#ineffable dickens

[enbycrip]

Shots fired 😁

(Imagine how exquisitely edged with sarcasm Crowley’s Beaker noises would be).

[sentientsky]

Neil Bildaddy??? on Shuhite Sunday??

[ouroborealis-charnivore]

Crowley dying in s3

I wasn't sure how to start this meta. I've had this theory with possible (big possible) evidence sitting around for ages and I just didn't know what to do with the information.

After I'd already had this information, I only seen a hand full of others talk about it, but none have touched on it in the same way as the things I've found in my research.

So let's get on with it. For reference I'm going to tag @nightingalecottage and their lovely post here. I really recommend reading it. This theory only saw the light of day because of their post and I told them I would tag them with my meta since it lends a lot to it. And I promised myself that I would finish this for them.

Now for the meat and potatoes. I'll break it all down about how I found this information and how it might lend some theory about possible plot to s3.

This got really long so I put a cut.

-Silly narrator voice-

The facts were these.

To start I was doing research for a fic I'm working on and the details don't matter much but I'd planned to make my 'human' crowley a barrister. I was googling famous barristers for inspiration.

This lead me to wikipedia naturally as you do. And as I was looking over the list I saw this.

After seeing this name on the list of barristers in popular culture I had a mini freakout. Mainly because two things NG is a huge fan of Charles Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities is on the bookclub reading list. And I kept thinking why did this seem familiar and this is why.

A Tale of Two Cities is on the list of books that they recommend we read or were found in s2. So after I stopped freaking out I immediately went to the wiki page for this character. I wasn't too familiar with this book so I wanted to know more. As I was now super invested and intrigued. And found this.

Sydney Carton

I couldn't help be blown away by the similarities here between Sydney Carton and a certain depressed snake demon from s2. Morosely asking Shax on a bench in the first episode "What's the point of it all?"

For some context, in the novel Sydney Carton and his later best friend Charles Darnay share a striking semblance and are easily mistaken for each other. This is how Sydney is then able to make the switch with Darnay in the end saving his life.

This brings to mind of the lore that we know that Crowley and Aziraphale were once long ago one character and split into two. Also with the ideal casting choice that Terry Pratchett wanted one actor to play both roles. That would have been really interesting and funny. Also this plays into our favorite duo MS and DT having not worked together before because they were up for the same roles.

Let's move on to

Charles Darnay

Darnay resents his uncle's views much how Aziraphale resents certain aspects of heaven, but is never able to act on very much.

The note about Darnay being tutor of French made me chuckle considering what we know about Aziraphale being terrible at French. With that whole scene centered around it in s2.

Ok so we all are well versed and familiar with the famous Bastille scene. We all know the one and its clear the inspiration here for it comes from A Tale of Two Cities possibly.

Side note Darnay and Carton are both in love with Lucie here, but I posit that in the case of Good omens, Aziraphale is possibly both Darnay and Lucie. Making him the best friend and love intrest.

Lucie Manette

And finally why does any of this matter and what does this have to do with Crowley maybe dying in s3 you ask?

The one important detail in all of this is that at the end of the novel Carton heroically sacrificed himself to save his best friend and for the women he loves. He feels it gave him purpose and felt as if his life finally had meaning.

Two things here. The scene in which Carton swaps places with Darnay being able to pass as him well enough to save his life. Is very reminiscent of our Body Swap from s1. As well as the idea that in s3 this could also happen, but in the sense that Crowley does it to save Aziraphale's life. I clearly have no idea how s3 will play out.

Now I'm not saying that s3 will be as dramatic as all of this. It is still a comedy at its core. As others have touched on in meta and in nightingalecottage's post there are many little hints that point to the similarities and the idea that Crowley maybe doomed by the narrative. In a way, I personally don't think that Crowley's hypothetical death will be permanent. I just do not see that happening at all. A temporary death I could definitely see and it could also serve to show how much Crowley truly means to Aziraphale. The shock of it would maybe be similar to how Crowley thought he lost Aziraphale in s1 and could be a parallel.

In the end this is all speculation and theory. Either way the idea of it all makes me vibrate and I needed to finally share this with someone else. They wouldn't have recommended this book if there wasn't some sort of meaning here right? And its entirely possible I'm looking in the wrong direction.

Overall there are many parallels and similarities here between A Tale of Two Cities and certain parts of Good Omens, I'm sure I may have missed some and I just wanted to end this now before it gets too long. If you made it this far and have any other theories or something you want to add on to this please feel free to tag me. I release this into the void.

[juliette-tango]

On Twelfth Night, as we pack Christmas back into its box, I would like to share with you, A Tale of Two Turkeys, what might happen if Misters Fell and Crowley were to stumble into A Christmas Carol. It is Christmas Eve 1886. Aziraphale and Crowley stand in front of the Bookshop. Mr Fell has a letter to post.

In front of the Grocers stand Bob Cratchett and Tiny Tim. Scrooge can be seen coming down the street towards them.

Post number one

[beerok23]

Runaway Groom AU - Chapter 17

With the compliments of my beta @somewhere-in-wales

Excerpt from Chapter 17 - Spirits

It was past 8 in the evening, and he was taking a stroll down the high street. After the longest day of the year, the shops were finally all closed, and all the owners had gone home to their friends and families. It was a particularly cold night, and Aziraphale could feel the chill passing through his immaculate beige coat down to his core. You could spot little puffs of air coming out from his mouth, but his recently grown beard was proving to be really helpful to protect at least his cheeks from the glacial winter. Aziraphale was so engrossed in his thoughts that he almost didn’t notice the sound of steps on the pavement behind him. He was being followed, and when he eventually realised it, he turned around in one quick motion, startling the person who was approaching him. “Fuck, Az, you scared the shit out of me!” Aziraphale chuckled at his best friend’s colourful language, “I’m sorry, Anathema. You shouldn’t have been following me like a pickpocket, then.” Anathema narrowed her eyes cunningly, “It’s funny that you should mention pickpockets, because that might have something to do with what we’re about to do tonight.” “What I am about to do is go home and wallow in the misery of the distasteful, troubled, fragile existence that I’ve carved out for myself here.” Anathema scoffed, “You sound just like Crowley.” Yes, I do. So what if Aziraphale had spent the last couple of days reading all the pieces Crowley had published in the last ten years? What if he’d been inspired by his almost lyrical language? Sue him! “What do you want from me, Ana?” Aziraphale sighed in exasperation, and the fact that he’d just short-named her was proof enough of his distress. “It’s late, it’s cold, and I want to go home.” “No, you don’t. Because tonight you will be haunted…” Anathema moved her fingers in what was supposed to be a spooky gesture, “By Three Spirits.” It was Aziraphale’s turn to narrow his eyes at his friend, “What are you talking about?!” “Without their visits you cannot hope to shun the path you’re treading.” Aziraphale had known Anathema for years, and she’d never used those two verbs since she’d become a British citizen, not once. Good Lord, he knew British scholars who’d never used the word ‘shun’. But Aziraphale knew who did use it. “Why are you quoting Dickens to me, Anathema? You know I don’t like him that mu—” Anathema thumped her feet on the ground, “Will you just shut it and let me act?!” Aziraphale smiled tenderly at his friend and waved his hands so that she knew that she could go on with whatever silliness she was up to. “I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping a horrible fate.” “This sounds a little bit improv.” Anathema scoffed, “Maybe if you let me finish, Mr. Scrooge, you would understand!” “Right, sure. I can most certainly shut up.” “Thanks,” Anathema nodded hard at him. “Can I take the visits all at once and have it over, Anathema?” Aziraphale was deliberately misquoting the novel, now. But two could play this game. Anathema gave him a scornful look and mouthed a silent ‘fuck you’. Aziraphale replied with a whispered ‘love you’.

[READ FROM THE BEGINNING]

TAG LIST

@firephoenix2305 @on1occasionfork @moralsofanalleycatsposts @captainblou @bellisima-writes @shadesofecclescakes

With the ineffable trailer created by @ineffablerainstorm and the support of my second beta @pookasluagh 💛🧡

[ineffableclassics]

Mr Crowley and Mr Fell Present: An Entertainment for Christmas

Or: How an Angel and a Demon inspired a Christmas Classic

Or: An Ineffable Christmas Cock-up

Or: How Charles Dickens Saved the Day

Words: 18,574

Status: Complete

Rating: General Audiences

[unidentifiedlyingobject]

Ineffable May Day 21: Disguise

yes, the black dot is back. after I scanned these last images I had had enough and I searched for this evil little guy. I scratched him off the surface of the printer with furious delight and I did not weep for him as he fell to the floor, abandoned by my prising fingertips, snatched from his home to a life of deserved solitude away from my innocent art that he had mutilated with his presence countless times

... anyway

I'm obsessed with Azi's visit to Hell and yes, he would absolutely cosplay as some guy from a Charles Dickens novel

[yeahyeahno]

Good Omens Book Club

POSSIBLE GOOD OMENS SPOILERS

You have been warned, please don’t spoil yourself. This refers to books referenced in S2 of Good Omens, but I am not relating them to events or plot.

EDIT: @ineffable-romantics​​ gave some really excellent suggestions. Having rewatched and looked up their starting sentences, I think these are right. I suppose only Neil Gaiman or Douglas Mackinnon could confirm 100%. More below.

In episode 2 we get a shot of a book shelf. I have compiled the titles, though two are illegible. For one you can make out the publisher mark, the other is too far back in the shadows. I have listed them in order on the shelf, plus the books that Gabriel picked up.

-

The Books:

I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

No Woman No Cry - Rita Marley

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (Mystery book, in the shadows)

The Crow Road - Iain Banks

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Gracia Marquez

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (Mystery book, publisher mark visible but I can't make it out)

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

The Bible

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket

Herzog - Saul Bellow

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

-

Here’s the opening line for The Bell Jar:

‘It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

And for A Tale of Two Cities:

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”

Gabriel reads this aloud in the bookshop (07:14), and shelves it near the Crow Road! Mystery solved? Perhaps. (Wait and see?)

“X-Ray Trivia” from Amazon Prime states “The Good Omens Book Club - Co-showrunners Neil Gaiman and Douglas Mackinnon would love for everyone to read these books. Douglas Mackinnon put these books in alphabetical order, starting with their first sentence.

All the books ‘Jim’ has reshelved so far by alphabetical order of ... the first line in each. Each book’s first line begins with ‘I’.

Gabriel shelving a book near Iain Banks’ ‘The Crow Road.’

[queerlyglittering]

Not to be all "Americans will measure with anything but the metric system," but I think it would be interesting if AO3 had some sort of ranking/measuring system where it compared the length of fanfic works to the lengths of like classic or modern literature. Like, "this fanfic is approximately the same length as 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens," or "this fic is about 1.5x as long as 'The Hunger Games'," etc. Mostly I just think it would be interesting to know the word counts for professionally published works and be able to compare that with the length of fanfiction works. I know for a fact I've read some fics that were like 700,000+ words, so it would be nice to know like "this fic is approximately as long as A Game of Thrones" and so forth. I feel like that might even incentivize some readers to actually try reading classic works, because like "if I can read 200,000 words of Ineffable Husbands hurt/comfort, I can manage 68,000 words of the Scarlet Letter."

[casualminerva]

"I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of eternity with somebody, you want the rest of eternity to start as soon as possible."*

Why GO3 needs to end with a holiday episode

This post starts, as it will end, with Neil Gaiman. Neil, allegedly, has said that Good Omens is a rom-com. Maybe his exact words were “love story,” but let’s not quibble. This piqued my interest because face it, rom-coms are few and far between right now (except for K-dramas, where they are plentiful and quite wonderful, if a bit draggy at 16 episodes). And in my mind the world would be a lot better right now if the Western media giants would stop greenlighting every stabby, bloody, nihilistic cop power fantasy that emerges from the sad resentful minds of perpetually adolescent cishet male producers, and run with romantic comedies by the bucketful, especially ones that will right the wrongs of the ‘90s rom-com golden era. 

Good Omens is one of those, definitely. Our lovers are non-human, gender fluid, older. But the rules of rom-coms are still in place. Season 1 had the meet cute, the clash of opposing life views that gradually softens, our couple being forced to work together with comic results, a brief traumatic separation, and a reuniting in mutual appreciation, if not love. 

Season 2 was the deepening of everything, the camera documenting their faces caressing each other, the mutual rescuing, the “our side won’t like that” restraints dropping, and all of a sudden they’re touching each other out of both affection and habit, until a shitty choice arises to end it all, with a climactic kiss punctuating a truly wrenching moment of, I don’t know yet if you can call it noble idiocy, but it was a wrecking ball moment that told us they’re gonna be separated, with their hearts and ours broken, for a good long time.

Now to S3 (please please Amazon, renew). Season 3 can go so many wild directions since we’re in Second Coming territory, but for our lovers, it’s going to be dreadful to watch them separated. Our hearts are going to be in our throats every time they’re potentially in the same scene together. We’re going to see them alone, doing their own thing a lot, as once again they try to save the world, this time without each other, perhaps on opposite sides.

So what is it that finally breaks impasses and brings rom-com lovers back into each other’s arms? It’s not sudden rain showers or cotillion balls, obviously. It’s the HOLIDAYS. Christmas and Hanukkah and the grandest of them all, New Year’s Eve. It's hard to think of a rom-com that doesn’t have a confession, reunion or long overdue kiss against the backdrop of tipsy NYE celebrants or the sight of snow through glowing windows. It's the ultimate serotonin release mechanism, it conquers worry, it heals heartache, it just -- works.

I can imagine Neil and John Finnemore having a wonderful time playing with, twisting and subverting the holiday trope, all the while using that same trope to delicately land the plane of Aziraphale and Crowley’s fraught relationship.

We already know that the subject of Christmas lights is a sticky wicket for the Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association. A possible incentive to get Aziraphale back in the bookshop? We also can guess the effect Auld Lang Syne, the most shamelessly sentimental song in any film in all of recorded history, would have on a certain Scottish-leaning demon who has watched his share of Richard Curtis movies. I hope the Bentley will play it for the two of them (not the bebop version though) because, well, vavoom. We will all be piles of sobbing goo.

There’s so much material. The birth of Jesus as a minisode (welcome back, Gabriel!), other biblical and religious stuff, carolers (demons or angels or both?), Dickens references, parties, dancing. Finally, a gentle snow transforming Whickber Street into a dreamland, as our two tired but eternally hopeful ineffable lovers reunite once again, worse for wear but a little wiser, put aside their differences for good, and seal the deal with a really, really fucking GOOD, LONG, KISS. 

So … anyway. I started writing this post as kind of a joke, but accidentally made myself a believer. Oh, and I said the post ends with Neil Gaiman, because it does. Every New Year, Neil writes a tender and beautiful message of love, hope, and new beginnings to his readers. Here’s trusting he does the same for Good Omens 3, and that God, wherever She is, blesses us, every one.

*Title quote pays homage to When Harry Met Sally, the greatest of all rom-coms (fight me).

[newobsessionincoming]

Enjoy some Charles Dickens Era Ineffable Husbands

[grandhotelabyss]

I almost sent another query/thought aloud about David Foster Wallace before sitting back and thinking about exactly why he pops up so much in my correspondence with you, despite the fact that I don’t think either of us particularly likes his work. The solution I came to was that for all his foibles, for all that his entire oeuvre could I think fairly be called a failure, he was the last major American pater-author who was really worth patriciding in the Bloomian sense. Everyone since has been either too neat or too insubstantial. Franzen strikes me as someone who could write like Dostoyevsky, but insists on writing like Dickens (not a diss on dickens, who in his way, has a claim to be the greatest English writer since Shakespeare, but a man has to know his strengths) and Saunders and far too many of that ilk strike me as thinking that the world could be perfect if only we would follow the dictums of the noble liberals who of course know best and joined our voices in establishing a crystal city in which nobody could even stick his tongue out at the world. I do love House of Leaves, but Danielewski i strikes me in some ineffable way as more like a talented comics writer than a real literary figure, you know? Anyway in essence I guess I’m saying that I think DFW had that inner fire, that worldsadness, and just wasn’t able to translate it into anything real. Which I think in a way was what eventually redeemed him for me, coming to understand that he was a profoundly tragic figure rather than just a smarmy male feminist who threw cofee tables at women. In any case that was a bit bloated but I’d love to know your thoughts!!

I buy that as a reading of DFW's life, almost rendering his life more than his work the object of influence-anxiety. As for the other Gen Xers, Franzen made his devil's bargain with the middlebrow, Saunders is Vonnegut reincarnated and almost as annoying, Danielewski is—as you imply—gifted and intelligent but not quite a novelist. Who else? Chabon had the raw talent but was undone by puerility. Never read Lethem. Never read BEE. Nobody mentions Eugenides anymore—eclipsed, apparently, by Sofia Coppola. Zadie Smith is probably a better essayist than novelist (I only read one novel, but it was really bad). Jennifer Egan? No. Will Donna Tartt's stature continue to grow? Will she stand alone in the ruins? Or is it just a truly lost generation? It's not unprecedented. In the whole expanse between the American Renaissance and High Modernism, between the 1850s and the 1920s, how many American novelists are really considered giants, people you absolutely have to read, people you'd mar your education by missing? Two: James and Twain, and Twain only for one book, itself deeply flawed. Who else? Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton—gifted, yes, but not epochal. In literary history, maybe particularly the literary history of our most un-literary nation, the peaks are high but the the troughs are long. Speaking for myself, I am content to wrestle Bloom-wise with the pretty much unambiguously great Silents, with Roth and Morrison and DeLillo and McCarthy.

[frodothefair]

Chapter 13 of FoM is now new and improved also. No need to necessarily reread it you've done so already, but there are some changes to from and style in places, including the following injection or local color, as well as a confession to the robbery of a certain Russian poet. (Chapter 13 was before I started doing extensive footnotes of what had inspired me, and robbery is just me being tongue in cheek, don't worry, since it is simply an allusion, not the use of direct quotes without attribution or anything like that).

The local color, inspired by Charles Dickens (basically, I had a bit of fun injecting Mayor Whitfoot's voice into the paragraph where he is mentioned):

Almost as soon as they had crossed the threshold, he headed to the study, and there he had penned a detailed letter to the Mayor’s office in Michel Delving, and placed it in the mailbox before the afternoon post. He did caution Marigold that in general, Mayors were not known for their promptness, and that a response could easily take several weeks, but to their surprise, a full answer arrived in a matter of days – courtesy, no doubt, of both his influence as a Baggins and as a former Deputy Mayor. Moreover, the letter was written not by one of the Mayor’s assistants, but by Mayor Whitfoot himself, and it related that there were, as it happened, quite a number of Tunnellys in Frogmorton, and that there was, indeed, a record of an elderly Mrs. Willow Tunnelly, sadly now deceased as a result of the events mentioned in the letter from his “Dear colleague, Deputy Mayor Baggins.” The letter also went on to state that this Mrs. Willow Tunnelly had indeed lost a husband and two sons who had done much to sabotage the activities of the First Eastfarthing Troop, but that her daughter, Lavender, had survived by going into hiding, and that this Lavender Tunnelly, yes, was in her thirties, and that she, yes, was able to receive mail at such-and-such an address.

The confession:

Frodo did enjoy their walks, and this was not the least because the autumn was his favorite season. The spring, he thought, would roil the blood too much and overwhelm the senses, and the summer was too hot and plagued by insects. The winter he liked too, but mostly for the cheer and intimacy of the time spent indoors, and for the ineffable, enchanted stillness of the earth shrouded in sleep, and for the occasional blessing of snow on the ground, and its glittering in the slender branches (1). But the autumn!... Oh, the autumn, he had to own, had always stood apart from all the rest, for everything he loved in the Shire, the autumn brought in spades – from the fiery riot of color as the leaves turned, to the voluptuous sadness of the trees’ short-lived finery, and to the bracing notes of chill, and the rays of silver sun that were all the more radiant for their scarcity. (2)

The relevant footnote:

(2) The overarching sentiment and some of the imagery in this paragraph echo the poem “Autumn” by Alexander Pushkin. The poem describes the poet’s love for the fall, and the ways in which the other seasons fall short. Selected quotes include:

“This is my time: I am not fond of spring; The tiresome thaw, the stench, the mud – spring sickens me. The blood ferments, and yearning binds the heart and mind. With cruel winter I am better satisfied.”

“O, summer fair! I would have loved you, too, Except for heat and dust and gnats and flies.”

“A melancholy time! So charming to the eye! Your beauty in its parting pleases me – I love the lavish withering of nature, The gold and scarlet raiment of the woods, The crisp wind rustling o’er their threshold, The sky engulfed by tides of rippled gloom, The sun’s scarce rays, approaching frosts, And gray-haired winter threatening from afar.”

@konartiste

[aroaceblackhole]

I'm honoured

Last song: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy(thank you good omens brainrot for me as well)

Last film: Top Gun: Maverick(I don't actually know why, but it did have John Hamm in it, which meant I couldn't take it seriously at all)

Currently reading: Stardust by Neil Gaiman, The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare, Richard II by William Shakespeare, and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Currently watching: Doctor Who(I just finished Heaven Sent), Good Omens(of course), and Takin' Over the Asylum(can you see a theme here?)

Currently consuming: Bread and butter

Currently craving: Painkillers, and a baked potato because there is never a point in my life where I'm not craving a baked potato.

Tagging @this-is-happening-kinda(because what I'm watching rn is all your fault), @voids-ideas, @aceofsnacks, @ineffably-sleep-deprived, and anyone else that wants to.

Tagged by @sad-chaos-goblin (thank you <3)

Last song: Would That I by Hozier (thanks good omens brainrot)

Last film: Ondine

Currently reading: Good Omens again, and I've been meaning to read some more of Discworld

Currently watching: Good Omens again, I started ofmd recently

Currently consuming: Microwave potatoes

Currently craving: That feeling of lying in the grass and watching the stars with someone you love. More microwave potatoes.

Tagging @queermarzipan @weirdly-specific-but-ok @bagelofchaos @skyeraccoon @obsessed-sketches @retro-memo @saderplate7

[skyasimaru]

As I unpack these boxes, so too shall I unpack these pods I’ve been working on. 2 weeks of no internet and waiting on a move to take place made for one busy pod-kitty :)  IneffableToreshi’s Ineffable Holiday 2021 series: Day 15 “Charles Dickens”, wherein Aziraphale and Crowley tell a tale of their contribution to literary history. Enjoy!

[donestiel]

you have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. inspired by obliviousaziraphale