#i love you to death 1990

[riverphoenixsgothwife]

remember how yesterday i posted that christian slater could have played devo nod and river phoenix could have played jason "j.d." dean? well your girl me has a little accompanying visual aid now

[zombinarys]

i think about devo (river phoenix, i love you to death 1990) when i’m down…. and that babygirl picks me back up again

[rocketqueen1989x]

ur playing ur guitar and it’s turning me on 💌

[balthazar-sketti]

River Phoenix discussing his character, Devo, from I Love You To Death, 1990.

[pinkmancy]

[midnightblueclouds]

i love you to death, 1990

[weaselle]

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

[the-cimmerians]

It's 2024. I have been participating in fandom for 40 years. This is a ramble commemorating some history I've experienced along the way.

In 1984, I attended my first convention, and made a beeline for the one long row of covered tables in the Dealer's Room that was, according to the whispered lore of my friends, 'the one'. "um", I said, very suavely and coherently, except for how it was totally the opposite of those things, "I'm here for the... for the, uh. For-"

"Come around here," the man behind the table said with exhausted ennui, so I went around, and he lifted up the table skirt next to him and pointed to rows and rows of boxes underneath the line of tables. "It's all under here."

It was all under there. Along with about five older ladies with glasses, graying hair, cardigans. Flipping through slash zines and chatting in whispered voices like old friends (which of course they were). I noticed one of them had the good sense to be wearing kneepads. I was still too young and ablebodied to need kneepads when crawling on a carpeted floor, but I immediately found her preparedness skills to be both impressive and hot. "You're new," one of the ladies whispered to me--a bit warily, which made sense. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

In the faint light (the kneepads lady had also come prepared with a flashlight, additional practicality hotness points for her) I grabbed a comb-bound book with a heavy line art piece on the cover, featuring a musclebound Captain Kirk getting righteously and enthusiastically plowed by a stern-yet-ebullient Spock. "This," I said, pointing helpfully at the cover, like I was trying to make myself understood in a language I had only the vaguest knowledge of. "I'm here for this."

Outside at the convention, most of the attendees were wearing large homemade circular pins that shrieked 'K/S is BS!!!'1. But underneath the table, we reveled in the forbidden.

***

In 1985, I fell very hard for Starsky & Hutch fandom. Which was simply referred to at the time as 'the other fandom', because there were only two. We were upstarts. Many fannish elders predicted that it was just a phase.

***

The 'circulating library' was a massive stack of barely-legible pages that smelled strongly of mimeograph ink. When you were on the list, you would write stories while you waited for your turn, and when the big box was mailed to you, you would read everything (new finds, old favorites), add your own sloppily-typed or hastily-mimeographed stories, and then mail the whole thing to the next person. For me, at the time, it was an extremely expensive indulgence--but my favorite one.

***

By 1990, slash fandom had grown enough that I no longer knew everyone in it, which was both thrilling and a bit daunting. A young woman at a convention waited for me after a panel I was part of (I think it was 'writing impactful smut' or something like that), and said she had a question she didn't want to ask in a group setting. I'd heard that before. I said that's fine, go ahead and ask; and she came out with: "Why do you have to be gay?"

I blinked. "Is... that a problem?"

She looked annoyed. "Yes, because your stories are on all the recommendation lists and in all the top zines, but if you're gay and I read something you wrote and I get hot from it that makes me gay, and I'm not gay."

"Wow." I grinned, I couldn't help it. It probably made me look very predatory-dyke-about-to-score-a-toaster. Whatever, it was enough to make her back away from me fast.

When I thought about it later that night, I wondered what it would be like not to be the only queer person in slash fandom.

***

By 1997, slash started appearing on the internet. Many fannish elders claimed it was the death knell of slash fandom, or dismissed it as 'just a phase'.

***

Anyway, I wrote all this for myself as a commemoration of sorts, but if you took the time to read it--thank you. Love you, fandom. I always will.

1 In those days, m/m fandom was known as 'slash', which grew from the fannish shorthand where 'K&S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock having adventures or tribulations or what have you, and 'K/S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock getting it on (Kirk divided by Spock or Spock into Kirk--it was mathy fannish humor and I was into it then and I still am now). Slash was decidedly unpopular in the fannish world in 1984, and there was a concerted effort to force slash authors, artists, and fans out of 'mainstream' fannish public life. Hence, under the table.

[writingwisterias]

How would the Leon Eras comfort and act when their S/O is on their time of the month?

Hello Anon!

I've done something similar before when I started writing however I have new thoughts! Of course, it's all about Leon ATM so I would love to! Requests are also still open for anymore Era Leon ideas

Warnings: Fluff, Comfort, Periods, Blood, Cramps...basically just the month reg RE2,RE4R,Infinite Darkness,Damnation, RE6, Death Island

I've tried to keep it as a GN!Reader so if I do slip up please let me know!

RE2:

It's the 1990s so the topic is still slightly taboo. Therefore I don't think Leon would know a lot about what to do. Not because he's ignorant or anything just because it's not commonly spoken about.

However, you have been with Leon throughout college so he would have picked up a few things.

He has it written in his little diary, asks you constantly when you predict the next date would be. If it's not regular he would still attempt to keep note just to be helpful

Ask you questions on the different types of products you use and what you use them for.

Would give you space if you need it, or is more than happy to give you cuddles making sure to rub your back or stomach to help soothe the aches.

Has a hot water bottle in his dorm room/bedroom just incase

Large supply of snacks also just in case

Went to go out and buy what you wanted but ended up grabbing a few brands because he was too nervous and forgot

If you warn him about the incoming date he'll surprise you with a packet of your favourite sweets and a small teddy.

RE4R:

He does not freak out about blood, he's have a really shit life he did.

You didn't know about the incoming date and were around his house staying the night when it decided to bless you all with its appearance.

Leon woke up to a wet feeling on his leg from where it was trapped between the two of you.

You had accidentally bled on him.

He didn't freak out, just looked down and put it together. Pulling away from you so he could fix the problem or at least gather the supplies

He turns the shower on letting the water heat up. The fluffiest towel he has warming up on the towel rail.

He comes and wakes you up, his heart softening at your mortifying look.

Reassures you and gathers every item that needs to be washed. He's got experience getting blood out of things so he wouldn't be bothered.

By the time you get out of the shower he's already got the bedding changed, the sofa set up with plenty of snacks and fluffy blankets you insisted he keep at his place.

He's thrown you in one of his shirts and hoodies. Already made a hot water bottle and given you the things you need.

Cuddles you the rest of the night, making sure not to mention what happened to save you from embarrassment or hurting you.

He knows there nothing wrong with it, he's not even bothered in the slightest but periods are a pain and so are the emotions that come with it.

Infinite darkness:

Hear me out, Leon in this era is a giant Snacker. Like I'm talking a whole cupboard dedicated to a wide range. So he's already prepared for that part

Has a small drawer in his bathroom for all your products and actively keeps a check on it to make sure it's topped up

will even make sure your supply at your house is topped up, it's expensive nowadays and he's got the money.

Huge cuddler, like I'm talking he lays in between your legs and on your chest so you wouldn't need a hot water bottle. He runs hot enough to somewhat ease the aches.

Blood doesn't phase him in the slightest so if you do leak, he's got it sorted.

Type of guy to offer his jacket to wrap around your waist in public if he notices

His priority is making sure you are comfortable during it, will get concerned if you seem like you are in too much pain.

Will also try a period simulator and get cocky about it but cries by level 4

Damnation:

It's not that I don't think he would be bothered. I just think he wouldn't really see the big deal.

It happens every month

He would have the basics to help, if you requested something I think he would have it on the fridge or something so he can keep it stocked

Will give you cuddles if you want it

He will try his best to be attentive but also he's going through shit his mind is elsewhere, he's being dragged all over the place so I wouldn't expect a ton of sympathy...after all we've seen the shit he goes through in the film

If however they are really bad one month I think it would snap him into place a little bit and he would pay attention a lot more.

I would go for snack runs for you getting anything that you want

Spoils you in his own way...basically what limited attention he can give you

RE6:

He's more mature now, so I think he doesn't pay attention to it not because he doesn't care but because he's already prepared.

Like I'm talking dad survival level shit. He might as well manufacture the shit.

I would say this is only because again he doesn't know when he can be home to spoil you so he has an emergency kit. Cute idea.

In it, it would have a shirt or hoodie, snacks, products and heating pads.

If he is there.

You aren't moving a muscle, he's all over you. Pampering you.

I think despite the fact he goes through a lot he's more mature to understand that he's not the only one to go through shit.

This era to be cocky and go "heard sex eases cramps"

Lots of cuddles, will watch anything you put on Tv

You are pampered to the heavens.

Vendetta:

I think he would like you having your period but not because he likes you in pain or anything like that.

But it gives him a chance to be helpful and actually do something.

I think he would stop drinking periodically to actually help you out and be there for you.

He doesn't go overboard on supplies, has enough to get you through the month.

Will pick you up snacks and things on the way home from work/bar if he remembers

Probably would bring home a blanket or something as well claiming he thought it looked cosy enough for you.

You probably have like 50 blankets at this point.

Gets upset if the cramps are really bad, I think it would freak him out because he feels helpless.

He's broody but will snap out of it for you.

He's already sad so I think he's a big cuddler but would go the extra mile like being attached to your hip.

He just wants to feel needed and help you out as much as possible or he feels helpless.

Death Island:

The most normal out of all of them.

Like he's not overcrowding going off your exact needs he hopes you would communicate with him.

He would have emergency supplies but if you want a specific one he'll go and get it.

Won't let anyone cook, you are all eating fast food just to make you feel better.

Cuddling all day long...like he can't get enough and won't even let you go and piss.

Insists you don't go to work and then will spend the next hour ranting about how ridiculous it is that women have to work during their time of the month.

Ask Claire for advice if he's unsure about something because he's too shy to ask you. But of course, she'll tell you that he's asked and you find it endearing

Nothing is too big of an ask for him, he'll kiss the ground as you walk. Has no problem doing anything.

[pathetic-gamer]

Pentiment's Complete Bibliography, with links to some hard-to-find items:

I've seen some people post screenshots of the game's bibliography, but I hadn't found a plain text version (which would be much easier to work from), so I put together a complete typed version - citation style irregularities included lol. I checked through the full list and found that only four of the forty sources can't be found easily through a search engine. One has no English translation and I'm not even close to fluent enough in German to be able to actually translate an academic article, so I can't help there. For the other three (a museum exhibit book, a master's thesis, and portions of a primary source that has not been entirely translated into English), I tracked down links to them, which are included with their entries on the list.

If you want to read one of the journal articles but can't access it due to paywalls, try out 12ft.io or the unpaywall browser extension (works on Firefox and most chromium browsers). If there's something you have interest in reading but can't track down, let me know, and I can try to help! I'm pretty good at finding things lmao

Okay, happy reading, love you bye

Beach, Alison I. Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria. Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2004.

Berger, Jutta Maria. Die Geschichterder Gastfreundschaft im hochmittel alterlichen Monchtum: die Cistercienser. Akademie Verlag GmbH, 1999. [No translation found.]

Blickle, Peter. The Revolution of 1525. Translated by Thomas A. Brady, Jr. and H.C. Erik Midelfort. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Brady, Thomas A., Jr. “Imperial Destinies: A New Biography of the Emperor Maximilian I.” The Journal of Modern History, vol 62, no. 2., 1990. pp.298-314.

Brandl, Rainer. “Art or Craft: Art and the Artist in Medieval Nuremberg.” Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1300-1550. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. [LINK]

Byars, Jana L., “Prostitutes and Prostitution in Late Medieval Bercelona.” Masters Theses. Western Michigan University, 1997. [LINK]

Cashion, Debra Taylor. “The Art of Nikolaus Glockendon: Imitation and Originality in the Art of Renaissance Germany.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, vol 2, no. 1-2, 2010.

de Hamel, Christopher. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Phaidon Press Limited, 1986.

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Translated by William Weaver. Mariner Books, 2014.

Eco, Umberto. Baudolino. Translated by William Weaver. Mariner Books, 2003.

Fournier, Jacques. “The Inquisition Records of Jacques Fournier.” Translated by Nancy P. Stork. Jan Jose Univeristy, 2020. [LINK]

Geary, Patrick. “Humiliation of Saints.” In Saints and their cults: studies in religious sociology, folklore, and history. Edited by Stephen Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. 123-140

Harrington, Joel F. The Faithrul Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Hertzka, Gottfired and Wighard Strehlow. Grosse Hildegard-Apotheke. Christiana-Verlag, 2017.

Hildegard von Bingen. Physica. Edited by Reiner Hildebrandt and Thomas Gloning. De Gruyter, 2010.

Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford Univeristy Press, 2015.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. Routledge, 2017.

Kerr, Julie. Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c.1070-c.1250. Boudell Press, 2007.

Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden rites: a necromancer’s manual of the fifteenth century. Sutton, 1997.

Kuemin, Beat and B. Ann Tlusty, The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 2017.

Ilner, Thomas, et al. The Economy of Duerrnberg-Bei-Hallein: An Iron Age Salt-mining Center in the Austrian Alps. The Antiquaries Journal, vol 83, 2003. pp. 123-194

Lang, Benedek. Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of Central Europe. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008

Lindeman, Mary. Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Lowe, Kate. “’Representing’ Africa: Ambassadors and Princes from Christian Africa to Renaissance Italy and Portugal, 1402-1608.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Sixth Series, vol 17, 2007. pp. 101-128

Meyers, David. “Ritual, Confession, and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Archiv fuer Reformationsgenshichte, vol. 89, 1998. pp. 125-143.

Murat, Zuleika. “Wall paintings through the ages: the medieval period (Italy, twelfth to fifteenth century).” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, vol 23, no. 191. Springer, October 2021. pp. 1-27.

Overty, Joanne Filippone. “The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300-1483.” Book History 11, 2008. pp. 1-32.

Page, Sophie. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occullt Approaches to the Medieval Universe. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013.

Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissectionin Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol 47, no. 1, Spring 1994. pp. 1-33.

Rebel, Hermann. Peasant Classes: The Bureaucratization of Property and Family Relations under Early Habsburg Absolutism, 1511-1636. Princeton University Press, 1983.

Rublack, Ulinka. “Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany.” Past & Present,vol. 150, no. 1, February 1996.

Salvador, Matteo. “The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John’s Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458.” Journal of World History, vol. 21, no. 4, 2011. pp.593-627.

Sangster, Alan. “The Earliest Known Treatise on Double Entry Bookkeeping by Marino de Raphaeli.” The Accounting Historians Journal, vol. 42, no. 2, 2015. pp. 1-33.

Throop, Priscilla. Hildegarde von Bingen’s Physica: The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing. Healing Arts Press, 1998.

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[riverphoenixsgothwife]

devo should have had a better ending in ilytd to be quite honest

[zombinarys]

now watching ‘i love you to death’

[applepieshy]

I had an idea to redesign vox because I didn't love that a character obsessed with modernization would wear a top hat and bowtie. then after a brief stint into madness where I read my partner's historic costuming textbook I drew.... all this.

(side note: the idea of vox being a trans man who transitioned AFTER death was super compelling and absolutely inspired by @prince-liest so while this is not direct fanart of their series I wanted to give a shoutout anyway!!!)

okay some TRULY unhinged rambling about historic costume below the cut YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

1950s: for this design I very much did not want to go to the typical a-line housewife look, because I feel that is unfitting for vox's character. instead I went for a more business look, but there is still a level of femininity that he would have been expected to perform. i wanted to express his discomfort with that through the pose and expression, though at the time he wouldn't necessarily have a framework for why he hated it

1960s: this one was very fun. i loved the idea of vox beginning to eschew some of the expected feminine presentation, and he no longer wears makeup, jewelry, or hose (though its hard to tell in black & white); however, he's kind of at war with himself in this time period. he's obsessed with seeming perfect and having a respectable image, so he would not go in for the counter-culture movements that were so big in the 60s. he's still kind of riding those coattails though, pushing those boundaries while still not acknowledging his queerness.

1970s: to me, it was very important that the gender hit as he entered the world in color. in my mind the gender euphoria is physically manifested in a wizard of oz situation - he can become who he always has been. anyway, gender aside, I think it was very important to me personally that he wore an ascot. it was for my mental health.

1980s: I wanted the 1980s to be the period where he began to gain some power and notoriety because of the de-regulation of television during this period to allow more ads, mirroring real-world history. I think if the 70s were when vox gained some real confidence, the 80s are when he got an Ego (tm). "business casual" also began to become more acceptable in this time period, and the t-shirt/suit jacket combo was very important for me to include, as to me it epitomizes the commercialism and machismo of the 80s.

1990s: this was actually the decade I was the most nervous to design, and yet I think it turned out the best? the 90s are known for grunge, which I think is NOT vox's style at all. I decided instead to lean hard into the yuppie look, which I know is more associated with the 80s but was definitely still a thing in the 90s. I also allowed a little hip-hop influence in the form of a gold chain from val, which is not something I think vox would ever pick on his own.

2000s: if the 90s were the decade I was worried about and turned out great, the 2000s are the decade I thought I had down SO GOOD and then totally floundered in execution. I still love the bubble-mac inspired head, and I tried to make his clothes as "round" as possible. I also like that this is the time where his saturation got cranked. however, I don't know if I'm in love with the vest and super bright sneakers, because again, looking back on it, he kind of looks like he works at a movie theater or best buy or some shit lol,,,

2010s: I think it's telling that this is by far the closest to his canon design (2014 tumblr lookin ass). I really wanted to pull from that hipster tech bro era, but unfortunately that aesthetic has a veneration for "retro" which again, is not fitting for vox. I still think he would wear the bowtie during this time because, well... he sure does in the show!

2020s: this was fun because I had an excuse to pull from haute couture design rather than street fashion because of the introduction of velvette into his life. I truly do not think velvette would let vox and val walk around in the outfits that they do because it would be an actual embarrassment LMAO. for this, I wanted his decorative "robes" to be evocative of the time he depicted himself as a priest AND of a cape/robe of an emperor. he does think of himself as that bitch, after all.

[undying-love]

Paul being in denial of John's death

“It’s still weird even to say, ‘before he died’. I still can’t come to terms with that. I still don’t believe it. It’s like, you know, those dreams you have, where he’s alive; then you wake up and… 'Oh’.” (1986)

"I know I will never get over it [John's death] and hope I will never get over it." (1990)

"Delicious boy, delicious broth of a boy. He was a lovely guy, you know. And it gets sadder and sadder to be saying “was”. Nearer to when he died I couldn’t believe I was saying “was”, but now I do believe I’m saying “was”. I’ve resisted it. I’ve tried to pretend he didn’t get killed." (1995)

"Paul talked about John a a lot, but the strange thing was that it was in the present tense, “John says this" or "John thinks that".-Peter Cox (2006)

Seth: I wonder how all these years later, you're processing it [John's murder]?

Paul: I'm not sure I am. It's very difficult for me and I, occasionally, will have thoughts and sort of say: "I don't know why I don't just break down crying every day? [...] We were friends. That was one of the great things about it. You know, I don't know how I would have dealt with it because I don't think I've dealt with it very well. In a way... I wouldn't be surprised if a psychiatrist would sort of find out that I'm slightly in denial, because it's too much."" (2020)

"Like any bereavement, the only way out is to remember how good it was with John. Because I can't get over the senseless act. I can't think about it. I'm sure it's some form of denial. But denial is the only way that I can deal with it." (2020)

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

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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