And that’s it, I just finished the Tombs of Atuan and…I’m kinda blown away. I absolutely adored A Wizard of Earthsea and just when I thought this couldn’t get any better, the wise spirit of Ursula Le Guin kept me captivated page by page, and held my hand through the shadowed tunnels of Atuan.

I want 300 more pages no 3,000 more pages. Man what a book.

There’s a little blurb on the front of my copy by Neil Gaiman “her words are written on my soul” and now they’re on mine too. Perfection.

Now On to the Farthest Shore

Ohh look, it's the dead boy detectives!

me lately once again

“sorry madame, i can’t enjoy any other pieces of media right now… yes, i know it’s been six months since good omens season 2 came out… well, you get back to me when you find the epitome of love via a televised fictional relationship by depicting fundamental differences and learning to overcome them for the sake of ensuring the happiness of… well, there’s no need for that kind of language… oh, don’t worry, i forgive you.”

Aziraphale: *defies God's will and gives away his Holy Weapon to protect 2 humans who God Herself literally just cast out of paradise* *has unwavering faith in a demon's kindness* *lies an archangel in the face* *saves Crowley's life* *is ready to fight Satan himself with basically a Stick* *protects the one person in the universe who has probably mistreated him the most at extreme risk to his own life* *ready to fight 71 demons with a candle holder to protect 2 humans and said person who mistreated him all his existence* *gives up literally everything he loves the most in the world for the slim chance that he might make a dent in a system that brings nothing but suffering hoping to make the world a better place for everyone in it*

People out there (nowhere near me, luckily for everyone involved): *talk shit about Aziraphale*

Me: What the FUCK

Good Omens Fandom assemble! It's that time again...

Another Amazon Prime poll that we need to turn around. You know what to do:

https://www.youtube.com/@PrimeVideo/community

Currently at 25% in 3rd place, but I know we can change that quickly. NOTE: if you're on mobile open the link in your browser and choose 'desktop mode' to view the community tab (shoutout to everyone who put this tip in the comments of my last poll post!)

I saw people on twitter talk about how Jack Black and Neil Gaiman are 'good Jews' because they are not 'evil Zionists'. The reason given? They are for a two state solution.

And I don't know how to tell this to none Jewish people kindly but uh.................... that. That's Zionism?

Believing in Palestinians right to have their own State, self determination and the right for a safe home, for education, for a life free of Hamas and Terror in a Two State Deal is Zionism because the other state in this deal???? Is still Israel. it is still a Jewish state. It is still believing in our rights to return and stay in our ancestral homeland.

Being for a two state Solution, for peace and for working together can and is part of being a Zionist !! And also you don't get to call people good or bad Jews that is antisemitic as fuck.

Other queercoded media shippers: They're gay!!

Author: No. (They're cishet and platonic and bros and I queerbaited for profit. They're gonna get wives now)

Ineffable fandom: They're gay!!

Our Lord and Savior Neil Gaiman: No. (They're so gay that the gay cancels itself out. They're lgbtqia in more ways than you puny mortals can ever imagine. Get trans'd)

The Final Fifteen is about Terry Pratchett's Death

read on Ao3

The final fifteen is obviously a major plot point, and serves a role in a story that was written long before Terry Pratchett was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But the scene itself wasn’t written until just a few years ago, during the writing of Season 2. In fact, the scene came about during a park bench conversation between Neil Gaiman and John Finnemore.

Others have noted that the non-romantic kiss that signals the story moving into the third act is a Neil Gaiman staple. The function of such a kiss, from Gaiman’s perspective, is to communicate.

In 2023 we are seeing a lot of stories written by men, for men, about men who are best friends and discover that their friendship can go deeper than the norms of society would usually allow; that platonic and romantic love are not so far apart, and perhaps the better word for a relationship that can be described this way is intimacy.

Neil Gaiman has made it clear in interviews that his friendship with Terry Pratchett was deeply intimate. They began collaborating on what would become Good Omens in the 1980’s, endured a tumultuous experience together through the first publication, wherein Neil offered to martyr himself on behalf of Terry if the book failed, and then spent the better part of two decades touring the world, meeting the people who loved their work. Neil would even off-handedly remark that Terry’s fans were so cheerful, and Neil’s seemed like they were ready to kill themselves; wouldn’t it be nice if they got married? From the outside, it looks very much as if Terry was Aziraphale-coded, and Neil was Crowley-coded, working together in an unexpected partnership to make the world a little bit more tolerable for the humans inhabiting it. I am not conjecturing that Neil and Terry had romantic inclinations the way their fictional characters do, but I think it is fair to say that their opposites-attract intimacy became an important part of who each of them were.

In 2007 Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s. As the disease progressed, he began to lose himself, and knew that the person he used to be was slipping away. He wanted to end his life on his own terms, and die as himself, but England did not and still does not allow for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. He advocated for the right to die but never achieved it, and ultimately succumbed to the disease in 2015. Neil Gaiman has spoken a lot on the topic of death, and one answer of his that resonated with me reads:

Mostly it feels terrible. It even feels terrible when it’s someone who has been in a lot of pain for a long time or has not really been there for a long time and you know that Death has in some ways been a blessing: suddenly you are mourning the whole person. 

It doesn’t get easier as you age. It gets stranger. The point where you realise how many people you used to know and like who aren’t there any longer, and you cannot talk to them or see them or laugh with them is painful in a way that I had never expected. The first time that someone you had a romantic relationship with dies and you realise that there had been moments both of you shared and now you are the sole custodian of those moments and one day you will be gone and they will be lost forever is peculiarly strange and hard. 

~~~

The entire show is seeded with references to Terry Pratchett, but the most important one is the one that’s missing. Neil Gaiman cameoed as a sleeping moviegoer in S1E4, but a long time ago, he and Terry had discussed cameoing as sushi restaurant-goers, because sushi was weirdly prominent in the book. That cameo would have been in S1E1. But when it came time to do it, Neil couldn’t. Not without Terry. 

Neil: I was gonna say our location is a Chinese restaurant we’d had turned into a sushi restaurant. So Terry and I, Terry Pratchett and I, had a standing… not even a standing joke, just a standing plan, that we were going to have sushi - there was going to be a scene in Good Omens where sushi was eaten and we were gonna be extras, we were gonna sit in the background, eating sushi while it was done. And I was so looking forward to this and, so I wrote this scene with it being sushi, even though Terry was gone, with that in mind and I thought: Oh, I’ll sit and I’ll eat lots of sushi as an extra, this will be my scene as an extra, I’ll just be in the background. And then, on the day, or a couple of days before, I realized that I couldn’t do it.

Douglas: You never told me this before either. I might have pushed you into doing it, had I known. I think you were right not to tell me.

Neil: I was keeping it to me self ‘cause I was always like: Oh, maybe I’ll be… this will be my cameo. And then I couldn’t. I was just so sad, ‘cause Terry wasn’t there. And it was probably the day that I missed Terry the most of all of the filming - it was just this one scene ‘cause it was written for Terry and all of the sushi meals we’d ever had and all of the strange way that sushi ran through Good Omens.

~~~

In the Final Fifteen, it is clear that Crowley and Aziraphale want to stay together. They love each other. They each know that the other loves them. There’s nothing that needs to be said, no convincing that their bond is true and real and precious.

But Aziraphale has to go to Heaven, and Crowley cannot follow him there.

I cannot speculate what it must have been like for Neil to endure losing a friend who, though I’m sure he desperately wanted to still be in his life, he also knew that life had become a burden to him, and grieved that Terry was not able to choose the time and manner of his departure from this Earth. This sort of complex grief, we fan-ficcers know, is the kind that is often best processed through story-telling. 

I think that what we see Crowley going through in the Final Fifteen, alongside its importance to the story arc of Good Omens overall, is Neil processing his grief at losing his friend Terry Pratchett, and even the kiss, that violent, terrible, awful kiss, was the symbolic representation of Neil saying goodbye.

Fun fact: I found out David tennant has a podcast with a guest that cycles out each episode (it’s very good, you should go listen) and one of them has Neil in it!

You can yell at me if this is old news now but this little bit about “have a nice doomsday” and episode threes cold open is so… agh, I love it

(hearing about Neil’s writing process in general is also incredibly neat)

Suddenly remembering the best and funniest Good Omens fanfiction I ever read which was set at a mutual Heaven and Hell "work party" and all the demons had bets to see who could bed an angel by the end of the night. It was hilarious and of course you read it presuming that Crowley will win but be gentlemanly enough to not claim the prize - which of course is what happens, but at the last minute it hits you around the face by revealling that Beelzebub hooked up with Gabriel

and well.

I think I'm gonna go reread that fic...

some ineffable bureaucracy for healing hearts ❤️‍🩹

dialogue:

G: What are you doing…

B: Silly angel, you have no idea how beautiful you look, do you?

G: Well… I suppose not? Is it a good thing?

B: …I like your face structure

G: Oh!.. Then it’s good! :)

B: …

* GOOD OMENS S2 SPOILERS *

What? You wanted to have a good week? *grabs your hoodie as you try to walk away* get back here you fucker we don't do that here

season 2 + nods to 'crowley was raphael' truthers

Legitimately if you’re one of the people going into Neil Gaiman’s inbox just to complain and try to guilt/shame(?) him about GOS2, just block me now. I get being upset but trying to accuse him of shit or attacking him because part 2 of a part 3 series didn’t end the way you wanted it to?

Come on now, y’all.

He gave us a marvelous season that was happy for 97% of it and one that is inherently queer, not just in the main cast but in the side characters and narratives as well. And calling it queer baiting because it didn’t have a happy ending (yet, even)?

Y’all should not have been taught that word.

If you want to make sure s3 happens and you get the continuation you’re looking for, stop harassing Neil, set s2 on repeat, and support the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes so that the next season can be made and the creators will be paid what they deserve.

Stop harassing one of the only creators (currently) willing to remain interact with the fanbase this way and go write some fanfiction or something. Damn.