Why Good Omens season 1 has already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish
Neil Gaiman said he wouldn't make a sequel to Good Omens
Neil Gaiman at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2019:
[Gaiman also confirmed the series will only be six episodes, with no intention of trying to go for another season if successful. "The lovely thing about Good Omens is it has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end," he said to appreciative applause. "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens. It's brilliant. It finishes. You have six episodes and we're done. We won't try to build in all these things to try to let it continue indefinitely."]
Source: Entertainment Weekly (2019)
2018 - Neil Gaiman on X- Twitter
Tweet link here
Also Neil Gaiman in 2023:
["It won't be confirmed unless enough people watch Season 2 to make Amazon happy...
...But obviously Season 3 is all planned and plotted and, if I get to make it, will take the story and the people in it we care about to a satisfying end."]
What happened?
Were the profits and ratings high enough to create two more seasons out of thin air? At this point, seasons 2 and 3 seem more like a greedy stretching of a beloved story already told in its entirety in the first season.
Has the first season already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish?
As read above, Neil Gaiman himself said: "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens."
Gaiman was very opened about how pleased he was with Season 1 and how he made it having Sir Terry Pratchett's wish in mind.
Interview for The Verge (May 30, 2019)
Link : Neil Gaiman had one rule for the Good Omens adaptation: making Terry Pratchett happy
Interviewer: Do you feel pressure from knowing this has to be the definitive best adaptation it could be?
Gaiman: No. All I wanted to do was to make something Terry would have liked. It wasn’t like, “Make the best thing.”...
...Gaiman: The lovely thing about Good Omens [the miniseries] is that it’s still Good Omens. If you loved the book, this is that thing that you loved. And I will make you fall in love even more with Sergeant Shadwell. I will make you fall even more in love with Newt than you thought you could, I hope. It does demonstrate that I do kind of know what I’m talking about, which is a nice thing to know.
...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.
Neil Gaiman on an interview for The Guardian in 2019.
Link: Neil Gaiman: ‘Good Omens feels more apt now than it did 30 years ago’
There are times, he insists, when “you make something you like so much that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks of it.” There’s a clue to this, perhaps, in the show’s final frame, which reads “For Terry”. “He didn’t believe in heaven or hell or anything like that,” Gaiman says, “so there wasn’t even a hope that there was a ghostly Terry around to watch it. He would have been grumpy if there was. But I made it for him.”
Why was Good Omens season 1 so good and you could really feel Sir Terry Pratchett's contributions?
Gaiman himself has already told us the answer:
...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.
Neil Gaiman for The Verge (2019).
There was original material to work with (Good Omens, published in 1990), on which we certainly know that Sir Terry Pratchett himself actively worked from start to finish.
Is there a proper sequel to Good Omens the book on which to base 2 more seasons of the series?
Neil Gaiman says the following on an interview for GQ in 2019.
Link: Neil Gaiman Says No to Adapting His Own Books—Except This Time
...But with this, it was like: Okay. Terry is gone. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to do it for him. And that gave me a kind of weird impetus. And it meant that I felt very much at liberty to take every conversation that Terry and I had ever had about Good Omens. Not just the book, as written, but everything beyond it. We planned a sequel, never written, so I got to steal the angels from the sequel. I got to steal from every conversation Terry and I had about how we would do this. It felt very personal, and I guess kind of… holy. If that doesn’t sound too ridiculous. But it was a mission.
Two conclusions can be drawn:
1) Informal conversations about the plot of a sequel do not equate to an officially written sequel.
2) Neil Gaiman has already used many of the ideas he and Terry Pratchett had planned for a never-written sequel to Good Omens and those ideas were largely added to and executed in the TV adaptation of Good Omens (2019).
Why keep stretching those ideas if the co-writer is no longer able to actively contribute and help to create a proper sequel?
If Gaiman were the sole creator of Good Omens we'd have a different conversation, but that's not the case. The first season of Good Omens was already a beautiful homage to Good Omens and Sir Terry Pratchett's work on the book.
Did Terry Pratchett write around 75% of Good Omens?
Link for the post here.
Link for the post talking about the video and sharing the video here.
Edit: I wanted to bring this point up to point out Terry Pratchett's important contribution to the making of the book, not to highlight it as an excuse to distance Gaiman from the novel. We will have to accept that he also contributed to the creation of the book.
Sir Terry Pratchett's last wish
2017 - Rob Wilkins on Twitter (X)
Terry Pratchett’s Unpublished Work Crushed by Steamroller
By Sophie Haigney - The New York Times
Terry Pratchett, the well-known British fantasy author, had a wish fulfilled two years after his death: A hard drive containing his unpublished work was destroyed by steamroller.
Mr. Pratchett, a wildly popular fantasy novelist who wrote more than 70 books, including the “Discworld” series, died at 66 in 2015. That year his friend, the writer Neil Gaiman, told The Times of London that Mr. Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all.” Mr. Gaiman added at the time that he was glad this hadn’t happened.
Now, though, it has. Mr. Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on Aug. 25 on an official Twitter account they shared.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Wilkins wrote that the deed was done.
I have not been able to find the exact reasons why Sir Terry Pratchet wanted his unfinished and unpublished works destroyed, but we can respect his last wish as a way for him to have control over what he felt he was ready to share with the world and what he was not.
Is Good Omens the exception?
With all that has been presented so far, I can only conjecture, but not be sure. I can believe that there was Terry Pratchett's permission and desire to make an adaptation of Good Omens, the original book published in 1990, but to my mind, creating two more seasons of a never-written sequel doesn't fit as part of Terry Pratchett's desire.
He is not among us to actively participate in a sequel and if his last wish was to destroy his unfinished works, I can believe that he would have wanted to give his approval to something new before it was published under his name.
Sir Terry Pratchett talking about a never-written sequel to Good Omens
“Neil and I thought about a sequel an awful lot initially. We talked about it on tour. And I think it was a big relief to both of us, when one day we looked one another in the eye and said, 'I thought you wanted to do a sequel.'..
Interview for the Magazine Locus. Locusmag archive page
This is me speculating, but I don't think there was real enthusiasm for creating a sequel until Gaiman alone saw profitable potential in the TV adaptation....
Good Omens also belongs to the those who love the story
I think it's okay to still love the story of Good Omens. Personally, I will always be grateful with the story and the characters for giving me confort in troubling times, but I find seasons 2 and 3 as some kind of excuse from Gaiman to keep profiting and benefiting from the story (more now than ever due to the SA allegations*).
Aziraphale and Crowley will always live happily in a lovely cottage as long as we want to. Even before season 2 was announced, many of us had already accepted that. Many artists have imagined lovely endings for our innefable husbands and in my eyes their works won't be any less valuable than whatever Gaiman had planned.
Note:
I don't like talking about Season 3 of GO without mentioning the current 5 SA allegations against Neil Gaiman (Main writer of seasons 2 and 3 and showrunner), so in case you want to know more about the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Here there's a great Round Up link (Podcasts links, transcripts, etc.)
Credits for the Round Up link to Muccamukk. Thanks a lot!
*more thoughts on supporting season 3
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I've been on a superhero kick since finishing The Boys season 4 finale and I finally got around to watching the Harley Quinn animated series, or at least the 4 seasons that are currently out as of writing
a bit heavy on the meta comedy for my taste, but over all I enjoyed it, and I have some thoughts, so I'm here to bring you the amateur analysis nobody asked for or wanted
(very long Harley Quinn spoilers below cut)
(seriously it's so fucking long don't hit the cut if you don't want a wall of text on your screen)
at its core, Harley Quinn is a show about relationships, and I don't just mean romantic relationships, I mean human, and occasionally non human, relations of all kinds: family, friends, coworkers, lovers, enemies, nemeses, etc. it's an exercise in the concept of the social and how each person interacts with and relates to other individuals and groups
I think it would be fun to take a closer look at some of these relationships and analyse them from the perspective of a confused aroace loser with exactly 6 friends so here we go
the show centers on two individuals who, by the beginning of the show, have quite literally never had anything even remotely resembling a healthy relationship in their entire lives, which is not hyperbole in the slightest, and again is not just referring to romantic relationships, but relationships of all kinds
the focus is on DC's titular Harley Quinn, and her only friend turned best friend turned girlfriend (minor spoiler but not really) Poison Ivy, and the evolution of their relationship, as well as the relationships of many prominent DC characters around them, and also Kite Man
this is going to be quite a long one with many parts, so you'll have to bear with me for awhile or just give up now you have been warned
part one
the (toxic) insane clown posse (duo)
the show opens with the infamously toxic romance between Harley Quinn and the clown prince of crime, the Joker himself
episode one opens with a showcase of the well documented abusive relationship between Quinn and Joker and just how abusive the Joker truly is as he leaves her for dead yet again
Poison Ivy, powerful supervillain and only friend of Harley Quinn, goes to great lengths to help Harley see that her relationship with Joker is not as perfect as she believes
it's clear there is already a lot of love between Ivy and Harley, and despite the fact that Ivy is a well known misanthrope with a burning hatred of humanity, she has made a singular exception for Harley due in part to her tenure at Arkham as a psychiatrist during one of Ivy's stays
Harley spends season one attempting to escape the telltale psychological hold of a manipulative and abusive relationship, which is easier said than done and not simple in the slightest, but by the end of the first season she has made a considerable amount of progress
part two
emancipation, the crew, and new friends
of course breaking off her romantic relationship with the Joker does not free Harley of his hold, the process is far more strenuous and takes considerably more time, but now she has an opportunity to start some new positive relationships in her life to help her through, and that takes the form of her new crew which consists of Dr. Psycho, Clay Face, King Shark, and Sy and she befriends Ivy's plant Frank and the Queen of Fables as well
as I've mentioned Harley has no experience with healthy relationships, and her initial transactional attitude and emotional neglect towards her new friends is quite telling, but she is in the process of learning how to truly connect with people, a challenge her background in psychiatry seems to lend a foundation to help with
each episode of the first season follows her uncovering a new facet of how a genuine friendship is formed and maintained, all the while battling her own selfishness to be the best friend she can be
the friendships seem to fall out of touch over the course of the show, but there remains a rapport between the crew even after their professional split
the later seasons spend a lot less time exploring friendships, a decision I'm not too thrilled with, but the exploration of relationships continues regardless
part 3
Ivy, Kite Man, and the most baffling romance I've ever seen
I genuinely hate this relationship so much that I made an entire other post about it here
it's really god damn long, probably not as long as part 4, but fuck I just want to throttle Kite Man to death with my bare fucking hands
it's less the relationship I hate and more just Kite Man himself, he's not even necessarily a bad character he just fucking sucks and gets away with it every time and it pisses me off
though I do still hate the relationship
part 4
Harley, Ivy, true love, and possibly the best written romance I've seen on television
Harley's season 2 meeting with Mr. Freeze tells us a lot about what she thinks of love
she sees Mr. Freeze's affection towards his cryogenically frozen wife Nora as creepy and exploitative, and when Mr. Freeze gives his life to save his wife, Harley comments that his actions are 'insane'
admittedly Freeze's expressions of affection do seem very creepy, but Harley's subsequent outburst on how love is bullshit indicates that Freeze's behaviour isn't her real issue
Harley seems to believe that true love was a lie that the Joker sold her to keep her under his control, and, having no other experience, assumes that everyone is just like her and the Joker, and are only trying to get what they want from a relationship without consideration for others
but Nora's reciprocation of Mr. Freeze's affection when Harley unfreezes her quickly begins to cast doubt on her previous notion and challenges her perception of love itself
and then she finds her own true love and everything changes
enter the beautiful mess that is Harlivy
"I love you, in a very odd, hard-to-articulate way." - Ivy to Harley in episode 1
it seems clear from a writing standpoint that these two were going to be together romantically from episode 1 and on, the build up to which is noticeable yet sufficiently subtle, and I do think Ivy fell first and by first I mean before the show even begins, and if these two aren't the fucking definition of the fell first/fell harder trope
and Harley falls HARD
early on, her true feelings for Ivy, unexpressed, seem to take up every waking moment of her mind, and she struggles to avoid ruining her relationship with Ivy, while also desperately wanting to take a risk that could ruin it for good, after all, Ivy is marrying and committing to a hetero monogamous relationship with fucking Kite Man for some fucking reason
"You're here, and you're queer. Get used to it!" - Harley to Ivy after Ivy cheated on Kite Man with her
did Ivy already know that she is queer? based on her Catwoman anecdote, yes, and it seems like Harley was also aware of her own queerness, it is odd to see a queer relationship in media where no one involved is overtly struggling with their own sexuality or gender, it's not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it something completely new, it's just unexpected
unfortunately, we do have to talk about the giant kite-shaped elephant in the room, except, just kidding, no we don't, fuck that guy go back to part 3 if you care, his whole relationship was nothing but an obstacle in my opinion, but I should bring up the infidelity
in a monogamous relationship, when one partner engages in sexual or romantic pursuits with a third party without the other partner's consent or knowledge, that is categorised as 'cheating' and is widely seen as a profound breach of trust and a betrayal of the highest order, I think this is because monogamous relationships are built on exclusivity and trusting that your partner will not break their vow of exclusivity that they have sworn to uphold under any circumstances (sometimes there are exceptions I guess whatever)
to my understanding infidelity is often indicative of a want that falls beyond the boundaries of monogamy and is often not communicated properly for lack of courage, lack of will, or simple adversity to change
Ivy's want seems to be Harley, and her challenge seems to be adversity to change and a lack of self confidence/courage
from what I understand, it's the same as someone you thought you could count on more than anyone else in the world breaking an important promise that they made to you with utmost sincerity, and that shit sucks for anyone regardless of sexuality or circumstance
I have already spent way too much time on probably unnecessarily explaining adultery, but I'm aroace so I am just trying to work through it and understand it myself and am not actually certain if my understanding is accurate so please correct me if I'm wrong this is all third hand information
moving right along, we can finally watch the romance begin, enter the eat bang kill tour
Harley and Ivy have, up till this point, still not had a single healthy romantic relationship, and it really shows, but quite crucially they are improving every episode and trying their best to work it out
Harley, having never really experienced real romantic love before, is desperate to feel as loved as possible, and once she has felt it for the first time, she never wants to let go
she prolongs the eat bang kill tour as long as she possibly can, showering Ivy with gifts and doing crazy stuff that only serial killers would find fun, just trying to keep that high of the 'honeymoon phase" alive for as long as she can
Harley does not want to exist without Ivy if it means potentially losing the amazing feelings that she is experiencing for the very first time in her life
on the other hand, Ivy is very reserved and submissive, she has trouble voicing her true feelings to Harley and suffers for it, a similar pattern of behaviour that she exhibited with Kite Man
Ivy just can't say no, she also does not want to lose that high, but has a different approach to maintaining it
"A big part of being in a relationship is not always telling the exact truth. And that way, you can get what you need without hurting anyone's feelings." - Poison Ivy
this line is incredibly telling of Ivy's past relationships, and it will become a challenge that she must overcome if she wants any hope of actually forming a healthy relationship
and hey, maybe a little lie here and there isn't so bad for a relationship, that's not for me to say and I honestly don't know, but Ivy seems to use the technique excessively to her own detriment
but I mean, what would a compelling dramatic romance be without serious communication issues?
and all these little minor contentions and miscommunications finally build up to the first major conflict in Harley and Ivy's relationship, Edin
it turns out Harley and Ivy might not be on the same page about the whole extermination of humanity, and their failure to communicate that ends in horror as, despite Ivy's wishes, Harley makes a sacrifice that forces Ivy to choose between Harley's life and her own dream
Ivy chooses Harley of course, but this moment rattles their relationship dynamic dramatically and Harley panics, deciding that she wasn't being very supportive of Ivy, and still being desperate not to lose her newfound happiness, she lapses back into her behaviour from when she was with Joker, Harley goes right back to doing exactly what she's told without question and with great enthusiasm in spite of her own personal opinion, because that's how she has handled conflict historically, that's what has worked and she will do anything to hold on to that feeling she has had being with Poison Ivy
Ivy mistakes Harley's new found enthusiasm as genuine, and it takes the Joker himself to point out that she is doing exactly what he did to Harley so long ago, so Ivy asks Harley what she really wants
and now comes my favourite part, the very problematic Valentine's Day special
in spite of the many problematic events of the episode, there will never be a sweeter moment than Ivy sharing her favourite Valentine's Day with Harley, it just melts my heart every time I watch it
as for the problematic part there's nothing new, it's some standard self aware hijinks that affirms that the writers are aware of the unhealthy behaviours exhibited by the two leads and exploring that dynamic is all part of the story, mostly centering on Harley's fixation on being the best partner possible mixed with lasting psychological damage, all from her time with the Joker, but the resolution is adorable
I can't really describe Ivy's favourite Valentine's Day, you just have to watch it, it honestly is the most wholesome and genuine moment in the show, and I can hardly think of any other moment in any other show that can top it either
entering season 4, Harley and Ivy's latest challenge is to set up professional boundaries and segregate their own personal lives from their work lives seeing as they are now each working on opposing sides of a conflict
it's a struggle to be sure, and each partner is terrified that without their shared proclivity for villainy, a rift may form in their relationship
the fear is certainly justified, but despite the challenges presented by their professional split they manage to find other ways to connect
that's pretty much all I have to say on them so far, I think their romance is by far the best part of the show, and I personally believe it to be incredibly well written in spite of what others may think, but it's time to move on
"I mean man. You know me better than anyone." - Ivy
"You're easy to celebrate." - Harley
"And you're fun to celebrate with." - Ivy
part 5
found family vs blood relatives
"You people are not my family, and you know what? You're not even worth it." - Harley to her parents after they tried to murder her
there's no doubt that Harley's family fucking sucks, and you'll be hard pressed to find a family that doesn't anywhere in this show
Ivy's parents were abusive, Harley's were manipulative, Kite Man's are assholes, Batman's are dead, as are Nightwing's, Dr. Psycho is intentionally a terrible father and unintentionally a terrible husband, Sy locked his sister in a basement, Barbara's father is an alcoholic deadbeat and her mother left, King Shark hates his asshole father and killed multiple of his brothers, Robin's father is an emotionally repressed billionaire playboy and his mother is a sociopathic assassin that wants nothing to do with him, the list goes on
every blood family has fallen apart and some of the members have scattered to various found families
the show initially centres on one found family in particular, Harley's crew, but later shifts much of the focus on the bat family as well
both of these families are as dysfunctional as the next, but there is a sense of love and belonging that they bring to each member that families are known to have
what really makes a family? it's hard to say, I think it's like a sort of community that always has your back, even when you're wrong, and maybe you don't like each other all the time, but there is still a sort of love between everyone
families spend time together, but if they live together they're always trying to get away from each other, they support each other, but they will rescind their support if they think you're doing dumb shit that they don't like, they love each other, but may not often express it, sometimes they get along, and sometimes they don't, there is a certain dichotomy to a familial relationship that doesn't really exist in most other relationships
where as you might need to like your friends in order to stay friends, families can maintain a bond in spite of quarrels and disagreements, not everyone will like it, but it's what you've got
in this sense, families are the only relationship that you can never really seem to escape, Dick came back to Gotham, Robin left with his mother, Ivy tore the city apart to rescue Frank, Harley always rescues her crew, and they always rescue her
but the familial aspect does not define a relationship, other relationships will exist between family members that are not inherently related, you can be friends with your family, mere acquaintances, even enemies, or something else entirely
Batgirl and Harley are both new to the bat family, but despite their short tenure, both are given a sense of family from people they know very little about
in my experience, found family often comes from where you least expect it, Batgirl was probably the only person not absolutely shocked to their core to see Harley Quinn herself joining the bat family, and Sy was just Harley and Ivy's landlord before he sacrificed his physical body for them, Frank is a fucking plant, who would expect that their best friend would be a sentient fucking plant?
at some point Nightwing seems to heavily backtrack out of nowhere and stops treating Harley as part of the family, this, to me, seems to be just a poor writing choice seeing as Nightwing was previously very enthusiastic to have Harley in the family
while his concerns may be justified, it's weird that they are only just now being expressed
part 6
Nora Freeze, Batman, Bane, Jim Gordon, Batgirl, Alfred, Poison Ivy, and loneliness
Catwoman is the only lonely character that can tolerate being alone, she even prefers it
whereas Nora, Batman, Bane, Jim, Barbara, Ivy, and Alfred on the other hand each contend with their own particular brand of loneliness and each cope with it in their own unhealthy ways
Nora is grieving, Batman is reluctant, Bane is desperate, Jim is self sabotaging, Barbara is insecure, Ivy is traumatised, and Alfred is purposeless
but for this part I want to focus on Nora
in light of her supposed incurable disease, subsequent coma, and the loss of her husband, Nora has never been more alone
she has no one to turn to, and no one to support her as she grieves for all that she has lost, and I don't mean to imply that Nora's husband was what gave her life value or meaning, in reality it's only a small part of the life she left behind
Nora expressed that her fundamental life changes have left her alienated from all of her previous relationships, her friends and family all expect her to be someone that she no longer is
Nora seems to turn to drugs and alcohol for relief, she seems lost and doesn't know what to do, she just kind of eventually stumbles into her new job working for Ivy, and doesn't take it very seriously
she is understandably put off of serious relationships, and seems to just engage in sex for fun, which is not actually a problem though some characters may disagree
the people of this world have never been lonelier than they are now, and Nora is hardly alone in her isolation
Batgirl's earnest demeanor and nerdy vibe make it difficult for her to make friends, and her deadbeat parents don't pay any attention to her, though things seem to be even worse on the occasion that they do
Jim is married to the job as they say, though this is largely comedic he shows no signs of improvement
Bane is just not very bright and no one takes him seriously, though he does find someone in the end
Ivy hates humanity, but she still seeks companionship from those few she deems worthy, the only trouble is how few she deems worthy, and it's difficult to say whether this is her fault, or theirs, but she does find people she can connect with, and is definitely happier for it
why she deems Kite Man worthy will forever be a mystery to me
part 7
the Joker takes a stab at healthy relationships
after season 1 the Joker is presumed dead, but Harley and Ivy soon discover that he survived, as a basic bitch white suburban amnesiac with no memory of his true identity
his confusion provides the catalyst through which the Joker begins a romantic relationship with the totally unsuspecting Bethany, and by extension he becomes the step father to her two children
the relationship continues for a short number of months until Harley, in a desperate bid to save the city, violently reminds Joker of his true identity
this time around Joker remembers his own life as well as the life he had lived as an amnesiac and is immediately disgusted with himself
he breaks off his relationship with Bethany because she challenges his perception of his own identity and that scares him
however, upon realising how much happier he was as an amnesiac living with Bethany and her children, he decides that maybe he can give the whole true love thing a shot, after all, lots of dads are serial killers
and thus the true romance of Bethany and the Joker finally begins, it's honestly kind of surprising that Bethany still wanted to date the Joker and not the other way around, but I suppose it's understandable if you've already spent so much time together, plus Bethany and her kids were excessively eager when Joker announced to them his return to crime so maybe they were kind of into it the whole time
part 8
Jim Gordon and his (seemingly) one sided friendship with the Batman
Batman is self admittedly "not good with feelings" and by extension, personal relationships
he is incredibly insistent that he "work[s] alone"
he is dismissive of Jim's constant insistence that they are friends and not just coworkers, but in spite of this attitude Harley is able to convince Batman that Jim Gordon is not just a coworker, but might just be his one and only friend
the idea that they are friends is further compounded by the comedically timed screen saver of Batman's computer that shows him and Gordon together celebrating
after Harley's intervention their friendship remains very one sided with Gordon constantly seeking Batman's validation and approval, but Batman at the very least has acknowledged the truth of their relationship
part 9
can people change
can Harley become someone reliable and dependable?
can Ivy count on and trust someone other than herself?
can the Joker become a suburban dad?
can Psycho stop calling women cunts?
can Kite Man do anything right ever?
can people change?
according to the show, the answer is yes
Nora Freeze spent years in a cryogenic coma, and upon her revival, lost the love of her life
her friends all expected her to be the way they remembered, but the experience had a deep impact that spurred a fundamental change within her
she didn't just lose her husband by waking from the coma, she lost her entire life as well, she feels like an entirely new person, and it leaves her lost and lonely, but it wasn't her husband's death that left her all alone
Harley and Ivy are both forced to undergo changes in order to make their relationship work, but they don't just change for the sake of each other, they change for their own sake as well
these changes are what allow them to form all kinds of new positive relationships, but failure to change promises severe social consequences
Jim Gordon's failure to change guarantees the continuation of his misery, he could have had a loving family and admits that he loved being a father, but he ultimately decides that change is scarier than loneliness
part 10
Ivy and Swamp Thing, the end of friendship
"You never let me express myself, Ivy! This is why we stopped being friends." - Swamp Thing in a fit of rage
many of us have had that one friend that would whinge for hours on end about their problems, but would suddenly have something better to do when it was our turn to complain, unfortunately some of us have even been that friend
it can be incredibly frustrating for the listener, and the whinger often doesn't even realise that they're doing it
Ivy was that friend to Swamp Thing, and until now she never even knew the true reason they stopped being friends in the first place
it's tough to know when to give people a chance, and when to cut a toxic friend out of your life for good, Swamp Thing had to make that call for his own sake, and it seems to have paid off
their hiatus apart allowed Ivy the time she needed to grow, so that she could be a good friend for a change
it's also an example of the idea that the end of a relationship doesn't always have to be for good, people and circumstances change, and sometimes reconnecting can lead to a better relationship than you ever had before
so it's finally done, I have been writing this post for fucking ages now even though no one will ever read it, but at this point it's mostly for me anyway so no harm done, this blog is basically my diary as it is
I didn't even talk about everything I wanted to but it has been months so I'm finally just going to post it
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Also preserved on our archive (please let me know if you've seen the preprint the article mentions. I'd like to read it and I'm having a bit of trouble finding it--and it's not linked in the article... XP)
By Greg Toppo
New working paper is believed to be the first to link weaker memory and diminished ‘flexible thinking’ skills to the pandemic’s academic downturn.
New research may help educators and families zero in on exactly how the COVID-19 pandemic caused such an unprecedented academic slump, suggesting that the culprit lies in something basic and crucial: children’s ability to think, remember and problem-solve.
And here’s a twist: The same core difficulties are bedeviling teachers too.
The findings, contained in a new working paper, are believed to be the first to identify brain changes as an explanation for why students have suffered, both inside and outside the classroom, since the pandemic drove millions out of the classroom.
Nancy Tsai, a Harvard University psychologist who studies the effects of stress on executive functions and who is the study’s lead author, said the new findings offer the first evidence to help us “understand the ‘why’” of the pandemic downturn — “what is actually causing all these issues that we’re seeing and talking about in the news.”
The paper, from the private tutoring firm MindPrint Learning, examines the cognitive skills of students nationwide and finds that, simply put, over the past several years, kids’ famously ever-changing brains have changed for the worse.
Since the pandemic’s onset, students across all ages and economic levels have begun to demonstrate weaker memory and “flexible thinking” skills — those represent the mental bandwidth needed for multitasking, shifting from one activity to another and juggling the day’s demands. But for a few groups, such as younger and lower-income children, the changes have been more profound.
They also show that their teachers’ brains are weaker in almost identical ways, which could help explain high rates of frustration and burnout. They suggest school districts have their work cut out for them if they want to keep their best employees on the payroll and returning to the classroom each fall.
Understanding the ‘why’ of pandemic downturn
The data come from a large, widely-used assessment, the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery, developed in 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania. It consists of a series of cognitive tasks that measure subjects’ accuracy and speed in several major cognitive domains, including working memory, abstraction, sustained attention, episodic memory and processing speed.
MindPrint has administered the assessment periodically to its clients over the past decade. The most recent rounds totaled 35,000 students and 4,000 teachers in 27 states.
By most measures, U.S. students are suffering. Last year, NAEP scores showed the average 13-year-old’s understanding of math dropping to levels last seen in the 1990s and reading levels dropping to 1971, when the test was first administered.
More recent research has shown that while older children are showing encouraging signs of academic recovery, younger kids aren’t making the same progress. Many students who weren’t even in a formal school setting when COVID hit are already falling behind — especially in math.
The Penn assessment found that children who attended elementary or pre-school during the pandemic and who are now 8 to13 years old showed the largest declines in memory.
“Younger kids haven’t really developed a lot of these core cognitive skills,” Tsai said. “It hasn’t solidified for them, either through development or just through practice in the classroom. And so younger kids are more vulnerable to these pandemic shifts.”
But students across all age groups showed worse flexible thinking, which researchers now theorize contributes to lower academic performance — as well as challenging behaviors.
Tsai said kids from lower income backgrounds were more vulnerable to these changes, specifically in verbal reasoning and verbal memory, than their higher income peers, with bigger declines in verbal scores, which are highly correlated with academic achievement in all subjects.
Adults in the study had similar declines in both memory and flexible thinking, possibly explaining higher reported levels of teacher dissatisfaction and low morale.
Nancy Weinstein, MindPrint’s CEO, said weaker flexible thinking isn’t necessarily a problem for experienced teachers who have developed strategies to cope with stressful situations and can modify plans on the fly. But those with less experience may be unable to change gears when lessons go astray or students act out in class. That may lead to higher teacher burnout.
Across the board, teachers’ skills suffered in areas such as verbal and abstract reasoning, spatial perception, attention and working memory, but they saw the greatest losses in verbal memory and flexible thinking.
“If we care about that, we need to know how to help them,” Weinstein said. “And there are some tried and true things you can do.”
She said schools should consider sharing data like this with teachers so they can understand that their frustration in class might not be due to students alone. That could make a big difference, she said, in “their willingness to put in the effort to change, as opposed to saying, ‘Why bother?’”
For students, Weinstein said, offering them more opportunities to practice skills with breaks and rest between study sessions could help. Schools should also consider “scaffolded memorization” techniques that break learning into chunks and address each individually.
Could such techniques help students — and teachers — regain a measure of pre-pandemic skills? Weinstein suggests the answer is “Yes.”
“The environment will matter, but certainly we can regain some of that if we do the right things,” she said. “And we know what the right things are to do.”
Crystal Green-Braswell, coordinator of staff wellness and culture for the Little Rock School District in Arkansas, said offering the Penn assessment to teachers and staff has helped many think more deeply about their work — and about their own thinking.
“People who have had the assessment will say, ‘Now, you know my processing speed is slower — y’all are going to have to give me a moment,’” she said.
That’s a huge change in a profession in which most workers have been asked “to take ourselves out of the equation and just get the work done,” Green-Braswell said.
She sees offering such insights to educators as part of “rehumanizing” teaching. “When we provide this kind of assessment and we provide this kind of space for folks to actually get to know themselves, we are humanizing this profession and helping people to realize, ‘You play a role. You play an active role. You matter.’ ”
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