#but them is the rules | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

indigovigilance · 6 months

Text

The Final Fifteen is about Terry Pratchett's Death

read on Ao3

The final fifteen is obviously a major plot point, and serves a role in a story that was written long before Terry Pratchett was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But the scene itself wasn’t written until just a few years ago, during the writing of Season 2. In fact, the scene came about during a park bench conversation between Neil Gaiman and John Finnemore.

Others have noted that the non-romantic kiss that signals the story moving into the third act is a Neil Gaiman staple. The function of such a kiss, from Gaiman’s perspective, is to communicate.

In 2023 we are seeing a lot of stories written by men, for men, about men who are best friends and discover that their friendship can go deeper than the norms of society would usually allow; that platonic and romantic love are not so far apart, and perhaps the better word for a relationship that can be described this way is intimacy.

Neil Gaiman has made it clear in interviews that his friendship with Terry Pratchett was deeply intimate. They began collaborating on what would become Good Omens in the 1980’s, endured a tumultuous experience together through the first publication, wherein Neil offered to martyr himself on behalf of Terry if the book failed, and then spent the better part of two decades touring the world, meeting the people who loved their work. Neil would even off-handedly remark that Terry’s fans were so cheerful, and Neil’s seemed like they were ready to kill themselves; wouldn’t it be nice if they got married? From the outside, it looks very much as if Terry was Aziraphale-coded, and Neil was Crowley-coded, working together in an unexpected partnership to make the world a little bit more tolerable for the humans inhabiting it. I am not conjecturing that Neil and Terry had romantic inclinations the way their fictional characters do, but I think it is fair to say that their opposites-attract intimacy became an important part of who each of them were.

In 2007 Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s. As the disease progressed, he began to lose himself, and knew that the person he used to be was slipping away. He wanted to end his life on his own terms, and die as himself, but England did not and still does not allow for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. He advocated for the right to die but never achieved it, and ultimately succumbed to the disease in 2015. Neil Gaiman has spoken a lot on the topic of death, and one answer of his that resonated with me reads:

Mostly it feels terrible. It even feels terrible when it’s someone who has been in a lot of pain for a long time or has not really been there for a long time and you know that Death has in some ways been a blessing: suddenly you are mourning the whole person.

It doesn’t get easier as you age. It gets stranger. The point where you realise how many people you used to know and like who aren’t there any longer, and you cannot talk to them or see them or laugh with them is painful in a way that I had never expected. The first time that someone you had a romantic relationship with dies and you realise that there had been moments both of you shared and now you are the sole custodian of those moments and one day you will be gone and they will be lost forever is peculiarly strange and hard.

~~~

The entire show is seeded with references to Terry Pratchett, but the most important one is the one that’s missing. Neil Gaiman cameoed as a sleeping moviegoer in S1E4, but a long time ago, he and Terry had discussed cameoing as sushi restaurant-goers, because sushi was weirdly prominent in the book. That cameo would have been in S1E1. But when it came time to do it, Neil couldn’t. Not without Terry.

Neil: I was gonna say our location is a Chinese restaurant we’d had turned into a sushi restaurant. So Terry and I, Terry Pratchett and I, had a standing… not even a standing joke, just a standing plan, that we were going to have sushi - there was going to be a scene in Good Omens where sushi was eaten and we were gonna be extras, we were gonna sit in the background, eating sushi while it was done. And I was so looking forward to this and, so I wrote this scene with it being sushi, even though Terry was gone, with that in mind and I thought: Oh, I’ll sit and I’ll eat lots of sushi as an extra, this will be my scene as an extra, I’ll just be in the background. And then, on the day, or a couple of days before, I realized that I couldn’t do it.

Douglas: You never told me this before either. I might have pushed you into doing it, had I known. I think you were right not to tell me.

Neil: I was keeping it to me self ‘cause I was always like: Oh, maybe I’ll be… this will be my cameo. And then I couldn’t. I was just so sad, ‘cause Terry wasn’t there. And it was probably the day that I missed Terry the most of all of the filming - it was just this one scene ‘cause it was written for Terry and all of the sushi meals we’d ever had and all of the strange way that sushi ran through Good Omens.

~~~

In the Final Fifteen, it is clear that Crowley and Aziraphale want to stay together. They love each other. They each know that the other loves them. There’s nothing that needs to be said, no convincing that their bond is true and real and precious.

But Aziraphale has to go to Heaven, and Crowley cannot follow him there.

I cannot speculate what it must have been like for Neil to endure losing a friend who, though I’m sure he desperately wanted to still be in his life, he also knew that life had become a burden to him, and grieved that Terry was not able to choose the time and manner of his departure from this Earth. This sort of complex grief, we fan-ficcers know, is the kind that is often best processed through story-telling.

I think that what we see Crowley going through in the Final Fifteen, alongside its importance to the story arc of Good Omens overall, is Neil processing his grief at losing his friend Terry Pratchett, and even the kiss, that violent, terrible, awful kiss, was the symbolic representation of Neil saying goodbye.

#neil gaiman #terry pratchett #aziraphale #crowley #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #ivoc #this meta ended up being only about 2/3 the length of my usual metas and somehow that feels appropriate because Terry's life ended too soon #and the jarring brevity of this piece parallels that feeling of sudden unexpected loss #for me anyways I don't know about you guys #if this made your eyes even slightly moist you are obligated to reblog to help someone else feel their feels #I don’t make the rules #but them is the rules #blessed by Beelzebub

869 notes · View notes

qiinamii · 7 months

Text

we'll do fine.

#fionna and cake spoilers #what hits me a little is how similar fionna and simon's stories are in the case of finding nuance in their lives #when both have gone through their separate but still valid pain no matter the extent it had been #and its that they met each other they get to see how it compares and they're no less worth of the peace and fun they dreamed of #even in the form of simplicity and just being normal #“i wouldn't have met THE fionna and cake” “we wouldn't have met THE simon petrikov”#it hits me harder that after the dandelion scene would've been their last time seeing each other physically #and how assuring simon sounded when fionna didn't know what to do with the literal world in her hands #tho im sure prismo isnt that much of a rule jerk lol i still drew out the revelation anyway with this tiniest addition #also the fact fionna's world is influenced by simon's thought processes and conditions so now things are a little better for both of them #fionna the human #fionna campbell #simon petrikov #qiiarts #the lil flashback of #betty grof #fionna and cake #adventure time

34K notes · View notes

ghost-bxrd · 1 month

Text

Let’s amp up the “Jason says ow and the batfam thinks he must be gravely injured” headcanon.

Jason calls Bruce or Dick for fun and says nothing but “goodbye” before hanging up (maybe it’s a dare by Roy who TOTALLY suspects the reaction Jay is gonna get).

Ten minutes late the entire Justice League is scouring Gotham, on the hunt for Jason.

4K notes · View notes

naturedust · 4 months

Text

the next level of did you know viggo mortensen broke his toe when he kicked the helmet and is actually also screaming in pain there: did you know sean bean taped the script to his knee because they only gave him the script that morning and you can see him looking down when he says one does not simply walk into mordor

#sean bean #boromir #lord of the rings #the lord of the rings #lotr #one does not simply walk into mordor #one zoom to rule them all #viggo #viggo mortensen #viggo my fav actor of all time

5K notes · View notes

rogueshadeaux · 18 days

Text

“I hate the script, the vault dwellers sound so cheesy—“ my Brother in Steel you realize that’s the point, right? They were bred to act like the physical embodiment of an HR e-mail. Did you not catch the memo that Vault-Tec put out regarding their experiment facilities?

#fallout #fallout tv show #fallout tv series #they were raised to respect the Golden Rule they’re a bunch of fucking kindergartners #theyre MEANT TO BE CRINGE #plus if you keep watching you’ll SEE WHY THEY DO THAT #don’t quit in the first episode when you have so many more to explore wtf is wrong with them!!! it’s a good show!!!#sometimes I think people like to hate things just to hate them and I understand. truly. i am a certified hater too #but don't dog something that has reasoning!! you're meant to cringe! and you'll see why!!!#GIVE IT TIME IT WILL MAKE SENSE I PROMISE #fallout spoilers

3K notes · View notes

khruschevshoe · 5 months

Text

Starkid is one of the absolute best arguments for supprting independent art. The fact that the shows you're invested in can't get canceled by Big Daddy Streaming, the quality is always amazing, the love of the cast and crew doesn't get squeezed out by surprise budget reductions, the fact that since crowd funding provides almost all costs up front (plus the presence of voluntary digital ticket/in person tickets for additional funding), the fan base can access the full material for whatever cost they can contribute (even if you can give nothing monetarily, you will still get a professionally shot version of the material eventually, without surprise fees or password crackdowns, AND with captions/completely accesible regardless of location). The same goes for Tin Can Bros, Shipwrecked, and all the other associated theater and web series companies loosely connected to Starkid. Like, I cannot believe the amazing content provided to us at the same level as Broadway or streaming services with billion dollars at hand, with almost none of the catches that come with others. Like, I cannot believe that we get all of this right at our hands.

6K notes · View notes

egophiliac · 6 months

Text

LET THE BOY HAVE AN EDUCATION

officially at the point where we're starting to see where it's all headed and I am just going NYEEHEEHEE in delight at it all. ahhh...next week can't come soon enough...

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #stage in playful land #stage in playfulland #leona: (devises an actually somewhat clever plan to take out the staff-puppets without breaking any rules)#leona: (taken out two seconds later because he sat down in the wrong place)#at this point i'm half expecting the ssr boys to actually bust in with a big sandwich platter or something #a cake with 'please don't kidnap people :)' written on it in shaky icing #kalim isn't good at plans but he DOES throw a good shindig and by god he's going to play to his strengths #also IT WASN'T SHINY TICKETS IT WAS GIDEL?!#MY BOY #MY BEAUTIFUL MAGICAL FELINE BOY #i mean i'm assuming at this point but that seems to be the implication #genuinely kind of shocked that they actually WERE being magicked into being extra gullible #it was ✨foreshadowing✨ all along...#the blot though! what about the blot!#is that going to be an issue or are we going to have enough to deal with already!#i have rocketed from 'i find these villains entertaining' to 'i am suddenly incredibly invested in them as characters'#LOOK there is one thing better than characters with sort of unhealthy codependent relationships #and that is characters with sort of unhealthy codependent relationships but TWIST IT'S NOT THE WAY YOU THINK #nyeeheeheeeeeee

5K notes · View notes

bsdtual · 5 months

Text

#this is abt them #i don't make the rules #can fukuzawa adopt me too?#bungou stray dogs #bsd #fukuzawa yukichi #ranpo edogawa #bsd official art #manga panels #bsd novels #twitter post

4K notes · View notes

knowlesian · 2 years

Text

“why do i believe this” and “who benefits from me believing it” are the first steps to decolonization and we should all be doing this more

#seriously how many weird rules do we all uphold #SO MANY #and they are all so jesus flavored and weird a lot of the time #like: okay where does the idea that someone is an unredeemable sinner come from #or that people cannot change #where does the carceral state spring from #why do we believe punishing sinners makes them good people #why do we think we have to set the table a certain way #why do we think violence belongs to power and dutiful service to those without power

77K notes · View notes

alienescence · 10 months

Text

Enemies to lovers "who did this to you?" about scars? Great, of course. However, I raise you this: "I did this to you."

#one of them atleast needs to physically scar the other #that's the rule #alientalks

8K notes · View notes

tsukii0002 · 5 months

Text

Mammon: Demons do not feel guilt, that is only for humans and angels.

Solomon: ... *grinning* Remember that cake you ate the other day?

Mammon: Yeah.

Beel: It was delicious

Levi: An Ur+ ranked cake.

Solomon: It was Mc's

Mammon: ...

Beel: ...

Levi: ...

Solomon: They had been working for two weeks to be able to buy it because it was an ultra-exclusive promotion.

Mammon: What-

Solomon: They came home tired every day from work and attending to your selfish needs… all so they could share that cake with everyone *falsely tearing*

Mammon: *crying* I'm a monster!!!

Beel: *sobing* WE are monster!

Levi: *balled up in a corner*

Mc enters the room and sees the brothers crying.

Mc: What have you done?

Solomon: Me? nothing :D

Mc: Don't tell me you are surprised when people tell you that you are more demon than human.

.

3K notes · View notes

holographic-mars · 27 days

Text

The missile is very tired

(Edit: NOT SHIP ART‼️)

#THINKINNG ABOUT THEM #AGAIN #shut up nobody talk to me they are FAMBILYYY #ravage and her large bipedal son she found on the streets #sorry I don’t make the rules I don’t make the rules #naptime with the missile #transformers #maccadam #soundwave #mars doodles #maccadams #transformers fanart #idw transformers #cassettes #ravage #NOT SHIP ART

3K notes · View notes

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 6 months

Text

finally at that age where i'm thinking i should get a tattoo. not bc i feel strongly about it, just seems like a waste not to. i've got so much skin i'm not using