deanplease

Fiction writer (AO3, etc.).  Nonbinary. She/her. Current obsessions: Good Omens; Supernatural. But mostly Good Omens.

[neil-gaiman]

Not quite a question- Today the WGA opened submissions for the prestigious Humanitas Prize, to be presented at the WGA Awards Ceremony on April 14, 2024.

The Mission Statement of Humanitas is:

Humanitas honors and explores film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way.

Please submit GO S2 for consideration. GO in all its forms asks the hard questions of what it means to be a human being. It explores, in a meaningful and engaging way, human beings making their choices in how to move through this world and their lives.

GO S2 DESERVES consideration. As you know, Writer’s can self submit. Deadline for submission is April 1, 2024.

LIVE DANGEROUSLY- Please submit GO S2 for the 2023 Humanitas Prize.

It looks to me from the rules as if I can't submit the whole season, I have to submit one episode. If (or Amazon) did submit an episode, which one should it be?

[deanplease]

Season 2, Episode 3, I Know Where I'm Going. That episode has the most beautiful, heartbreaking, interwoven moments about the human condition, and the often-agonizing choices we have to make.

[ddagent]

That was scrumptious. So, what are you in the mood for now?

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil,

First of all, I love your work. I loved Coraline when I was a kid, and now I also love Good Omens and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. My question to you is: How do you feel about people hating your work or the characters you created? If they affect you in any way, how do you deal with it?

I'm asking this question because I've seen people hating on the ending of Good Omens S2. Nowadays, I also see fans who are hating on those hating/criticising the show. A friend of mine thinks that this is because hating a writer's creation can be an insult to the writer.

However, my own opinion of people hating my work is that they are free to have their opinion and that I don't really care. They can create their own things if they like. But I'm also aware that I am not a writer nor an artist, only an engineer. Perhaps when you're creating art, it becomes more personal, and you will have a different point of view.

Lastly, thank you for your work, and I hope that you will continue creating :)

I haven't seen a lot of hating on the end of Season 2. I've seen a lot of people feeling strongly about it, and having big emotions, and wishing it hadn't happened, but not much hate.

Hang on, I'll go and look at some Amazon 1 star reviews of Season 1.

Okay. I read a few. Screenshot follows. Skip it if you don't like transphobia or ableism.

Definitely some haters over there. But not anything I'm going to worry about. I made the show I set out to make. I don't think it's one they would have liked under any circumstances.

Probably some of the haters would enjoy Season 3 and some of them won't be back.

But the overall review shape is rather lovely:

If it was the other way around, I'd probably be grumpy and try to do better next time. But I'll take 9 out of 10 people loving it.

[deanplease]

Nine out of 10 people love it, and the rest are a bunch of bastards.

[mitchipedia]

Pickles are a gateway drug. The first gherkin is free.

[neil-gaiman]

Oh those Mexicanised dishes.

[kurtbusiek]

They probably shouldn't have built the porch steps right there, that's what I'm saying.

[deanplease]

First time through, I misread the sixth one from the top.

[neil-gaiman]

Idc if you kill off ANYONE in season three.. BUT PLEEEAAASEEE tell me Crowley and Aziraphale stay ALIVE at LEAST 😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻

They fall down a big hole in the first couple of minutes of the season, and are never seen again. The new chinchilla-heavy cast will be great, though. Don't worry.

[deanplease]

Fun fact: The chinchillas will all be voiced by Neil Gaiman, because the producers were so impressed with his performance as a talking mongoose.

[rylandsgrace]

GOOD OMENS + tumblr year in review (insp)

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Neil, how do you feel about being 4th in the tumblr review 2023?

I suspect there are worse places to be than sandwiched between David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

[neil-gaiman]

Dear, God

Can you give us false hope on a happy ending for season 3. Please I’m begging you.

Absolutely.

At the end of Season 3 Sadie and Dottie sail away into the sunset together in search of their long-dead husbands, while a chorus of indigent chinchillas sing "A mother's lament" AKA "Yore baby 'as gorn dahn the plug'ole" in three part harmony. It will be so happy.

[deanplease]

Lest any of you think our good Mr. Gaiman either made up that song or exaggerated the pronounciation, both are quite real.

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Neil,

I've had a discussion about Good Omens today, with a friend of mine. They say that Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship became what it is in S2 because of the love from all the fans, and it wasn't really intended to be that in the beginning (when you and Terry wrote the book, and also at the time of the first season). Now, I may be wrong, but I do recall you saying this was always the intended development to the relationship, is that true?

Did the love from the fans, as well as the meaning Aziraphale and Crowley undoubtedly hold for the queer community play a hand in what we've been shown in season 2?

I'm sorry if this is redundant, or repetitive, or if it's been asked a thousand times (it probably has). Thank you for your patience, and for writing such good stories.

Did your friend actually watch Season 1? We're in the same story we were in then. It hasn't changed. It's still heading to the same place that we were going in Season 1 -- the same place it's been heading since Terry and I decided how it ended, back in 2006.

I love you all, but no. It's the same story it was going to be.

[deanplease]

Can the second-guessing stop now? Neil can't make it any more clear than that.

[neil-gaiman]

I wanted to reread your short story about a boy playing the double bass. Do you know what short story collection it was part of or what it was called?

Every Good Boy Deserves Favours, I think, and it's in Smoke and Mirrors.

[deanplease]

I show it as "Good Boys Deserve Favors" from the Fragile Things story collection, not Smoke and Mirrors.

Neil is very sick right now with COVID. I'm surprised he's even answering asks in the first place.

[deanplease]

I was inspired to be silly.

[neil-gaiman]

who came up with the idea of having a good omens episode in scotland and was it to give david is accent back and let him act as drunk as possible so no one can understand him?(as a scot i thank you BUT I MUST KNOW)

Once we knew that we were going to be filming in Scotland the idea of making a story set in Edinburgh seemed like an excellent idea: we were right there, after all. Cat Clarke had an idea for a story set in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, but it didn't really work for us, and we decided that the time of the Bodysnatchers might be a good way of exploring the moral questions involved in what was happening back then, which was really fun.

The many Scottish accents was my idea shortly before filming.

[deanplease]

The thing that amuses me the most is whoever typed up this script hasn't added Aziraphale to the dictionary.

[deanplease]

The Apology

I've been struggling so hard to fight the urge to write Good Omen fanfic, for a few reasons, but this appeared in my mind and would not let me rest until I wrote it out as a tiny little ficlet, mostly summarized. This is how I picture Crowley and Aziraphale, the next time they meet.

In my headcanon, a few weeks after the events in the season 2 finale, Aziraphale is standing at the top of a cliff, witnessing some act of carnage below that Heaven has inflicted upon humanity in the events of the Big One (“all of us against all of them.”). Crowley appears, unable to resist the pull. He can feel when Aziraphale needs him. No phone call needed. Aziraphale’s eyes are full of tears as he realizes without a shadow of a doubt how awful Heaven really is, a lesson which Crowley had learned long ago. His blind faith has been destroyed, and he understands the truth now. But it’s an agonizing lesson.

He casts a look at Crowley so heartbroken that Crowley can hardly bear it.

Aziraphale turns away from the scene of devastation below, turns to face Crowley, draws himself up straight and tries to speak. “You—“ but his voice is choked with tears.

He tries again. “You were right.” His hands shake. “You were right!” The anguish on his face is searing. “I—I was wrong—“ He tries to take a step forward, to do the little dance, but he can’t support his own weight and sinks to his knees before Crowley, head bowed.

“No, Angel. None of that.” Crowley strokes Aziraphale’s soft blond curls. “No need for that.”

Aziraphale bursts into sobs, and the air thickens, then erupts in a sudden rainstorm. When it rains, that’s angels crying.

Aziraphale clings to Crowley’s legs like he’s the only real thing in a world of fakery and deception. “Oh, Crowley. I was wrong.”

“I forgive you.” Crowley drops to his knees and draws Aziraphale into his arms, his yellow eyes gleaming with tears of his own. “Not your fault, Angel. Heaven lies.”

Aziraphale clings to Crowley even more desperately, sobbing with the pain of his deception and awakening, sobbing to know that Crowley came through for him yet again (Always, Angel. Always.), that at least in this moment of grief, Crowley was with him. Again and forever.

[neil-gaiman]

Had to make an entire account just to tell you this, and I'm sure you've heard it before, but I figure it never hurts to repeat it--what you've done for me as a queer person, specifically with Good Omens, has rewritten my perspective on every piece of media I've ever consumed. When I watched the finale episode, it was about 2 a.m., and I remember being confused as to why I was so shell-shocked, why I couldn't talk about it for weeks afterward, and still can't without my chest tightening like a middle schooler at her first concert. Sure, it's emotional, but so are a lot of stories, and none of them have impacted me in the same way.

The thing is that to my bones, I had this certainty that it would never happen. I've watched/read queer love stories, ones that ended happily and ones that didn't, ones as side plots and ones that are the plot--but if I ever encountered one with actual uncertainty, with the double-meanings and the overemotional turmoil, I thought, "Oh, that's how it's going to be," and I resigned myself to wait for the writers or the actors to say they're TOTALLY together, we just didn't need to be obvious about it. And Good Omens isn't, in the trailers, wholly about a romance. Of course it is, but there's some plot squished in amongst all the romance, so I thought it would be one of those uncertainty-stories, where I'd know and you'd know they love each other but we didn't need to make a big deal about it. I didn't think they'd say it. I certainly didn't think they'd kiss. I watched Crowley stalk up to Aziraphale and grab him by the coat and I still thought, "Nah. Not gonna happen."

The only writers who had ever represented people like me in relationships like mine with any authenticity, who gave value to the drama and the camp, were romance writers. If it wasn't in the romance section, I was resigned to being a side note or a shoo-in, a love INTEREST instead of a love STORY. And I didn't realize how earth-shattering it would be to be, for lack of any suitable word, Jane-Austened like that. Can't speak for all queer people, but I just wanted to thank you for giving that to me and my partner--who still, for the record, cannot do much more than giggle like madmen at gif-sets and plot how to get our other friends to watch it too.

Thank you. That means a lot.

[deanplease]

This is remarkably close to how I felt/feel about the kiss.

[deanplease]

I didn't make the art. I put eyes on, and added quotes. That is all.

[alivedean]

good omens crack → 1/?

[goodomenshq]

It takes two half miracles to hide an Archangel, but three to do a foreword (and surprise bonus afterword): thanks to you all smashing the £2m stretch goal on the Good Omens graphic novel Kickstarter, we're delighted to add the ineffable *trio* of Michael Sheen, David Tennant & Jon Hamm.

We're in the last few days of the Kickstarter. Get your copy today.

[deanplease]

I just KNEW that surprise foreword by “someone”  was going to be Michael Sheen and David Tennant. Jon Hamm being in there as well is nice.