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”.)
I can't tell anyone what to like or not like, but as far as the season 3 "finale" being something Sir Terry would have written or endorsed -- a position I've actually seen expressed more than once -- I offer the last paragraphs of Good Omens, The Book.
If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends.
And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot... no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human...
Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield.
...for ever.
I submit humbly that that ending is not the voice of a writer (the interview in the illustrated tie-in edition specifies that "the kids mostly originated with Terry") who would ultimately be down with annihilation as the Only Solution To The Problems Of The World.
Bonus reminder: I'm betting this passage is Terry's ("vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owsley's Old Original" has that ring to it). I ask you, does it describe a character who would only a few years later in story time -- after sixty centuries of ups and downs -- (1) wallow indefinitely in a drunken sulk, and then (2) tell God to finish erasing the world, including himself and his best friend, and start over?
Because, underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times -- he thought briefly of the fourteenth century -- then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him.
Okay, so Hell was down on him. So the world was ending. So the Cold War was over and the Great War was starting for real. So the odds against him were higher than a vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owsley's Old Original. There was still a chance.
I've been spending a week telling myself that the ending of Good Omens S3 didn't affect me because the only canon boys for me are the ones in the book, but...
that's probably untrue because I also seem to have written a whole fanfic just to retcon it.
I don't consider this a fix-it fic, it's more of a I DARE YOU TO PROVE THIS DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN fic.
So here you go, spoilers under the cut:
And Everything Else
It was dark. Aziraphale had the unpleasant sensation of a million trillion atoms buzzing back into place. He could see nothing past his… nose? He thought there was a nose. Which was odd in itself; that wasn’t supposed to be.
“Crowley?” He ventured.
The sardonic groan that answered him from the void was reassuring.
“I say, Crowley! I thought we were dead!”
Somewhere below his left ear, Crowley wheezed. “Not dead, discorporated. Though I’m starting to wish it, got a whopping great headache.”
“But - why? How?”
“S’wot bloody happens when reality explodes, I should think.”
“No no, how are we still here? I distinctly remember nobly extinguishing ourselves from existence in a rather stirring act of self-sacrifice. You were there too, don’t you remember? Demands were made of the divine, the nature of reality was debated, certain feelings were disclosed…”
The angel stopped short, a sudden swoosh through the darkness seeming to indicate that his newly re-formed wings had shot up.
“Crowley!” he gasped. “Do- do you suppose that’s what saved us? Is our bond stronger even than the dissolution of time and space?”
Aziraphale couldn’t see his rangy companion but he could just feel the ironical arch of those brows.
“That’s one theory” came the languid reply. “Or could be… I dunno, could be that both our names are still written in the Book of Life.”
Something about his tone said he was suppressing a self-satisfied grin. Aziraphale swiveled toward him.
“Whatever do you mean? There’s no interference of the divine, remember? The new universe doesn’t have a Book of Life.”
“Right, but this universe does.” The demon flexed a wing experimentally. “This universe sticks around so long as the book does. We wrote a new one, if you’ll recall. And what do you suppose it says?”
Aziraphale strained to remember, and found his lips moving over the words like a half-forgotten rhyme. “There were four of them in that bookshop, which was the whole world…” he whispered.
“Exactly. Four beings… including yourself. Including yours truly. Still listed, still very much existing.”
Aziraphale tried to concentrate. He could feel the last of his molecules reassembling, and it made his fingers tingly. “But God said-”
“She said we can’t exist in the new universe. Didn’t say anything about the old one then, did she?”
“But- but Crowley!” cried the angel, wringing his hands, “Then what was the point? You said you wanted a new earth! A new start, without the meddling of the divine! You said a world without free will isn’t worth living in.”
“I did, and it isn’t. Think, Angel. Four of them in that bookshop. Where are the other two? The prime meddlers, if you will."
Aziraphale paused and blinked about into the void.
“Why yes - the devil and the lord herself, what’s become of them?
“It seems,” Crowley droned, sounding very much pleased with himself, “that when we requested an impromptu celestial reset they both jumped at the chance. Became rather occupied mucking about in an alternate universe where they don’t nominally exist, or some such. Probably a confounding affair with vague doppelgängers and the likes, if I know them.
Aziraphale started. “They left, just like that? To go exist in another universe?”
“To go not exist in another universe. But they’ll never not be entirely. S’long as there’s good, long as there’s evil. You wrote it yourself, God was here the whole time. Bit of a paradox but it’ll do in a pinch.”
“So” began Aziraphale, slowly, “if they’re off being nonexistent in another universe…”
“Then they’re not interfering in this one, just so happens” finished Crowley. His eyes twinkled, Aziraphale knew they did.
“Crowley!” he cried, somewhere between scandalized and impressed. “You mean to tell me this whole time- that it was all a ruse to get heaven and hell to finally leave the world alone?”
“What,” said the demon, “did you really think I was just going to throw away 8 billion people? Ninety trillion perfectly good star systems? And after all the trouble we went through trying to save them the first time.” He sniffed. “Ruddy waste if you ask me.”
“Why Crowley, you dear thing! I…. I don’t know what to say! You’ve saved the day! You’re a miracle!”
“Alright, alright,” he grimaced. “Don’t rub it in.”
“Don’t be modest, dear boy! Why, you’ve saved the entire universe!”
“We did, Angel,” he muttered. “Us.”
Aziraphale placed a hand on what he thought must be Crowley’s shoulder and squeezed it fondly.
“Though…” said Crowley, thoughtful, his tone sharpening abruptly, “I suppose I don’t have to tell you any of this.”
Aziraphale straightened. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Just that you jumped onboard with my throw-out-the-universe-and-die pitch awfully fast. You really mean to tell me you didn’t want to save the world just as much as I did? Have a little go at subverting divine will?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Crowley’s voice was closer to his ear now. “Awfully convenient, wasn’t it, your happening to write our names down in the Book of Life like that. Without knowing it would save us.”
The Angel pursed his lips. “I… may have had an inkling.”
Crowley threw up his hands. “Of course you bloody knew! So why the charade? Do you get off on listening to me re-explain it all?”
“Oh, but Crowley!” the angel huffed, flustered. “It’s just, you do so love saving me.”
“I want you to know that I’m rolling my eyes, Angel,” said Crowley, “even if you can’t see it.” But he did not sound displeased.
Aziraphale brightened. “Well, to business then! The universe, you know - it’s rather… missing at the moment. How are we supposed to get it back?”
He felt Crowley shrug. “Rewrite the book, I suppose. I think there’s still a pen in my - yes, seems I’ve got my pockets back.”
“Re-write the entire universe! That will take ages! Eons!”
“You have somewhere else to be?”
The angel looked about into the vacancy. “Nowhere at all, it seems. I’ve nothing but time. Or lack thereof, I’m not sure time exists yet. Well then… how shall we write the world? Put back everything just as it was?”
“What, you want to put everything back? Including Gabriel?”
“Now Crowley…”
“Ooh and let’s leave out slugs. Never could stand them, all squiggly-like. Maybe we start with ‘No Gabriel, no slugs.’”
“Gabriel stays. And I don’t know, I rather liked slugs. All the overlooked things. They were… important.”
“Fine” drawled Crowley. “Have it your way. Here, I’ll start it off.”
“But what will you write?”
“I dunno, does it matter? Best of times, worst of times. Dark and stormy night. Call me Crowley. Take your pick.”
“Mind your penmanship!”
“I can’t bloody well see, now can I?"
“Wait! I’ve a good opening." Aziraphale groped about until he located something distinctly pen-like and something distinctly book-like. And he said the words as he wrote “Let… there… be - light.”
There was, and it was good. But also rather far away. The faint glow seemed a small question on a non-existent horizon.
It was enough for them to make out the gray outline of pages, though. Crowley contemplated their lines of script for a moment, then plucked back the pen back and hurriedly scrawled “And everything else.” He handed it off to the angel for approval, looking doggedly pleased.
Aziraphale pulled at a curl. “Perhaps a bit vague?”
“Sure, but it’ll save us buckets of time. 'Everything else' ‘bout covers it all. Humanity, polar bears, airplanes, Queen albums.” Crowley shuffled. “…Love. All that rot.”
They stood side by side in the yawning gray. Aziraphale suddenly found himself unsure what to say. So they gazed into the elongating dim, and they waited. The light was growing stronger, minuscule but steady. Somewhere far away and faint, Aziraphale thought he could hear the call of birds.
“Everything else. It’s coming closer,” said Crowley.
“I expect it is.”
“Taking it’s time, isn’t it?”
“Patience, now. The universe wasn’t built in a day.”
“Seven, if I recall.”
The light continued to grow, as did a great far-off din of jungle noises and the muddled song of rushing rivers.
Crowley bounced on his heels.
Aziraphale hesitated. “Crowley. Was it… all an act?”
“Hrm.”
“You know. The part where you looked at me like that, was it real? Just before we discorporated. Like you weren’t sure if the universe really would end, or if everything would work out, but that it somehow didn’t matter just then. The way you were looking at me, it was as if I was the whole universe.”
Crowley had assumed the demeanor of a deflated beach ball. “Are you really going to make me say it?” he muttered. “Last time I tried to tell you it didn’t work out so well.”
Aziraphale felt suddenly small. “Tell me what?”
The demon studied his feet. “Oh, that I love the world, but… s’not much good to me if you’re not in it.” He looked up at Aziraphale then, helpless, and it was a question.
It was almost here now, the Everything. The steady swell of light, the din of waters and winds and animals; a cacophony of life, surging towards them.
In the growing bright Aziraphale could finally make out the bedraggled figure next to him clearly. Crowley looked like he had been through every ring of hell and back and tripped down every escalator of heaven to boot. All for his sake.
The angel faltered. “Oh, Crowley. I’m sorry, dear fellow. So sorry for leaving you. I never should have gone. Only, I wanted so badly to put things right for the world but I ended up making a terrible muddle of things instead. You must know I never wanted to go - that it was all for you, because of you. That of all the things I love in the world, I love you the most. Oh, what dreadful ideas I get sometimes, running off and leaving you with no one but house plants and gangsters for company! Why if only I had stopped to think-”
Crowley's gaze softened as he looked at the babbling angel, adoring. The universe was closer now, so close, and the sheen of a thousand expanding nebulas danced in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Crowley,” Aziraphale stammered on, “terribly sorry.”
It was with infinite fondness and not even a hint of irony when Crowley touched his face and murmured back “I forgive you.”
The Everything rushed upon them then. And when they kissed it was with the brilliance of every star and a symphony of madly whirling planets and the chaos of a trillion galaxies exploding into being. There was a giddy leap of waves, and the great sigh of leaves in summer and friends calling out to one another and the tiny shuffling of every insect; a great burst of sunflowers and love songs and feel of their hands as they touched and the dizzy corkscrew of time itself. Reality brimmed over with with nightingales and orangoutangs and libraries and mugs of tea and the great contented shiver of all the things that ever were or would be as they clinked back into place.
It was awfully good, Aziraphale thought, as they held onto each other. There was so much light. And everything else.
TO ANYONE WHO USES DISCORD- FOUR AI SCRAPING BOTS HAVE BEEN SECRETLY ADDED TO YOUR SERVERS WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT
Saw this going around and tested it myself, and I can confirm that this is unfortunately legit. Four hidden bots have been placed in any existing or newly created Discord server that are harvesting data, images, and most concerningly, one seems to be a face swap bot.
Due to them being invisible, banning them from your servers isn't possible without their ID's, which I've typed out for easy access.
Banning is done with the /ban command with each string pasted in one at a time. Four ban commands in total.
Image proof below and further information. This was in my PERSONAL server that has existed for +5 years. Discord is harvesting your shit without your consent, fight back.
Hey so in case you're like me and wondered: Can you ban members without them being in the server?
The answer is yes, you absolutely can! It'll look like this - the numbers you paste will be what's "banned"
However my sibling tried this in her servers and found that One of them was NOT a string of numbers, like so:
And for clarity it isn't a difference in user or device, this is what she got elsewhere:
So if you ban these numbers and the message shows the actual username? Pretty sure that means they were in there.
Very unpleasant way to check the veracity of this post but hopefully this is a helpful tip for anyone who was concerned - my sib would have No Reason to add these in herself and didn't have any clue it was in there.
Personally, I'd say even if you are still worried about misinfo/fearmongering/etc from this post, think of it this way - worst case scenario is you're banning a bot you'll never use or need. Not a person, a bot. There's no real damage done playing it safe and running the ban commands through, aside from maybe losing some time doing so.
Wishing I'd seen this more quickly - Had to take these things out of a lot of creative spaces just now. I'm not convinced that the username only shows up if they were in there, but I do think it's better safe than sorry, especially when peoples' art is involved.
When the script prompt generator gives you dinosaurs, cowboys, and Jumanji.
Big thanks to @obliquitywrites for the writing panel at Ineffable Con. I learned a lot, and was inspired to take a crack (har har) at script writing for the first time.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
✩ a poem for TIC 6 prompt from the writing workshop of @obliquitywrites
╰➤ the prompt: an AU based on The Picture of Dorian Gray, genre: Victorian Adventure
(Yes, I completely ignored the fact it was supposed to be a script. I'm a demon, I don't obey rules. X)
There's an ethereal picture in a case,
A halo of curls, an angel with grace.
I wonder why it's hidden in the dark room,
Covered in cobwebs like an image of gloom.
I often find myself sneaking down the staircase
Just to catch a glimpse of that fascinating face.
The stormy blue eyes give me chills,
He looks so gorgeous in a cravat and frills.
My lank fingers itch to reach out and trace
The lovely delicate lines of the white lace.
He looks like a lord in all of his glory,
I want to be a part of his Victorian story.
All I can do is to take him to my place,
Hang him between the plants and the bookcase
Right in the middle of the blank wall,
Let him be the guardian of my hall.
Tl;dr how you can personally make Neil Gaiman lose money (and not be a jerk to others.)
I see a lot of folks upset that NG will financially benefit from residuals and other compensation surrounding his involvement in the adaptation of Sandman and Good Omens (and he will.) But the answer isn’t “rage at the fans who are so emotionally attached to their blorbos because they grieve differently, and then somehow NG will be financially punished.” That’s lower-class/middle-class thinking. NG is too rich and financially diversified to really be hurt by little boycott or a couple of show cancellations (though said cancellations can cause life-changing poverty to the little guys who signed contracts and turned down other opportunities before all of this came out. Boy does NG love women in poverty 🤮)
So if you want to substantially reduce the wealth of someone at NG’s financial level—you need to do it with professional services fees.
Details below the cut:
The firm that NG has apparently engaged for online reputation management (ORM), called edendale, was once paid for their professional testimony in an unrelated slander lawsuit, which was delivered in the form of a report (2) outlining the strategy ORM firms use and (2) just how ludicrously expensive those professional services cost. (Credit to horrornobody77 for digging up the report.) We’re talking hundred of thousands of dollars for a small potatoes case, where NG’s could easily get into the millions for ORM and associated legal fees.
Reddit - Dive into anything
It’s not that long of a read, but to summarize the key action items you can take:
📆 -ORMs wait for the discourse to die down, because active discourse is much more expensive to counter. Wanna cost NG money? Talk about the accusations over time. Set a quarterly calendar event in your phone to remind yourself to post (and otherwise engage on other people’s posts) about the Vulture article. This needs to happens for years, so that NG has to pay for more comprehensive ORM and for longer.
✅-Make discourse that is Google-friendly. Use the words edendale will find concerning (they’re already running fluff pieces with the terms Neil Gaiman Uncovered to try and bury the similarly named subreddit.) If you just post a link without much comment, it’s not gonna be prioritized by search engines. Similarly, if you make a low effort post and then no one else engages with it—it’s not going to make it to the top ten search results. Engage with each other, for heaven’s sake!
🦾-Don’t let the fluff sit unaddressed. If you see random bot posts sharing NG quotes captioning random fantasy art (possibly AI or misattributed /stolen) with the comments turned on? Respond! Make it hard for the bots to understand your comment but easy for humans. “Nice quote! Mega bummer about what NG did, I used to really like him,” is hard for a bot to auto-delete. “Fuck NG,” is practically doing the bot’s autodelete command for it.
✍️ -If/when you post fan works for properties strongly related to Neil Gaiman, leave a lil callout in the author’s notes. Nothing that will get you sued, just a few words like: “I would definitely personally choose to not ever meet Neil Gaiman at a comic con.” Maybe throw in a link to your fav tumblr summary.
Anyway, to the person being paid hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour by Neil Gaiman for professional services—you’re welcome for the extra billable hours 😘
Also Edendale sounds like a law firm in a Good Omens legal AU fic, and I can’t believe it’s real.
Utility for downloading fanfiction in bulk from the Archive of Our Own - nianeyna/ao3downloader
Well folks I've been sitting on this little script for ages and finally decided to just go ahead and publish it. What does it do?
you can enter any ao3 link - for example, to your bookmarks or an author's works page - and automatically download all the works and series that are linked from that page in the format of your choice. if there are multiple pages, the script will page through results for you until there are no more fics to download
you can check your fanfic-savin' folder for unfinished fics and automatically update them if there are new chapters. you can also check for new fics in series!
if you're a dinosaur who uses Pinboard, you can back up all the Pinboard bookmarks you have that link to ao3
don't worry about crashing ao3 with this! this baby takes forever to run, guaranteed. anyway ao3 won't let me download stuff too fast even if I wanted to so it's quite safe
I've been working on this for about two years and it's finally in a state where it does everything I want and isn't breaking every two seconds, so I thought it was time to share! I hope y'all get some use out of it.
note: this is a standalone desktop app that DOES NOT DO ANYTHING aside from automate clicking on buttons on the ao3 website. Everything this script does, can be done by hand using ao3's regular features. It is just a utility to facilitate personal backups for offline reading - there's no website or server, I have no access to or indeed interest in the fics other people download using this. No plagiarism is happening here, please don't come after me.
---
2024 update
This is now a fairly mature project that I've been maintaining for quite a while (3 years?? omg), so let's do an FAQ
Question 1: Wait, a python script? That's scary! I don't know anything about running python scripts!
Answer: You don't need to! When I published this program I knew that there would be people who would want to use it that did not know anything about running python scripts. To that end I have provided extremely detailed instructions (accessible at the link above), which have been fine-tuned over the last three years to make them as absolutely easy to follow as possible. Not only do you not need to know anything about python scripts to use this program, you don't even need to know anything about computers at all. Try it and see! ;)
Question 2: I already use Calibre and FanFicFare to download fanfics - isn't this the same thing?
Answer: Nope! In fact, one of the reasons I created ao3downloader is that I tried FanFicFare and found it unsuited to my needs.
- FanFicFare requires a lot of configuration to work well. I wanted something that would get out of my way and just do what I needed it to do with as little prompting as possible. ao3downloader has sensible default behavior that will do what most people want it to do without too much pre-work.
- FanFicFare doesn't handle multi-page downloads very well - you need to enter the link to each page of results individually. What if I want to download dozens, or even hundreds of pages of fanfic? (Honesly, even two pages is too tedious for me...) I want to download all of the results I'm interested in, not just one page at a time. ao3downloader can download up to five thousand pages of fanfiction in one go if you're willing to let it run for that long... and that limit is only because 5,000 is the maximum amount of pages that ao3 itself will show you in a search result.
- FanFicFare doesn't handle ao3's rate limit very well - you need to babysit it and fine-tune the amount of time it pauses between downloads. I want the downloading process to handle itself, so I can completely ignore it until it's finished. ao3downloader will automatically pause when it hits the rate limit, and automatically resume when the rate limit expires. You can also quit ao3downloader entirely, and it will do its best to resume at the same point you left off when you turn it on again.
- FanFicFare uses its own download format, which doesn't match the files I download from ao3 directly - I want them to be consistent. ao3downloader downloads fics using the native download buttons from ao3, so it's exactly the same file as if you downloaded them manually.
- FanFicFare has an option to check incomplete fics for updates, but it relies on you telling it which fics in your library are incomplete. I don't want to have to keep track of that. ao3downloader can scan your existing files for incomplete fics and identify them for you, then check ao3 for updates and only re-download the ones that have new chapters. (It can also scan for incomplete series, and do the same thing!)
Question 2a: That's all great, but I need Calibre's organizational features.
Answer: Me too! That's why I import all the fics I download using ao3downloader into my Calibre library after I'm done downloading them.
Question 2b: That's all great, but I prefer FanFicFare's download format and I don't want the native ao3 one.
Answer: ao3downloader has a special option for this which instead of downloading actual files, will simply harvest a list of links to give to FanFicFare. You won't get ao3downloader's rate limit handling or automatic update functionality, but you will get to avoid entering individual page links! If you choose, you can also include detailed fic metadata in the links download (such as title, author, summary, tags, etc) which will be saved in spreadsheet format.
Question 3: Do I need to enter my ao3 login information? What happens when I enter my login information into this program?
Answer: You only need to enter your login information if you want to use ao3downloader to download archive-locked fics, or to download a page that is only accessible when you are logged in (such as your history or subscriptions). Hopefully the reason behind this requirement is obvious. If you don't need those things, you can simply skip the login prompt and the program will work fine! That said, if you do log in, here's what will happen. 1) ao3downloader will save your login information to a file so you don't have to enter it every time. (If you don't want your login information to be saved, you can turn this behavior off using the included .ini file - just open up the file named settings.ini and read the instructions inside to configure it.) 2) then, ao3downloader will use your login information to log itself in to ao3... aaaand that's it. It's not stored or sent anywhere other than your own computer and archiveofourown.org. In fact, there is absolutely no tracking or spyware in ao3downloader of any kind - I don't even know how many people have downloaded it, let alone what you type into it. And that's the way I like it!
Question 4: I thought of a feature that doesn't exist yet that would be really cool! Can you add it?
Answer: Very possibly! Feel free to contact me via one of the options listed in the readme (that's the page linked above) if you have a feature request.
Question 5: Do I have to pay you?
Answer: Never.
Question 6: But I really want to pay you... do you have a ko-fi?
Answer: Yes. It's on the github page in the sidebar.
Question 7: Does it work on mobile?
Answer: No. :( but watch this space... there may be certain things on the horizon. we'll see!
Hungry for Good Omens 3 crumbs of information? Let’s see what I’ve found and speculate a bit about cast members, filming locations, and… trees! As always, please tag accordingly, share only with the fans consenting to know potential spoilers, and get yourself something to drink since it’s going to be a longer read.
News flash: both Ned Dennehy (well-known to Good Omens fans as Hastur) and Sean Pertwee (recently revealed to star in the Finale as Brian Cameron) admitted to have been working on location in Tenerife during the film’s production time slot (January and early February, respectively). In Dennehy’s case, even providing a rather intimately close look at his character.
The location alone isn’t particularly surprising, as the Canary Islands and Tenerife in particular are currently experiencing an influx of international productions, including several TV shows by global streamers, making use of the favourable weather and prices. But Dennehy’s post, additionally liked by a Good Omens crew member, seems somewhat suggestive.
In the Instagram story above, Sean Pertwee called 14 January 2025 his last day on the shoot in Tenerife and subsequently traveled to London and Edinburgh, from where he shared another video three weeks later.
Now, technically the Tenerife film set could be a part of Pertwee’s NCIS: Tony & Ziva job he started last autumn. However, that would imply that he plays a greater role in the upcoming production than the currently available promotional materials imply, and the location stamp in the bottom right corner, Drago Milenario, is too deliciously Good Omens coded to overlook it.
It isn’t even a place, really, but a living organism. A plant. A tree.
Meet Drago Milenario, also know as El Drago, a natural monument and symbol of Tenerife. The oldest and largest living specimen of the endemic Dracaena draco (dragon tree), it is said to be a thousand years old and stand at 18 metres high with a 20-metre perimeter. “Great big bugger,” as Aziraphale would say.
There has been much debate over the age of the tree, and some even say that it may be over 5000 years old; more recent estimates seem more conservative and suggest that El Drago is no more than 800 to 1000 years old. It is difficult to say unambiguously, because the traditional method of counting rings is not applicable in this case — dracaena has no rings.
Its home, the Millennial Dragon Tree Park, or Parque del Drago, in Icod de los Vinos, is a sacred place and a burial zone of Tenerife’s original inhabitants, the Guanches. Members of the Guanche people venerated El Drago as a divine tree; a symbol of wisdom and fertility, believed to have magical powers, granting longevity and warding off evil spirits. Its blood-red oil or sap is called dragon's blood and historically used to treat wounds and embalm corpses. According to local legends, that’s because slain dragons don’t actually die, but rather turn into dragon trees like this one.
The dragon part of the story sounds objectively cool, but if we overlook it for a second, we might notice why the connection to Good Omens is so strong here. When asked about trees in the show’s context, one’s first point of reference is quite naturally the Garden of Eden scene and the shot above featuring the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The thing is, it wasn’t the only one.
According to the Bible, the very reason why Aziraphale was even stationed in Eden (possibly with a few other armed angels) was to protect the Garden from the newly exiled humans. More specifically, his “apple duty” meant that he was supposed to guard a very particular and yet unseen tree:
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of lifeand eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” (Genesis 3:21-24)
In the apocryphal Apocalypse of Moses, the tree of life is also called the Tree of Mercy. Adam, the first human, famously sent his son Seth and wife Eve back to the gates of the Garden to beg God and His angels for some oil of the Tree of Life to save him from his deathbed by granting either full immortality or longer lifespan. They were obviously denied, but in another part of the Bible — the Book of Revelation, on which most of the official Good Omens plot is based, Jesus announces the details of His Second Coming, including who and when will get the right to enjoy this forbidden fruit:
“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward each one as his work deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:12-14)
The Catholic Church in particular believes that the Tree of Life mentioned above is the Eucharist and often combines the image of the Tree with the Cross of Christ, both literally and figuratively (see above: The Tree of Life printed by John Hagerty, 1791) granting the immortal life to His Chosen Ones:
And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 1-5)
In his Roll Play BAFTA interview published on 10 February 2005, while talking about his work for the Good Omens Finale, David Tennant himself has specifically referred to the possibility of Aziraphale and Crowley spending eternity together. But where? Well.
The visual symbolism of an apple tree seems so important for the Good Omens 3 plot that it’s even represented on the exclusive mug design shared on 30 April by one of everyone’s favourite production crew spouses, Carla Scott Fullerton (fullercoaching on Instagram):
For those who missed the original discussion, the reverse side of the complimentary mug gifted to Good Omens 3 crew members and depicted above contains a photo of slate number 100, scene 59 of the production with a quote “We’ve come to a decision…”. A typical feature film of this length consists of around 60 scenes, so it’s definitely the ending or one of the scenes directly preceding it.
Which means that the story ends, as it began, in a garden. And with a very specific apple tree, adorned with initials AZ and CR in two little hearts as hinted by the drawing in the background.
There’s a specific crew member though — one of the firsts to be confirmed for the upcoming production, actually — that has shared a Good Omens themed work with an apple tree a whole year earlier.
Here you can see Michael Ralph’s (i.e., Good Omens production designer’s) concept art depicting Neil Gaiman’s version of heaven on earth – “Heaven is a Library” – at LA music venue, The Wiltern, for The Art of Elysium’s Heaven 2024 charity gala. It’s got Va Va Voom yellow walls, red carpet, spiral stairs, a centrally located oculus, and lots of plants with an apple tree with a swing in the middle. In case this image wasn’t suggestive enough, it’s worth to focus on the twin display tables with Cupid statues on top, direct copies of the one from A. Z. Fell and Co. bookshop in Soho.
It’s not even subtle — and wasn’t meant to be, considering how Event Eleven, the creative agency behind the gala, typically organises high budget premiere events and promotional campaigns for Amazon Prime TV shows, and to this day it’s the closest we’ve got to a Good Omens 3 public celebration.
While this one was for charity and officially not affiliated with the studio, it took place only three weeks after the official announcement of Good Omens 3 and involved not only this curious simulacrum of Aziraphale’s bookshop as a setting, but also Jon Hamm on stage as the guest of honour, referencing the co-leads of the TV series and reciting an excerpt from the 1990 novel in an approximation of their characters’ voices, and the Ukrainian artist Katya Zvereva was commissioned to make an installation for the gala called literally “Tree of Life” (above).
If you remember my bookshop meta, you will probably find the official explanation of the event’s theme particularly interesting:
“Heaven is two things that are, perhaps, the same thing. Heaven is both a library, the place where we go for knowledge, wisdom, advice and for stories, and heaven is also a refuge, somewhere that we can go, whoever we are, for safety and protection. Heaven contains librarians and refugees, shelters the helpless, and gives them — us — somewhere quiet to sit and read or listen.”
Not incidentally, the only iteration of the Tree of Life in the actual show so far has been built into the layout of Aziraphale’s bookshop (left). Its Kabbalah depiction (right) is a representation of the entirety of creation, composed of ten spheres — referred to as the Sephiroth/Sefirot as a whole — each denoting a universal quality, such as wisdom or beauty. To quote The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order by Israel Regardie:
This altar diagram shows the Ten Sephiroth with all the connecting Paths numbered and lettered, and the Serpent winding over each Path. Around each Sephirah are written the Names of the Deity, Archangel and Angelic Host attributed to it. The Twenty Two Paths are bound together by the Serpent of Wisdom. It unites the Paths but does not touch any of the Sephiroth, which are linked by the Flaming Sword. The Flaming Sword is formed by the natural order of the Tree of Life. It resembles a flash of Lightning. Together the Sephiroth and the Twenty Two Paths form the 32 Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah or Book of Formation. The Two pillars on either side of the Altar represent:
1. Active: The White Pillar on the South Side. Male. Adam. Pillar of Light and Fire. Right Kerub. Metatron.
2. Passive: The Black Pillar on the North Side. Female. Eve. Pillar of Cloud. Left Kerub. Sandalphon.
You think I'd let you all down? I heard the call and I answered.
Yes, Con O'Neill is joining us this June at The New Uni-Con (though he probably will be wearing a shirt).
Con will be joining us for photo ops, panels and all the Meet & Greets. And for an added bonus, you can get 10% off weekend tickets with the code payday-yayday until noon tomorrow (UK time).
Got very excited at the thrift store the other day because I found a green parrot plushie, which I have wanted for a while for Treasure Island/Black Sails reasons. 🦜💸 Took that baby HOME for $5!!
I noticed it has a battery compartment at the bottom, but no clue as to what it does. I fumbled around with it, shaking it, squeezing it, trying to figure out how to make it go, but it just made garbled noises. I assumed its speakers were just broken and laughed at it... but then it repeated my laugh back to me.
OFC IT PARROTS NOISES
Anyways I took the next logical step.
[Video Description: A green parrot plush toy sits on a speaker next to a computer screen with a clip of Flint from Black Sails. The clips plays and Flint screams, "What the fuck did you think was going to happen?!" The parrot repeats the audio, but higher pitched, while doing a little dance. The person taking the video giggles and the parrots repeats that too.]
if you're subscribed to Microsoft word, you probably received an email recently saying they're upping their prices. Like, a lot. ($9.99/month instead of $6.99)
guess what though? you can log into your account, click Cancel Subscription, and get the option to continue your subscription at the same price WITHOUT their bullshit AI.
That's right, the new, higher price is actually a different subscription that includes AI that everyone is being opted into by force! What a cool and fun product that clearly everyone wants.
you can also choose to buy Word 2024 without AI for a single lump sum that will be yours in perpetuity, with no updates, for one computer.
Check your subscription if you need Word for work! Don't get duped into paying for something you might not even want
Also, reminder that Word 2007 still installs just fine on Windows 11 and can do damn near everything Word 2024 does.
Full Office 2007 installation media here.
With these added bonuses:
No frequent updates that prevent you from using the thing while it updates
No AI grammar/spell check (it's all local, baby!)
No nag screens about sharing everything with OneDrive
Runs screamingly fast on modern computers
Free to use, since Microsoft doesn't give a shit
The only downside I can recall is that working with PDF files is a bit frustrating and requires additional steps. But if all you need is DOC or DOCX it's great.
Important information on how to change your Facebook preferences to remove targeted ads, advertising sharing, and data mining. This way Facebook can’t make any money off you. Thank you John Oliver for your service!
How to Change Your Meta Settings | Make yourself less valuable to Meta. Brought to you by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
No, not like that; get your mind out of the gutter. Or don't, whatever, I'm not the boss of you, but actually I mean this:
Is it a harpsichord? A piano? Or what? I didn't know, so I determined to find out! Read on!
First to get the technical stuff out of the way: there have been many many types of stringed keyboard instruments through the ages. Some, like harpsichords and virginals (YEP that's the name), pluck the strings. Some, like clavichords and pianos, hit the strings with hammers. Some even play like violins, bowing the strings with revolving cylinders!
So which is it? Let's look at what we can see: this is a five-octave instrument, from F to F. It's squat, boxy, and rectangular, and completely open underneath. You can juuuuust make out in that first picture that there appear to be pedals at the center back. The keyboard cover folds back on hinges (we only ever see it open) and there appears to be no music rack. In the scene above where Wee John is playing it (love that for him), we do hear harpsichord sounds, but I'm going to ignore that because it's easy to say they added that in post.
I want to focus on the shape and the fact that it's open underneath. These qualities are very distinctive, and they gave me a lot of trouble, because they prove that it is in fact NONE of the instruments named above. NONE of those construction methods look like they would work here, for one huge reason:
Where the heck would the strings go?
A spinet piano is a rectangle, but the body goes down to the ground in order to accommodate vertically-mounted strings.
Image from EuroPianosNaples.com
Grand pianos and large harpsichords have their strings mounted horizontally, but that's what gives them their characteristic triangle shape. Bass strings are long--even if your keyboard is only five octaves!
Image from ColonialWilliamsburg.org
Smaller instruments like clavichords and virginals did have horizontal strings in a rectangular case. But you still needed a lot of room for them, so the keyboards were quite small and off to the side, as such:
Image from JC-Neupert.de
So yeah, none of those could be what Stede has. It just has no room for strings! Other non-string options included metal bars struck by hammers, like in a celesta:
Image from Yamaha.com
--but you can see those take up just as much, if not more, space.
Well, then. How about an organ? Now we're on to something. Pushing or pulling air across a bank of reeds can be done at practically any size, from a harmonica to an accordion to a pipe organ that fills a church. Harmoniums, historically very popular, can fit on tables or in your lap, and in the mid-1800s, Carhart and Needham invented a type of harmonium called a melodeon (or a "melodeon organ" to differentiate from the handheld version), which looked like this:
Image from HarpGallery.com
BINGO. This is OBVIOUSLY what Stede has in his quarters. (Minus the music rack.) And yeah, it wasn't invented yet but we all know that's no impediment in the OFMD-verse. And as a bonus, this explains how Wee John is "playing" it in the scene! If you don't pump the pedal, no air circulates and no sound is created. Which I imagine is a godsend on a tv set, really. No worrying about matching/cutting around the dialogue--all you have to do is throw a totally incongruous harpsichord sound over it in the edit. :)
So I consider this mystery solved! It's a melodeon! An ye wish, go ye forth and fanfic accordingly!
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