caspianthegeek

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Good Omens Fans ❤️

Since you fell in love with these two, have you:

I know for some it might be hard to even pick just one (maybe go for the most important/surprising one?), but please feel free to share your story if you'd like via comments and reblogs 🫶 Happy discovery and/or healing - whichever applies 🤍🖤 Oh and if someone wants to create a proper survey with multiple choice etc (or I might do that later and link it here) please feel free!

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As Colonel Mustard’s Lonely Hearts Column tells us: “All you need is Love.”

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Hungry for Good Omens 3 crumbs of information? Let’s see what I’ve found and speculate a bit about cast members, filming locations, and… trees! As always, please tag accordingly, share only with the fans consenting to know potential spoilers, and get yourself something to drink since it’s going to be a longer read.

News flash: both Ned Dennehy (well-known to Good Omens fans as Hastur) and Sean Pertwee (recently revealed to star in the Finale as Brian Cameron) admitted to have been working on location in Tenerife during the film’s production time slot (January and early February, respectively). In Dennehy’s case, even providing a rather intimately close look at his character.

The location alone isn’t particularly surprising, as the Canary Islands and Tenerife in particular are currently experiencing an influx of international productions, including several TV shows by global streamers, making use of the favourable weather and prices. But Dennehy’s post, additionally liked by a Good Omens crew member, seems somewhat suggestive.

In the Instagram story above, Sean Pertwee called 14 January 2025 his last day on the shoot in Tenerife and subsequently traveled to London and Edinburgh, from where he shared another video three weeks later.

Now, technically the Tenerife film set could be a part of Pertwee’s NCIS: Tony & Ziva job he started last autumn. However, that would imply that he plays a greater role in the upcoming production than the currently available promotional materials imply, and the location stamp in the bottom right corner, Drago Milenario, is too deliciously Good Omens coded to overlook it.

It isn’t even a place, really, but a living organism. A plant. A tree.

Meet Drago Milenario, also know as El Drago, a natural monument and symbol of Tenerife. The oldest and largest living specimen of the endemic Dracaena draco (dragon tree), it is said to be a thousand years old and stand at 18 metres high with a 20-metre perimeter. “Great big bugger,” as Aziraphale would say.

There has been much debate over the age of the tree, and some even say that it may be over 5000 years old; more recent estimates seem more conservative and suggest that El Drago is no more than 800 to 1000 years old. It is difficult to say unambiguously, because the traditional method of counting rings is not applicable in this case — dracaena has no rings.

Its home, the Millennial Dragon Tree Park, or Parque del Drago, in Icod de los Vinos, is a sacred place and a burial zone of Tenerife’s original inhabitants, the Guanches. Members of the Guanche people venerated El Drago as a divine tree; a symbol of wisdom and fertility, believed to have magical powers, granting longevity and warding off evil spirits. Its blood-red oil or sap is called dragon's blood and historically used to treat wounds and embalm corpses. According to local legends, that’s because slain dragons don’t actually die, but rather turn into dragon trees like this one.

The dragon part of the story sounds objectively cool, but if we overlook it for a second, we might notice why the connection to Good Omens is so strong here. When asked about trees in the show’s context, one’s first point of reference is quite naturally the Garden of Eden scene and the shot above featuring the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The thing is, it wasn’t the only one.

According to the Bible, the very reason why Aziraphale was even stationed in Eden (possibly with a few other armed angels) was to protect the Garden from the newly exiled humans. More specifically, his “apple duty” meant that he was supposed to guard a very particular and yet unseen tree:

“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of lifeand eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” (Genesis 3:21-24)

In the apocryphal Apocalypse of Moses, the tree of life is also called the Tree of Mercy. Adam, the first human, famously sent his son Seth and wife Eve back to the gates of the Garden to beg God and His angels for some oil of the Tree of Life to save him from his deathbed by granting either full immortality or longer lifespan. They were obviously denied, but in another part of the Bible — the Book of Revelation, on which most of the official Good Omens plot is based, Jesus announces the details of His Second Coming, including who and when will get the right to enjoy this forbidden fruit:

“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward each one as his work deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:12-14)

The Catholic Church in particular believes that the Tree of Life mentioned above is the Eucharist and often combines the image of the Tree with the Cross of Christ, both literally and figuratively (see above: The Tree of Life printed by John Hagerty, 1791) granting the immortal life to His Chosen Ones:

And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 1-5)

In his Roll Play BAFTA interview published on 10 February 2005, while talking about his work for the Good Omens Finale, David Tennant himself has specifically referred to the possibility of Aziraphale and Crowley spending eternity together. But where? Well.

The visual symbolism of an apple tree seems so important for the Good Omens 3 plot that it’s even represented on the exclusive mug design shared on 30 April by one of everyone’s favourite production crew spouses, Carla Scott Fullerton (fullercoaching on Instagram):

For those who missed the original discussion, the reverse side of the complimentary mug gifted to Good Omens 3 crew members and depicted above contains a photo of slate number 100, scene 59 of the production with a quote “We’ve come to a decision…”. A typical feature film of this length consists of around 60 scenes, so it’s definitely the ending or one of the scenes directly preceding it.

Which means that the story ends, as it began, in a garden. And with a very specific apple tree, adorned with initials AZ and CR in two little hearts as hinted by the drawing in the background.

There’s a specific crew member though — one of the firsts to be confirmed for the upcoming production, actually — that has shared a Good Omens themed work with an apple tree a whole year earlier.

Here you can see Michael Ralph’s (i.e., Good Omens production designer’s) concept art depicting Neil Gaiman’s version of heaven on earth – “Heaven is a Library” – at LA music venue, The Wiltern, for The Art of Elysium’s Heaven 2024 charity gala. It’s got Va Va Voom yellow walls, red carpet, spiral stairs, a centrally located oculus, and lots of plants with an apple tree with a swing in the middle. In case this image wasn’t suggestive enough, it’s worth to focus on the twin display tables with Cupid statues on top, direct copies of the one from A. Z. Fell and Co. bookshop in Soho.

It’s not even subtle — and wasn’t meant to be, considering how Event Eleven, the creative agency behind the gala, typically organises high budget premiere events and promotional campaigns for Amazon Prime TV shows, and to this day it’s the closest we’ve got to a Good Omens 3 public celebration.

While this one was for charity and officially not affiliated with the studio, it took place only three weeks after the official announcement of Good Omens 3 and involved not only this curious simulacrum of Aziraphale’s bookshop as a setting, but also Jon Hamm on stage as the guest of honour, referencing the co-leads of the TV series and reciting an excerpt from the 1990 novel in an approximation of their characters’ voices, and the Ukrainian artist Katya Zvereva was commissioned to make an installation for the gala called literally “Tree of Life” (above).

If you remember my bookshop meta, you will probably find the official explanation of the event’s theme particularly interesting:

“Heaven is two things that are, perhaps, the same thing. Heaven is both a library, the place where we go for knowledge, wisdom, advice and for stories, and heaven is also a refuge, somewhere that we can go, whoever we are, for safety and protection. Heaven contains librarians and refugees, shelters the helpless, and gives them — us — somewhere quiet to sit and read or listen.”

Not incidentally, the only iteration of the Tree of Life in the actual show so far has been built into the layout of Aziraphale’s bookshop (left). Its Kabbalah depiction (right) is a representation of the entirety of creation, composed of ten spheres — referred to as the Sephiroth/Sefirot as a whole — each denoting a universal quality, such as wisdom or beauty. To quote The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order by Israel Regardie:

This altar diagram shows the Ten Sephiroth with all the connecting Paths numbered and lettered, and the Serpent winding over each Path. Around each Sephirah are written the Names of the Deity, Archangel and Angelic Host attributed to it. The Twenty Two Paths are bound together by the Serpent of Wisdom. It unites the Paths but does not touch any of the Sephiroth, which are linked by the Flaming Sword. The Flaming Sword is formed by the natural order of the Tree of Life. It resembles a flash of Lightning. Together the Sephiroth and the Twenty Two Paths form the 32 Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah or Book of Formation. The Two pillars on either side of the Altar represent:

1. Active: The White Pillar on the South Side. Male. Adam. Pillar of Light and Fire. Right Kerub. Metatron.

2. Passive: The Black Pillar on the North Side. Female. Eve. Pillar of Cloud. Left Kerub. Sandalphon.

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Look. I'm glad you've never been in an abusive relationship but...

I really don't give a shit who you want for the next Supreme Archangel. Can I go now.

Oh what the hell. Michael?

The fuck are you saying.

I'm serious though.

The WHAT now?

Oh this is not good.

Not good at all.

Oh fuck. What's his game now.

How do I get out of this. I have to find a way....

How dare you.

How DARE you bring my Crowley into this.

You just dug your own grave old man. You have no idea.

Anyway so I was hoping my love you would come with me to the vipers nest.

But no worries if not.

Aziraphale. Had NO choice.

Crowley darling, you know I don't want to go, right? Right?

Talking to an abuser who has power over you is a skill in its own right and something Aziraphale perfected, shielding his own fragile self and belief in what he was doing and feeling and hoping for and not endangering himself and especially his beloved in the process as far as he possibly could. He did that for millennia. Aeons maybe. He did it before he knew angel!Crowley was the kind to fight for (not to assume our angel would not have been advising to be cautious to everyone).

Until he couldn't.

And I think he always knew this day will come.

When they will get him. When they will force his hand and he will have to either go out in a fight or give up and he would never give up while there is Crowley to fight for.

So he ground his teeth, and took a step into that lift.

Knowing he might never come back, but he will die before they will break him.

Breathe angel, you'll kick their ass. I know it.

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If the Good Omens TV Finale comes out and people are even moderately satisfied with it, Gaiman can't tap into Good Omens again without making it incredibly weird. If he tries to write something about it, for example, people will just be going "Huh? Didn't that series end years ago? People can't do anything original anymore." It's not that he couldn't make the attempt to sneak back into fan spaces by writing more after the finale, but it would be harder for him to get positive attention and more likely to backfire.

Even the most fanservicey stuff he could come up with wouldn't be appealing if the finale is satisfying and we've got this incredible world of fanworks to play with afterwards. That renders further fanservice unnecessary.

Also, people love talking about dedicated Good Omens fans as if they are too vulnerable or fragile or naive or cowardly or or or to make their own decisions, but frankly, even if you read that as true, what those fans need is closure - again, making them less likely to fall for tricks he tries to play in the future.

If the series didn't get a reasonably satisfying end, Gaiman would be able to sweep in 3 or 5 or 10 years from now and pique interest by telling people he's going to finally write the end to the cliffhanger. And people would pay attention. Some people would still be desperate for a resolution; other people would just be extremely curious. And they'd become his audience again. You KNOW they would. Even if you bombard people with the message that they shouldn't for all the most morally compelling reasons in the universe, they absolutely would. It would give him a way in.

Finally, I don't think Gaiman's feelings should matter either way here, but having his pet project survive and thrive without him would bother him much more than getting to watch it become a horrible tragedy that he caused. Which he would, let's face it, enjoy.

"You're just saying this because you still care about Good Omens!" Yeah. But I'm also right.

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Popped out for a cake and found myself at St James’s park. Luckily, Crowley was there to hold the fort when the Comical Film Convention ran out of postcards and miracles up some extras in a trice! If you should chance to be there tomorrow, you might find one of my trade tokens under the armrest, unless someone else finds them first…

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Shiny new postcards to aid with choosing an afternoon’s plans. I shall make some of these available as prizes at next year’s Ineffable Con, and perhaps I’ll find a reason to give some away before then?

Pretend you don’t hear Crowley in the background…

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Hello Mr. Fell

During my time on twitter, you constantly shared words of comfort when we needed the most. And right now it is one of those moments.

The fandom as a whole is dealing with some upsetting news and thoughts. And I believe that a few words will be much appreciated.

Thank you <3

We found each other through a story. A story about humanity and love and, admittedly, a certain amount of mild incompetence. I have seen miracles carried out through the generosity and kindness of people who gathered around those words — that idea — like a flaming sword in the wilderness. No matter what happens, we have each other. We have the idea. Nothing and no-one can ruin it or take it away, because it belongs to us, now. It belongs to you.

Let there be hands, joined to support those without comfort. Let there be ten thousand stories, ending, as they began, in a garden and with a loving kiss, and with the knowledge that we have finally found our home. Let there be sketches, and scribbles, and vast projects and small, silly jokes shared between friends. Let there be joy in defiance of hurt.

And let there be light.

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'my friend' is here to stay. SORRY MY REVIEWER

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Duck Crowley and Capybara Aziraphale. Together in every universe 💕

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GoFundMe to help my family

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*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free

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People often say to me ‘Aziraphale, what exactly is Firmament?’

And by ‘often’, I mean ‘twice’, and they don’t so much say it as send me little enquiries on the Twitters and the Tumbler, along with inexplicable demands to know whether Crowley or I go ‘on top’.

I’ll get to the point in a moment, but, since you’re here, I would like to make it clear that our sleeping arrangements are nobody’s business but our own.

In any case, we don’t own a bunk bed, so the point is moot.

The subject of Firmament first came up on a clear night a few hundred years after I followed Adam and Eve out from Eden. Seth — their third child — was lying on a stone outcrop near the settlement, watching the sky, and I was sitting a little way off, keeping an eye out for scorpions.

‘Ol-ah-kwa*?’ The boy was usually full of questions, but that night he’d been uncharacteristically quiet. ‘What are they called, the lights above?’ It wasn’t the first time he’d asked and he already knew the answer perfectly well, but that was his way.

‘Those are stars. Has your father shown you how to find your path by them?’ He shook his head, and I resolved to talk to Eve in the morning.

‘How are they there? Are they like flowers on a bush? Or spots on a lizard? How many there are.’

I wished Crowley had been there, just then. He could have explained it so much better. I did my best, although I think I left him with the impression that every star hovered high in the heavens like a hummingbird, and he took some convincing that they wouldn’t eventually grow tired, having nowhere to perch, and come crashing down around us.

‘But why are they like fires? If they were made to fly up there forever, why don’t they grow feathers and just be birds?’

‘Well, that would rather defeat the purpose, B-qa-lyl**.’ And that might have been the end of the matter, but the boy had long since learned my weakness.

‘Don’t you know?’

And this is what I told him:

‘They are stars, because God told them to be stars. If She ever decides that they should be birds, then birds they will become. She told your father and mother to be human, because there was a place made in the world for humanity. Your purpose in this life is to discover what it means to be human.’

‘What about the next life?’

‘Wait and see.’

And this is what I didn’t tell him:

In the Beginning was the Void. And God spoke into the Nothing -That-Was, and that word was the first Firmament.

Firmament exists without mass, without substance. It is the Almighty’s intent, Her design, Her love; it is a blueprint for reality, pure potential and the Universe is spun with its threads. In the hands of the Virtues, it takes on form, accretes matter — becomes Material, a mechanism turned with a key that sounds like ‘LET THERE BE’.

Firmament can only be seen by the shadows that it casts. Gravity. The way that particles converse. Electromagnetism. Slood. It moves in mysterious ways and it reaches everywhere that is not Void. One day, scholars will glimpse the outer edges of ‘omnipresence’, and call it ‘quantum entanglement’.

I should have found a way to explain that — while stars aren’t birds — they share their firmament as all the brush stokes of a masterpiece share their canvas, as the individual notes of a melody are carried on the same breath. Everything touches everything. ‘Look what ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, the same have ye done unto me.’

Perhaps if I’d taught Seth that all that lies between each of us and the furthest, strangest star is a triviality called ‘distance’, which only really has meaning inside the preserve of mortal dimensions, he might have understood. I tried to explain it to his descendants, but perhaps they were too old, too certain of themselves, to listen. I was never much of a teacher.

Later, in all the confusion of Babel, rāqīa (something beaten thin to form a surface) and rakhmyn (love) went their separate ways, and whenever I encountered the subject of… celestial scaffolding — for want of a better word — it came in the context of the former. A shell to support the stars, to hold back the upper waters. They forgot about the ‘love’ part.

Later still, Crowley got volubly drunk with a fellow named Copernicus and made some progress, but even his controversial model couldn’t let go of firmament as the pastry around the universal profiterole.

Then there was Giordano Bruno… but we don’t talk about him.

So, here I am, trying again. Hoping that I’ve explained myself better this time, because, after all, that’s what an angel is: Firmament imbued with mind, and grace, willed into life by words of purpose unique to each one of us. Wearing atomic fancy-dress so that we can speak to you in words you can comprehend (ideally without falling down and giggling while your hair smoulders gently).

We are, at base, figments of Her imagination, which is so powerful that it was necessary that She invent free will to stop all things yielding unfailingly to Her whim. As a consequence, reality tends to become malleable in our immediate vicinity.

What is Firmament? It’s everything. It’s Creation. It’s humans, and demons, and angels. It’s stars, and it’s the walls of Eden. It’s the bullet, and the finger pulling the trigger, the magician and the audience, and the shocked air expanding in ripples from the burning powder. It’s the scalpel, and the flesh. And inside, beneath the dancing atoms, it’s love.

Try to remember that part, because sometimes it seems very well hidden.

It’s love.

*Brother

**Something small

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Saying "voting doesn't matter" might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn't reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn't missed a one.

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I don't know if anyone needs to hear this but when you're cosplaying Crowley in a dress you don't have to label yourself as fem Crowley unless you want to (if you want to, go for it!)

Crowley is a nonbinary icon and he's still just as nonbinary in a dress. Your AGAB doesn't require you label yourself in a specific way. I've yet to see a cis man state they're cosplaying masc Crowley and you're just as valid as they are. F*ck the gender binary.

And in case this needs said: this applies to any of the angels/demons and really any cosplay, but it's particularly true with our fav nonbinary entities.

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What is EVERY?

once upon a time, prime did a really rather awesome compilation video of lots of shows and productions that celebrated queer characters and styles, in honour of pride month 2023, and it was good. so good in fact, that it was shared on social media, and very well received. until a beady-eyed watcher caught a little snippet. investigations were made, questions were asked, and what transpired was that this snippet - merely two or three frames - was a prophecy. a prophecy that foretold of a certain event that would soon come to pass in a month and a half, and had the power to break apart entire nations fandom. the prophecy was soon shared across the land, and to protect the citizens from knowing the terrible (amazing!💕 but terrible) truth, a pact was made amongst those who knew. to squash the prophecy, to pretend that it had never happened, and to never speak of it again until it was finally time for the prophecy to come to pass. there were leaks, of course, but for the most part, it was successful. mere whispers in the halls, rumours and hearsay, until it would only be referred to by one name. a name that made gods tremble and the skies open and all the people weep when it was heard. a name pulled from the very prophecy of which it spoke. and that name, was:

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a helpful tutorial

I was taking with my friend about good omens and we were wondering how the hell aziraphale-as-crowley managed to get into that bath without getting his socks wet and so I drew this ‘helpful’ guide.

I like to imagine that all the demons had to just awkwardly stand around watching him clamber around getting into this bathtub… @neil-gaiman can you confirm?