Fiction Phial

Also known as Kat Day, and sometimes as ChronicleFlask. She/her. Chemistry PhD, writer and editor of science and fiction. Assistant editor at PseudoPod. 90% scientist, 10% witch. Try not to annoy the witch part.

[dsamuelsonart]

The Cat Summoned a Demon Again Oil on paper fixed to a panel, 16 x 20". 2023.

[thefictionphial]

June’s piece of flash fiction

We Wish You A Safe And Pleasant Journey

Lords and ladies, gentlebeings, undead, inhumans and others, may I welcome you upon Black Moon Portal Journey one-hundred-and-sixty-nine for

[azspot]

“Because the truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What’s wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn’t successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What’s wrong is that he’s trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.”

— The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech

[santhipoma]

[glasshomewrecker]

Everyone should be aware of nitter.net

for any address to twitter you can replace the “x.com” with “nitter.net” and you will be able to browse as if you have an account. Lifesaver.

Similarly, imginn.com works for most Instagram addresses. I still haven’t found one for Facebook.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

... The thing is that I do actually have a huge weakness for middle-aged and old people falling in love (and especially queer people). But... this is partly born out of my desire to believe that it is never too late, that as long as you are alive in this world, you can always grasp the chance to change your life for the better, like choosing the person you want to share your life with, or finding the bravery to live freely and without shame. That's a big part of what makes the concept so heartwarming for me.

And I really just really wanted it to not be too late for Crowley and Aziraphale, too.

[realitythroughthelensoffiction]

Good Omens 3: whose ending is it?

Since the finale of Good Omens was released, both fans who liked and didn't like how it ended have been discussing whose idea it was. Some say it is the ending Terry Pratchett had always planned. Others deny that and argue that it was Neil Gaiman alone who decided that it should conclude this way. There has even been some speculation that the new writers, Peter Atkins and Michael Marshall Smith, did a complete rewrite of the six original scripts before cutting them down to a single 90 minute-long episode.

I think the latter can be debunked quite easily. Not only would time and financial constraints not have allowed to write six new scripts, but there are also many evidences that apart from cutting and shortening scenes, changes have been rather minimal. While Peter Atkins and Michael Marshall Smith are credited for the "Teleplay" alongside Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman is the only one who gets credited for the "Television story", meaning that the plot of the finale was laid out by him. There are also lines and short scenes in Good Omens 3 that are rather obviously leftovers from plotlines that have been removed, like Michael's comment about the Metatron messing with the Book of Life or Dagon declaring war on heaven seconds before hell gets snapped out of existence. Even the word "pedometer" that Neil Gaiman had teased for the finale was still included in the crossword scene (cf. this post by @crowleysgirl56).

Moreover, the concept art for the final scene was created at the time when Good Omens 3 was still six episodes long and featured a plotline in America (cf. this post). People have pointed out that Crowley and Aziraphale look much more like older versions of themselves in it and have taken this as proof that they were initially meant to keep their identities and memories. But you have to keep in mind that a concept artist does not get to decide on the costumes. The human versions of Crowley and Aziraphale were created with the input of David Tennant and Michael Sheen (cf. this interview). Louis Ralph just put placeholders in his concept art to get an overall impression of what the scene would look like. Similarly, in the concept art for the Resurrectionist minisode, the image of Crowley in his Victorian outfit from season 1 was inserted (cf. this post). And if you've followed some news from behind the scenes, you will probably remember that season 2 was originally supposed to feature a nightmare in which the bookshop was the only place left in the entire universe - foreshadowing for an ending that Neil Gaiman claimed to have come from his "subconscious/unconscious" (cf. this post).

If this still doesn't convince you, Peter Atkins has explicitly stated that the ending itself remained untouched, and that "no big narrative or thematic changes" were made (cf. these screenshots on Reddit). Rachel Talalay has confirmed that, too (cf. this interview). When asked the question "What kind of conversations did you have about where Crowley and Aziraphale should ultimately end up?", she replied: "That was very much worked out by Terry Pratchett. That was an absolute. That was in the six episodes and stayed the same through the shorter version. That wasn’t a debate or dialogue. That was what was decided. That was the reason to make it because that’s the ending Terry wanted."

Which leads us to another interesting point: the involvement of Terry Pratchett. Many people assume that the ending could never be what he wanted for the story, mainly because it contradicts the core messages of the book. The nihilistic take on the state of the world seems to fit Neil Gaiman's style a lot more and was interpreted as an attempt by him to finally make the story his own (cf., for example, this reblog by @acatwithstockings of a post by @obsessivelollipoplalala). Initially, I agreed with this view, but Rachel Talalay has repeatedly emphasized how Rob Wilkins, Terry Pratchett's assistant, who also functioned as the executive producer of Good Omens 3, assured her that it reflects Terry Pratchett's philosophy (cf. both of the interviews cited above).

Marc Burrows, who wrote a biography of Terry Pratchett (but did not ever meet him personally), has voiced doubts about the alternate universe being Terry Pratchett's idea (cf. this post). He also pointed out how Terry Pratchett not being officially credited for the story of the finale is somewhat telling, and Rob Wilkins liked his post (cf. this post). But this fact is contradicted by Rob Wilkins's role as executive producer, and Rachel Talalay's statement. There is no reason for her to blatantly lie about her conversations with Rob Wilkins, so we have to take her word for the ending being, at least officially, the one Terry Pratchett had planned. But this still leaves us with the question what aspects of the ending came from Terry Pratchett.

The destruction of heaven and hell? Absolutely yes. That was a thing that was already heavily hinted at in the book. Adam complains about the influence angels and demons have over humans: "It's hard enough bein' people as it is, without other people coming and messin' you around" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 366; cited below). Another instance is the analogy between the Them and their rival gang, the Johnsonites, on the one hand and heaven and hell on the other and Adam musing that the adults of Tadfield (the humans) would probably be glad if both of the gangs just disappeared (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 320; cited below). He also criticizes the concept of life after death; Crowley's line in the finale in which he asks God why people are punished for behaving like people is actually a quote by Adam from the book: "I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 367; cited below).

What's important to understand the context of this quote is what follows, though: "Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. If I was in charge, I'd try makin' people live a lot longer, like ole Methuselah. It'd be a lot more interestin' and they might start thinkin' about the sort of things they're doing to all the enviroment and ecology, because they'll still be around in a hundred years' time" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 367; emphasis in the original; cited below). Adam proposes a much longer lifespan for humans as a way for them to experience the direct consequences of their actions rather than getting some rather unrelated reward/punishment in the afterlife. He wants people to have a chance to take full responsibilty for their actions: "If you stop messin' them about they might start thinkin' properly an' they might stop messin' the world around. I'm not sayin' they would, [...] but they might" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 368; emphasis in the original; cited below).

A godless universe? I would say also yes. I remember this quote from back when I first read the book, before watching the series: "I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh?" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 392; cited below). It gave me the suspicion that the ultimate goal of God might always have been to end his/her existence once creation has proven that it can take responsibilty for itself. Although I assumed that God would simply back out of the existing universe, not create a new one.

Crowley and Aziraphale sacrificing themselves? Maybe. At the end of the book, they choose not to run away and help the humans fight Satan instead, despite knowing that they do not really have a chance (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 373; cited below). So I guess a noble sacrifice would fit their characterisation, even though it would give them an unusual importance in a story that had painted them as rather incompetent bystanders so far (cf. this post by @dustbunniess).

Crowley and Aziraphale deciding on the fate of the whole of humanity alone? I highly doubt that. A story that has always been about human agency, about how supernatural beings should not interfere with human lives, about how destroying the world as it is is not a way to make it better ending with an angel and a demon single-handedly choosing the erasure of the entire universe is more than odd. We know that a plotline involving Jesus and Adam was cut from the finale, so maybe they were meant to play a bigger role in Terry Pratchett's vision. The ending as it is, however, as I said above, goes against the core messages of the book, and I will stand by that.

Crowley and Aziraphale becoming human? Possibly. They were always trying to imitate humans, so it would be a fitting conclusion for their character arc. Although I thought that the point was that they are already human at heart. All the things Crowley envies humans for - mainly free will and imagination (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 47f; cited below) - are qualities he already possesses. It actually reminds me a bit of The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy's friends wish for traits they've had all along. The only two things that really distinguish Crowley and Aziraphale from humans are their immortality and their miracles. Take them away from them and all the other angels and demons and they are equal to humans. I don't understand why removing the power imbalance requires them to lose their identity as well, and I'm still not sure whether this was Terry Pratchett's intention.

But even if every aspect of the ending was envisioned by Terry Pratchett, you have to bear in mind that the execution was entirely done by Neil Gaiman. He used the narrative landmarks that were set and built the plot around them. His comment about not really knowing where the idea with nightmare of the bookshop came from further suggests that he was making a lot of things up as he went. And when it comes to the messages of the story, one has to admit that he did not add much that was of value. The scene with God and Satan in the bookshop that was supposed to represent the philosophical core of the finale, for example, did not contain much original dialogue, but relied on recycled lines from the book instead, like Adam's remark about punishing people that I quoted above or Crowley's musings about human nature (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 47f; cited below).

Neil Gaiman is also the one who made the romance between Crowley and Aziraphale explicit on request of the fans, only to have it end tragically ("There was a point where I started to go: You know, I can give you what you want, but you won't want it" - that were his own words; cf. this video, timestamp 11:56-12:04). If they were always supposed to get annihilated in the end, he should have left it out. Since the story had shifted its focus to Crowley's and Aziraphale's relationship, the only narratively satisfying conclusion would have included a happy ending for them. I'm sure there would have been a way to do that without betraying the core of Terry Pratchett's vision. What we ultimately got was a weird example of 'having your cake and eating it too', as Reddit user WAR_FROM_GOOD_OMENS put it in this thread, of putting a lovestory in but also staying true to the original ideas under circumstances that had changed from the book (see also this post by @i-only-ever-asked-questions).

So, what is the takeaway from this post? Well, the takeaway is that the ending of Good Omens 3 is not the result of a rewrite of Neil Gaiman's scripts, but something that was planned right from the beginning, most likely even back when season 2 was written. And that we will never know for sure how much of it can be attributed to ideas by Terry Pratchett and how much to choices made by Neil Gaiman.

I understand that many people are unhappy with the ending and are looking for someone to 'blame' for it. And that many find the idea comforting that what we saw is not the 'real' ending and that a truer, more hopeful version of it exists somewhere. But in the end, we have to ask ourselves: does it really matter? You are allowed to like or dislike the ending, no matter who wrote it. Actually, I don't think the author of the ending should have an influence on your judgment of it at all. The finale of Good Omens is what it is, it does not become better when Terry Pratchett came up with it or worse when Neil Gaiman, Peter Atkins or Michael Marshall Smith invented it. Just look at what we've got and use your skills in media analysis to decide whether it makes sense for the story, for the characters, and for your own taste and morals. And if it doesn't, you can't change it anyway, but you can create a version for yourself and for other fans that feels more fitting. You don't have to accept an author's word on the story, no matter how famous or how skilled he is.

Keep going, Good Omens fandom!

Work cited:

Pratchett, Terry and Gaiman, Neil: Good Omens. The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. London 2011.

[mythenoe]

A thorough exposition arguing the Good Omens 3 ending was never changed from the initial script and was supported by the TPE, citing several sources, followed by an analysis of how the basic plot points of the finale relate to TP's philosophy.

I agree with the conclusion about the ending, however I still keep these comments by Marc Burrows in the back of my mind:

I'd like to focus on the basic plot points of the finale, because we can find evidence of how they could be handled (or have indeed been handled) in the context of the book:

Destruction of Heaven and Hell: During the discussion about the Them and the Johnsonites, Adam says that although people would think they'd be better off without either gang, life would be less interesting. And adds that people don't have to side with either gang, they can make their own side. This also offers a solution to the issue of judgement and the afterlife: Death could lead the souls to whatever destination they believe they deserve, including being judged for their life, as in Discworld. So Heaven and Hell can continue to exist (as long as there are people believing in them), but it won't be up to them to decide what happens to human souls. This is essentially people making their own side.

Godless universe: The original universe is essentially that. God is absent and never answers any questions; "otherwise, what would be the point?" as Aziraphale says. To answer would be to coerce. Crowley concludes that it's not for them to understand God's ways and then invites Aziraphale to lunch. God is just a metaphor for the inherent randomness in life - we may strive to ascribe an extrinsic meaning to the circumstances and events of our lives (Crowley's rant about plans and games), but there isn't any (if we understood God, we wouldn't be us): there's no point in speculating, we might as well get on with our lives (go for lunch).

A&C sacrifice: Yes, they offer to sacrifice themselves, but Adam doesn't let them. He resets reality before Satan appears, because this isn't a story about sacrifice nor a story about them.

A&C deciding on the fate of humanity: I have nothing to add here, it would be absurd to let non-humans decide the fate of humanity. The same goes for letting the erasure of the entire universe stand in the hope the next one is better. Everything about this contradicts the culmination of Adam's arc.

A&C becoming human: I find it unlikely, as Adam kept his powers - he didn't have to sacrifice any part of himself to lead a human life. This, along with TP's respect of the nature of non-human beings, makes me think that they would remain themselves, living a quiet life with the occasional miracle to ensure a free table at the Ritz or drive the Bentley on an empty tank. Just like Adam only uses his powers for childish mischief, because he wouldn't like cleaning up other people's bedrooms. The book ending (bonus): As this comment points out, the book ends with a play on Orwell's quote on the future being about living under an oppressive system forever, replacing the oppressive system with an account of human qualities; life being governed by humanity forever. My speculation is that this extends to the afterlife (the effect of Adam telling Heaven and Hell off for judging people, or part of resetting reality). Equally importantly, this happens without anyone dying, or changing who they are.

I find that every plot point has already had a satisfactory resolution, consistent with TP's philosophy, in the novel. Maybe this is why the sequel never got written. The finale takes each point in the exact opposite direction, contradicting all core themes of the original story and essentially erasing it. It mischaracterises A&C in service of its conclusion and ends in self-contradiction (a godless universe with predestination), heartbreak and bleakness.

[thefictionphial]

My Good Omens-inspired piece of #FlashFiction…

The Afternoon Off

A figure with long, reddish hair made its way across the grass of the Downs, sat heavily on a wooden bench, and stared out over the deep, V-

[twilightofthesandwiches]

It just always felt very thematically important to me that Crowley and Aziraphale demonstrate the Theme of Humanity being kinder than any Angel and eviler than any Demon by being the most Human Angel and Demon and thus also being simultaneously the best and worst Angel and Demon.

Like Aziraphale is a covetous lazy hedonist easily swayed by mortal pleasures into disobedience, he is kinda jaded about Heaven in the book, he is the one willing to deceive a pair of Humans to go assassinate an eleven-year-old for him and the one willing to pull the trigger when it comes down to it… But he’s still also the only Angel who cared more about saving Humanity and the Earth than the beef with Hell, and even in the book he did managed to talk himself into having faith that Heaven will do the right thing and even his first act of disobedience, his lie to God, was because he just cared about humans so much, and he still does, more than any other Angel.

And Crowley is a Demon who has just as much if not more affection and care for Humanity, he often doesn’t have it within himself to actually cause meaningful harm to anyone, as the Serpent of Eden his greatest act of Temptation actually gave birth to human morality… but he’s also very much a slothful hedonist, he Rebellious and self-interested to the point it makes him rebel against Hell itself, and he is still Hell’s most effective tempter and corrupter by far and he did destroy a fellow Demon in cold blood, which was established in the Book as a huge Moral Taboo even for exceptionally cruel and sadistic Demons like Hastur and Ligur.

And then also, their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actions are full of gray areas. They try to save the world and humanity mostly out of their hedonistic self-interest, both of their most ‘immoral’ actions happened for understandable reasons; Crowley destroys Ligur in what is clearly self-defense and Aziraphale plots out the assassination of a grade-schooler out of a sincere belief this is the only way to save the world. Moral ambiguity and humanity, that’s what this whole story is about, right?

And since GO1 sticks fairly close to the book, I think this idea is preserved… pretty well there as well. Like, I’d say that actually getting to see Aziraphale interact with other not-Metatron Angels helps drive the point even better. But also… Aziraphale lost his jadedness, while his sweetness, softness and faith in Heaven was emphasized, but so were his hedonism, pridefulness and hypocrisy. So it still evens out, just a lateral move, I think. Having Crowley be the first to explicitly mentions the concept of killing Warlock kinda lessens the importance of Aziraphale resolving to do it all on his own, but it’s done to heighten the drama around the subject, so there’s still plenty of impact when Aziraphale actually pulls the trigger…

And Crowley’s effectiveness in and fondness of Modernized Sin Spreading has been greatly de-emphasized but…. At least the new emphasis is on his laziness and deceit, which would still be ‘Hellish’ qualities, although I think this is still a much… safer variation of hellish qualities than letting him be a shameless little shit. On the other hand, Crowley’s rebelliousness and self-interest is emphasized greatly even compared to Book!Crowley, the whole Alpha Centauri plan showcases that he can narrow down the world to just himself and his Angel when things get dire.

…But even at the time it kinda bugged me how the concept of Crowley crossing some sort of Moral Taboo by destroying a fellow Demon with Holy Water was basically entirely gone. Not only was Hell 100% fine with publicly executing Crowley by Holy Water, they killed that other tiny random Demon basically just for the lols!

But, y’know, the Body Swap Sequence was otherwise so fucking Peak by Basically Every Other Metric (including furthering other important themes with Aziraphale and Crowley’s characters) that I was wiling to forgive it. Now, like, I still love all the Body Swap stuff to bits, but I also worry that it was an… omen of things to come. A Bad Omen, if you will.

Because by the time we get to GO3, this through-line is… maybe not exactly entirely gone, but definitely frayed and torn and jumbled. I suppose you can say this whole sequence plays on the whole ‘Aziraphale is simultaneously the Best and Worst Angel’…

But, like, both this scene and the whole Finale in general gives so little attention to Aziraphale’s good qualities, to that kindness and sweetness and courage, to the fact faith and trust and hope don’t have to just be foolish naïveté (And GO3 is not a Subtly Written TV Movie Thingy). And like, it's not just that wanting to enjoy Earthly Pleasures doesn't 'negate wanting to do the right thing, Aziraphale’s ‘sins’ intersect and blend with his ‘virtues’. His Hedonism fuels his genuine kind love of Humanity, his lies to God and Heaven, always to protect innocent Humans, were a demonstration of his conviction and bravery. Only Aziraphale really stands up to his own defense, and quite frankly, it feels mostly to set up the segway to Aziraphale talking up Crowley.

Which honestly just makes the whole situation here worse. Like, first things first, it just demonstrates how much of Crowley's rougher edges have just been... sanded off and retconned out over GO2 and GO3. He is just "The Best Angel" (and by implication, the Worst Demon), no interesting gray-areas nuance there. And in addition to many many other things that are Fucking Terrible about Aziraphale's 'Best Angel' speech (the inability to give Aziraphale a satisfying conclusion to his character arc, invalidating Crowley's own conception of his identity and past, the supposed 'love confession' culmination of the relationship being entirely in PAST TENSE, the massive imbalance in how this narrative treats Crowley vs. Aziraphale...), it also highlights how much we've lost the plot on this Theme of Humanity as it used to relate to the Ineffable Husbands.

In the book it was made very clear that living alongside Humanity has had a big effect on Crowley and Aziraphale, that it shaped them into the Beings we see play things out in the main storyline...

And back in S1 you could... insinuate that this was still the case. Obviously with the bigger focus now being drawn to Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship, you expect there to be a mixture of influences from both each other and Humanity as a whole but... As GO2 and GO3 went along, any sort of influence from being around Humanity got minimized more and more for the both of them. Like, Aziraphale already got so many of his positive traits and character moments attributed to being 'thanks to Crowley' and that absolutely includes his most 'Human' traits. Aziraphale couldn't even figure out how to eat food just from blending in among Humanity, Crowley had to tempt him to that first...

And with Crowley, this whole speech is about how great Crowley WAS, before his Fall, before the Beginning, before HUMANITY. If we see this Stupid Ass Speech as an accurate judgement of Crowley, then he basically burst fully formed out of God's Brow with all of his traits just inherent to his being from the start. Nothing of the things that made him so great were anything he also learned from Humanity or even just subconsciously rubbed-off on him.

Like, y'know, naive ol' me, when GO1 said Crowley was the only Demon to have an 'Imagination' in a piece of dialogue that seemed to deliberately call back to Book!Crowley's inner monologue saying Imagination is one advantage Humans have over Demons, I stupidly assumed that this means Crowley honed his Imagination from being around Humanity! That it was a cool, thematically-poignant moment because despite Crowley's Magical Miracle Power being what is literally keeping the Bentley going, the actual real Superpower behind this iconic badass feat is an inherently HUMAN trait!

...When instead I should've obviously realized that Crowley is just an inherently imaginative uniquely artistic soul who was like this since before the dawn of time and we humans have nothing to do with it, silly me!

It just drives home just how much Humanity has been diminished in this story, that is now trying to conclude itself with a Big Poignant Thing about Humanity. The agency of Humans is all but gone from the narrative that led us to this moment, no representative of Humanity is here to bring in our perspective while those four supernatural beings discuss the fate of the world, and the qualities and influences of Humanity that used to define our two main leads were gradually wiped out to glorify one of them as So Great and Wonderful and the Most Special (and thus also the least interesting version of one of my favorite characters...).

Maybe in a Better version of this scene, Crowley and Aziraphale could've realized that they are actually not that different from Adam Young. That much like him, they are technically 'divine' beings that have lived so long amongst the Humans, shaped by them, have been basically 'adopted' by Humanity, that both of them have much more in common with plain ol' mortal folks then they do with the two other supernatural beings sitting in the bookshop with them, and try to make their arguments from a point of Empathy, from the angle that they do kinda know what it's like to be a Human Person in a world jerked around by the whims of God...

(Something like that would've definitely lead into a 'Turning Human' Ending in much more satisfying and thematically coherent manner. Although I will emphasize that I'm talking about Crowley and Aziraphale turning human AS THEMSELVES, none of this reincarnation mindwipe bullshit that skips over all the emotional catharsis. But also like... maybe not inherently? Adam rewrote reality so that he was always Human and yet he still got to keep his powers, so....)

Instead all of Crowley's observations about Humanity and how much he cares about them is all in the third person, distant, pitying more than it is empathetic.

And Humanity is also diminished in the resolution of our story. Like, both in the sense that, like I said many times before, this whole ‘asking God to kill Themself and create a new universe’ thing is just not… actionable enough, at least not how they played it in the show, to be anything the Human viewers could feel like they could achieve to escape their own problems with systems of oppression, even metaphorically. It might’ve worked if we had more focus on how Crowley and Aziraphale’s Human qualities were the things to defeat God in any meaningful way.

But it’s also about how this conclusion is all about this Big Dramatic Gesture of Purely Selfless Self-Sacrifice for the Abstract Greater Good, which is… obviously there have been cases of Humans acting like this, that’s the whole ‘more grace than Heaven’ thing. But… for the climatic ending, the culmination of a series that supposed to be celebrating Humanity, and moral shades of gray, it is kinda weird for it to end on something so straightforwardly… Heavenly.

Especially when you compare it to the Book/GO1, how Adam’s victory over his Demonic ‘Destiny’ is this very human mixture of wanting things to be better, but also wanting things to be better for your own sake, because you’re the one who’s going to be living in this world…

And love, not just generally for some vague abstract concept of ‘Humanity’, but to the specific people around you that you love, to the places that you love, to the small world you’ve made around you to make sense of the hugeness of the universe…

And, yeah, a bit of selfishness, to avoid the burden of responsibility that comes with being in charge.

And Crowley and Aziraphale, for what little part they actually contributed to saving the world, did so, like I said, out of a mixture of kindness and selfishness. And all of the other Humans who contributed to saving the world did so out of an obvious, yet heroic, desire for self-preservation, and they each had their own quirky self-contradictory mess of virtues and vices…

This all feels very discordant when compared to Noble Suffering Hero Crowley’s Ultimate Selfless Sacrifice as an Ultimate Act of Universal Love to Humanity.

The conclusion to Crowley’s character shouldn’t have been about how he’s the Worst Demon because he’s just too damn selfless and caring, it shouldn’t have been about he was the Best Angel either. It should’ve been about how he’s a fundamentally Human Occult Being (and so is Aziraphale!) And not just in a tacked-on ambiguous maybe-reincarnation Human AU way, in the way the culmination of their story (and them saving the world, if you really must leave these two bozos in charge of saving the world, anyways) should have emphasized the inherent complicated self-contradictory selfless selfishness Humanity that they possess regardless of their literal species.

[deadgenerations]

in more pleasant news: this year is seeing the biggest humpback migration in Australian history, bigger than it was PRE whaling. That's right, there are more humpbacks migrating off the coast of Australia than there were BEFORE industrial whaling started.

A huge, fat W for environmentalists and Greenies. what an achievement

[lumsel]

we did it! we saved the fucking whales!!!!

[the-tao-of-fandom]

These whales were hunted to 150 individuals. Now there are 50,000 of them

Once hunted almost to extinction, the population of humpback whales currently migrating down Australia's east coast has bounced back and is

Further info for those interested

[pnwnativeplants]

Environmental activism works!!! If they tell you its hopeless they're lying and/or selling some shit!!!

[traegorn]

[possibility-left]

PTerry and "humanism"

Terry Pratchett is very pro humanity but I feel like people may be putting more emphasis on that than is reasonable. He's also very pro troll, and pro dwarf, and eventually pretty much any kind of intelligent creature, including goblins, who put a lot of cultural significance into snot. Pratchett's non humans are not forced to become human to belong, and many retain their own languages and culture and ways of life, while others are free to find their own ways even if their people don't like it (see Cherry for example, the first openly female presenting dwarf in Ankh-Morpork).

If Crowley and Aziraphale showed up on the Discworld, they'd be welcomed as they were right up until Crowley started a massive traffic jam and then he'd find out why you shouldn't make Commander Vimes mad. But Vimes wouldn't yell at him for being a demon - he'd yell at him for being a little shit.

Just another little thought about themes and GO3.

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[secondlina]

Reblogging because it’s a damn potato and I want to encourage people to assume potatoes are magical.

[titsay]

[thechekhov]

if you think about it, every time we tranquilize animals to transport them safely to another place, we are the sleep paralysis demon

[thechekhov]

You know, I love this comic dearly, but ever since I’ve put it out into the world, I realized that

I made a grave error in my script.

A lot of people in the comments have, understandably, tried to correct me on my choice of words, most specifically on this panel:

“And yet a chimp can not learn language the way a human can.”

And I’m here to admit my mistake………….

I forgot to put a disclaimer reminding people that I do, in fact, know what the fuck I’m talking about.

Alright, I know that there’s a fun little factoid that gets passed around a lot - that gorillas/apes/chimps can learn sign language, and therefore CAN do language as well!

And the thing is - no, that’s not actually true. Not in the way you may have come to believe it.

If you want the TL;DR of it:

most, if not all, projects involving great apes and sign language were started and largely led by people with no actual native OR near-native understanding of sign language. Even if the apes DID learn signs, they did not learn ASL in any meaningful way.

the tapes used to prove that the apes were effectively communicating in ‘sign’ were heavily doctored and cut in order to make them seem more cohesive and convincing than they actually were

through a thorough review of the tapes, the apes (gorillas, chimps) involved were found to be effectively signing random things until the handler saw one that they thought was 'correct’

the handlers were often incredibly close to the apes and were often giving their charge signals - sometimes signing things for them to repeat, and the apes were often determined to be only copying signs their handler threw up, which was counted as 'correctly answering’

many, many apes often signed in an extremely limited manner - although they had the ability to sign many words, they rarely, if ever, asked questions - one of the main hallmarks of 'true’ language use

human language is thoroughly agreed upon by linguists to be a specific ability, and it has been determined that current apes do not have anything similar, though - importantly!! - they are still able to communicate in a multitude of incredibly complex and effective ways!

For further reading, I would suggest the following:

Here’s some reading about Nim Chimpsky, one of the more famous chimps, whose life was pretty horrible and frankly tragic by all accounts, even human ones

Here’s a wiki article with an overview of various ape language experiments and their surrounding issues

And HERE is a very succinct podcast episode that neatly summarizes the entire issue within an hour and twenty minutes:

Koko The Gorilla - You're Wrong About

“It’s interesting that we became enthusiastic about ASL in the process of teaching it to a population that couldn’t benefit from it.”Mike te

[jasonpriestley]

The Scooby-Doo Project (1999)

[acreaturecalledgreed]

fun fact this special scared so many kids so fucking badly (b/c the blair witch aspect was played weirdly straight) that CN never aired it again 

[hz-archive]

you’re telling me this is real and not a shitpost

[preciousbeaan]

I seriously thought this shit was fake until I looked it up

[drawing-bored-deactivated202312]

that one time a parody of a fake found footage film is believed to be fake until footage is found.

[dykebrucespringsteen]

i found an extended version of the one above in which scrappy is inexplicably out in the woods and the gang, rightly, is scared shitless by him

[thejakelikesonions]

[recoord]

Why Good Omens season 1 has already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish

Neil Gaiman said he wouldn't make a sequel to Good Omens

Neil Gaiman at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2019:

[Gaiman also confirmed the series will only be six episodes, with no intention of trying to go for another season if successful. "The lovely thing about Good Omens is it has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end," he said to appreciative applause. "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens. It's brilliant. It finishes. You have six episodes and we're done. We won't try to build in all these things to try to let it continue indefinitely."]

Source: Entertainment Weekly (2019)

"It's a buddy road movie through time."

2018 - Neil Gaiman on X- Twitter

Tweet link here

Also Neil Gaiman in 2023:

["It won't be confirmed unless enough people watch Season 2 to make Amazon happy...

...But obviously Season 3 is all planned and plotted and, if I get to make it, will take the story and the people in it we care about to a satisfying end."]

What happened?

Were the profits and ratings high enough to create two more seasons out of thin air? At this point, seasons 2 and 3 seem more like a greedy stretching of a beloved story already told in its entirety in the first season.

Has the first season already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish?

As read above, Neil Gaiman himself said: "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens."

Gaiman was very opened about how pleased he was with Season 1 and how he made it having Sir Terry Pratchett's wish in mind.

Interview for The Verge (May 30, 2019)

Link : Neil Gaiman had one rule for the Good Omens adaptation: making Terry Pratchett happy

Interviewer: Do you feel pressure from knowing this has to be the definitive best adaptation it could be?

Gaiman: No. All I wanted to do was to make something Terry would have liked. It wasn’t like, “Make the best thing.”...

...Gaiman: The lovely thing about Good Omens [the miniseries] is that it’s still Good Omens. If you loved the book, this is that thing that you loved. And I will make you fall in love even more with Sergeant Shadwell. I will make you fall even more in love with Newt than you thought you could, I hope. It does demonstrate that I do kind of know what I’m talking about, which is a nice thing to know.

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman on an interview for The Guardian in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman: ‘Good Omens feels more apt now than it did 30 years ago’

There are times, he insists, when “you make something you like so much that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks of it.” There’s a clue to this, perhaps, in the show’s final frame, which reads “For Terry”. “He didn’t believe in heaven or hell or anything like that,” Gaiman says, “so there wasn’t even a hope that there was a ghostly Terry around to watch it. He would have been grumpy if there was. But I made it for him.”

Why was Good Omens season 1 so good and you could really feel Sir Terry Pratchett's contributions?

Gaiman himself has already told us the answer:

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman for The Verge (2019).

There was original material to work with (Good Omens, published in 1990), on which we certainly know that Sir Terry Pratchett himself actively worked from start to finish.

Is there a proper sequel to Good Omens the book on which to base 2 more seasons of the series?

Neil Gaiman says the following on an interview for GQ in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman Says No to Adapting His Own Books—Except This Time

...But with this, it was like: Okay. Terry is gone. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to do it for him. And that gave me a kind of weird impetus. And it meant that I felt very much at liberty to take every conversation that Terry and I had ever had about Good Omens. Not just the book, as written, but everything beyond it. We planned a sequel, never written, so I got to steal the angels from the sequel. I got to steal from every conversation Terry and I had about how we would do this. It felt very personal, and I guess kind of… holy. If that doesn’t sound too ridiculous. But it was a mission.

Two conclusions can be drawn:

1) Informal conversations about the plot of a sequel do not equate to an officially written sequel.

2) Neil Gaiman has already used many of the ideas he and Terry Pratchett had planned for a never-written sequel to Good Omens and those ideas were largely added to and executed in the TV adaptation of Good Omens (2019).

Why keep stretching those ideas if the co-writer is no longer able to actively contribute and help to create a proper sequel?

If Gaiman were the sole creator of Good Omens we'd have a different conversation, but that's not the case. The first season of Good Omens was already a beautiful homage to Good Omens and Sir Terry Pratchett's work on the book.

Did Terry Pratchett write around 75% of Good Omens?

Link for the post here.

Link for the post talking about the video and sharing the video here.

Edit: I wanted to bring this point up to point out Terry Pratchett's important contribution to the making of the book, not to highlight it as an excuse to distance Gaiman from the novel. We will have to accept that he also contributed to the creation of the book.

Sir Terry Pratchett's last wish

2017 - Rob Wilkins on Twitter (X)

Terry Pratchett’s Unpublished Work Crushed by Steamroller

By Sophie Haigney - The New York Times

Terry Pratchett, the well-known British fantasy author, had a wish fulfilled two years after his death: A hard drive containing his unpublished work was destroyed by steamroller.

Mr. Pratchett, a wildly popular fantasy novelist who wrote more than 70 books, including the “Discworld” series, died at 66 in 2015. That year his friend, the writer Neil Gaiman, told The Times of London that Mr. Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all.” Mr. Gaiman added at the time that he was glad this hadn’t happened.

Now, though, it has. Mr. Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on Aug. 25 on an official Twitter account they shared.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Wilkins wrote that the deed was done.

I have not been able to find the exact reasons why Sir Terry Pratchet wanted his unfinished and unpublished works destroyed, but we can respect his last wish as a way for him to have control over what he felt he was ready to share with the world and what he was not.

Is Good Omens the exception?

With all that has been presented so far, I can only conjecture, but not be sure. I can believe that there was Terry Pratchett's permission and desire to make an adaptation of Good Omens, the original book published in 1990, but to my mind, creating two more seasons of a never-written sequel doesn't fit as part of Terry Pratchett's desire.

He is not among us to actively participate in a sequel and if his last wish was to destroy his unfinished works, I can't believe that he would have wanted to give his approval to something new published under his name and without his supervision.

Sir Terry Pratchett talking about a never-written sequel to Good Omens

“Neil and I thought about a sequel an awful lot initially. We talked about it on tour. And I think it was a big relief to both of us, when one day we looked one another in the eye and said, 'I thought you wanted to do a sequel.'..

Interview for the Magazine Locus. Locusmag archive page

This is me speculating, but I don't think there was real enthusiasm for creating a sequel until Gaiman alone saw profitable potential in the TV adaptation....

Good Omens also belongs to the those who love the story

I think it's okay to still love the story of Good Omens. Personally, I will always be grateful with the story and the characters for giving me confort in troubling times, but I find seasons 2 and 3 as some kind of excuse from Gaiman to keep profiting and benefiting from the story (more now than ever due to the SA allegations*).

Aziraphale and Crowley will always live happily in a lovely cottage as long as we want to. Even before season 2 was announced, many of us had already accepted that. Many artists have imagined lovely endings for our innefable husbands and in my eyes their works won't be any less valuable than whatever Gaiman had planned.

Note:

I don't like talking about Season 3 of GO without mentioning the current 5 SA allegations against Neil Gaiman (Main writer of seasons 2 and 3 and showrunner), so in case you want to know more about the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Here there's a great Round Up link (Podcasts links, transcripts, etc.)

Credits for the Round Up link to Muccamukk. Thanks a lot!

*more thoughts on supporting season 3

[recoord]

Why Good Omens season 1 has already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish

Neil Gaiman said he wouldn't make a sequel to Good Omens

Neil Gaiman at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2019:

[Gaiman also confirmed the series will only be six episodes, with no intention of trying to go for another season if successful. "The lovely thing about Good Omens is it has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end," he said to appreciative applause. "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens. It's brilliant. It finishes. You have six episodes and we're done. We won't try to build in all these things to try to let it continue indefinitely."]

Source: Entertainment Weekly (2019)

"It's a buddy road movie through time."

2018 - Neil Gaiman on X- Twitter

Tweet link here

Also Neil Gaiman in 2023:

["It won't be confirmed unless enough people watch Season 2 to make Amazon happy...

...But obviously Season 3 is all planned and plotted and, if I get to make it, will take the story and the people in it we care about to a satisfying end."]

What happened?

Were the profits and ratings high enough to create two more seasons out of thin air? At this point, seasons 2 and 3 seem more like a greedy stretching of a beloved story already told in its entirety in the first season.

Has the first season already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish?

As read above, Neil Gaiman himself said: "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens."

Gaiman was very opened about how pleased he was with Season 1 and how he made it having Sir Terry Pratchett's wish in mind.

Interview for The Verge (May 30, 2019)

Link : Neil Gaiman had one rule for the Good Omens adaptation: making Terry Pratchett happy

Interviewer: Do you feel pressure from knowing this has to be the definitive best adaptation it could be?

Gaiman: No. All I wanted to do was to make something Terry would have liked. It wasn’t like, “Make the best thing.”...

...Gaiman: The lovely thing about Good Omens [the miniseries] is that it’s still Good Omens. If you loved the book, this is that thing that you loved. And I will make you fall in love even more with Sergeant Shadwell. I will make you fall even more in love with Newt than you thought you could, I hope. It does demonstrate that I do kind of know what I’m talking about, which is a nice thing to know.

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman on an interview for The Guardian in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman: ‘Good Omens feels more apt now than it did 30 years ago’

There are times, he insists, when “you make something you like so much that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks of it.” There’s a clue to this, perhaps, in the show’s final frame, which reads “For Terry”. “He didn’t believe in heaven or hell or anything like that,” Gaiman says, “so there wasn’t even a hope that there was a ghostly Terry around to watch it. He would have been grumpy if there was. But I made it for him.”

Why was Good Omens season 1 so good and you could really feel Sir Terry Pratchett's contributions?

Gaiman himself has already told us the answer:

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman for The Verge (2019).

There was original material to work with (Good Omens, published in 1990), on which we certainly know that Sir Terry Pratchett himself actively worked from start to finish.

Is there a proper sequel to Good Omens the book on which to base 2 more seasons of the series?

Neil Gaiman says the following on an interview for GQ in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman Says No to Adapting His Own Books—Except This Time

...But with this, it was like: Okay. Terry is gone. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to do it for him. And that gave me a kind of weird impetus. And it meant that I felt very much at liberty to take every conversation that Terry and I had ever had about Good Omens. Not just the book, as written, but everything beyond it. We planned a sequel, never written, so I got to steal the angels from the sequel. I got to steal from every conversation Terry and I had about how we would do this. It felt very personal, and I guess kind of… holy. If that doesn’t sound too ridiculous. But it was a mission.

Two conclusions can be drawn:

1) Informal conversations about the plot of a sequel do not equate to an officially written sequel.

2) Neil Gaiman has already used many of the ideas he and Terry Pratchett had planned for a never-written sequel to Good Omens and those ideas were largely added to and executed in the TV adaptation of Good Omens (2019).

Why keep stretching those ideas if the co-writer is no longer able to actively contribute and help to create a proper sequel?

If Gaiman were the sole creator of Good Omens we'd have a different conversation, but that's not the case. The first season of Good Omens was already a beautiful homage to Good Omens and Sir Terry Pratchett's work on the book.

Did Terry Pratchett write around 75% of Good Omens?

Link for the post here.

Link for the post talking about the video and sharing the video here.

Edit: I wanted to bring this point up to point out Terry Pratchett's important contribution to the making of the book, not to highlight it as an excuse to distance Gaiman from the novel. We will have to accept that he also contributed to the creation of the book.

Sir Terry Pratchett's last wish

2017 - Rob Wilkins on Twitter (X)

Terry Pratchett’s Unpublished Work Crushed by Steamroller

By Sophie Haigney - The New York Times

Terry Pratchett, the well-known British fantasy author, had a wish fulfilled two years after his death: A hard drive containing his unpublished work was destroyed by steamroller.

Mr. Pratchett, a wildly popular fantasy novelist who wrote more than 70 books, including the “Discworld” series, died at 66 in 2015. That year his friend, the writer Neil Gaiman, told The Times of London that Mr. Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all.” Mr. Gaiman added at the time that he was glad this hadn’t happened.

Now, though, it has. Mr. Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on Aug. 25 on an official Twitter account they shared.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Wilkins wrote that the deed was done.

I have not been able to find the exact reasons why Sir Terry Pratchet wanted his unfinished and unpublished works destroyed, but we can respect his last wish as a way for him to have control over what he felt he was ready to share with the world and what he was not.

Is Good Omens the exception?

With all that has been presented so far, I can only conjecture, but not be sure. I can believe that there was Terry Pratchett's permission and desire to make an adaptation of Good Omens, the original book published in 1990, but to my mind, creating two more seasons of a never-written sequel doesn't fit as part of Terry Pratchett's desire.

He is not among us to actively participate in a sequel and if his last wish was to destroy his unfinished works, I can't believe that he would have wanted to give his approval to something new published under his name and without his supervision.

Sir Terry Pratchett talking about a never-written sequel to Good Omens

“Neil and I thought about a sequel an awful lot initially. We talked about it on tour. And I think it was a big relief to both of us, when one day we looked one another in the eye and said, 'I thought you wanted to do a sequel.'..

Interview for the Magazine Locus. Locusmag archive page

This is me speculating, but I don't think there was real enthusiasm for creating a sequel until Gaiman alone saw profitable potential in the TV adaptation....

Good Omens also belongs to the those who love the story

I think it's okay to still love the story of Good Omens. Personally, I will always be grateful with the story and the characters for giving me confort in troubling times, but I find seasons 2 and 3 as some kind of excuse from Gaiman to keep profiting and benefiting from the story (more now than ever due to the SA allegations*).

Aziraphale and Crowley will always live happily in a lovely cottage as long as we want to. Even before season 2 was announced, many of us had already accepted that. Many artists have imagined lovely endings for our innefable husbands and in my eyes their works won't be any less valuable than whatever Gaiman had planned.

Note:

I don't like talking about Season 3 of GO without mentioning the current 5 SA allegations against Neil Gaiman (Main writer of seasons 2 and 3 and showrunner), so in case you want to know more about the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Here there's a great Round Up link (Podcasts links, transcripts, etc.)

Credits for the Round Up link to Muccamukk. Thanks a lot!

*more thoughts on supporting season 3

[dkpsyhog]

You know how canaries were historically brought into coal mines, because if the mine was full of carbon monoxide the canary would die first and the miners would be able to escape before they died too?

I just found the greatest thing.

This is a canary resuscitator.

When the miners notice the canary getting sick with carbon monoxide poisoning, they can close that circular hatch so no more gas gets into the canary cage, and open the valve on that oxygen tank to keep the canary breathing. In other words, they made a spacesuit for birds.

By immediately giving the canary access to clean air, the miners can save it from the poison. The bird lives. To be clear, this is not for economic purposes, this was specifically created because the miners felt bad and wanted to save the bird.

Isn’t that just the perfect demonstration of what humans are like? We started sacrificing small creatures to save ourselves, and then felt bad and spent our valuable resources on saving the critters too. Because yeah the canary was the only way to test for CO, but it’s a living creature too, dammit!

[potter-on-my-wayward-doctor]

[libraryogre]

Union watches out for its members.

[meredithmcclaren]

Please don't make me cry.