The Color War

And Aziraphale

War on the battleground

Imperial roman armor

Hello, mods! I'm not looking for recommendations, just asking a question if you have the time to answer it: how do you keep track of all the fics you've read? There is a truly impressive and garguntuan amount of recs on this blog, and they are all tailored to each individual's ask. What is your process of recording and retrieving the information about each fic?---How do you know which fics to note down, and what do you note down about them? -Thank you for reading

Hi! I posted here about how i organise my extensive AO3 bookmarks to help me find and filter for fics I have already read.

Of course, not all the fics recommended on the blog are fics the mods will have personally read. When searching for fics outside of my usual reading range or things I just hadn't thought to search for the process is a bit different.

It always starts with tags. You can throw in a bunch of tags to filter on, but the more tags the fewer results. So sometimes I use only one or two tags, or swap around the tags I'm looking for. Excluding tags, too, if I'm looking for one thing and not another.

Depending on what's being requested it is often more useful to use the "search within results" function towards the bottom of the filter options. If it's something without a specific tag, or to search more broadly and not limit the search to the tags.

If the request is a very specific one or centred on a small detailed rather than a broader concept, it will often involve opening a fic and either giving it a skim read or ctrl+F to search the entire work for key words to discover if it includes the kind of scene I'm looking for.

Whether a fic is "good" or not is subjective, so I won't rule anything out if, for example, I personally don't like it. If I find an abundance of fics I will try to judge which ones fit the request more or which ones appeal to me the most--which ones I would want to read. (This is how my "to read" bookmarks are continuously growing and feels like a super perk of the job, honestly.)

And this is why it can sometimes take quite a long f*cking time to compile a list of fics for an ask. But I enjoy it, which is why I'm still doing it. I've re-watched series two about seven times now, just having it playing in the background while I'm searching for fics.

I've been so efficient recently, in fact, that the queue is looking very healthy. So we're going to up the number of posts published a day to two. There's still over 400 asks in the inbox, though, so it's still a wait of months for any asks to be published!

- Mod D

Crowley’s Roman Look is Very Strange

I didn’t. I didn’t want to be this person. But Aziraphale is sitting RIGHT THERE looking like A TOTALLY RESPECTABLE Roman citizen circa 40 AD. Maybe the hair might be unusual, but the Romans LOVED blonde hair. They thought it was cool and foreign and exotic in sort of a sexy way.

But Crowley is so historically confused. And I think the production design is too good and Neil Gaiman is too on top of his game for this to be accidental. It must mean something. 

I - HAIR

What is on your head Crowley. Are you the emperor? Are you a victorious general currently participating in a victory parade? 

Sure, you sometimes see laurel wreathes in portraits. But FUNERAL portraits.

That crown is a symbolic thing, to celebrate your victories in life. It’s not STREET WEAR. 

And okay. It’s 40-41 AD. Caligula is emperor. Military chic is in. If you’re a guy, you’re wearing your hair short and un-styled (LIKE AZIRAPHALE.) Those dramatic little spit curls wouldn’t show up until at least Nero. 

But actually, pulling back for a second - are you appreciating the absurdity that is this hairstyle? Because it took me a second to notice that only the FRONT HALF is curled.

Which is a Roman hairstyle. But it’s a Roman LADY hairstyle. 

(It tends to get called ‘Flavian Hair’ because the Flavian era ladies of the 70s-90s got pretty extreme about it, but you still had less… dramatic versions in the 40s.)

That’s you, Crowley. That’s your style reference. Honestly, if you had just kept your hair long everybody would have thought you were a cool barbarian chieftain or something. 

II - CLOTHES

The black is fine. It’s eccentric, but fine. Romans wore black. Wearing black was Cato the Younger’s *thing.* It gets associated with mourning and/or protest, but it would have been really visually confusing to have Crowley wear some other color. This gets a pass.

Nope, my question is about his articles of clothing. There’s a charcoal grey garment that seems to be a toga + undershirt. It’s looped over Crowley’s arm, which is a classic toga give away. 

That part’s fine. But over the top, he’s wearing a true black… short cape? Shawl? it’s really hard to tell, because whatever it is, he is NOT wearing it correctly (is it folded in half?) Also, that irregular red zigzag pattern is very strange and I do not recognize it from anywhere. Seriously, I can’t even decide on a continent for this garment.

III - JEWELRY

Emperor Nero usually gets credit for inventing the first sunglasses, after he started watching gladiators fight though a green gemstone. He won’t be emperor for about ten years. But hey, he probably got the idea from somewhere. And dark glasses are just a really sensible way to hide your snakey eyes. This is also the first time we see Crowley put up some proper emotional barriers, so it’s a good place for the glasses to be introduced. (@theladyzephyr has a wonderful meta that goes into a lot more detail here.) 

So the sunglasses are good. BUT THAT BROOCH.

Okay. This is Aziraphale wearing a fibula plate brooch

It’s a really Roman style, and a really Roman shape (a “pelta”)

I’ve never seen one that looks like angel wings, but a Roman citizen is going to look at that and see a soppily patriotic Imperial Eagle. How nice that this lovely man from Germania/Greece has made some money and become such an exemplary citizen!

But Crowley is wearing a penannular (pin-and-ring) brooch

That’s not roman. That’s a style from the British Isles (Irish, Pictish, Scottish, Welsh.) It says barbarian, boonies, outskirts of the civilized world. 

And nobody @ me with pictures of pin-and-ring brooches from Rome. Those are small, cheap, and undecorated. They’re the cultural equivalent of safety pins. This is patterned like a snake, and it’s the size of Crowley’s palm. 

AND THAT’S ANOTHER THING. They didn’t do snake-themed jewelry in the British isles. Snakes didn’t have the best cultural associations there, and there weren’t too many of them there to begin with. This isn’t something Crowley picked up because “hey, a snake, cool,” and then got attached too. This must have been commissioned special. 

But you know who LOVED snake jewelry? 

ROMANS. 

Romans associated snakes with healing and rebirth - clinics sometimes had lil snakes crawling around on the ground to give the place good vibes. 

You cannot tell me that Crowley could have existed in Rome for any length of time and not picked up some of this jewelry. Which leads me to my conclusion:

IV - CROWLEY IS EXTREMELY NEW IN TOWN

The unfashionable pin and hair? The clothing draped the wrong way? The cultural colorblindness of wearing a laurel crown when you’re not supposed to? Crowley looks like a tacky tourist because he is one. He’s not staying here long, he “just nipped in for a quick temptation.”

He’s in a bad mod because he’s had an awful day, everyone keeps looking at him funny, the temptation was a complete bust, he has culture shock, and now he’s just trying to get a drink. But they don’t have any PROPER drinks like ALE or MEAD here, so he just orders “whatever’s drinkable.” He’s even not sure what they drink in Rome. 

But then Aziraphale shows up and invites him to lunch some place fashionable. So everything’s going to be okay.

Speaking of the bookshop, theories on what could be upstairs?

ooooo the BIG QUESTION.

so we can see a bit of the second floor in all these pics:

basically all we know for sure is there are A LOT MORE BOOKS, both stacked around the railing and on the circle of shelves. neil has decided not to comment on what else might be there (YET 👀) but he’s confirmed that much.

apart from that, we can see from the outside that there are six windows on the second floor:

i’m going to assume they’re part of the shop because they’re Very On Fire when the rest of the shop is on fire. SO. taking all that into account, you end up with something like this:

where the thin grey circle is the railing and the brown one is the bookshelves (as you can see in the first pic, it doesn’t circle all the way around!)

the rest is a complete mystery. i mean i’m sure the actual set was empty because they didn’t need to fill it, but in theory there’s room for some interesting stuff! with the first floor for scale i can imagine a whole flat built around that circle of shelves — a bed aziraphale never sleeps in, comfy chairs, every other angel knick-knack he’s encountered in his life. in my personal headcanon it’s all books and hoarded items covered in dust, which he leaves for authenticity.

thank you for asking!! i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts if they want to share :)

#RainbowRoad for Rainbow Railroad Charity Drive

CLICK HERE TO PREORDER

Hello, everyone!

As you may know, a couple of years ago I wrote a Good Omens fic called Sit Tight, Take Hold. It kicked off an amazing friendship with a group of people who have now come together to organize a fundraiser to support an LGBTQ+ non-profit.

I'm really excited to announce that we are running a charity drive to support Rainbow Railroad alongside the release Good Omens Season 2 and the third and final part of the #rainbowroad series, Fools Rush In.

What is Rainbow Railroad?

Rainbow Railroad is a non-profit organization that works to relocate at-risk LGBTQ+ individuals to safety globally.

"As a result of Rainbow Railroad, more LGBTQI+ individuals can access lives free from persecution, and ultimately, we envision a world where LGBTQI+ people can live lives of their choosing, free from persecution."

If you've read STTH and AALS, you may remember that Formula 1 visits a multitude of countries that have poor human rights and are unfriendly to LGBTQ+ individuals. I vacillated between many charity organizations before settling on this one, which encompasses the global nature of the #rainbowroad universe and some of the challenges the characters face. Thank you, @kookaburra-laugh, for suggesting this charity!

Great! How can I help?

@dustandhalos, @blairamok, and @cinnabarmint are releasing prints of their art for #rainbowroad on Etsy. Art options include:

a. A 5x7 postcard pack of 6 prints featured in STTH!

b. An 12x18 poster of Crowley's C8ZR1 from part two, Accept A Little Spin

c. And last but not least, an 18x24 print of Ezira's signed Anthony Fucking Crowley poster.

[Preview images are protected with anti-AI cloaking technology Glaze, and may depict slight pixelation and/or distortion. Printed art will not depict this distortion.]

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. WE ARE PRINTING SIT TIGHT, TAKE HOLD. Thank you, again, to @blairamok, who made the astounding cover art.

I will update everyone once I get the physical proof, but the book includes 428 pages incorporating the tumblr posts, news articles, and text messages. The dimensions will be 6x9x1, printed in color on 80lb matte paper.

How does this work?

CLICK HERE TO PREORDER

Preorders open TODAY and will run for a month until Friday 9/1. Once preorders close, we will submit the orders to the various printers. All proceeds will go to Rainbow Railroad, minus the cost of printing and shipping orders. We hope to start shipping out merch mid to late-September. Depending on how many orders we get will depend on how quickly we can ship everything out, but we will keep you posted once preorders close.

Hopefully, if you order something and live in the US, it will arrive by the time Fools Rush In finishes posting on 10/13.🤞🤞🤞 We will be shipping internationally as well!

What if I can't afford to order anything?

That's okay! Please reblog this post so more people can see it. It will bring more attention to the charity drive and more attention to Rainbow Railroad!

What the heck is #rainbowroad?

#rainbowroad is a trilogy about our favorite Good Omens characters reimagined as Formula 1 drivers. I have no idea how this came into my head beyond binging Good Omens and Drive to Survive at the same time. The final part of the main trilogy, Fools Rush In, is currently posting and slated to end on 10/13. It is COMPLETE.

Thank you to my friends and all the readers who have made this possible! I am so excited to share this with you. Please reblog to boost awareness. If you have specific questions, shoot me an ask!

Massive thanks to @dustandhalos, @blairamok, @cinnabarmint, and @kookaburra-laugh for making this possible!

ni <3

Rare Omens - Prompt Event (Feb 2021)

Many of my GO friends ship A/C (…I don’t think any of my fan friends don’t….?) but also many of us ship two characters (or more) who aren’t exactly the go-to with fan creation. This is for them!

Running the month of February 2021. Fill as many or as few of these prompts as you like. Fan fic, art, cosplay, whatever makes you happy! You’re welcome to create sweet fluff or friendship dynamic for any pairing!

**Everyone needs to be adults if there’s smut involved.**

Don’t like a pair? Show a friendship rather than relationship OR JUST SKIP IT. There’s no need to dump on someone’s enjoyment. DO NOT say “I don’t like this pair” or “I don’t usually like this pair BUT…” Trust us, we know. It’s probably rare for a reason. Anyone who starts trouble, don’t hesitate to block or mute them.

Tag on twitter #RareOmens.

Ao3 Collection: Rare_Omens

Details also at the collection profile here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Rare_Omens/profile

So in case anyone wonder what I got up to in December and January, BEHOLD.

As a wee birthday surprise for @ashfae​, I built Aziraphale’s bookshop as a book nook :) It also lights up:

It is entirely possible I got carried away, but that’s half the fun :D I’ll pop a few of the progress pictures and what i used below, so I don’t entirely flood your timelines, so you can see the sticky mess I made :)

Afficher davantage

To celebrate the big news (f***** yeah !!!! Season 2), I finished my most important project

Well, time to start my page. Here is Crowley in his demonic form.