#Shop Hamm

[lalie-go]

Oh you are onto something here!

We know the below, along with the scene with Shax in the park, happen in episode one thanks to file naming conventions on Amazon’s part:

He also appears to have the short sideburns and old glasses while speeding through London at night with his plants - maybe after getting evicted? (Though snake is MIA!)

To add to this, there’s an Agent Fazuli character who only appears in the first episode, which to my American ears sounds like law enforcement, but that’s not generally used in the UK, right? Is it possible he’s the estate agent who kicks Crowley out of his flat for nonpayment, which is then how we get to car plants and ennui?

And then this (file names again) is episode 2 and episode 5 respectively- the new glasses and hair appear (so far) in the second episode and seem to remain for the rest of the season:

Which, per the sideburns in the jump scare scene, you're totally right - Crowley doesn't find out that Gabriel is in the shop until after that time jump. So the lightning rage is not about Gabriel. It's about something else entirely. After all they've been through, it would make sense that the one thing to send Crowley into such a rage would be Aziraphale going back to his tired, scared excuses and not letting Crowley in, both literally and emotionally, when he needs his best friend most.

(ETA: A falling out would also explain Crowley’s uncharacteristically tense and closed off body language in the bar, if they’re still fighting and this is the first olive branch? Only calling Crowley when he needs his help with Gabriel would be a characteristically dick move for Aziraphale tbh. He can only reach out when he has a ‘work’ excuse.)

okay so i think it is almost definite that crowley and aziraphale do have a falling out right at the beginning of s2, and we have a time skip

people (understandably i guess) are getting vocal about crowley's aspect placement, but iirc mr g has said that the snake likes to be visible and therefore will move with his hairline. with that in mind, if we look at his sideburns (which btw, yum, dont @ me)

are way shorter here (and the aspect is just above his jawline), compared to:

plus his hair is shorter after the skip AND the glasses change

and yeah the skip may only be a couple of months/a year or so after the falling out, but so soon after agreeing to be on each other's side? after toasting to the world? im finding the nearest bridge

[goodomenshq]

📚The Good Omens graphic novel Kickstarter mega post 📚

As we enter the last hours of the Good Omens graphic novel Kickstarter, here’s a recap of ALL the items you can get and how to get them. We’ll also answer some of the main questions you’ve had.

Get yours here!

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TIERS

THE HUMAN TIER (£25 GBP) includes one copy of the Good Omens graphic novel. All of the stretch goal embellishments (foiling, ribbon, foreword, afterword, extra pages, etc) cover every level (including early bird). Every backer also gets a bookmark. This also includes the foreword and afterword by Michael Sheen, David Tennant, and Jon Hamm.

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THE SERPENT TIER (£40 GBP) includes one copy of the Good Omens graphic novel, a dust jacket* featuring an alt cover by Frank Quitely and Loot Pack #1*, which is full of goodies. *Stretch goals have added to these items, full info below.

The alt cover dust jacket is now reversible, with the other side featuring this by Rachael Stott in b&w.

✔️Serpent gets the dust jacket for your graphic novel.

✖ It does not have a print of this image. The colour version is available as an add on.

Loot Pack #1 originally featured 2 x Colleen Doran prints (including a brand new piece), a postcard and bookmark. Fans have unlocked additional Colleen prints, some colouring pages, as well as *many* prints from other artists… You have unlocked prints from Rachael Stott (different to the alt cover image), Sarah Graley, David Aja, Mark Buckingham, Tanya Roberts, Paul Kidby, Alice Oseman and Anna Morozova, as well as the Frank Quitely cover as a print.

We’ve been asked a lot about Alice Oseman's prints, so to clarify: if you back the Serpent Tier or above, you will get Alice's print featuring Aziraphale, as well as the newly commissioned Crowley to complete the pair.

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THE HELLHOUND TIER (£120 GBP) includes the prior tiers + Loot Pack #2, ft. Crowley and Aziraphale enamel pins, stickers, and a pack of the Good Omens trading cards. These will be playable. Tier backers can also get rare cards in their order at random.

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THE WITCHFINDER TIER (£200 GBP) has all of this, plus an exquisite map by Julien Labit. Dimensions will be approximately 594 x 841 mm.

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THE DEMON TIER (£320 GBP) is a creative punch from head to toe, with five additional enamel pins (including Dog), some snazzy socks, and two creator themed notebooks, one for your inner Pratchett, the other for your inner Gaiman.

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THE HORSEMEN TIER (£500 GBP) is the Demon Tier + A3 Giclee print from the graphic novel, signed by Colleen Doran, plus the exclusive Beelzebub enamel pin, and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett collector's enamel pin set.

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THE OBSIDIAN TIER (£3k) builds on the Horsemen Tier with copies of the new, limited Obsidian editions (GO illustrated edition, graphic novel & William the Antichrist), signed by Neil Gaiman & artists, and a one-of-a-kind trading card by Colleen Doran.

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For booksellers, we have two options: The Small Bookshop Tier (10 copies) and The Bookshop Tier (20 copies), both of which offer a 50% trade discount. There are also add ons of 10 and 20 copies for shops looking to order more.

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ADD ONS

The campaign itself ends at 11.59pm UK time on 31 August, so there’s still time to get your pledges in. Let’s move onto the add ons via Kickstarter...

How do you add more to your pledge? This link on Kickstarter should help. You effectively re-select the tier you’ve chosen, and then it will take you to the add on section. This works even if your tier is sold out, or was time sensitive (Nightingale).

Unlike tiers, you are not limited to one choice with add ons. You can get additional copies of the graphic novel, mugs, slipcases, the graphic novel oversized edition, and more. Rachael Stott's Eternal Encounter print is available also.

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A.Z. FELL & CO ADD ONS. Includes: Bookmark, mug, socks, tote bag. The bookmark is different / higher end than those included with every copy of the graphic novel.

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TRADING CARDS. You can get a trading card booster pack. These will have at least six cards. The Hellhound Tier is where to get the larger, playable base pack. Base packs will be available down the road via the new merch store, but cheapest via the Kickstarter.

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ENAMEL PIN ADD ONS We have two pairs of Aziraphale and Crowley pins (£10 per set). We also have mystery packs of three available (£12). You can see the full pin information and designs so far at http://goodomenshq.com.

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While pins #005 onwards will be part of the mystery packs, they may pop up at events or in flash sales of specific items. We will give fans as much notice as possible when these exciting events will happen.

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BOOKSHOP ADD ONS. Bookshops who have backed either of the retail tiers will be able to add packs of 10 or 20 additional books onto their pledge. These tiers must be delivered to a bookshop address. These are also at 50% trade discount.

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OBSIDIAN ADD ONS. While the Obsidian Tier collects all three books, you can add the Obsidian Edition of the Good Omens illustrated edition, the Good Omens graphic novel, or William the Antichrist - signed by Neil - to pledges at any level.

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Add ons are available for every tier level. Add ons will also be available after the Kickstarter, however will be cheapest via the campaign. We know a lot of people have been asking, so if 31 August is too short notice, worry not!

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FAQ

Q: Will the graphic novel be available after the Kickstarter finishes? A: Yes. It will be available via PledgeManager, and subsequently on goodomenshq.com when that becomes the wider merch store.

Q: Will tiers be available after the Kickstarter finishes? A: Yes. Some will be available for an additional time on PledgeManager to allow those who couldn’t access the Kickstarter for a variety of reasons. This will go live at some point after the project finishes.

Q: Will the add ons be available after the Kickstarter finishes? A: Yes. Though Kickstarter will be the cheapest way to get the add ons, these will be made more widely available at a slight price increase after the campaign ends.

Q: I couldn’t back the Kickstarter due to payment issues. Can I use Paypal / other methods? A: We believe PledgeManager will be able to integrate the wider payment methods, including Paypal, for those who couldn’t back with a card. This is TBC. Longer term, this will be an option on goodomenshq.com when it opens as the official merch store.

Q: Shipping is charged after. Why do we not have the final numbers yet? A: We’ve been working across the campaign to bring estimates down further; the page will have new numbers as we have them pre-31 Aug, however we will be working over the coming months to get the best price for backers worldwide once the weights are locked in. Our goal is to get the best value for supporters and not overcharge by locking in this early.

Q: If it will all be available later, what difference is there in backing the Kickstarter? A: All backers get an individual discount code for the Good Omens HQ merch store when it opens in the future, so you can get money off further items. We’ve got some fun things that we’re planning to do via backer updates post-campaign too. More on that… later. You’ll still get plenty of ineffable joy either way though!

Q: Is there anywhere I can sign up for updates? A: Yes! Good Omens HQ will have a mailing list. You can sign up here.

Get yours here!

[neil-gaiman]

Greetings Sir,

I know probably this isn't as pressing as the other questions that came your way but I was wondering. When Jim shows off his recently discovered talent to the Miss Sandwich, the magic shop owner and the spouse, was that special effect or were Jon Hamm's cheeks just that stretchy? I was trying to do the same thing with my cheeks and they weren't as stretchy and it kinda hurts. Also I wonder if that particular act was scripted too.

Thank you and I hope you enlighten my curiosity with Jim's flappy cheeks and I hope you have a good day 🌸

It was definitely scripted, and those are Jon Hamm's cheeks.

[indigovigilance]

Bullet Theory

Thesis: Crowley passed Aziraphale a bullet during the Final Fifteen kiss. This bullet contains his memories. He tucked it under his tongue, then began to access the memories during the ride up the elevator.

Edit: debunked by God himself, in response to this post. As a reminder, please don’t send fan theories to NG.

Proof:

Glint in the mouth

Inspo credit to this post by @somehow-a-human

Yeah so we were already paying way too much attention to that very special four-letter word we thought Aziraphale was going to say, but it so happens that during that cut-off phoneme is the only time you can see this shiny object in his mouth. (catching this on the right frame was emotionally painful and I’m sending Gavin Finney my therapy bills (actually no I’m not I love you very much sir)).

So that’s the basis of this theory. Crowley passed Aziraphale a bullet that he then tucks under his tongue.

Add’l Evidence Post-Kiss

Aziraphale works his jaw after raising his fingers to his lips: [gif]

Then when the Metatron comes in, he turns his back on the Metatron and raises his hand. I originally thought he was wiping his eyes. Now I think he’s raising his hand to his mouth, maybe to spit out the bullet, maybe to make sure it’s secured under his tongue.

Credits Scene

Aziraphale has the craziest fucking look on his face through the credits, we can all agree. But towards the end, his eyes flicker back and forth, as if he is watching or reading something. Then he smiles. I hypothesize that he is still accessing his memories during this time, and getting the information he needs to [redacted].

Thematic Justification: The Bullet Catch

Aziraphale having a bullet in his mouth as part of a two-man act of deception is not a fresh concept by the time we get to The Final Fifteen.

Additionally, the use of surreptitious modes of communication, where messages are passed from person to person inaudabily, is introduced in this same magic trick. 

NB1: I wish I could credit the person who I first saw point this out (relatively recently). It wasn’t even tagged as meta, I don’t think. But the gist was there’s some parallelism between “aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear” and the “pin the lips on the lips” move that Crowley pulls in the Final Fifteen. If I find it I will properly cite.

NB2: One hypothesis that has circulated around, I think creditable to @sendarya, is that Aziraphale mouths “trust me” to Crowley just before he gets on the elevator. This isn’t necessary to the Bullet Theory but it would be thematically consistent.

Small objects carry memories

Why a bullet? Well, it’s a small object that has meaningful significance between the pair of people involved, much like:

Beelzebub introduces us to the idea that a small object like a fly can be used as a storage container for memories. We also see that the object entering the body of the person is a viable way for the memories to be delivered.

(btw Jon Hamm if you’re reading this, you have very pretty eyes)

“I keep a derringer in a hollowed out book”

K, so it’s not like Crowley is just carrying a bullet loaded with Aziraphale’s memories around with him at all times, is it? (I mean, it could be, but probably not. I’ll just point you to this meta for my theories on why, if Crowley had anything that needed to be kept safe, he would keep it in the bookshop.)

We learn in S2E4 that Aziraphale keeps a gun in a hollowed out book somewhere in the shop. A gun wouldn’t be any good without bullets, right? This may not be the reason the derringer was left as a Chekhov’s Gun for S3, but it’s a possibility. If Crowley wasn’t already in possession of a bullet, he knew that he could find one in the shop. Even more likely, the exact bullet used in the 1941 magic trick is a precious keepsake being kept somewhere in the bookshop, and Crowley chose to use that exact bullet because of the memories already directly attached to the object.

Why Aziraphale even has memories to be returned to him

We know that Aziraphale could have had his mind wiped because Heaven has done it before. Certainly once. Probably twice. We know this because when Metatron is announcing that Gabriel, alongside having his memories erased, is being demoted to 38th class, Muriel pipes up and reminds us that they are 37th class:

So this wasn’t a “just Gabriel” thing. Mind-wiping is a routine form of personnel management in Heaven. There is NO reason for us to believe that it didn’t happen to Aziraphale. But in case you need a reason to believe it, here goes:

We know from our interactions with Jim that the person whose memories are missing (1) doesn’t necessarily know and (2) isn’t necessarily distressed by that fact, even if they do. Muriel also fits this “cheerful empty shell” archetype. You know who else does? Ding ding ding. The one and only A. Z. “wiggles with delight” Fell.

I can already hear your very valid counter-argument. This guy is actually terrified out of his mind on any given day that his romance with a demon will be discovered. Yes. Because he’s involved in a romance with a demon. The other two angels we’ve met don’t have this issue. Beyond that, though, these three characters share more in common with each other disposition-wise than any of them do with the other angels we’ve met (Uriel, Michael, Sandolphon, etc.).

We also know that Aziraphale has been [demoted] at some point from Cherub to Principality. This is book canon: 

"Technically Aziraphale was a Principality, but people made jokes about that these days."

This has also been confirmed (insofar as Neil Gaiman ever confirms anything) by Word of God:

(marketing video screengrab clipped for brevity)

We don’t know for sure it was a demotion, but I think we have enough evidence to infer that with a high degree of confidence.

Anyways.

Summary: Aziraphale is a cheerful angel who was demoted and has a name that is not biblical canon. This evidence indicates that was probably mind-wiped. This is not the first time I’m proposing this. It won’t be the last.

How Crowley Did It

My meta on Continuity Errors gives the complete proof for why I believe that Crowley is able to stop time without Aziraphale knowing, and I propose in that meta that the kiss was a cover-up for the exertion of effort necessary to pull that off. I further proposed that during the pause, he retrieved something from the bookshop. At the time of writing, I didn’t know what. Now, I have an inkling that it was a bullet.

If you need a refresher on Clock Theory, here’s one. The idea is that the clock behind Aziraphale shifts by fifteen minutes from before the kiss to after the kiss. This is consistent with a theory that Crowley paused time (but the clock kept running) in order to retrieve the bullet, dump Aziraphale’s memories into it if he hadn’t already, and then return to transfer the bullet to Aziraphale.

Why Crowley Kept the Secret So Long

As with Continuity Errors, I am ending this meta with a very unsatisfactory “I don’t know.” The motivation for Crowley to keep Aziraphale’s memories from him until the very moment he’s about to leave must have been a strong one. I think it has something to do with why Crowley was so insistent on trying to get Aziraphale to run away with him, instead of dealing with whatever’s coming. But as with Continuity Errors, I suspect that the good omens meta hivemind (and the vast collection of people who are posting clues, you have no idea how important you are) will assemble yet more breadcrumbs that we can follow to some sort of hypothesis.

Until then,

iv

(here's my meta index if you would like to read more stuff like this)

[qqueenofhades]

Good Omens Season 2: Some Thoughts (and also Screaming)

First, /screams

Second, obligatory disclaimer that this meta contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all six episodes. If you somehow have managed to remain virginally unspoiled, look away now, scroll past, or add "good omens s2" and "good omens spoilers" to your block list, as those are the tags I have been using for all posts and reblogs.

Third, /screams more

Okay okay okay. Deep breaths.

Anyway, so, uh, how about all that, huh? First, the good thing about the tone of the season overall was that it felt considerably darker and more adult, in a good way. We didn't have the precocious kiddies, the kitsch and literally-comphet Anathema and Newt, the so-clever narration, etc. All that was gone, which makes sense when you consider that a) the end of last season saw them reboot into an entirely new universe, and b) the fact that God has gone silent is, in fact, a major plot point for the season. We don't have Her slyly telling us the story, or indeed anything, and everyone is left to make their own judgments and take their own actions. Which, obviously, gets them into a lot of trouble, especially when Metatron (the Voice of God, aka someone acting in the belief that they're speaking for God and therefore doing terrible harm) swoops in with the ultimate buzzkill at the end of episode 6. But we'll get to that.

The downside was that the main, present-day plot (hiding Gabriel in the bookshop and trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love) was fairly thin, felt stretched out and at times weirdly paced, and otherwise existed mostly to get us to That Ending and the setup for season 3. But the ending was so damn good (if obviously, very painful) that I can't be TOO mad, not least because we spent six episodes with them just making absolutely no pretense about the whole thing being as incredibly homosexual as possible. I'll be honest: I did not think they were going to actually, explicitly go there. Neil Gaiman has been so consistent about "your interpretations are valid and you're welcome to read it however you want, but the only canon is what's on screen," which I think is frankly a good thing (not least since the Neil GAYman Cinematic Universe is consistently very, very good to us queers), that I just... didn't quite think they'd pull the trigger. Sir Terry is dead and can't have active input, this is based on a book published 30 years ago, maybe they didn't want to make it LIKE THAT... etc. I certainly hoped, but I didn't really think they would.

Uh. Well.

As I said in my various semi-coherent liveblog posts, I honestly don't think there was a single straight person in the entire season, among both major and background characters. Aziraphale/Crowley and Maggie/Nina are the obvious paralleling couples, but Beelzebub (using "they" pronouns and addressed as "Lord" despite presenting as femme/femme-adjacent) is clearly nonbinary and therefore also queer, and the countless gay/queer side characters were just /chefs kiss. From Job's son making a sassy pass at Aziraphale, to the random Scottish goon with Grindr on his phone (which he then gives to Aziraphale, because what is subtlety), to the interracial couple with the trans spouse at the Pride and Prejudice ball, there was just a lot of casual, unremarked, non-story-critical queer representation visible at every turn. It's like the NGCU saw the bigots wailing about Sandman season 1 being extremely gay and went CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, LET'S MAKE GOOD OMENS 2 EVEN MORE GAY.

God bless.

Obviously, Jon Hamm as Amnesia!Gabriel stole the show (he was SO fucking funny) and it was also incredibly fun to watch Miranda Richardson repurposed as a scheming demon. Nina Sosanya also reappeared as Nina the coffee shop owner, which leads us into the Maggie-and-Nina subplot. They're obviously, wildly, incredibly clearly an analogue for Aziraphale and Crowley themselves, but they're also each, crucially, a mix of both. On the surface, Maggie is Aziraphale: the plump, blonde, earnest, sweet-natured one owning a slightly dated book music shop and somewhat clueless about emotional nuances, while Nina is (also on the surface) Crowley, the hard-edged dark loner who doesn't want to open herself up to people or be spotted caring. But emotionally, Maggie is Crowley: the one openly pining, clearly besotted, only wanting to hang around their crush and do whatever they can to make themselves useful, while Nina is Aziraphale. Interested but reticent, attracted but conflicted, trapped in an abusive relationship with a demanding offscreen "lover" (Lindsay/Heaven) who tries to constantly control and shame them without ever offering much, if anything in return. By the end, they bring themselves around to what Maggie/Crowley are offering, but by then, well. We've got a lot more problems on our hands.

As I also said in my earlier posts, this entire thing has always been a metaphor for religion, queerness, and what religion -- especially abusive, fundamentalist, organized religion -- does to queer people, but they really cranked the FUCK out of that metaphor this season. Aziraphale is guilt-tripped, controlled, and shamed for his attraction to Crowley at every turn. He is torn between his imagined duty to Heaven, in all its ignorant, uncaring, bureaucratic, gratuitously cruel system that he still insists on seeing the best in because he can't bear the alternative, and the chaotic and sometimes grey but genuinely more good morality that Crowley offers him. (Can I just say, we were explicitly shown that the two of them together doing "just a little miracle" are more powerful than Heaven AND Hell combined.) And at the end, he's told that the only way he can be with Crowley -- what Metatron explicitly blackmails him with -- is if they both go back to heaven, submit themselves to the cruel system again and give up everything that has made them who they are: their home in London, their human friends, their reliance on each other, their independence, their own ways of doing things. You can be queer in this (religious) framework, but only the limited, watered-down, controlled, controllable, constantly-under-supervision kind of queer, which relies on both you and your lover "converting" back to the true faith. And if you don't cooperate, they will literally kidnap you, lie to you, manipulate you, take you from your soulmate, and force you right back into doing the one thing (destroying the world) that you never, ever wanted to do in the first place, because in their minds, that is still better than this. It's for your own good.

Ouch.

And the thing is: that's why the ending a) hits so hard and b) is so fucking painful, because of course Aziraphale agrees. He has no conception of being able to defy Heaven on his own; he has always, always needed Crowley for that. In the flashbacks, when Aziraphale is faced with an order from Heaven that he desperately does not want to carry out (such as letting all Job's children get killed), he still relies completely on Crowley to "outsmart the rules" and find a better way. Crowley is A Crafty Demon; that's what he does, and so Aziraphale rationalizes it to himself that therefore that must be fine. Even in season 1, when he really didn't want the Apocalypse to happen but initially thought it was his duty as a good Heaven footsoldier, he relied on Crowley to talk him out of it and allow him to do what he really wants instead. That's their whole dynamic in a nutshell, as exemplified in that scene in episode 2, where Crowley tempts Aziraphale with the "pleasures of the flesh" while sprawled on his back in Ravish Me mode like the giant walking gay disaster that he is. (Sorry, buddy. That beard. Can't do it.) Everything that Aziraphale's existence is, that makes him who he is, that he loves and cherishes the most (in this case, food and wine) comes from Crowley. Everything else is just background noise.

Throughout the season, what we see is Aziraphale increasingly coming around to the fantasy of being with Crowley. He's coy and flirty; he talks about "our car" and expects Crowley will let him (which he does); he wants to have a Jane Austen ball and for them to dance together (oh my heart); he even thinks, at the crucial moment, that the best way for them to be together is to go back to heaven just like they were in the beginning, once more perfect angels, as if those entire six thousand years of struggle and grief and pining and separation and falling didn't happen. And Crowley -- poor, poor, brave, devoted, heartbroken Crowley -- has just heard for the first time in said six thousand years that actually telling the person you love how you feel is an option. Maggie and Nina tell them point-blank that their whole stupid plan failed because people aren't chess pieces who can be moved and automatically achieve the desired result. And of course this gobsmacks the dearest and dumbest Ineffable Husbands, because they can't conceive of anything else. People are chess pieces in the Great War of Heaven and Hell; Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are chess pieces who have been desperately trying to get out of being moved by external forces, but that doesn't change the fact that that's what they are. They don't have volition or agency aside from that which they can sneak for themselves in brief and stolen moments. That's it.

Until, well. It's not it. They discover that this whole would-be war is actually an elaborate ruse to cover up another angel-demon romance, that of Gabriel and Beelzebub. (I'll be honest, I'm 99% sure they did this storyline because they saw the fans crackshipping them, but I appreciate a fictional narrative that values and incorporates its fans' input, rather than trying to constantly "trick" or "outsmart" them or "do what they don't expect.") And Gabriel and Beelzebub get to be together, but only by leaving their world forever. They have to desert their homes, their structures, even their own identities, and never return. And Crowley and Aziraphale are so rooted in their "precious, perfect, fragile" life in their little corner of Soho, with their bookshop and their Bentley and their dining at the Ritz (which they didn't get to do in the end because METATRON /shakes fist), that that just doesn't work. Neither of them can conceive of doing that. So Aziraphale thinks "go back to heaven and try to make the terrible system do some good and take what we can in terms of being together" and Crowley just... pours out his heart. He's ready to fucking propose. He barely stops himself from saying something to the effect of "I want to spend eternity with you." He begs, he pleads with Aziraphale to go away not in the literal sense, but the emotional/metaphysical: to finally break this toxic dependence on Heaven and tell them once and for all where to stick it. And because he is desperate to make Aziraphale understand, he finally throws all caution to the winds and recklessly, desperately, adoringly kisses him, the one thing he's wanted to do for ages and...

Gets. Shot. Down.

Ugghhhhh. I'm suffering all over again. Aziraphale wants him, hungers for it, for them, and yet he's been so abused and so conditioned by Heaven (he's still blithely repeating to Crowley's face that "Hell are the bad guys!") that he just cannot accept that kind of desperate, blind, limitless, lawless affection. He even forgives Crowley for this "transgression," just to really twist the knife, and Crowley just can't take it, can't face up to how terribly this has all gone up in flames, after he went to heaven trying to find the answer for Gabriel's situation. Gabriel, who he fucking hates. Gabriel, who tried to kill the angelic being he loves (and for which Crowley has transparently never forgiven him). And yet at one pouty puppy-eyed look from Aziraphale and a warning that whoever is harboring Gabriel might be in danger, Crowley leaps headlong into the Bentley again and rushes to the rescue while "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is blaring. He stoutly protects Gabriel; he does a miracle to disguise him; he lets him have hot chocolate and stay in the bookshop; he guards him from the literal demonic horde outside. All because of Aziraphale. That's it. And then, it still doesn't work. Not only that, Gabriel's absence and decision to forego Armageddon gives Heaven the one tool they finally need to take Aziraphale away from him.

I repeat: Ugghhhhhhhh.

(In a good way. Ngl, I love this angst. This is the kind of angst my brain Thrives on, the Thematic Parallel Romantic Character Arc kind. Nom nom nom. But also: AGONY.)

I also need to talk about Aziraphale driving the Bentley, aside from the obvious metaphor of him being in Crowley's home while Crowley is in his. Last season, we had the "you go too fast for me, Crowley" scene with them sitting in said Bentley, which was Aziraphale saying he's not ready for a relationship. In this season, as noted above, we see Aziraphale increasingly embracing the potential fantasy of being with Crowley. But here's the catch: when he's in the Bentley this time, driving it, setting the pace, acclimating to the idea, he's driving his own idea of what the Bentley/his relationship with Crowley is. It's not the real thing. He plays classical music; he supplies himself sweets; he turns it yellow; he drives too slow. Crowley calls him in another old-married-couple snitfit to complain that Aziraphale's messed it up, but what Aziraphale has actually messed up (or will, by the end of the season) is far more consequential than just a car. He's changed the entire shape of their relationship to the one he thinks can make it work, and it just doesn't. It has to be them -- "we could have been... Us" -- or it's not even close to the truth. It's not worth their time.

I repeat: Ouch.

Speaking of the writers validating fan theories, I know we all picked up and screamed about on Crowley's idea of Peak Romance Guaranteed To Fall In Love being sheltering from rain and gazing into each other's eyes, which confirms that that poor bastard was indeed ass-over-teakettle gone as soon as he met Aziraphale (again) in Eden. I also need to talk about the 1941 redux, because wow. This time, the danger comes from Hell, which we see being its usual self: gleefully, pointlessly cruel, pettily backbiting, dirty, sniping, tedious, endless, determined to mindlessly destroy because They're The Bad Guys and they like it. So they blackmail, spy on, miracle-block, illicitly photograph, and try to prove that Aziraphale and Crowley are secretly a couple, right after Aziraphale himself has just had the Light From Heaven realization that he's in love (which we all also picked up on in s1). They're forcibly outing them (to speak of more Religious Queer Trauma) in order to break them up/get them into trouble with their authorities/families. Aziraphale and Crowley manage to escape it mostly by dumb luck, but Crowley having an altogether freakout, hands shaking, barely able to actually point the gun at Aziraphale even in the knowledge that it's supposed to be fake, is just... wow. He can't even fathom the idea of ever trying to destroy him in earnest, especially when he knows on some level that Aziraphale also finally just realized his own feelings. So I just need to --

/screams

Anyway, Aziraphale's entire arc this season is doing what he thinks is the right thing and then inadvertently causing harm and damage as a result. In the Edinburgh flashbacks (live slug reaction of me: SEAN BIGGERSTAFF???!!) he tries to stop Elspeth from stealing bodies and gets Morag killed and Crowley drinking the laudanum to save him (though that part with David Tennant just riffing left and right, using his natural Scottish accent, and being Tiny Crowley/Huge Crowley was hilarious). He invites his neighbors to a Pride and Prejudice ball and makes them all the target for demonic attack. And of course the Job episode: Aziraphale, horrified at Heaven's callous cruelty, desperate not to get Job's children killed, willing to go along with Crowley's tricks to save them somehow, tempted by Crowley to do the fucknasty with their angel bits eat some food and decide that he likes it. As mentioned, the whole thing about God being silent this season is a major thematic choice. The only time we see/hear God is Her communing with Job from afar. Aziraphale enviously imagines the answers he must be getting (he's not, he's baffled and perplexed), while Crowley longs beyond words to even have the opportunity to ask the question: why? Why do this? Why is this your plan?

And of course, this absence culminates in the Metatron, the Voice of God, the person arrogantly claiming that they're speaking for God and know exactly what Heaven wants, being able to seize Aziraphale by the short hairs and absolutely fuck him over. Gabriel is gone/decommissioned/eloping with Beelzebub, so Heaven needs a Supreme Leader (God apparently is no longer a factor in the equation). And what this Supreme Leader needs to do is finally unleash the Apocalypse that Gabriel decided to pass on (the Second Coming). Aziraphale needs to be punished, taken away from Crowley's influence/love, and put back under Heaven's explicit control, so Metatron spots a great opportunity to do all three at once. It's not an accident that the exact tool he uses to get Aziraphale to agree is "now you can actually be with Crowley!" Aziraphale and Crowley have been trying so hard to hide out from their respective Head Offices, but now all at once, there's this seemingly miraculous opportunity for them not to have to do that anymore! They can be together! They can be sanctioned by Heaven! They can give up all this hiding and sneaking around and lying! Isn't that better?

... As long as, of course, they give up absolutely everything that makes them who they are. No big deal. Minor catch. Probably nothing.

Metatron doesn't let Aziraphale have time to escape, or think it over, or reflect, or anything. He pressures Aziraphale to come with him immediately, or be once more subject to Heaven's implicit wrath/destruction/judgment. Believe me, Aziraphale already KNOWS he's made a huge mistake, as soon as he hears what Metatron really wants: bringing him back to unleash the Apocalypse that Aziraphale and Crowley have given up literally everything to prevent. He doesn't need time to reflect. By the time my man is in that elevator, he's well aware of what a catastrophic misjudgment he's made, and yet --

Aziraphale needs this. He has, as noted, literally always relied on Crowley outsmarting Heaven's cruel orders in order to prevent himself from having to do them. He's relied on Crowley rescuing him ("rescuing me makes him so happy," WELL BUB, IT'S BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS NEED IT). He admits to Crowley's face that "I need you!" He hates Heaven's sadistic meanness, but he has absolutely no framework, in and of himself, to defy it. When the rubber hits the road, he will crumple and try to go along with it, and now he's been put in a position where he's going to have to stand up, defy Heaven, and make the break once and for all BY HIMSELF. He doesn't have Crowley around to do it for him, he has no support, he is going to arrive in Heaven and be shuttled straight off to the Apocalypse 2.0 War Room. The only way he gets out of this is if he actively stands up, if he chooses himself and Crowley and their life, and he has to.

The thing is:

Aziraphale has lived his entire eternal existence Looking Up. Up is the direction of Goodness and Heaven. Up is where Angels go. Up is where Aziraphale comes from and where Demons and Hell are not. But now he's going Up, in a position to take over the whole shebang, and it's the last thing he wants.

So he's going to have to come back Down.

He's going to have to Fall. He's going to have to get back Below at all costs. He's going to have to finally, once and for all, understand what led Crowley to make the choice to leave Heaven and never come back. It's only then that they can possibly be together on any kind of conscious, equal, deliberate footing, claim their own agency, reject Heaven AND Hell, and try to really earn that South Downs cottage and that happy-ever-after, and it's gonna hurt so good.

Now if you will excuse me, /screams

[moeitsu]

just wondering, do you have any reference images for what siren!Arthur looks like? 👀 I'd love to draw him when I get the chance. no worries if u don't!

- 🌙 anon

OH MY GOD!! ABSOLUTELY I DO!! Thank you so much for asking anon!! 🌙💙

This is exactly how I reacted to this ask btw ↓

Okay, I’m a very visual person and I pretty much make a Pinterest board for everything. So I’ll share some pics that I think would be most useful to help you visualize him! 💙🪼

I will also try my hardest to give credit bc like I said these are all from Pinterest

^^ This is AI art so I’m not crediting the person who generated it lol. But a lot of the color inspiration and the “dark tide” title came from this pic. It was one of the first I saved to my board. I love the alien-esque aspect to him! And the fin ears hehe.

Okay, now these two photos are very dear to me. The first one is done by @ wizzylee on Insta. The second is by @ hel_7_7_7 also on Insta.

But these pics are from a novel by Emma Hamm’s “Whispers of the Deep” depicting Arges and Mira. I started reading this book after I started writing my fic because I had absolutely no clue how to write a merman romance. But let me tell you…I FUCKING LOVED THIS BOOK. There’s 3 more stand alone novels in the series and I already ordered the second book as soon as I finished the first. If you ever get the chance to read it you’ll probably notice similarities between my merman Arthur and Arges. He was wildly inspiring to me!! And he’s so fucking hot I mean just look at him🤭

Arges is more alien and serpent-like than Arthur because he’s not half human. But I still drew a lot of inspiration from the colors, his gills/fins, the hair, and the glowing bioluminescence!

^^ These pics are by @ Jyuukichanart on Insta. I believe this guy is an OC from the video game Arcana? I could be wrong, I’ve never played the game. But I pictured Arthur to have some similar human-like qualities like their OC!

These were some tail inspo pics! On the left by MerChrissi Tails and on the right I couldn’t find the artist/shop. But tbh I still can’t find a picture that exactly captures the colors/shape of his tail. But the one on the left is pretty much what I picture in my head :) 💙💜🩵

And of course, his eyes play a major part in the story. It was very hard to find pictures that captured what I had in mind. The pic on the left is technically a dragon eye, and the pic on the right is a siren eye. So I guess combining the two it would be the color and pupil shape!

Tumblr only lets you add 10 pictures per post (which is cruel imo) But this was super fun to put together!! Thank you so much for asking, if you have any more questions or want to see more specific body parts *wink* please let me know I’d love to talk about it!

Also, if you do end up making art of him I would Love Love Love to see it! Whether you tag me or dm me I would literally be honored to see what your creative mind comes up with!! 💙🩵💙🩵

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

WE HAVE A NEW SNEAK PEEK!!! 😍😍😍😍

[noneorother]

What do Shax and a 30-year-old Sandman comic have in common? Puns. The answer is always puns.

While I've recently revealed Shax does actually know how to spell, (she's just really old), the "angle" message Shax throws through the window to demand the "angel" one was a little trickier, because it's not Middle English, or even Old French, it's probably the oldest pun in Good Omens... it's latin.

Good Omens Season 2, Episode 5, 2023

Fortunately, a time travelling Neil Gaiman left answers for us in his 1995 Sandman special "Sandman midnight theatre." See for yourself.

Sandman Midnight Theatre, Neil Gaiman, Matt Wagner, Teddy Kristiansen, 1995

"Still, they have some illuminated manuscripts in their library which throw fascinating light on early church history. "Not angels, but angles" eh? I've been angling for permission to browse through their manuscript collection for yonks."

Appropriate for an English reverend to be curious about "Angels and not Angles". It's THE earliest christian pun, attributed to Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century CE.

Oxford reference essential quotations

It comes from a historical account of the pope walking through a market in Rome, and seeing some exotic slave children (i.e. fair hair and blue eyes, and light skin) from what is now the England, and asking where they were from. The master replied that they were "Angles" (Angli in latin) and the pope declared them to be "Angels" (Angeli) instead, which, in latin at that time would have been a pun. This history from Bede actually influenced a lot of the christian world, so we could conceivably make the point that fair blonde and blue eyed angels comes from the idea that they looked liked the English (who were not christian, but pagan at the time of being newly conquered). Aziraphale's looks in the originsl Good Omens are probably a direct result of the lineage in art of this 1,500 year old pun.

Depictions of angels, 1100 years apart Which raises the question: if Shax is asking for the Angel Gabriel with her note, the pun doesn't make any fucking sense.

Jon Hamm plays Gabriel as an "American", specifically not English like the rest of the cast. He does have blue eyes, but as far as Shax is concerned, Gabriel's eyes are violet, not really a human colour. Shax could just actually be stupid (I guess?) and not realize that in modern English that constitutes a mistake (boring), or that Americans succeeded in 1776 (hilarious). But here's a quirkier theory: Shax knows what she's talking about, and she's gunning for Maggie. If you look really closely, demons show up and start hanging around the street earlier in the ball than you would guess. Once a fair number have amassed, they stay waiting for Shax to lead them. However, even though she hasn't shown up yet, they eagerly chase Maggie down the street from her shop. They're only stopped by Crowley, and Maggie gets safely into the ball.

Once inside, she has quite a stunning change of costume, highlighting her blonde hair and blue eyes:

There's so much more evidence to suggest that Maggie isn't really a normal human, but this post is long enough. What I will say is that it's subtle, but once the demon attack really gets going (no thanks to Maggie), Shax and the other demons never look for Jim once, even when he leaves the mezzanine. They concentrate all their efforts on Aziraphale, Maggie and Nina, and never mention Gabriel again.

While Maggie is a Scottish name, and she clearly has some links to Scotland if a random pub in Edinburgh is buying records from her in Soho, she does have a distinctly English accent, and lest we forget...

———————————————

thanks as always to @embracing-the-ineffable and @thebluestgreen for the tasty links and sounding board.

[erosia-rhodes]

Don't leave your best ideas for later

The “Good Omens” season three renewal mess is a great reminder of a simple rule: do not leave your best ideas for next season.

It’s been at least a year since I watched season two of “Good Omens” and here’s what I remember most clearly (spoilers, obviously):

Gabriel loses his memory and hooks up with Beelzebub.

Aziraphale accepts a job to rule heaven.

Crowley kisses Aziraphale and they basically break up.

That’s it. That’s what I remember.

I vaguely recall subplots about two shop owners falling in love, flashbacks to a Victorian cemetery, zombies in WWII, and Aziraphale holding a dance at his bookshop, but none of that stuck with me even if those bits were fairly amusing at the time. If I were given a choice between those dalliances or a couple more hours of season three, I would reallocate that time to season three, and I think most fans would too. I doubt it would be hard for a fan to edit season two down to 2-3 hours without cutting anything essential.

Of the three things I do remember well, the most interesting idea was Aziraphale taking over heaven. That’s what season two should have been about!!! Will Aziraphale be able to make a significant impact upstairs? Will the job corrupt him? Will the challenges make him realize his side isn’t as “good” as he thinks? Will he come into direct conflict with Crowley? Will he quit or get fired or stay or choose to fall to be with Crowley? And what’s up with the whole second coming? This sounds fascinating and we did not need six episodes to set it up!

Instead, most of season two was spent trying to figure out why Gabriel lost his memory, and even though John Hamm is delightful, Gabriel is a tool and I never cared if he got his memory back. That whole story arc could have been wrapped up in two episodes and led us into Aziraphale taking over heaven in episode three, leaving plenty of time for more interesting plot.

Season two did not feel like a complete story. It felt like the first third of a tale that stopped when it got most interesting. It was risky to assume they’d get a season three to complete the story because streamers cancel shows all the time and nothing is ever guaranteed. Even after a show is made, sometimes the networks decide not to air them like what happened with “The Spiderwick Chronicles” which had to hunt for a new home.

So please, do not wait to explore your most interesting concept! Do not assume there will be a next season! Tell a complete story during the season even if that story is also part of a larger series-long one. As much as I hate that we’re only getting a 90-minute movie that will rush to wrap things up, the show brought this upon itself. Aziraphale and Crowley deserved better and so did we!

[tonydaddingham]

Source

Transcript of main article under the cut:

THE RASCALLY DEMON Crowley (David Tennant) and the neurotic angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) put aside their differences to pull off one doozy of a Hail Mary and prevent an impending Apocalypse in Good Omens' first season. The task cemented the pair's unconventional friendship. So what are divine beings who have fallen out of grace with both Heaven and Hell to do for an encore?

The answer lies with archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm), who shows up unannounced on the doorstep of Aziraphale's London bookshop. Suddenly, Aziraphale and Crowley are caught up in a caper of biblical proportions- but also a more intimate tale.

"It's a mystery" showrunner Neil Gaiman tells SFX. "It kicks off a story that doesn't have giant consequences for the universe, even if it does have consequences for Aziraphale and Crowley. We have a lot of the marvellous Jon Hamm, who is the angel Gabriel and turns up at the beginning stark naked, carrying a cardboard box with no memory of who he is. In the same way, it is about Aziraphale and Crowley having to get involved with humanity in a way that they haven't before.

"They get dragged in slightly against their will to try to sort out the love life of Aziraphale's tenant," he continues. "Her name is Maggie (Maggie Service) and she runs the

record shop next to the bookshop. You'll see the coffee shop over the road, which is Nina's (Nina Sosanya). The relationship between Maggie and Nina is one that Crowley and Aziraphale try to fix, and mess up, because they are not good at human relationships, even if they can do miracles."

Truth be told, Gaiman never originally intended this arc to serve as Good Omens' second instalment. The TV series was based on Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's 1990 novel. The two collaborators had partially hashed out the details for a sequel to the fantasy comedy, late one night in a hotel room. This, however, is not it. Gaiman instead plotted a new narrative that could provide the connective tissue between the first season and a theoretical season three, if it happens.

"Because the hypothetical season three exists, there is a story that is there, and I didn't feel that we could drive straight from season one into that," Gaiman explains. "I knew what the stakes were. I knew what the parameters were. I also know that I had David and Michael. I had the angels from plot number one. I had demons from plot number one. And with anybody that I wanted to bring back, but didn't have room for right now, I did not have to bring them back as themselves.

"I had absolutely nothing for Madame Tracy to do in this plot, but I would be damned if Miranda Richardson wasn't going to be in this. She is one of my favourite people in the world. She is hilarious and is so good. And I knew I was going to have a new demon replacing Crowley as Hell's representative in London/the UK. Miranda's demon Shax is the best demon you could want."

It's late February 2012 and SFX is in Edinburgh for a set visit. A soundstage in Pyramids Studies has been transformed into a street in Soho. The visible local stores include the aforementioned book, coffee and record shops, as well as a magic establishment. In the middle of them all stand Aziraphale and Crowley, the latter in close proximity to his classic Bentley. It's close to the end of the six-episode season, so exactly what the duo is discussing constitutes a spoiler. We can say, however, that Aziraphale has picked up the pace. Time is of the essence as Shax marshals her forces to descend on Aziraphale's store and retrieve Gabriel.

"This is really Shax's first time out on Earth," Gaiman explains. "She is working very diligently and very hard in Hell for a long time. Now she is on Earth, trying to figure it all out. She's just discovering what Crowley has known for 6,000 years, which is that if you're a demon and come up with a brilliant plan to screw up the lives of humanity, people will get there first and do worse than anything you could have imagined! She's coming to terms with that.

"She is having to deal with the first crisis on her watch, as well, which is the disappearance of the archangel Gabriel from Heaven. It would be fair to say that by the end of the story, she is leading as much as she can get from Hell's requisition department - a legion of Hell - in an attack on a Soho bookshop."

When audiences catch up with Aziraphale again, he's enjoying his time among humans. He owns most of the block in a Soho neighbourhood, and he's meddling in Nina's love life. Meanwhile, Crowley has been living in his car, with his plants sitting on the back seat. He's grumpy about his current status quo, but frequently hangs out at Aziraphale's. The duo began as antagonists, but their history and blooming relationship will be fleshed out in flashbacks.

"One of the enormously fun things I came up with in the idea of minisodes," Gaiman explains. They are 25-minute-long episodes within the episode. We have three of them over our six episodes. Each of them is like one of those chunks of episode three (in season one). Whereas the longest one of those was four or five minutes, if that, these are full stories.

"You get to have the story of (put-upon Biblical figure) Job and you learn Aziraphale and Crowley's part in the story. Then writer Cat Clarke takes us to Edinburgh in the 1820s for a tale of body-snatching and attempted murder that the boys get involved in," he adds.

"Finally, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman reunite the League of Gentlemen in a Nazi-period story that takes place very shortly after the episode in the church. That one was the only one I said had to be there, because I fell in love with our Nazi spies in the church I kept thinking, "What would happen if they essentially came back as zombies with a mission from Hell to try and investigate whether or not Crowley and Aziraphale were actually fraternising?"

Gaiman admits that one of the greatest challenges has been filming Good Omens simultaneously with his upcoming show Anansi Bays. The two shoot within throwing distance of each other, but are both time-consuming endeavours.

"If I could go back in time, I would go back to 16 September 2020, when Douglas Mackinnon (co-producer) and I got the phone call from the Amazon bigwigs to say, "We have

good news for you and interesting news for you," Gaiman recalls. "'The good news is we are greenlighting both Good Omens and Anansi Boys. The interesting news is you are going to have to do them both at the same time.'

"I would go back to then and I would throw myself on the call and say, 'Neil, don't! This is unwise.' That we are doing them both together is great. The amount of sleep I am not getting is monumental and monstrous.

"It's a little bit like childbirth, in that I managed to forget all the things that drove me nuts about the first one. Having said that, I managed to fix all the things that really drove me nuts making season one which is great. We just have a whole new set of problems making season two."

[mythrilpencil]

This is something of a prequel/backstory scene for the story I’m working on, of which Rage Against the Void is a part of.

Word Count: 763

CW: guns, war allusions

Backup

———

Zenith led his unit through a jungle of rubble. This part of the city had already been evacuated months ago, and any remnants of what businesses used to thrive here had long since been shattered by the ongoing war.

“Wasn’t the SOS ping sent from somewhere in this sector?” one of the androids in Zenith’s unit—a bulky assault model named Hammer—asked as they propped up a fallen support beam for the rest of the unit to cross under. “Who’d really set up shop clear out here?”

“There’s still the fusion plant a few blocks down,” Zenith reminded them with a nod that direction, “Independents wanted to get it back up and running but riots started giving them trouble.”

Hammer huffed and shrugged a shoulder, their thick armor plates shuffling into place. “Still not a very viable location, if you ask me.”

Zenith tipped his head in a shrug as he looked around. “Could be worse,” he supposed, “Could be—”

A loud clatter of metal and concrete rubble interrupted him. He and Hammer spun around at full alert, sensors primed for any threat. But it was just the trainee.

Well, “trainee” was a strong word. The android currently sliding a small avalanche of debris, Edge, was more a supplement to the unit than anything. He was a new model, with a lithe frame that emulated the build of a young human adult. Despite his records only placing him at 5 years of age, his deep maroon armor had all the wear of a veterans’. And scrambling up the rubble wasn’t helping the wear and tear.

Zenith sighed to himself. He’d have to give the kid a talk about proper armor maintenance when they got back to base. “Edge!” he called out to him, “What are you doing?“

Edge spun his head around to look at Zenith, bright green eyes cutting through the night’s gloom. He blinked, then looked back up at the collapsed garage he was still attempting to scale without another word.

Zenith ordered, “Edge! Get down from there; we’re going this way,” and waved a hand towards the path Hammer was holding the way open to. 

“I’m picking something up over here,” Edge objected, finally pulling himself up over the lip of the nearest overhang. 

“Picking what up?” Zenith frowned. “Edge, if you’re detecting a signal, you’re supposed to let us know, remember?”

“It’s not super strong; might be nothing.”

“Whatever it is, tell us so we can back you up—”

“No I got this; you guys go on ahead,” Edge insisted, disappearing over the ledge, “I’ll catch up to you.”

Zenith sighed roughly, expression flattening, then glanced back at Hammer and the two others in his unit. Hammer, meeting his glance, rolled their eyes and set the support beam they’d been propping up down. Then they and the other two followed Zenith as he leapt up the rubble after Edge.

~~~

They caught up with the young android just in time. Edge had found his way into a pocket in the depths of a collapsed skyscraper. Plasma fire shot through the air. The kid had found his way into trouble.

Edge staggered back, surrounded by drones opening fire. To his credit, he dodged a good amount of their fire and returned with his own from his pistols. But stray plasma fire caught his feet and he tripped over a canister. 

Zenith charged in. He yanked Edge back by his shoulder and shoved his other arm forward. His energy shield shot out from his forearm just as a stray shot hit the canister.

The canister exploded, concentrated ether reacting with the air with the wrath of an angry blue sun. But Zenith’s shield held it all back.

Edge shouted and flinched. But then he opened his eyes, transfixed by the angry ether fighting against Zenith’s shield. 

“Wh—”

Zenith cut him off with a hand under his arm, pulling him to his feet. “And that’s why you always need backup,” he grunted. The concentrated ether wisps dissipated, and Zenith waved his free hand to signal at the others.

Edge blinked when Hammer and the other two made their charge. He readied his own pistols in response, but his eyes were still wide and inexperienced. “I—I thought you guys would have gone ahead—”

“I know you’re not used to working in a unit,” Zenith told him as he shrunk his shield, “But that’s not how things work in one. When you’re in a unit, you back each other up. No one goes alone. Got it?”

“I—”

Zenith met his eyes.

“Got it.”

———

For this week’s prompt courtesy of @flashfictionfridayofficial!

Tagging: @jacqueswriteblrlibrary

[everysongineverykey]

love how the they/them representation in good omens goes from the personification of pollution to stinky little guy who sits in a big chair all day and calls to flies like they're dogs to extremely gender transfem who flirts with jon hamm in front of their magic shop owner husband to my personal favorite, the unluckiest intern in the world who would have been fired years ago if their company didn't already have pr issues

[ineffablenlghtingales]

Oh my, the flashback of Crowley and Aziraphale before the beginning of everything. Angel!Crowley is so adorable. Those little squeaks of delight when he's making the stars...

Aziraphale ends up popping his happiness when he mentions the plans that the universe and all of that is supposed to end in about six thousand years. Then Crowley's understandably upset but just asks (with genuine desire to know, I think) “How much trouble can I get into just asking a few questions?” Okay so I know I asked earlier about Crowley's Fall and y'all said it was implied in one way or another. Was his Fall because he dared to question the Almighty's plans and by those questions seemed to go against the great plan? Because if so, that isn't fair and I don't think Crowley deserved to be cast from Heaven into boiling pools of sulfur and condemned to an eternity as a demon just because he didn't understand the point of creating something so beautiful that would only be destroyed in the blink of an eye. (Another thing I could probably write more about at some later point...)

Then we're brought to present-day London where Crowley meets Shax (hm I decided I don't really like her.) So as I understand it, she's taken Crowley's place as Hell's ambassador? (Did I miss something in S1 or was it explicitly said that Crowley was Hell's ambassador on earth bec it was news to me). I love how Crowley just doesn't give a shit at all.

Memory-wiped Gabriel shows up in his skivvies and I felt sorry for Aziraphale and the massive headache he must have had dealing with him. But I loved John Hamm's performance. Like Gabriel is kind of stupid but not so much stupid as his head is just empty of everything.

Ever the one to help people in need, Azi lets him in, gives him a blanket and tries to figure out what the heaven is going on. Okay, but “You know what it’s like when you don’t know anything at all but you’re totally certain that everything would be better if you were near one particular person?” had me. Azi reacted a little bit too strongly to that, and are we to understand that he's denying the fact that Crowley happens to be that person for him? Open your eyes, dear Azi. Don't deny it, love. Then Gabriel, mentions that “something terrible” might happen and there’s a “thing” he’s supposed to give Aziraphale. The thing turns out to be an empty cardboard box.

Then, one of my favorite scenes. Crowley loses his shit when he sees Gabriel, and you see the poor demon is very much startled.

Crowley (very angry and confused): What's he doing here? Aziraphale: I don't know. Crowley (not impressed): Ask him! Aziraphale (helplessly): He doesn't know either. Crowley (really very much not impressed) *growls*: Ask him, properly! Crowley (to Gabriel): WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. IN. THIS. BOOK-SHOP-PAH. (makes sure to pop that 'p') Gabriel (a little bit confused): I. Am. Dusting. *Waves the duster in the air)

Then the goose chase for Gabriel begins, Crowley is dragged back to Hell and gets threatened a bit by Beelzebub. Oh! I almost forgot. Crowley gets so mad he electrocutes himself. It was kind of funny. Like I loved how he's stalking out of the bookshop trying (not very hard maybe) to control his anger, and then he starts smoking. Then he shakes and gives up. "I can't do this. I'm so angry!" and yep, electrocutes himself also locking Maggie and Nina in their shop.

Crowley eventually frees the women with a snap of his fingers and goes back to apologize to Azi. But the angel wants the "I Was Wrong Dance” before he’ll forgive his friend for ditching him — and though Crowley is not so okay with that, he does it in the end with this fantastic flourish and bow at the end. Excuse me, sir.

So then they put their heads together and try to figure out what to do about Gabriel and decide to each do half a miracle to hide the amnesiac archangel. They do and are pretty convinced it works. BUT it sets off big alarms in Heaven, whoops.

Recap for 2x02 to come tomorrow, hopefully!

Next episode's recap ➵

[kenna-is-reading-stuff]

Book haul for the monster romance series by Emma Hamm. I preordered these MONTHS ago before I even read the books and THEY ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!
This is a post apocalyptic standalone series that takes place far in the future where humans can no longer live on the surface of the planet. They take refuge under the sea and build massive underwater cities that disrupt the ecosystems and sea life, including the massive creatures called undines. Each book follows a different pair of human female and male undine who fall in love against all odds.
Emma Hamm’s books are available to be read on KU and she has a shop on her website to buy books directly from her.
Happy reading 😊

[avelera]

OK, so, I have now seen Good Omens Season 2 and had a moment to muster my thoughts after binging it.

SPOILERS below the cut, if that needed saying.

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Let's start with the good.

Loved that Beelz/Gabriel became canon. What can I say? I love stories about immortals falling in love over the course of several meetings at a pub ;)

John Hamm in general was fabulous

I cackled at the fact we were getting an actual fem Aziraphale/Crowley, human coffee shop AU running parallel with the absolute fanficciest of justifications that Aziraphale and Crowley HAD to make them fall in love in order to *mumble mumble* something plot whatever, lol

I loved the bits of lore flashbacks we got about Aziraphale and Crowley first meeting when they were both angels and I found the whole Job encounter overall charming.

I was deeply fascinated by the fact that Crowley consistently performed selfless angelic acts while Aziraphale consistently needed to learn and grow around doing the right thing. Even to the end he remained, for the most part, a good little soldier. Aziraphale thinks the system can be fixed. Crowley "knows" that it can't. Presumably, Crowley is right. More on that later.

Muriel was adorable

Loved that we got the kiss. Also, huge shoutout to the fandom that I genuinely went in unspoiled on that front after the whole trailer debacle. I SUSPECTED based on the reactions that the spoiler was a kiss, but I was able to successfully forget all about it so I genuinely gasped when they kissed.

I'm not really all that bummed by the ending. It's so obviously a "temporary breakup so we come back together stronger" moment so I was largely unbothered. I actually want MORE angst, not less, in fic after that, please and thank you.

Unpopular opinion praise for S2, but I'm glad we didn't get more of The Them, or Madame Tracy (though the recasting of the actress in another role puzzled me?) or Anathema/Newt, or any of the non Aziraphale/Crowley, Heaven/Hell stuff. I found all those plotlines hugely boring and I'm glad the story moved on from them.

Did I mention I adored Gabriel/Beelz? Loved that plotline. Might rewatch that bit again just for that. I SORT of suspected it was happening but was still delighted by the confirmation. I couldn't BELIEVE this minor ship got made canon, but along the way I was sort of side-eying Beelz's reactions through the lens of, "Wait, what if Beelz is WORRIED for Gabriel?" and it worked very well so I was tentatively *glad* for the shippers who might view it that way and NEVER guessed they'd make it canon this season with more than a few tidbits for those shippers to cling to. Wow. Whole-ass parallel instead of what Aziraphale and Crowley COULD be if they actually 1) communicated and 2) understood each other's values and valued the same things.

Truly, it was a love letter to the fandom I found that to be very sweet as a choice made by Tumblr Girlie Neil Gaiman.

H'ok, now let's get into the negative. To be clear, I enjoyed the season! A lot of room is left to explore stuff in Season 3! And I'm not a deep Good Omens fandom person, I didn't read much fic after S1 dropped, I was more of a book fandom fic person for it. So my level of investment isn't such that I'm *crushed* by any of this, these are just more things I found a bit "meh"?

I really thought we were heading to a side-swap story about Aziraphale and Crowley and I was little bummed it didn't happen, though there's still room for the possibility in S3. The whole "maybe I did the good thing and you did the bad" taken to the max. I really wanted the angst of them finding each other only to end up on opposite sides again and opposite-OPPOSITE sides of where they'd been and been comfortable up to this point. I really wanted to see IMPACT and SUFFERING and DISCOMFORT and... idk, more drama? Than we got?

Like, there were SO MANY references to Crowley being selfless and doing the RIGHT angelic thing while Aziraphale did a lot of HORRIFYING things, including all the mind-fuckery stuff he did around the ball, totally insensitive to the needs and wants of the humans involved, only seeing them as tools, that REALLY made me wonder if we were getting a swap by the end.

The fact we saw SO MANY ominous references to Aziraphale FALLING because he was tempted by Crowley, over and over, because he questioned God, over and over? I thought something would come of that! I thought Crowley would get through to Aziraphale just in time to have Aziraphale fall and for Crowley to do something truly angelic, to have Aziraphale get through to HIM at the same time so they'd swap sides officially, against their will, the same way Crowley never meant to fall. It seemed like falling was something that COULD HAPPEN TO YOU AGAINST YOUR WILL and I wanted REDEMPTION to work the same way, AGAINST Crowley's will. I wanted them to get absolutely FUCKED by the moment they finally got through to each other and swapped philosophies.

So that was a bummer. Could still happen in S3 but...? I'd be a bit surprised at this point given I think it will instead focus on (*sigh*) averting the Apocalypse again.

I thought the pacing was fucking atrocious. There was so much dead time. So many scenes that were simply *not* needed and didn't add anything. So much meandering script with darlings that desperately needed to be killed for the sake of a snappier story. So much that felt like padding. With a better editor and 2 fewer episodes, I think it would have been a much tighter, better, fast paced show.

S2 recalled with a problem I have with Neil's writing in general - he's a short story writer/comic issue writer at heart. I, personally, am a long-form novel writer. Neil is not great at writing novels, he's a novella/anthology/short story person and it shows when he so often, so consistently, fails to pull a long-form story together in a satisfying way (to me, and this is just my subjective opinion).

It shows up in so many ways with how, in my opinion, S2 seemed to flounder with how to fill 6 episodes. The flashback to the Resurrectionist stuff could have been half as long and I found much of the writing pretty awful and cliche in it.

I liked Aziraphale learning that morality is complex, truly, but that was all I really liked of that bit of flashback and it could have been much shorter. I found everything around Elspeth exasperating and on the nose. It was a short story straight out of a random issue of "The Sandman" and sometimes it really feels like Neil has never managed to break out of the same stories, plots, and themes, with a dash of horror as he did from that era. He's always, always, still just writing either 1) fanfic of another person or mythology's work or 2) an original Sandman short stories/issues with no long-form plot. In his defense, they're always COOL and have an interesting VISUAL or IDEA but these stories aren't very... good? Writing? Or rather, he tends to just do the same things over and over again. Nifty idea that don't actually really *gel* into anything more complex than a single storyline?

I felt the same way about the Nazi Zombie plotline. I found that entire story beat EXCEEDINGLY tedious and pointless except to fill airtime, not to mention a bit gross to watch. I found the Magician Aziraphale plotline in general EXCEEDINGLY pointless and tedious to sit through. I thought it added absolutely nothing and was incredibly dull for 99% of the story.

Everything with Shax was exceedingly tedious and boring to me. The fight in the bookshop felt nonsensical and poorly choreographed. That needed to be a 2x speed to feel any sense of peril or urgency at all, and not knowing where it was going, or if anyone was actually really threatened at all just robbed it of any real sense of tension.

There was just... zero sense in general of important stakes in the Shax storyline or really in the season because there was no Apocalypse to build towards, no event that we knew about to worry about.

The world wasn't ending. Shax didn't seem empowered to actually do anything or hurt anyone. They were just a random action plot for... reasons? To make the climax in the bookshop come together so we could have a Jane Austen ball at the same time as 69 demons (heh) invading? There were so many logical leaps there to make that happen and the pacing/editing being garbage just... robbed it of any feeling of importance except as a time waster of a plotline. The actress is great and all but dear lord was that plotline dull.

A lot of the flashbacks in general just felt like... padding. Yes, we got a bit more Aziraphale and Crowley but they never quite... worked for me in those. It was always pointless STUFF they were doing rather than anything that contributed to the plot or even to my sense of them being in love or working towards becoming a couple! They were just... there, a lot of the time, sitting next to each other.

Some of the script pauses were SO BIZARRE. Like as if they'd just written the script and not realized how bloody often Crowley is given NOTHING TO DO in the background so he just... stands there, waiting for his next line, or taking a nap, or observing random stuff. David Tenant in the Resurrectionist bit with all his theatrics felt, again, pointless and tedious but also the best the poor guy could fucking do to fill out this incredibly boring story with any sort of entertainment. Bless them, the actors worked their ASSES off to get some fun and excitement into huge swathes of this script.

Maggie and Nina's relationship was cute but ENTIRELY pulled off by the actresses, the story was again, incredibly tedious and pointless otherwise, as many coffee shop AUs are in my opinion. Their personal charm elevated the material but it all felt like more stalling tactics with a wink-and-a-nod at fic writers, with this entire season was stretched out to justify, presumably, Aziraphale being in Heaven after being promoted to Archangel while Crowley is on Earth and they're fighting.

Quite frankly, if the "real" sequel, which Pratchett co-wrote, just opens with Aziraphale thinking Heaven's shown up to destroy him, only to promote him on the spot, basically the last scene of S2, you actually don't need 99% of this season at all to get there. In fact, it's a pretty fun comedy beat to do quickly. Basically, "Oh shit, the cops!" then "Actually, we're here to promote you!" and boom, we've reached the same spot as we got to after 6 episodes of S2.

Not that I didn't enjoy many of the character moments! But overall, it felt like stalling for time to make it a trilogy series, since only a few plot threads had any longer term importance to anyone who isn't a fanfic-writing super fan who knows what a coffee shop AU is and can giggle over there being one in the actual show.

Basically, it was very lacking in the strengths of the story that I attribute to Terry Pratchett - like the ability to pull a long-form story together, and certain clever turns of phrase.

There were so many lines where there was a pause where it was as IF they were going to say something clever, and then they just... didn't? And the line was just another cliche or a trail-off of someone mumbling "comedically"? That's where I very much felt Pratchett's absence. It indeed felt like half the writing duo was missing in many ways. And I'm not personally... all that convinced of Neil's chops when it comes to long-form stories or romance, two things that this season kinda relied on pulling off right that I was left feeling pretty tepid about after.

Look, overall, I did like it! I'm really excited for how the fandom will run with what happened and make their own stuff with it. I'm very excited for Season 3, whenever we get it, and the return of Terry Pratchett's fingerprints on the story. I think it's going to be great!

It's not that I think my time was wasted so much as I thought places where *I* would have done things differently, which is not a fair criticism of any work. From a technical perspective, really I just think it needed a tighter script or tighter editing, and they just might not have been able to do that if they were contracted for 6 episodes when they only really needed 3. Oh well. Onward and upward!