I think they really jumped the shark with the Book of Life. Once you introduce a nuclear option like that you have to have a justification for why it hasn't been used before now. (For example, why haven't Aziraphale and Crowley been written out if they're so much trouble?)
The Book of Life is not secret (at least not after s2 when it was retconned in); it's not particularly well-guarded; it's targeted; the cost associated with using it is low (you might go crazy but not before you have time to do a lot of damage); there's no danger of mutually assured destruction as long as you hang onto it. It's the kind of unlimited power that automatically makes things less interesting.
One thing that was really intriguing at the end of s1 was the suggestion that other angels and demons were kind of afraid of Aziraphale and Crowley because they didn't know what they were anymore. (And I was really hoping for a payoff moment that revealed that, bodyswap ruse aside, they actually had becomes immune to hellfire and holy water because they'd been on Earth so long they really had "gone native" and become a little bit human, in the way that Adam Young was human and also a little bit something else.)
And then when they did the accidental 25 lazari miracle I thought what was being set up was the revelation that angels and demons are super powerful when they're able to team up and do joint miracles together, but no one's ever figured it out before because sides, etc. And that this was going to be used in the story either to protect the entire Earth from the meddling of angels and demons, and/or to somehow break down the division between Heaven and Hell.
HOLY SHIT GUYS, I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS POST TO TRY MAKE THE SONG AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN I DRAGGED THE TRAINING AUDIO OVER THE BACKING TRACK AND IT LINED UP PERFECTLY
Ok, now that we’ve had a week to think about it, here’s another, more S1-ish fix it (as the last one was desperate and had issues…but let’s be honest, so did the “season”.)
Y'know what? I'm mentally pretty deep in this fix-it universe now, would you guys mind if I become one of those fanartists with a very specific AU niche and make a bunch of comics about post-god-losing-in-cards life and the laid off angels and demons getting used to being unemployed?
tbh my biggest problem with go3 is that aziraphale and crowley do stuff that affects the plot and actually makes a difference in the story #notmygoodomens. my ineffables do NOT save the world, they are there while the world is saved
you’ve taken the two most useless beings in existence and you made them make a decision. look at them. they’re suicidal now
There was definitely something very weird about them, she decided.
Aziraphale bowed again. “So glad to have been of assistance,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Anathema, icily.
“Can we get on?” said Crowley. “Goodnight, miss. Get in, angel.“
Ah. Well, that explained it. She had been perfectly safe after all.
Friends, in case some of you, like me, are published authors or illustrators or creators of any kind, and you are still using any Google service (Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Classroom), please consider deleting all your material from Drive and moving it to external harddisks or something similar before it turns into a catastrophic problem like mangaka Masahiro Itosugi just experienced:
Japanese adult manga creator Masahiro Itosugi had his Google account permanently banned when he uploaded old manuscripts to Drive, reignitin
I really hope this comes as no surprise to all of you and you were already taking precautions about it, but I know for a fact that 100% of my colleagues in the academic field back their papers and their books up on Drive, and that most of our institutional email addresses and some essential tools (for example Gmeet, that we are required to use for remote teaching or to record conferences) are based on Google Workspace (including crucial stuff like uni department documents, scientific journal archives, publicly funded projects contracts and so on).
Now they could be flagged for copyright infringment and lose access to their entire accounts for uploading back up copies of THEIR OWN work on Drive, because AI systems are apparently unable to recognise the legitimate owner of copyrighted material (or they have been intentionally set up to not recognise it so that tech corps can steal people's work).
The complete automation of the scraping-scanning-banning process, that Google has now delegated entirely to unchecked AI, with no human review, is coming for us quicker than I thought, and while there may be some things that I fear we can't disentangle from this mess anymore (I'm thinking of Gmail specifically), we can still pull our work from Drive before it's too late.
I'm not sure how to properly tag this, but if you know people who may need this warning, please help them understand how serious things are becoming.
Every time I try to think about GO3 I have, like, a little inner Aziraphale inside my head who is absolutely primarily upset that the Ineffable Husbands turned Human because now they can’t have their Perfect Indulgent Wish-Fulfillment little Eden for all of eternity and would probably still be disappointed even if GO3 did the most amazing and perfect version of the ‘Crowley and Aziraphale turn human’ ending but also feels pretty Guilty about it because the ending was clearly trying to convey a very important and positive message about the value and beauty in our temporary imperfect human existence and the idea of true immortality being the impact we leave on the world which is especially resonant as a tribute to the late Sir Terry Pratchett and the fact that they can’t accept it probably demonstrates that they’re exactly the kind of person who should learn this lesson but this self-consciousness isn’t enough to make them let go of their dislike of the ending…. But also inside my head there’s a little Crowley who spends all their time arguing against GO3 from a narrative and thematic perspective, pointing out all the ways it has failed to actually deliver on its supposed messages, nitpicking its continuity and plot and character problems, deconstructing all the ways that it fails with everything it intents to pull off, and all to try and tempt their Angel into letting go of their shame and throwing out the Finale entirely.
hbo max blocks screenshots even when I use the snipping tool AND firefox AND ublock which is a fucking first. i will never understand streaming services blocking the ability to take screenshots thats literally free advertising for your show right there. HOW THE HELL IS SOMEBODY GONNA PIRATE YOUR SHOW THROUGH SCREENSHOTS. JACKASS
somewhere out there is a guy who meticulously takes screenshots of every individual frame of his favorite tv shows and then painstakingly etches each one onto a roll of film which he puts into his old timey projector and recreates the footage as a silent film with his own lavishly hand-lettered dialogue cards and original score that he plays on his upright piano and charges audiences one shiny penny a play. at last, big media has finally outsmarted ol' Zachary Zoetrope
PSA for everyone who doesn't know, explained simply
this is NOT because of blocking screenshots, it's because of HOW streaming sites use your computer's hardware to optimise performance, which means the thing rendering the video and the thing capturing your screen aren't the SAME thing. so they can't talk together.
you can fix this by going to your browser settings, searching for "hardware acceleration", and turning that off.
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
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