
• Genderflux (25, 1%)
• genderless (17, 1%)
• Femme (14, 0%, so everything below here is 0%)
• maverique (12)
• gendervoid, voidgender, void (8)
• gender non-conforming (8)
• trigender (7)
• two-spirit (7)
• Polygender (7)
• Agenderflux (6)
• transfeminine (6)
• Queer (6)
• Butch (5)
• gendervague (5)
• aporagender (5)
• Transsexual (5)
• gender variant (4)
• human/person (4)
• genderfuck(ed) (4)
• apogender (4)
• Male (4)
• boy (adult) (4)
• femme nb, nb femme, etc. (3)
• greygender (3)
• pangender (3)
• masculine of centre (3)
• Mixed gender (2)
• Demiagender (2)
• non-gendered (2)
• genderpunk (2)
• boi (2)
• Fluid agender/agenderfluid (2)
• Female (2)
• genderweird (2)
• androgynous (specifically not androgyne) (2)
• genderful (2)
• Transwoman (2)
• confused (2)
• alexigender (2)
• geek (2)
• Transman (1)
• null / no gender (1)
• Other (1)
• guy (1)
• intersex(ed) (1)
• FTM/female to male (1)
• post-gender (1)
• aliagender (1)
• multi-gender(ed) (1)
• fairy or faery (1)
• transfemale (1)
• videgender (1)
• tomboy (1)
• Mutogender (1)
• plural (1)
• ilyagender (1)
• ambigender (1)
• librafeminine (1)
• witch (1)
• FTMTX (1)
• genderfree (1)
• hybrid (1)
• trans boi (1)
• androgynous woman (1)
• fluid centering just androgynous of female (1)
• androgynous genderqueer transwoman (1)
• nonbinary guy (1)
• culturally female (1)
• voidboy (1)
• feminine genderflux (1)
• fluidflux (1)
• libramasculine (1)
• nonbinary, but woman aligned (1)
• woman-aligned (1)
• blank (1)
• bakla (1)
• ladyboy (1)
• a Literal Mess (1)
• grey-agender boy (1)
• Star Trek extra (1)
• transqueer (1)
• nonbinary boy (1)
• neuter (1)
• egogender (1)
• nondual (1)
• nerd (1)
• boyflux (1)
• demifluid (1)
• kid (1)
• not cisgender (1)
• rejects gender (1)
• demifemme (1)
• androfem (1)
• virgender (1)
• eldrigender (1)
• nb (1)
• female fiction (1)
• herm (1)
• paragender (1)
• nonbinary gendermeh (1)
• magiboy (1)
• genderchill (1)
• pretty boy (1)
• dandy (1)
• bordergender (1)
• demimasculine (1)
• gender related to “girl” (1)
• well, ‘woman’ seems simplest, let’s just go with that (1)
• winkte (two spirit) (1)
• tunte (german) (1)
• x-jender (1)
• nonhuman (1)
• transgender androgyne (1)
• ambi-binary (1)
• angenital (1)
• dual gender (1)
• alien (1)
• gender non-compliant (1)
• autistic (1)
• gender-abolitionist (1)
• of trans experience (1)
• androgyne of centre (1)
• juxera neutroisflux (1)
• differently gendered (1)
• bear (1)
• demigal (1)
• queer trans person of colour (qtpoc) (1)
• stargender (1)
• mahu (1)
• non-male (1)
• afraid (1)
• butch/femme/mix (1)
• not defined (1)
• all genders (1)
• i caucus with women (1)
• [angry profanity] (1)
• [blank panic] (1)
• transgender female (1)
• cassgender (1)
• somewhat feminine most of the time (1)
• girlfing (1)
• None Of Your Business (1)
• gender disobedient (1)
• divigender (1)
• ladydude (1)
• transfemme (1)
• girl aligned (1)
• nth gender (1)
• monstrous (1)
• nonbinary girl (1)
• demiflux (1)
• femme boy (1)
• autisgender (1)
• traumagender (1)
• faegender (1)
• xenogender (1)
• queer who don’t care (1)

It’s been a while since the last time I’ve allowed myself to air my headspace here, and just “post like no-one’s watching”, but now seems like a good time; called upon by a need to escape this increasingly trapped feeling I am having from Dear Franchise pushing on to uncharted territories, into a seemingly narrower space in this certain specific field. In a sincere effort of inclusion, but perhaps quite misguidedly; seemingly unaware of the wider impact its chosen storytelling methods, language, character handling (and costuming choices) are having on the implied societal standards of this future human generation it seeks to represent; revealing itself not quite as universally ‘there yet’ as previously open to be perceived (if so disposed), but tied to approaches and attitudes recognizable to certain modern cultures.

Anyway. Following is not a Trek commentary specifically (even if fueled by), but a personal, abstract inner conversation on language and how it can limit the perception of identities in general; tie one’s expression and regard of self and others in varying knots specific to certain linguistic cultures.

Mind an uncurated ‘diary entry’ as if it was just that.

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“Oh, there’s a third thing!”

No, there’s no ‘third thing’, or even 'other things’.

There is an infinity of 'thing’, which appears as like 'this or that’ to a so aligned language/mindset. And which then keeps 'othering’ those who do not fit into the limitations of that form of thinking/linguistics. Sometimes the language is that of the 'others’ themselves, too. And that’s fine, if it fits their situation/experience (but also if it doesn’t, all hopes on them getting to find out and/or reach beyond any self-limiting language/mindset).

As far as I’m personally concerned, there has never been definite 'this or that’ (other than what one sees fellow humans express, individually or collectively); spectrum seems a befitting definition here just as it is sometimes recognized in various other context as well. And one’s individual placement(s) on the spectrum is unique and for most purposes irrelevant (as often in other contextures, too).

At most optimal, one’s language should be free to address one and others regardless any of one’s or others’ placements on that spectrum (on any spectrum - at any given time). Some languages do allow that freedom; some languages are not set on the idea of this and that and them being the separating and identity defining markers we point at each other.

Language shapes so much of how we grow up to perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us. Being able do see and define oneself beyond and regardless of exact language is a gift, a freedom. And frankly a must, if one were ever to expand (or see) one’s identity beyond a single linguistic culture.

Outside this one, other languages are already speaking of you in terms, which do not necessarily correspond to your identity-tied pronoun. If you are either ‘she’ or ‘he’ there is no pronoun for you in my native language. As there is not in several others. In specific terms and/or in customary forms of addressing others.

And what us all in my native language get called by, has a far too rarely used(imho) and often disputed closest corresponding term in this here language. Increasingly disputed, even among the proponents of the pronoun’s wider recognition and/or usage.

3rd person singular ‘they’.

No, not the ‘nonbinary’ one (although…), but the olden, neutral definition.

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Think, if it was our bodyshape which pronouns referred to; and one could either be (/ be called) fat or thin (’traditionally’). Nothing in between or around has a widely recognized title, or pronoun as it were. Regardless one’s shape/mass.

According to the popularly regarded binary, one can be either fat or thin. Or, to differentiate oneself from this established fat/thin thinking, one can choose the non-binary option. And to conform to the established way of thinking, that all defined masses/shapes need a corresponding pronoun, one chooses 'they/them’. It’s already in recognizable use after all (if for the purpose of required ambiguity).

So, there is language for thin, fat, and they. Thin or fat or they, people can be very touchy (of someone) being called anything other than their (supposedly) chosen ‘thin’ or ‘fat’ or ‘they’, respectively. Calling a thin or fat 'they’ (or goodness forbit fat 'thin’ or thin 'fat’) can really upset them… excuse me: can really upset thin or fat. Or them. Thin or fat or them can be upset by the language of your choosing (for oneself or ‘on behalf’ of someone else).

But, as alluded to before: all of these persons can be - and occasionally are - also called 'them’ - individually -, if one does not know better, or no definition can be made (or needs not to be made… which is where things seem to get tricky and debatable).

When one has grown up with a language and thought patterns tied to this ‘thin or fat’ paradigm, one is inclined to try and assess people’s supposed identifiers/identities as fat or thin (or them). But one can hardly know by oneself, can one? 

So, why not default to 'them’? The aforementioned ambiguous option?

Because nowadays, few some seem to suppose only they get to be called 'them’? Since 'they’ is their specific identity marker, to match and counter the pattern of the limited ‘thin or fat’ binary oriented language/thinking, then to call anyone else 'them’ would supposedly be missmassing/misshaping.

What then, of the people who are not - and/or do not identify as - fat or thin, but who also feel cast aside by this 'someone else’ definition of 'them’? What of those, who feel forced to abide by this fat/thin language and mindset altogether; forced to present oneself and regard others by their bodyshape - regardless of relevancy. What is the option for the ‘unshapely’ or the shapeless-minded, if all the naming is shape-defined?

There are people with muscular bodies, who are bulky or lean, there are petite, curvy or flat, lanky, skinny tall and build tall, square or round, soft or firm, fat or thin… Of all the infinite shapes and sizes of human variation, why pick out only fat and thin and divide/define whole of humanity with those two words? (As far as one’s language knows). Or then attach societal merits and expectations to those two named categories? Or their divergents.

If humanity was split to fat and thin, which do you think you yourself would be? (The specifics of actual societal implications free for you to imagine in this thought play: corresponding to actuality or made up). Would you be fine with any certain other person also identifying as fat or thin with you? If your mama were fat what would that make you? If your sibling was thin, would that change your identity? And how? If both any of you were called 'they’, would that not track?

Now imagine, if for whole of your life you had not felt fat or thin, and your language had not forced you (or most others you know) to pick a side; had not forced you to define and/or call yourself or others by the shape of your bodies; if you would be free of that bond, to be called ‘they’ same as everyone - regardless the infinity of obviously different bodyshapes/masses that you all are. How do you think, would you then feel, if someone suddenly said you must be either fat or thin, or else be 'other’ - a ‘non’ in a two-way system.

Technically, you’d still be called 'they’, as closest to your native ‘they’, but you’d know there’s difference in the meanings now, where 'they’ means 'other’ from thin or fat. And where thin or fat are definitely not 'them’ with you. (Even if they occasionally are, in fact, called 'they’).

Why rely on something as limiting as a 'fat or thin’ binary for defining the infinity of human variations to begin with? Why enforce that supposition by defining oneself as something based on that binary, but 'not of that’ binary?

Should people be expected to tackle with an increasing specificity of mass/shape defined pronouns to match each and every individual bodytype so as not to 'other’ anyone? (For which there already is a concept: given names).

Or should it be recognized, that without any naming by bodyshape/mass, ‘they’ are all equal?

That they are they are they. In addressing. All of them. Regardless of the variety of shapely identities that they have. Free from any binary-tied bondage.

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How has your native tongue shaped your identity, or your perception of the world and people around you? How well do those translate to this here language?

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”People who challenge gender norms are often dismissed as prioritizing “theory” over “reality.” This is historically incorrect. The reality is that Indigenous peoples across the world have long lived outside of the Western gender binary system. They were (and continue to be) forcibly assimilated into Western gender as a tactic of colonization …

Gender and sex cannot be discussed as universal concepts, they must be located within specific cultural systems, histories, and societies.“ - Alok Vaid-Menon

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yahoodevelopers:

By George Fletcher and Lovlesh Chhabra

When Yahoo and AOL came together a year ago as a part of the new Verizon subsidiary Oath,  we took on the challenge of unifying their identity platforms based on current identity standards. Identity standards have been a critical part of the Internet ecosystem over the last 20+ years. From single-sign-on and identity federation with SAML; to the newer identity protocols including OpenID Connect, OAuth2, JOSE, and SCIM (to name a few); to the explorations of “self-sovereign identity” based on distributed ledger technologies; standards have played a key role in providing a secure identity layer for the Internet.

As we navigated this journey, we ran across a number of different use cases where there was either no standard or no best practice available for our varied and complicated needs. Instead of creating entirely new standards to solve our problems, we found it more productive to use existing standards in new ways.

One such use case arose when we realized that we needed to migrate the identity stored in mobile apps from the legacy identity provider to the new Oath identity platform. For most browser (mobile or desktop) use cases, this doesn’t present a huge problem; some DNS magic and HTTP redirects and the user will sign in at the correct endpoint. Also it’s expected for users accessing services via their browser to have to sign in now and then.

However, for mobile applications it’s a completely different story. The normal user pattern for mobile apps is for the user to sign in (via OpenID Connect or OAuth2) and for the app to then be issued long-lived tokens (well, the refresh token is long lived) and the user never has to sign in again on the device (entering a password on the device is NOT a good experience for the user).

So the issue is, how do we allow the mobile app to move from one identity provider to another without the user having to re-enter their credentials? The solution came from researching what standards currently exist that might addres this use case (see figure “Standards Landscape” below) and finding the OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange draft specification (https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-token-exchange-13).

The Token Exchange draft allows for a given token to be exchanged for new tokens in a different domain. This could be used to manage the “audience” of a token that needs to be passed among a set of microservices to accomplish a task on behalf of the user, as an example. For the use case at hand, we created a specific implementation of the Token Exchange specification (a profile) to allow the refresh token from the originating Identity Provider (IDP) to be exchanged for new tokens from the consolidated IDP. By profiling this draft standard we were able to create a much better user experience for our consumers and do so without inventing proprietary mechanisms.

During this identity technical consolidation we also had to address how to support sharing signed-in users across mobile applications written by the same company (technically, signed with the same vendor signing key). Specifically, how can a signed-in user to Yahoo Mail not have to re-sign in when they start using the Yahoo Sports app? The current best practice for this is captured in OAuth 2.0 for Natives Apps (RFC 8252). However, the flow described by this specification requires that the mobile device system browser hold the user’s authenticated sessions. This has some drawbacks such as users clearing their cookies, or using private browsing mode, or even worse, requiring the IDPs to support multiple users signed in at the same time (not something most IDPs support).

While, RFC 8252 provides a mechanism for single-sign-on (SSO) across mobile apps provided by any vendor, we wanted a better solution for apps provided by Oath. So we looked at how could we enable mobile apps signed by the vendor to share the signed-in state in a more “back channel” way. One important fact is that mobile apps cryptographically signed by the same vender can securely share data via the device keychain on iOS and Account Manager on Android.

Using this as a starting point we defined a new OAuth2 scope, device_sso, whose purpose is to require the Authorization Server (AS) to return a unique “secret” assigned to that specific device. The precedent for using a scope to define specification behaviour is OpenID Connect itself, which defines the “openid” scope as the trigger for the OpenID Provider (an OAuth2 AS) to implement the OpenID Connect specification. The device_secret is returned to a mobile app when the OAuth2 code is exchanged for tokens and then stored by the mobile app in the device keychain and with the id_token identifying the user who signed in.

At this point, a second mobile app signed by the same vendor can look in the keychain and find the id_token, ask the user if they want to use that identity with the new app, and then use a profile of the token exchange spec to obtain tokens for the second mobile app based on the id_token and the device_secret. The full sequence of steps looks like this:

As a result of our identity consolidation work over the past year, we derived a set of principles identity architects should find useful for addressing use cases that don’t have a known specification or best practice. Moreover, these are applicable in many contexts outside of identity standards:

1. Spend time researching the existing set of standards and draft standards. As the diagram shows, there are a lot of standards out there already, so understanding them is critical.
2. Don’t invent something new if you can just profile or combine already existing specifications.
3. Make sure you understand the spirit and intent of the existing specifications.
4. For those cases where an extension is required, make sure to extend the specification based on its spirit and intent.
5. Ask the community for clarity regarding any existing specification or draft.
6. Contribute back to the community via blog posts, best practice documents, or a new specification.

As we learned during the consolidation of our Yahoo and AOL identity platforms, and as demonstrated in our examples, there is no need to resort to proprietary solutions for use cases that at first look do not appear to have a standards-based solution. Instead, it’s much better to follow these principles, avoid the NIH (not-invented-here) syndrome, and invest the time to build solutions on standards.