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The same way that Season 2 redefined our entire understanding of Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship? The way S2 took us from “A & C met for the first time on the wall of the Garden of Eden” to “A & C met for the first time as angels before Time began, they spent countless ages ‘talking and talking’ together, their meeting in Eden was only the first time they spoke post-Fall”…

A shift of this magnitude is what I’m expecting from S3. Something that will once again change the way we see A & C’s relationship. What was their friendship like in Heaven? How different was Crowley as an angel who started questioning God’s wisdom almost the moment he first met Aziraphale? What happened during the Great War? How exactly did Crowley Fall? What part did Aziraphale play - did he keep trying to warn Crowley about asking questions? What was their last interaction/final words to each other as angels?

I feel like Neil Gaiman MUST give us this information. Crowley’s time in, and fall from, Heaven is a huge gap in the story. With Aziraphale returning as Supreme Archangel and presumably spending more continuous time in Heaven than he has since Eden, I think this will trigger memories and we’ll get extensive flashbacks of A & C’s angel times - maybe an entire episode.

Theories? Ideas? Let’s hear ‘em. I’ll start:

I think Aziraphale came very, VERY close to Falling along with Crowley. I think, in the spectrum of:

Fall to Hell——-|——-Remain in Heaven

Crowley was barely on the left side of the line, and Aziraphale was barely on the right. I think that’s why Aziraphale is so understandably cautious and paranoid about Heaven. Contrast his behavior to Gabriel’s - we never see Gabriel doubt or worry that his feelings for Beelzebub and his cancelling of Armageddon 2 will cause him to Fall. Meanwhile Aziraphale thought that lying to the angels to save Job’s children would be enough to turn him into a demon. Even if my theory turns out to be totally wrong, I at least think we’re going to see that the Fall from Heaven was much more traumatic to both A & C then either one ever lets on.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #whatever happened in Heaven is going to be as shocking to the fandom #as finding out A & C have known each other for ‘millions’ of years and not just 6000

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there are people who go "I acknowledge that this guy I am madly in love with is maybe annoying to some people but couldn't be me can't relate" but not Ed. He can't even comprehend that anyone in the world wouldn't be absolutely delighted with Stede. Would legit listen to someone talk shit about Stede and before even reacting, he'll open the heart shaped locket he's wearing with Stede's picture inside, point to it and ask "this guy???"

#ofmd #blackbonnet

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How Michael Met Neil

original direct link [MP3]

(Neil, if you see this, please feel free to grab the transcript and store on your site; I had no easy way of contacting you.)

DAVID TENNANT: Tell me about @neil-gaiman then, because he's in that category [previously: “such a profound effect on my life”] as well.

MICHAEL SHEEN: So this is what has brought us together.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: To the new love story for the 21st century.

DAVID: Exactly.

MICHAEL: So when I went to drama school, there was a guy called Gary Turner in my year. And within the first few weeks, we were doing something, having a drink or whatever. And he said to me, “Do you read comic books?”

And I said, “No.”  I mean, this is … what … '88?  '88, '89.  So it was … now I know that it was a period of time that was a big change, transformation going through comic books.  Rather than it being thought of as just superheroes and Batman and Superman, there was this whole new era of a generation of writers like Grant Morrison.

DAVID: The kids who'd grown up reading comic books were now making comic books

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, and starting to address different kinds of subjects through the comic book medium. So it wasn't about just superheroes, it was all kinds of stuff going on – really fascinating stuff. And I was totally unaware of this.

And so this guy Gary said to me, "Do you read them?" And I said, "No."  And he went, "Right, okay, here's The Watchman [sic] by Alan Moore. Here's Swamp Thing. Here's Hellblazer. And here's Sandman.”

And Sandman was Neil Gaiman's big series that put his name on the map. And I read all those, and, just – I was blown away by all of them, but particularly the Sandman stories, because he was drawing on mythology, which was something I was really interested in, and fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare, and all kinds of stuff were being mixed up in this story.  And I absolutely loved it.

So I became a big fan of Neil's, and started reading everything by him. And then fairly shortly after that, within six months to a year, Good Omens the book came out, which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book – because I was obviously a big fan of Neil's by this point – read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well, because I didn't know his stuff before then – and then spent years and years and years just being a huge fan of both of them.

And then eventually when – I'd done films like the Underworld films and doing Twilight films. And I think it was one of the Twilight films, there was a lot of very snooty interviews that happened where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight were having to interview me … and, weirdly, coming at it from the attitude of 'clearly this is below you as well' … weirdly thinking I'm gonna go, 'Yeah, fucking Twilight.”

And I just used to go, "You know what? Some of the greatest writing of the last 50-100 years has happened in science fiction or fantasy."  Philip K Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact, the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K Dick.  Ursula K. Le Guin and Asimov, and all these amazing people. And I talked about Neil as well. And so I went off on a bit of a rant in this interview.

Anyway, the interview came out about six months later, maybe.  Knock on the door, open the door, delivery of a big box. That’s interesting. Open the box, there's a card at the top of the box. I open the card.

It says, From one fan to another, Neil Gaiman.  And inside the box are first editions of Neil's stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff.

DAVID: You'd never met him?

MICHAEL: Never met him. He'd read the interview, or someone had let him know about this interview where I'd sung his praises and stood up for him and the people who work within that sort of genre as being like …

And he just got in touch. We met up for the first time when he came to – I was in Los Angeles at the time, and he came to LA.  And he said, "I'll take you for a meal."

I said, “All right.”

He said, "Do you want to go somewhere posh, or somewhere interesting?”

I said, "Let's go somewhere interesting."

He said, "Right, I'm going to take you to this restaurant called The Hump." And it's at Santa Monica Airport. And it's a sushi restaurant.

I was like, “Right, okay.” So I had a Mini at the time. And we get in my Mini and we drive off to Santa Monica Airport. And this restaurant was right on the tarmac, like, you could sit in the restaurant (there's nobody else there when we got there, we got there quite early) and you're watching the planes landing on Santa Monica Airport. It's extraordinary. 

And the chef comes out and Neil says, "Just bring us whatever you want. Chef's choice."

So, I'd never really eaten sushi before. So we sit there; we had this incredible meal where they keep bringing these dishes out and they say, “This is [blah, blah, blah]. Just use a little bit of soy sauce or whatever.”  You know, “This is eel.  This is [blah].”

And then there was this one dish where they brought out and they didn't say what it was. It was like “mystery dish”, we had it ... delicious. Anyway, a few more people started coming into the restaurant as time went on.

And we're sort of getting near the end, and I said, "Neil, I can't eat anymore. I'm gonna have to stop now. This is great, but I can't eat–"

"Right, okay. We'll ask for the bill in a minute."

And then the door opens and some very official people come in. And it was the Feds. And the Feds came in, and we knew they were because they had jackets on that said they were part of the Federal Bureau of Whatever. And about six of them come in. Two of them go … one goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. They've all got like guns on and stuff.

And me and Neil are like, "What on Earth is going on?"

And then eventually one guy goes, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't ordered already, please leave. If you're still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave."*

[* - delivered in a perfect American ‘serious law agent’ accent/impression]

And we were like, "Oh my God, are we poisoned? Is there some terrible thing that's happened?"  

We'd finished, so we pay our bill.  And then all the kitchen staff are brought out. And the head chef is there. The guy who's been bringing us this food. And he's in tears. And he says to Neil, "I'm so sorry." He apologizes to Neil.  And we leave. We have no idea what happened.

DAVID: But you're assuming it's the mystery dish.

MICHAEL: Well, we're assuming that we can't be going to – we can't be –  it can't be poisonous. You know what I mean? It can't be that there's terrible, terrible things.

So the next day was the Oscars, which is why Neil was in town. Because Coraline had been nominated for an Oscar. Best documentary that year was won by The Cove, which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think.

Turns out, what was happening at this restaurant was that they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought around the back of the restaurant into the kitchen.

We had eaten whale – endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish that they didn't say what it was.

And the team behind The Cove were behind this sting, and they took them down that night whilst we were there.

DAVID: That’s extraordinary.

MICHAEL: And we didn't find this out for months.  So for months, me and Neil were like, "Have you worked anything out yet? Have you heard anything?"

"No, I haven't heard anything."

And then we heard that it was something to do with The Cove, and then we eventually found out that that restaurant, they were all arrested. The restaurant was shut down. And it was because of that. And we'd eaten whale that night.

DAVID: And that was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.

MICHAEL: That was my first meeting. And also in the drive home that night from that restaurant, he said, and we were in my Mini, he said, "Have you found the secret compartment?"

I said, "What are you talking about?" It's such a Neil Gaiman thing to say.

DAVID: Isn't it?

MICHAEL: The secret compartment? Yeah. Each Mini has got a secret compartment. I said, "I had no idea." It's secret. And he pressed a little button and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.

DAVID: Was there anything inside it?

MICHAEL: Yeah, there was a little man. And he jumped out and went, "Hello!" No, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards because I started putting...

DAVID: Sure. That's a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story.

MICHAEL: That's how it began. Yeah.

DAVID: And then he came to offer you the part in Good Omens.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, we became friends and we would whenever he was in town, we would meet up and yeah, and then eventually he started, he said, "You know, I'm working on an adaptation of Good Omens." And I can remember at one point Terry Gilliam was going to maybe make a film of it. And I remember being there with Neil and Terry when they were talking about it. And...

DAVID: Were you involved at that point?

MICHAEL: No, no, I wasn't involved. I just happened to have met up with Neil that day.

DAVID: Right.

MICHAEL: And then Terry Gilliam came along and they were chatting, that was the day they were talking about that or whatever.

And then eventually he sent me one of the scripts for an early draft of like the first episode of Good Omens. And he said – and we started talking about me being involved in it, doing it – he said, “Would you be interested?” I was like, "Yeah, of course."  I went, "Oh my God." And he said, "Well, I'll send you the scripts when they come," and I would read them, and we'd talk about them a little bit. And so I was involved.

But it was always at that point with the idea, because he'd always said about playing Crowley in it. And so, as time went on, as I was reading the scripts, I was thinking, "I don't think I can play Crowley. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it." And I started to get a bit nervous because I thought, “I don't want to tell Neil that I don't think I can do this.”  But I just felt like I don't think I can play Crowley.

DAVID: Of course you can [play Crowley?].

MICHAEL: Well, I just on a sort of, on a gut level, sometimes you have it on a gut level.

DAVID: Sure, sure.

MICHAEL: I can do this.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Or I can't do this. And I just thought, “You know what, this is not the part for me. The other part is better for me, I think. I think I can do that, I don't think I could do that.”

But I was scared to tell Neil because I thought, "Well, he wants me to play Crowley" – and then it turned out he had been feeling the same way as well.  And he hadn't wanted to mention it to me, but he was like, "I think Michael should really play Aziraphale."

And neither of us would bring it up.  And then eventually we did. And it was one of those things where you go, "Oh, thank God you said that. I feel exactly the same way." And then I think within a fairly short space of time, he said, “I think we've got … David Tennant … for Crowley.” And we both got very excited about that.

And then all these extraordinary people started to join in. And then, and then off we went.

DAVID: That's the other thing about Neil, he collects people, doesn't he? So he'll just go, “Oh, yeah, I've phoned up Frances McDormand, she's up for it.” Yeah. You're, what?

MICHAEL: “I emailed Jon Hamm.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And yeah, and you realize how beloved he is and how beloved his work is. And I think we would both recognise that Good Omens is one of the most beloved of all of Neil's stuff.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: And had never been turned into anything.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And so the kind of responsibility of that, I mean, for me, for someone who has been a fan of him and a fan of the book for so long, I can empathize with all the fans out there who are like, “Oh, they better not fuck this up.”

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: “And this had better be good.” And I have that part of me. But then, of course, the other part of me is like, “But I'm the one who might be fucking it up.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So I feel that responsibility as well.

DAVID: But we have Neil on site.

MICHAEL: Yes. Well, Neil being the showrunner …

DAVID: Yeah. I think it takes the curse off.

MICHAEL: … I think it made a massive difference, didn't it? Yeah. You feel like you're in safe hands.

DAVID: Well, we think. Not that the world has seen it yet.

MICHAEL (grimly): No, I know.

DAVID: But it was a -- it's been a -- it's been a joy to work with you on it. I can't wait for the world to see it.

MICHAEL: Oh my God.  Oh, well, I mean, it's the only, I've done a few things where there are two people, it's a bit of a double act, like Frost-Nixon and The Queen, I suppose, in some ways. But, and I've done it, Amadeus or whatever.

This is the only thing I've done where I really don't think of it as “my character” or “my performance as that character”.  I think of it totally as us.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: The two of us.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: Like they, what I do is defined by what you do.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And that was such a joy to have that experience. And it made it so much easier in a way as well, I found, because you don't feel like you're on your own in it. Like it's totally us together doing this and the two characters totally complement each other. And the experience of doing it was just a real joy.

DAVID: Yeah.  Well, I hope the world is as excited to see it as we are to talk about it, frankly.

MICHAEL: You know, there's, having talked about T.S. Eliot earlier, there's another bit from The Wasteland where there's a line which goes, These fragments I have shored against my ruin.

And this is how I think about life now. There is so much in life, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what, where you've got, what you've done, how much money you got, all that. Life's hard.  I mean, you can, it can take you down at any point.

You have to find this stuff. You have to like find things that will, these fragments that you hold to yourself, they become like a liferaft, and especially as time goes on, I think, as I've got older, I've realized it is a thin line between surviving this life and going under.

And the things that keep you afloat are these fragments, these things that are meaningful to you and what's meaningful to you will be not-meaningful to someone else, you know. But whatever it is that matters to you, it doesn't matter what it was you were into when you were a teenager, a kid, it doesn't matter what it is. Go and find them, and find some way to hold them close to you. 

Make it, go and get it. Because those are the things that keep you afloat. They really are. Like doing that with him or whatever it is, these are the fragments that have shored against my ruin. Absolutely.

DAVID: That's lovely. Michael, thank you so much.

MICHAEL: Thank you.

DAVID: For talking today and for being here.

MICHAEL: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

#michael sheen #david tennant #neil gaiman #how michael and neil first met

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i can't remember if i have posted this before but the coffee shop by my house has my favorite hand-washing sign in the world

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Alright this morning I'm kinda pissed because this scene was finished.

Like, genuinely, I get why they cut most of the BTS stuff we've seen. Even the boyfriends line, as much as I loved it, was probably sandwiched in with other stuff they had to cut.

But this. That's a finished shot. It was carefully done and hit the beats it needed to so it was a perfect parallel to the Chain sequence, right down to the wink.

It's so obvious no one wanted to cut it. They had to because HBO was demanding episodes less than 30 minutes long.

I am so, so grateful for what we've got. But how many more sweet little moments and thoughtful parallels had to be cut for time? Simply because HBO was trying to fucking suck this show dry at every turn?

#ofmd

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This show subverted expectations in so many ways. Having “Blackbeard” be a persona worn by a sensitive soul instead of being an actual hard, unfeeling man who has to ‘learn how to love’. Mary being a fleshed out character with her own desires and disappointed hopes, just like Stede, rather than a colorless placeholder, or a shrill nagging harpy. Even the show itself is a subversion. Everything about it on the surface screams ‘wacky workplace comedy but make it piratical’ and instead it’s a show about accepting your authentic self and finding true love because of it. Having Stede be the clueless object of Ed’s affection instead of Stede cringingly pining after his idealized version of Blackbeard is the best subversion in the show, hands down.

It would have been so easy for this show to decide that Stede was the one with the crush on Ed (and it even looks like that’s what they’re setting up in the first three episodes, with his hero worship of Blackbeard).

Instead Stede is like “my good buddy Ed! :D” and Ed is like “….I am achingly and irrevocably in love.”

#ofmd #blackbonnet #stede and ed

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I will never get over the fact that they knew each other in Eden

and like immediately started gossiping and telling secrets

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Evansville Press, Indiana, February 5, 1912

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Do you ever think about the bits in between the fabulous scenes we got?

Do you think about Stede washing the blood off Ed's face and out of his hair after he woke up? Do you think about him insisting Ed take the bed after they come back aboard the Revenge? Tucking him into bed and sitting close while Ed falls asleep? Lying awake most of the night watching Ed sleep and just savoring the sight of him breathing?

Do you think about what they talked about in the cabin after their second kiss? Did they stay up most of the night talking?

Did Stede lie there holding Ed and smiling like a lunatic after the first time they made love? Did they just lie there looking into each other's eyes until they fell asleep? Or did they have another imaginary restaurant conversation where they just "yes and-ed" each other I to the wee hours of the morning?

Because I think about it a lot.

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Ed and Stede have been so excited to have the crew over to stay at their place, but when the discussion turns to Izzy and how much they miss him, Ed accidentally blows up. In which he finally tells the crew what happened between him and Izzy, and gets a little closer to forgiving himself in the process.

Rated T, 5k words, canon-compliant, set after the s2 finale. If you need to read about Ed finally telling the crew what happened in s1e10 and the crew getting the context everyone deserves, you'll like this one!

#haven't read it yet but absolutely love the premise #ofmd #fanfiction

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💐💐💐💐

#I love stories where they present as a married/courting het couple in the past #one of them in a lacy frilly dress #the other in breeches and waistcoat #and of course the ‘arranged marriage’ of it all #good omens #ineffable husbands

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If you find yourself in delusional “secret episode of sherlock” territory, please come back to reality.

... I'm gonna be honest I thought that everyone had got their "Izzy is gonna come back to life" conspiracy theories out of their system by now and I very much did not expect to go into the tags and see one that was posted only a couple days ago.... Like guys they buried him... his body is in the dirt... you can and should let go now.....

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Adam's powers and the book of life

To start this I first need to bring here something from the go book:

Crowley's entire life history was pasted inside the back of his skull and he, Adam, was reading it. For an instant he knew real terror. He'd always thought the sort he'd felt before was the genuine article, but that was mere abject fear beside this new sensation. Those Below could make you cease to exist by, well, hurting you in unbearable amounts, but this boy could not only make you cease to exist merely by thinking about it, but probably could arrange matters so that you never had existed at all

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

I think I can say that Adam's powers work the same in the book and in the show, there is nothing to tell us otherwise, and taking into account that the same ending occurs in both... it could be said that they do indeed work the same. But in the book they give us more details about it, and it's the sentence I just showed you. Didn't it remind you of something? When I heard it I almost screamed, because what Crowley describes is more or less the same thing Beelzebub tells Crowley about the famous "book of life".

In the event that we assume that there is a book of life, we could basically summarize Adam's powers as the ability to erase and rewrite things in said book. Basically his power is to be an editor of the book, and he doesn't even need the book. It is as if the book is something abstract to which only Adam has access

Also in that scene Crowley says it is as if Adam is reading his life story. Again, it sounds like Adam has access to a book with the entire history of the universe

If there is a book of life in which you can write things in it, the best weapon you have against it is the antichrist. Because the antichrist is the only one who seems to be able to access the book even without having the book

#good omens #crowley

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i think that what i find very sus from all my lurking is that i remember when AOC first started everyone and their cousins felt entitled to know the identities of the AOC members, they have proven themselves a million times over as the only page worthy of being followed while SOFMD only seems to retweet AOC ideas and occasionally post the same thing just in a “different font”

BUT

now that SOFMD is actually dealing with money no one has asked who are the members of SOFMD and who is the owner of the PayPal connected to the Ko-fi.

This billboard is useless!

aoc is doing a great job of keeping engagement going with fun ideas like the wordle games they’ve been running that are accessible to the whole fandom and don’t cost anything. the fact that they don’t want to publicise the leadership speaks volumes

whereas saveofmd are just claiming there are no leaders at all, even though there definitely are de facto leaders (e.g. discord mods, who have extra power to control discussion) and more powerful members who tend to close ranks and shut down discussion whenever an ‘outsider’ starts asking questions

the fact that there are even two separate movements looks bad never mind the fact that one of them is doing what is very obviously an expensive stunt for internet clout

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ofmd fans that follow me: i can't tell you what you can or cannot do with your money but i strongly advise that y'all not support the second billboard that is popping up right now

it's being run by people who have no idea what they're doing. at this point ofmd doesn't need another billboard campaign. posting about the show and supporting adopt our crew is more than enough, there are a multitude of things we can do to make noise for the show that doesn't require money and this particular group refuses to listen

there's also misinformation being spread about a "potential buyer" of the show. there's no such fucking thing. do not believe a single word from these people