I’ve made enough mistakes to fill a book… several books. Okay, fine, a whole shelf. But there’s this thing about making mistakes… you learn a lot from them.

I figure I’m some kind of genius at this point given the “whole shelf of mistakes” thing, and you know the most important thing I have learned?

Always get up.

In the film’s prologue, Galadriel narrates the forging of the Great Rings. But there’s a really cool hidden message in how the shots are set up… The shots of the elves only show them looking at their rings, nothing else…

The shots of the dwarves only show them looking at their rings, nothing else…

But when we get to the nine rings given to men “who above all else desire power”….the men don’t look at their rings. They look straight into the camera.

  And while other shots are composed to make you look at the magic rings,  everything in this shot is designed to make sure you look back into the eyes of the man in the center.  Why?

So…

The oldest millennials right now are 35. They were born in 1982 and turned 18 in the year 2000.

Gen Z started in the late 90′s or 2000, depending on your opinion.

But for certain, if you were born after 2000, YOU ARE NOT A MILLENNIAL.

The youngest millennials are just about 18 years old right now if you end the Millennial Generation in 2000.

18-35. We are your millennials.

“Younger millennials” are actually Gen Z.

THIS ALL STEMS FROM OUR PARENTS CONTINUING TO INFANTILIZE US.

Millennials are full-grown fucking adults in their twenties and thirties!!!

MILLENNIALS ARE NOT TEENAGERS, MILLENNIALS ARE NOT CHILDREN.

Bath Time 

House Sparrows (Passer Domesticus) at the Public Gardens. 

I suspect that I’m about to step into something I would be wisest to keep well away from. But what the hell, it’s that time between Christmas and New Year’s. And nobody’s yelled at me over the internet since I said that the TV Aziraphale doesn’t use a cell phone. *

Canonically, which is to say using the text in the book, you don’t get any description of Crowley’s sex life. The only thing the book says is “angels are sexless unless they specifically make an effort”.  You can infer, and (more to the point) you can imagine, and lots of people have chosen, not unreasonably, to ship him with Aziraphale, but you are still Making Stuff Up. It could be Making Stuff Up that happens between paragraphs, or Making Stuff Up that isn’t mentioned at all, but it’s still Making Stuff Up.** (And using the kind of eagle-eyed textual analysis that Bible scholars used to decide exactly what a piece of four thousand year old verse definitely meant also counts here as Making Stuff Up.)

Which is the fun of fanfiction, and part of the tradition of fanfiction. As is, I’m afraid, grumbling at people who do not see that your ship is the only true ship, and choose to ship anyone else with anyone else.

If anyone decides that The Relationships in Their Fanfiction Are the Only True Fanfiction, it seems to me they are missing the point. The point is Fanfiction exists so that you can imagine, enjoy and fill in the gaps. The point is that you can change things and have fun with them. And the stories are absolutely true… for you.

The TV series gets deeper into Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship. It’ll be canonical for the TV series, and not canonical for the book.*** 

If I were to Pronounce on things that are not explicitly stated in the book, I still wouldn’t be telling you if Crowley was Canonically Gay. I would be telling you what I think, because it’s not canon unless it’s in the book. It won’t be TV canon unless it’s on the screen.

So, do not worry what other people think, and do not worry about what they say. These are not things on which people can be right or wrong, or on which anything can be “settled”. 

Make fun fanfiction. Enjoy yourself. Make things up. Share them. That’s the point.

*People would only bother him on it. And if anyone gave him one as a present, it would be still be in its box, on the same shelf as the still-unboxed Kindle.

**Which was what Terry and I did when we wrote the book. And what I had to do for the TV scripts when I needed to take the story into places the book hadn’t covered.

They become a familiar sight in the marketplace.

“Here’s your change, ma'am. One gold piece.” The merchant holds out a palm, on top of which rests a tiny, brilliantly colored creature clutching a single gold coin.

“That’s a dragon,” you say dumbly. “One piece… and a dragon.”

“Yes.”

You cautiously reach out and attempt to take your change. You tug. It holds. You tug harder. The dragon lets loose a tiny, protective growl.

“Ma'am–no, ma'am, you have to take the dragon, too.”

“Sorry?”

The seller notes your dubious expression. “Not from around here, are ya?” They shrug. “Them’s the rules. Take the coin, take the dragon.”

They wait expectantly. Wondering how the world has so suddenly gone mad, you slowly, slowly hold out your hand.

The dragon perks right up. It scampers from their palm to yours with the coin clamped in its jaws and scales your sleeve with sharp little claws.

“Have a nice day, ma'am,” the merchant says. “Spend him soon, now, you hear? At another booth, if you can. He likes to travel.”

Iridescence