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fuckyeahgoodomens · 9 months ago

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The Radio Times magazine from the 29 July-04 August 2023 :)

THE SECOND COMING

How did Terry Pratchett and Neil gaiman overcome the small matter of Pratchett's death to make another series of their acclaimed divine comedy?

For all the dead authors in the world,” legendary comedy producer John Lloyd once said, “Terry Pratchett is the most alive.” And he’s right. Sir Terry is having an extremely busy 2023… for someone who died in 2015.

This week sees the release of Good Omens 2, the second series of Amazon’s fantasy comedy drama based on the cult novel Pratchett co-wrote with Neil Gaiman in the late 1980s. This will be followed in the autumn by a new spin-off book from Pratchett’s Discworld series, Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch, co-written by Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna and children’s author Gabrielle Kent. The same month, we’ll also get A Stroke of the Pen, a collection of “lost” short stories written by Sir Terry for local newspapers in the 70s and 80s and recently rediscovered. Clearly, while there are no more books coming from Pratchett – a hard drive containing all drafts and unpublished work was crushed by a vintage steamroller shortly after the author’s death, as per his specific wishes – people still want to visit his vivid and addictive worlds in new ways.

Good Omens 2 will be the first test of how this can work. The original book started life as a 5,000-word short story by Gaiman, titled William the Antichrist and envisioned as a bit of a mashup of Richmal Crompton’s Just William books and the 70s horror classic The Omen. What would happen, Gaiman had mused, if the spawn of Satan had been raised, not by a powerful American diplomat, but by an extremely normal couple in an idyllic English village, far from the influence of hellish forces? He’d sent the first draft to bestselling fantasy author Pratchett, a friend of many years, and then forgotten about it as he busied himself with continuing to write his massively popular comic books, including Violent Cases, Black Orchid and The Sandman, which became a Netflix series last year.

Pratchett loved the idea, offering to either buy the concept from Gaiman or co-write it. It was, as Gaiman later said, “like Michelangelo phoning and asking if you want to paint a ceiling” The pair worked on the book together from that point on, rewriting each other as they went and communicating via long phone calls and mailed floppy discs. “The actual mechanics worked like this: I would do a bit, then Neil would take it away and do a bit more and give it back to me,” Pratchett told Locus magazine in 1991. “We’d mess about with each other’s bits and pieces.”

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – to give it its full title –was published in 1990 to huge acclaim. It was one of, astonishingly, five Terry Pratchett novels to be published that year (he averaged two a year, including 41 Discworld novels and many other standalone works and collaborations).

It was also, clearly, extremely filmable, and studios came knocking — though getting it made took a while. rnvo decades on from its writing, four years after Pratchett's death from Alzheimer's disease aged 66, and after several doomed attempts to get a movie version off the ground, Good Omens finally made it to TV screens in 2019, scripted and show-run by Gaiman himself. "Terry was egging me on to make it into television. He knew he was dying, and he knew that I wouldn't start it without him," Gaiman revealed in a 2019 Radio Times interview. Amazon and the BBC co-produced with Pratchett's company Narrativia and Gaiman's Blank Corporation production studios, with Michael Sheen and David Tennant cast in the central roles of Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon. The show was a hit, not just with fans of its two creators, but with a whole new young audience, many of whom had no interest in Discworld or Sandman. Social media networks like Tumblr and TikTok were soon awash with cosplay, artwork and fan fiction. The original novel became, for the first time, a New York Times bestseller.

A follow up was, on one level, a no-brainer. The world Pratchett and Gaiman had created was vivid, funny and accessible, and Tennant and Sheen had found an intriguing romantic spark in their chemistry not present in the novel.

There was, however, a huge problem. There wasn't a second Good Omens book to base it on. But there was the ghost of an idea.

In 1989, after the book had been sold but before it had come out, the two authors had laid on fivin beds in a hotel room at a convention in Seattle and, jet-lagged and unable to sleep, plotted out, in some detail, what would happen in a sequel, provisionally titled 668, The II Neighbour of the Beast.

"It was a good one, too" Gaiman wrote in a 2021 blog. "We fully intended to write it, whenever we next had three or four months free. Only I went to live in America and Terry stayed in the UK, and after Good Omens was published, Sandman became SANDMAN and Discworld became DISCWORLD(TM) and there wasn't a good time."

Back in 1991, Pratchett elaborated, "We even know some of the main characters in it. But there's a huge difference between sitting there chatting away, saying, 'Hey, we could do this, we could do that,' and actually physically getting down and doing it all again." In 2019, Gaiman pillaged some of those ideas for Good Omens series one (for example, its final episode wasn't in the book at all), and had left enough threads dangling to give him an opening for a sequel. This is the well he's returned to for Good Omens 2, co-writing with comic John Finnemore - drafted in, presumably, to plug the gap left Pratchett's unparalleled comedic mind. No small task.

Projects like Good Omens 2 are an important proving ground for Pratchett's legacy: can the universes he conjured endure without their creator? And can they stay true to his spirit? Sir Terry was famously protective of his creations, and there have been remarkably few adaptations of his work considering how prolific he was. "What would be in it for me?" he asked in 2003. "Money? I've got money."

He wanted his work treated reverently and not butchered for the screen. It's why Good Omens and projects like Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch are made with trusted members of the inner circle like Neil Gaiman and Rhianna Pratchett at the helm. It's also why the author's estate, run by Pratchett's former assistant and business manager Rob Wilkins, keeps a tight rein on any licensed Pratchett material — it's a multi-million dollar media empire still run like a cottage industry.

And that's heartening. Anyone who saw BBC America's panned 2021 Pratchett adaptation The Watch will know how badly these things can go when a studio is allowed to run amok with the material without oversight. These stories deserve to be told, and these worlds deserve to be explored — properly. And there are, apparently, many plans afoot for more Pratchett on the screen. You can only hope that, somewhere, he'll be proud of the results.

After all, as he wrote himself, "No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence."

While those ripples continue to spread, Sir Terry Pratchett remains very much alive. MARC BURROWS

DIVINE DUO

An angel and a demon walk into a pub... Michael Sheen and David Tennant on family, friendship and Morecambe & Wise

Outside it's cold winter's day and we're in a Scottish studio, somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow. But inside it's lunchtime in The Dirty Donkey pub in the heart of London, with both Michael Sheen and David Tennant surveying the scene appreciatively. "This is a great pub," says Sheen eagerly, while Tennant calls it "the best Soho there can be. A slightly heightened, immaculate, perfect, dreamy Soho."

Here, a painting of the absent landlord — the late Terry Pratchett, co-creator, with Neil Gaiman, of the series' source novel — looms over punters. Around the corner is AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books. It's the bookshop owned by Sheen's character, the angel Aziraphale, and the place to where Tennant's demon Crowley is inevitably drawn.

It's day 74 of an 80-day shoot for a series that no one, least of all the leading actors, ever thought would happen, due to the fact that Pratchett and Gaiman hadn't ever published any sequel to their 1990 fantasy satire. Tennant explains, "What we didn't know was that Neil and Terry had had plots and plans..."

Still, lots of good things are in Good Omens 2, which expands on the millennia-spanning multiverse of the first series. These include a surprisingly naked side of John Hamm, and roles for both Tennant's father-in-law (Peter Davison) and 21-year-old son Ty. At its heart, though, remains the brilliant banter between the two leading men — as Sheen puts it, "very Eric and Ernie !" — whose chemistry on the first series led to one of the more surprising saviours of lockdown telly.

Good Omens is back — but you've worked together a lot in the meantime. Was there a connective tissue between series one of Good Omens and Staged, your lockdown sitcom?

David: Only in as much as the first series went out, then a few months later, we were all locked in our houses. And because of the work we'd done on Good Omens, it occurred that we might do something else. I mean, Neil Gaiman takes full responsibility for Staged. Which, to some extent, he's probably right to do!

Michael: We've got to know each other through doing this. Our lives have gotten more entwined in all kinds of ways — we have children who've now become friends, and our families know each other.

There have been hints of a romantic storyline between the two characters. How much of an undercurrent is that in this series.

David: Nothing's explicit.

Michael: I felt from the very beginning that part of what would be interesting to explore is that Aziraphale is a character, a being, who just loves. How does that manifest itself in a very specific relationship with another being? Inevitably, as there is with everything in this story, there's a grey area. The fact that people see potentially a "romantic relationship", I thought that was interesting and something to explore.

There was a petition to have the first series banned because of its irreverent take on Christian tropes. Series two digs even more deeply into the Bible with the story of Job. How much of a badge of honour is it that the show riles the people who like to ban things?

David: It's not an irreligious show at all. It's actually very respectful of the structure of that sort of religious belief. The idea that it promotes Satanism [is nonsense]. None of the characters from hell are to be aspired to at all! They're a dreadful bunch of non-entities. People are very keen to be offended, aren't they? They're often looking for something to glom on to without possibly really examining what they think they're complaining about.

Michael, you're known as an activist, and you're in the middle of Making BBC drama The Way, which "taps into the social and political chaos of today's world". Is it important for you to use your plaform to discuss causes you believe in?

Michael: The Way is not a political tract, it's just set in the area that I come from. But it has to matter to you, doesn't it? More and more as I get older, [I find] it can be a real slog doing this stuff. You've got to enjoy it. And if it doesn't matter to you, then it's just going to be depressing.

David, Michael has declared himself a "not-for-profit" actor. Has he tried to persuade you to give up all your money too?

David: What an extraordinary question! One is always aware that one has a certain responsibility if one is fortunate and gets to do a job that often doesn't feel like a job. You want to do your bit whenever you can. But at the same time, I'm an actor. I'm not about to give that up to go into politics or anything. But I'll do what I can from where I live.

Well, your son and your father-in-law are also starring in this series. How about that, jobs for the boys!

David: I know! It was a delight to get to be on set with them. And certainly an unexpected one for me. Neil, on two occasions, got to bowl up to me and say, "Guess who we've cast?!"

How do you feel about your US peers going on strike?

David: It's happening because there are issues that need to be addressed. Nobody's doing this lightly. These are important issues, and they've got to be sorted out for the future of our industry. There's this idea that writers and actors are all living high on the hog. For huge swathes of our industry, that's just not the case. These people have got to be protected.

Michael: We have to be really careful that things don't slide back to the way they were pre the 1950s, when the stories that we told were all coming from one point of view and the stories of certain people, or communities within our society, weren't represented. There's a sense that now that's changed for ever and it'll never go back. But you worry when people can't afford to have the opportunities that other people have. We don't want the story that we tell about ourselves to be myopic. You want it to be as inclusive as possible

Staged series 3 recently broadcast. It felt like the show's last hurrah — or is there more mileage? Sheen and Tennant go on holiday?

David: That's the Christmas special! One Foot in the Algarve! On the Buses Go to Spain!

Michael: I don't think we were thinking beyond three, were we?

So is it time for a conscious uncoupling for you two — Eric and Ernie say goodbye?

David: Oh, never say never, will we?

Michael: And it's more Hinge and Bracket.

David: Maybe that's what we do next — The Hinge and Bracket Story. CRAIG McLEAN

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tainted-harmon · 2 years ago

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Random stuff

One of my favourite things in my room is my gum ball machine, inspired by Violet’s

I bought the gum ball machine for roughly $20, which was secondhand and decades old. I then took it apart one day and went outside to spray paint it. I was going to do it silver like Violet’s but decided I liked black more (plus it suits the theme of my room).

I then got these cheap skulls from SHEIN and put them inside. The skulls were on sale at the time, so I got 5 for about £2 each.

The doll head pot holder was handmade and bought from Etsy. The seller is UK based. For some reason Tumblr isn’t letting me copy and paste, so if you want to look at her shop, Google The Raven’s Trinkets. She sells creepy cool stuff.

Someone once asked on their Tumblr about Violet’s makeup bag. I don’t think anyone knows the brand, it’s just a makeup bag. But I did find a close alt on EBay for about £5..

When my room is tidier I’ll have to take some more photos 🦋

#violet harmon #violet harmon exacts #violet harmon style #ahs fandom #american horror story #violet harmon bedroom #violet harmon cosplay #violet harmon room #violet harmon fans #violet harmon edit

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mysticstarlightmiracle · 9 days ago

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Lily Orchard is the Drake of Media Analysis

Surprisingly and funnily enough, Lily Orchard and Drake are both from Canada so seeing them beef with 2 American men just makes the beef even funnier. This post is in relation to the current beef between Ant and Lily and Lily accusing Ant of being a Plagarist. I will be referncing Kendrick Lamar in relation to Anthony but I promise it makes sense in the larger context of what I'm saying.

Let's start:

Anthony Gramuglia is a very well known writer and video essayist who has worked for several publications, the most well known one being CBR. He is someone who takes writing very seriously because it is something he is passionate about and something he enjoys discussing with his fellow creators, Ant covers almost anything and everything, from comics, to video games, to LGBTQ+ related topics. If you are someone who watches his content, you can see that Anthony tends to pride himself in what he says, he's someone who isn't afraid of giving his opinion on topics he is knowledgable in and is someone who isn't afraid of being wrong or challenged on his views on things. He in fact welcomes people to challenge his opinion because he is open to the idea of not having the correct opinion on a subject.

Now let's look at Lily Orchard, Lily Orchard is a "media critic", "video essayist" & "writer" who primarly covers children's media and TV Shows. Lily is most known for her Steven Universe Critque and Legend of Korra video, she also large videos also covering the indie horror game, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley as well as a very large Pokemon retrospective. She also has a very well known comic that goes by the name Pokemadhouse, and aside from that there isn't much Stockholm that Lily is known for. She is someone who, much like Ant prides herself on her opinions on the media that she covers because she genuinely believe what she says.

The most important thing/part here is what makes Lily and Drake the same type of individual. Drake is someone who has never cared about the culture that he is in and for the longest time has used the culture that he's in to prop himself up as something that he isn't and get alot of money from it. Lily Orchard is very similar to Drake in that regard, she's someone who has used media analysis and writing to prop herself up as someone that she isn't, a writer, critical thinker and media analysist. I've always said for the longest time that Drake is cosplaying as a rapper, and I think the same can be said for Lily Orchard, she is cosplaying as a video eassyist, writer and media critic for money and views and much like Drake, has used the influence of her success to her own sick benefit. If Drake didn't have access to the money he had, he wouldn't have been able to get into weird spaces with underage girls. If Lily didn't have the success she had from her videos on SU and LOK, she wouldn't have been able to talk to Lolo or Mikaila, just like a parasite/leech, Lily and Drake use the spaces their in for their own profit and clout without ever truly giving back to the fields their in.

Now lets look at Ant and Kendrick and how and why I believe that Lily is the Drake of Media Analysis. Ant and Kendrick are 2 people who love what they do, they are people who have a genuine appreciation of the spaces their in, from Kendrick's love of Hip-Hop to Anthony's love of writing and story telling. The most important thing that I see that Ant and Kendrick have in common is that they want to challenge people to think more critcially of whatever they happen to be doing or engaging with and how to process it in a healthy way and this will hopefully open a dialogue on something. Do they have their faults, yes, but they are the first people to admit their faults and are more then willing to be called out on their actions without ever backtracking or making excuses for what they said. If they are in the wrong, they will admit it and will apologize for it, unlike Lily and Drake because Lily and Drake will never admit fault because that require them to look inwards but they can't do that.

Lily Orchard is cosplaying as someone she isn't for clout and money while calling people who have actually devoted years of their life to the same field that she's in: Plagarists

If people aren't aware of the type of person she is, she can use that clout and money to do very dangerous things and that's so messed up.

I guess the good thing is that unlike Drake, Lily isn't a famous celebrity, she's just a creep and sex pest who has managed to cultivate an audience with her shitty opinions on kids cartoons.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

Now go watch @agramuglia videos because they are good and go listen to Kendrick Lamers TPAB because it is the greatest album of all time.

#lily orchard #lily orchard critical #drake #kendrick lamar #media analysis

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 2 years ago

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Actually, your answer makes a lot of sense, and has given me a new perspective on the issue of the #Problematic. Due to personal trauma, I've always been very wary of those who enjoy certain problematic media, because I assume that means they support it, which is clearly an assumption that I need to work on. Hadn't considered that I enjoy problematic stuff myself, and criticize it. Being aware of the problematic and not replicating that on Real Life is enough when dealing with fiction.

Anyway, thanks for a good dosis of self-awareness.

Yeah, it's a messy and complicated issue. Because I recognize that, for example, women who say "a guy who mentions on the first date that his favorite movies are Taxi Driver and American Psycho is sending up a red flag" are probably onto something. And I've had students tell me "the Joker from The Joker makes some really good points", and I've felt a prickling of discomfort at their words.

But. I love Fight Club. The movie is a darkly funny critique of the alienation of capitalist life. The book is a brilliant horror story, written by a gay man raised by a single mom who wanted to understand why "masculinity" is considered this fragile thing that must be defended with violence, as someone who was himself shut from qualifying for the precious "man card." I got hooked on horror from Fight Club, I've written imaginary-friend-as-boogeyman as a result of Fight Club, I cosplayed as Tyler Durden in high school, I drove an hour to see Chuck Palahniuk speak... and I'm only spending an entire paragraph defending my love for Fight Club because I know what it looks like and that fragile part of me is tempted even now to scream I'm not one of THOSE guys, I swear!

So, I think it's best to recognize that my opinions can make other people uncomfortable, and that other people aren't having opinions at me. Even the people who like James Bond or Gone with the Wind might do so out of ignorance, or willingness to forgive sexism because of good cinematography, and the best thing for it is just to disengage from the conversation and find other people to talk to.

Which is where the internet can be nice. I fully support blocking and muting people whose opinions make me uncomfortable. I support others blocking and muting me. In fact, my most-used reason for blocking someone is that I'm unsure whether or not I qualify for their DNI (do not interact) list. I can't tell if I'm a BNHA Apologist or not... guess I'd best not interact. I googled KL//Ance Shipper but nothing came up, and I might support KL and Ance's romance... guess I won't interact. So on. I never hear from them, they presumably never hear from me, and we're all so much happier than we would be if we got into a shouting match over Your Fave is Problematic.

#fandom #fandom etiquette #on loving problematic things #bad feminist #misogyny #fight club #your fave is problematic #internet etiquette #i've seen 3 episodes of bnha and it didn't hook me #feeling cute might apologize for it later #the night is still young

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mzhydes-funtimes · 29 days ago

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Its really disappointing the sheer lack of anything lady mechanika i find on the internet

The tumblr tag just has someone reposting the book covers, the subreddit is mostly cosplay and lewds of lady mechanika, like wtf

Its a genuinely amazing series I'll give a summary of the main cast that we know the most about aka whove been around the longest and a general plot summary because more people should be into this and it upsets me that theres probably only a few thousand people who like it worldwise, at least considering how big the fandom is (basically non existent)

Our main character: Lady Mechanika is a sorta half mechanical half human person, but NOT a cyborg or android, it's more of almost living metal? Idk how to describe it but anyways in public shes a royal, expensive looking person wearing, as one of the other characters puts it in comic set 1: very frumpy. Very poofy and fanct looking dresses, however when shes in action she wears the most butch clothing imaginable. Think steampunk highwayman+american revolutionary war military clothing. (It would be easier to show and not tell but imma try to show by telling) in terms of badasstry i would compare her to Bayonetta but human and machine instead of magic.

Then we have the side main character: Lewis. He's an inventor who creates fancy machines and is sometimes hired by lady mechanika, but he does go out on adventures with her throughout the series. Think of him as sokka but also fire nation inventor. He curses a LOT but overall is friends with Mechanika, regardless of if she says theyre friends or not, theyre clearly friends considering how much she relies on him.

First main side character: Dr. Charles Littleton. He's not as important to the story as his daughter but he often has information for mechanika to occassionally progress the plot or to start the comics adventure. Hes the brains outside of mechanika due to being a medical doctor and also being rich, owning his own mansion, hes also good friends with Mechanika

The final character ill go over here is also a main side character: Allie Littleton. The daughter of the doctor, shes obsessed with Lady Mechanika to the point of because of Mechanika not fitting the stories about her she doesnt believe that mechanika is who she says she is, she becomes a bit more important in later sets but for now I'll leave you with: shes a sort of half tomboy half kinda proper girl. And dont be getting any ideas either, since i know lots of people sexualize Lady Mechanika, this girl is like 10. But if we exclude mechanika shes also one of the most entertaining imo lol. Like she straight up argues with Lady Mechanika this person who is intimidating even to the cops, who mind you the cops dont fight with mechanika.

Theres one more side character thats sort of the "marketable" character in the series but they come LATE into the story like 2 or 3 to lastest set of comics.

Anyway onto the plot:

Lady Mechanika is on a quest to find the person who made her the way she is now as she can remember being human before this but not much of her specific past. Sometimes shell find some people from her past showing that her creator has been in the town but left before she got there. The people left behind help mechanika put more of her memory back together, and with the help of lewis and dr. Charles theyre also discovering and putting a stop to the plans of the main antagonist: blackpool a, as far as i remember, crime ring with powers pretty high up on the totem pole, i dont remember if its government or company based but they do have a famous inventor in their ring, -or is it a corporation? Yknow what the specifics dont matter all yoy need to know is that they are big and powerful and sometimes do things that mechanika finds out about and needs to stop.

And its steampunk with some occassional horror elements, definitely body horror considering mechanika and the first character other than mechanika we meet who looks like mechanika, and even one who doesnt. It also has minor elements of magic in it as well, but most of it is technological, with occasional magic sprinkled in.

And as ive said its a really good read, chapter 0 is free to read, either as a free comic book day or on the website

#lady mechanika #comics #plot summary #character summary #i wanna spread the word of this comic so please reblog it with more acceptable comic tags

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