#neil gaiman none of this would be happening without you

[nobie]

Neil Gaiman.

I want to say a few things from a journalist perspective. I'm a journalist myself, I needed to get as much information as I could about this news with as much objectivity as I can have.

Tortoise is a UK based media group. They do a lot of multi media investigative reporting (not traditional mmj though more like scripted podcasts, regular podcasts, videos etc.). Their motto, I guess you could call it, is “Get the news not when it happens, but when it’s ready.”

It’s a fine model from a business standpoint, but in the journalism industry, being fast and accurate is what most news organizations strive for. But never hit the mark to be honest. Heavy on the accuracy part. Tortoise is comparable in America to NPR, but NPR is on a far larger scale since Tortoise is still new, being founded in 2019.

The SA allegations became a story from the ground up. There was nothing said about it before yesterday because this story came directly from the women he allegedly assaulted. I know using the word "allegedly" seems like a cheap shot, but it has to be used because none of it has been confirmed by Gaiman. Only that he did in fact have relationships with these two women. But the SA allegations continue to be denied. The reporters and producers at Tortoise media have written an article and created a full four part podcast. They detailed their stories from both women, spoke about SA misconceptions, and gave background on Gaiman and his relationships (relationships meaning sexual and non con acts happening with them so be aware of that).

The podcast, I'm not entirely fond of because a sensitive subject should not be made into a form of "entertainment." But it did give me more information and different perspective on the story. And from the way this podcast is produced you can tell this story was not investigated lightly. It is a bit distasteful, but it has been done before. This is a full production mind you with a beginning, middle, and end. Plus sound effects and dramatic music, so thats why I say I'm not really fond of the idea. Just reporting the entire story with quotes from the victims would've been enough. I can only hope the reporter and producer did their job ethically as to fully understood the allegations and weight of the subject. (They do mention that in the podcast as well, but as a journalist all I do is ask questions so I def had questions.)

Now this goes without saying, but there should never be any doubt that SA is unjustified and horrifying. And one should never disregard the feelings of the victims. Saying anything like "well they shouldn't have put themselves in that situation," is what I mean by disregard. Why would anyone put themselves in that situation?

That line of thinking is why SA is one the biggest ethical topics in media. Should it be reported? Should it not? How do we go about reporting such a sensitive subject objectively? Do we name the victims? Do we name our sources? Have we considered all of the code of ethics in our reporting? What about our personal values?

Journalism code of ethics: Minimizing harm, seek the truth, act independently, take accountability and be transparent. This might be the first time you're seeing these and I know historically it feels like none of this is considered, but I always consider them.

It’s been a battle of my own personal values to have to report events like this with no bias, but it’s necessary for accuracy and integrity in my reporting.

Ethically, as a journalist, I can't choose sides I need to look at it from all sides. But personally, as a human, I can't condone these actions. Nor will I ever condone it. All kinds of things are being said about this news, and everyone is allowed their own opinion. I only wanted to put my perspective out there because it should be another side of the story to understand, considering this came from Tortoise investigating the allegations.

Here is the article and other news sites that have talked about the story from Tortoise. Also gonna link SPJ code of ethics in case you want to read through them.

Tortoise

The allegations against Neil Gaiman (ep.1 on spotify but you can listen anywhere they have podcasts)

The Telegraph

Daily Mail

The Rolling Stones

SPJ Code of Ethics

Also to the Good Omens fandom, I know this is tough news, but you are allowed to still enjoy Good Omens. I know the guilt/shame of enjoying things that are against your morals, but be kind to yourself.

none of this edited so i apologize for any mistakes.

[vidavalor]

👋 Hello! I love your metas and I was hoping you could help me out with something that still confuses me. All the evidence points to Crowley having had his memories taken by Heaven when he Fell, but why? Falling already punishes him and removes him as a threat, the two things which seem to be the purpose in Gabe's case, so what would the point be?

(Did I send this twice? I'm sorry if I sent it twice.)

Hello! :) Hope you're having a great night. I was making stuffing for Thanksgiving earlier so there are apples and hot apple cider for snacks tonight. (Problematic holiday, I know, but I do like the food.)

TWs for memory loss, trauma, PTSD.

I don't actually think that Crowley lost his memories when he Fell to Hell. Like you pointed out in your question when you referenced what The Metatron tried to do to Gabriel before Gabriel outsmarted them, taking memories from angels as punishment for subversion is a way of trying to keep fascist control. It's an attempt at eliminating threats to the social order of Heaven. (So are things like telling angels that they're superior to humanity and that to indulge in any human desires is beneath them, which serves a purpose of keeping them all from going to Earth and realizing how enjoyable being human is and defecting.) I don't actually see any evidence that memory loss is part of the actual Fall to Hell. If that were the case, then the memories of all the demons we've met should be suspect but the only demon we've actually met whose memory is shown to be unreliable is Crowley. We've gotten to know a half-dozen other demons over two seasons fairly well and none of them have problems remembering their times as angels that we've been shown so far. Add in the fact that S2 shows us that angels can lose their memories without being sent to Hell-- like what The Metatron tried to do to Gabriel, as well as what I think is implied happened to Muriel-- and now we have more evidence that a being can lose their memory in Heaven than we do that they lose it when they're sent to Hell.

That suggests to me that Crowley actually had his memories taken from him-- likely more than once-- while he was an angel, prior to his eventual Fall to Hell. It also makes this line make more sense:

Neil Gaiman has called Crowley "an unreliable narrator" regarding his Fall and that's a clever way of putting it, imo, because Crowley, we've come to learn, is an unreliable narrator about his entire existence pre-Fall, in the sense that he can't really remember it. He is unreliable about his Fall because he can't remember what led to it. He knows he asked a lot of questions but he doesn't remember what they were. His Fall was just what they did after they decided his inquisitiveness was irrepressible. I take the "sauntered vaguely downwards" as hinting that he lost his memories more than once and that he knows it. Crowley knows about his past more than he remembers his past, from what we've seen.

He knows he used to make stars and that he helped create gravity and build the universe. He knows some of the nebulae he made. He knows he knew Aziraphale. Knowing isn't the same as remembering, though. We know from his conversation with Gabriel that he's tried to force himself to remember things before and that it's been a very painful-- and not terribly successful-- process. I'd wager he's nearly discorporated himself more than once trying to remember Aziraphale. Most of what he knows about his past is probably what Aziraphale has told him. The rest is a blur of what he calls "looking at where the furniture isn't"-- bits and pieces without the context needed to understand them. If his memory is a room, then his experience with his memories of Heaven are basically I know that chair but... I don't know where I saw it before, if I've really seen it before, what happened the last time I saw it if I did, where it came from, who else knows about the chair, what room the chair is in, where the room is, what is in the empty spaces between the pieces of furniture, what the purpose of the room is, whether or not the chair is really a threat to me and if I can trust it, why the thought of this chair makes me feel the things I feel about it...

That's terrifying, right? That would be terrifying once and I think the fact that he's referred to as persistently asking questions and that he Fell "in the old days" where asking questions "was all you had to do to become a demon" indicates that he was damned to Hell once there eventually was one but, prior to that, he was punished with his memories taken and probably more than once.

Crowley has known nothing before but for the certainty that if he's just around that one, particular angel with the beautiful eyes that everything will be better.

[kelvintimeline]

well i care what happens to crowley and aziraphale after the end of season 2 and i don't care about the feelings of those two little radfem bitches so that's a pretty easy choice lmfao

I know this is bait and/or trying to frame GO fans as especially bad (though I have seen this exact sentiment expresesd by GO fans so... idk)

but it should be said:

the victims are not TERFs. we do not know their politics, we do not know much of anything about them besides their age, that they were assaulted, and their general relationship with neil. that's it.

the podcast reached out to these women and they took advantage of the opportunity. scarlett reported her rape in october 2022 and no one listened. k had been living with it for 20 years. they aren't bad people for just wanting to be heard, not when there have been whisper networks about neil for decades. not when he's been glorified in spite of being a missing stair.

you can frame them of being taken advantage of the podcast or colluding with the podcast or whatever you want, that doesn't change what neil has done to them

even the podcast isn't a TERF podcast--it seems to be right wing, there are TERFs on staff, but that doesn't mean it's reporting objectively false information every time. it isn't primarily trans issues or feminism, either. so, you should be aware of framing, fact check when you can, and not use it as a primary source when you can. but bad actors break real news... all of the time. sometimes with an agenda, and sometimes even without one. we have real insight from the victims themselves, in their own voices, on this podcast that really can't be reframed as anything else unless they were literally hacking and cutting audio to form new sentences that the victims never stated.

none of that makes this podcast a good thing but it does mean that this particular series contains primary sources, including proof from gaiman himself, which exists outside of the politics of the people running it.

anyways--

even if the victims were TERFs, that wouldn't make neil less of a rapist

even if they were TERFs, that wouldn't mean they deserved to be raped

neil didn't rape them because they were TERFs (and if he did, that would still be wrong, rape is not a punishment, rape is not judgement, rape is not justice), he raped them because he could and because he wanted them to

so, to not care about these women is to not care that he is a rapist, to not care about other victims (of his but also just in general)

anyways--

TERFs are terrible people. Rapists are also terrible people.

As far as we know, his victims aren't TERFs, but even if they were, that wouldn't mean you should continue to support Neil. Or his art projects and adaptions.

Because... he's still a rapist.

This isn't some pokemon match where we figure out different power levels of "TERF" types and "Rapist" types and see which one is more powerful, where one defeats the other and somehow becomes morally okay.

This is where we think critically about the information we have on hand and then employ basic human empathy. If you are incapable of empathy, learn to fake it. Post haste.

Can't do that? Well, then shut the fuck up. Talk about something else. Be a better person by being less of yourself.

[mirtola87]

"Tale as old as time", or how Good Omens planted a seed in my soul that's growing more and more (bettah) [2/2]

[Continues from Part 1] Then we started watching S2, and as it happens in any good mystery story, clues became evidences. Crowley and Aziraphale started laying their cards on the table. Throughout the episodes, they act more and more like an "us" and we get used to the idea that their side is a fact. No matter what happens, they will face it together, as they did more and more in the last 6.000 years of their "tale as old as time". Being a coup... ehm, "group of the two of us" without telling themselves and each other, walking on a wire. And then came the rainstorm, the canopy, Jane Austen, the ball, Beelzebub and Gabriel going off together, Nina and Maggie talking with Crowley. The moment not only the characters but the audience, too, realize that the ineffable love could be actually named and told. "Just a little change, small to say the least / Both a little scared, neither one prepared." It was pure revelation, mind-blowing and delightful. After 9 long years, I finally knew that they loved each other, that I loved them, and that I wanted them to be happy together, forever. If I could feel it so deeply, I wonder what it could have been like for Neil himself to discover that the two characters he knew so well from almost 30 years were in love with each other. And then, after 6 "quiet, gentle and romantic" episodes, exploring the evolution of the characters and their relationship and mutual influence through the time (6.000 years of bickering, longing glances and building trust in each other, "bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong"), the last 15 minutes suddenly came and leave them (and us) heartbroken, as their love is told and denied in the very same moment. It was painful and devastating. And here I am now. Two months have passed since I saw S2 E6, and all that I, all that we can do is wait (and see, hopefully). But it's not, it can't be as before. Something in me has definitely changed. Or rather, it woke as if it had been long asleep. And it grows better and better. This story made me feel things I hadn't felt for years. It's making me feel love, and pain, and longing, and hope. It made me remember how great stories (amazing lies) can make you experience true, deep feelings ("true as it can be"); and it awoke my desire to tell stories and share feelings as well, a wish that had lied sleeping in the back of my mind for a long time. So yes, I am obsessed with GO, but it's not just about this story I love, it's also about me, I believe. And all the time in-between reading the book, watching S1 once, rewatching it and then watching S2 lead me to this, because things can develop and grow only with time. So I guess I should be grateful for that heartbreaking cliffhanger. If S3 had already been there for us to watch, I would have already consumed the answers I wanted. My mind would be at peace and probably none of this would have happened. Instead, I find myself full of questions (about the story, and about my life), I'm restless and eager, I'm painfully alive. And I feel like a new path, a new chapter, is opening before me. "Certain as the sun rising in the East", in the next years I'll be waiting for Neil to tell us about the "Neighbour of the Beast", and in the meantime I'll try my best to cling to that feelings as a precious gift, don't let them go, nurture them and use them for the best. There are many things I wish to thank @neil-gaiman for, but this is probably the most important so far.

[olderthannetfic]

This is the anon who sent the quote from the victim Scarlett from tortoiseshell media Allegations against Neil Gaiman podcast.

A person transcribed the podcast, and put the transcripts from the first three episodes in a google doc here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CuFVjs06gtQcPhhUEeR4GMORY37iMfz3

I didn't share the original snippet to be anti-kink. The framing when Scarlett is speaking is that she wanted none of that to happen but he pushed her to do all of it. That is was all non-consensual.

Here is another quote from her, where she describes sexual assault and violence. Gaiman could try to spin it as kink but hitting someone without their permission is not is not consensual and not kink:

"And didn’t even notice that I was passed out. And you know that there was blood. It was so, so, so traumatic. And I asked him to stop. I said it was too much, and he laughed at me. Said, I need to be punished. You know, used his belt on me."

And another selection from the podcast, from the second person who came forward:

"Second Accuser: And I would say, “okay, okay, we can fool around, but you can’t put anything in my vagina, you just can’t, because I will die,” and it didn’t matter. He did it anyway.

Paul Galizia: Although you told him you are in pain.

Second Accuser: Very specifically said, “You cannot put anything in me. Please don’t. It will hurt very badly. And it will make things worse than they already are.” Because I know for sure. I remember for sure in Cornwall, saying those words out loud.""

The podcast does briefly and vaguely paint BDSM as suspect itself, regrettably. I share these snippets because most people probably won't read or listen to the hours long podcast, and because there has been a narrative that Neil Gaiman is just a sleezy creep, but it is clear from hearing directly from the victims that he is a rapist.

--

[idkaguyorsomething]

Why you should read A Study In Emerald

While technically not a fanfiction on account of both the properties it’s based off of being in the public domain, A Study In Emerald is basically a crossover fic between Sherlock Holmes and the Lovecraft mythos, written by none other than Neil Gaiman himself! The above link will lead to a version of the story printed in a pulpy classic newspaper format, but it can also be read in more traditional formatting and has a graphic novel adaptation that is worth checking out.

The Premise: a disabled war veteran moves in with a consulting detective who is soon charged with investigating a high-profile murder, but not all is as it seems. Taking place in a very different world where the Old Ones reign supreme over humanity, A Study In Emerald presents a surprisingly compact but satisfying mystery that is tantalizingly presented to the audience bit by bit until the curtain is pulled back in a really cool reveal at the end.

Why You Should Read It: the story strikes an excellent balance between presenting the reader with enough information that they can put the clues together and maintaining suspense without making it incredibly obvious where things are going. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to outsmart the audience, rather it plays with the expectations of what one would expect in a Sherlock Holmes story, and piecing together the clues feels incredibly satisfying whether it’s your first time reading or fifteenth. The twist is one of those that makes more sense the more you think about it rather than one that was obviously slapped on for shock value, and unraveling it makes for a compelling sort of meta-mystery in its own right. This version of Holmes and Watson stand out as very distinctive versions of themselves because of the unique circumstances they find themselves placed in, but are still quite recognizably themselves. The works they inhabit is filled with enough detail and personality that it feels like a crime that people haven’t written more fanfic of this fic, because it is just brimming with potential and unique adventures that the og detective duo could be going on. There’s also some little cameos from other classic literature figures like Dracula and Dr. Jekyll, so if you’ve read those it can be really fun to pick those out. And of course it comes with that classic Lovecraftian horror of unknown, unfathomably powerful beings who in this case happen to be the heads of world governments. No applicability there, nope.

Potential Reasons to Stay Away: if you don’t have some prior knowledge of the supporting cast/recurring antagonists of Sherlock Holmes stories, then the ending will probably be very confusing and not make nearly as much intended sense. Previous experience with the Sherlock Holmes stories really gives the whole story a lot more punch. Not so much with the Lovecraft mythos, but some details will end up flying over your head. And, as one might expect from such a crossover, there is murder, body horror, and constant mentions of being driven into madness by horrors yet unfathomable to the human mind. Also, I guess that if you just really don’t want to see the Queen of England depicted as an evil colonizing monster who’s also an eldritch abomination this time around, this probably isn’t the story for you? (It’s certainly a perk for some people)

TL; DR A Study In Emerald is a cool Sherlock Holmes crossover with Lovecraft that respects its reader’s intelligence and comes with a cool-ass twist at the end. Give it a try if you’re a fan of either one, it’s relatively short and very fun to read.

[sneakerdoodle]

personally (and obviously my personal opinion holds no authority, and i am aware that this is controversial) i always felt like for all the meaning aspec and arospec people found in Aziraphale and Crowley's unorthodox bond and relationship development, the way Neil Gaiman talked about it outside of the text was always demeaning to all sides of audience, from those who saw a lot of value in reading it as a queer/gay love story to those who read it as queerplatonic. the whole thing with "oh they hold hands at ONE point but you wouldn't see it. can you find it?? ;))))" and "oh its a love story but we cant have them TOUCH, that would ruin the TENSION!" (even past the climactic resolution apparently) did seem kind of. queerbait-y, without necessarily any awareness of a queerplatonic relationship as a possibility

and it always seemed like whatever their relationship was, romantic or not, what made everyone care about it was the specificity of it; how the tension was abt who they are as people, and how every little development of it made sense, without falling into predictability or simplicity or general hollow drama

and season 2 completely turns it all on its head with how its INCREDIBLY EXPLICIT WITH ROMANTIC CODING from the first 5 minutes but. in that loses any and all like. genuine meaningful content... and the off characterization makes it a drama of Circumstance rather than the drama of circumstance + personality + timing etc etc etc. circumstance is well familiar but the characterization does not make any sense at all and that sucks when we're supposed to care about the interaction of their Personhoods! what we end up with is. a collection of disjointed moments of explicit romantic tropes that don't come together in a narrative.... and now it's not just potentially-romantic but! amatonormative i believe! with how we're supposed to care about what happens just BECAUSE it's romantic not because of their actual relationship and the meaning of it

and it's. so bizzare seeing the gomens criticizm going from routinely using the word "queerbait" (however controversial that has always been) to instead invoking "fanservice". we cannot win fjsbfksjfkshfks. NONE of us can win.... what happened

[oldtvandcomics]

I binged the entire Good Omens season 2 today, and, well. I certainly don’t have anyone in the Real World to talk to about it, so here is my review. Under the cut, because spoilers.

Good Omens 2 was ALWAYS going to be a hard sell, because season 1 was so damn perfect. It was a closed story, based on a book, very faithful to that book, yet still added enough to keep things interesting. Amazing actors, great costumes and set design, it was funny, it had a great theme, and was very layered.

It is also literally the only time that I saw the kind of relationship I feel like I’d want for my self. Ever. Anywhere.

So yeah. I very much would have loved if the show had just left things there. What I was telling myself is that I trust Neil Gaiman, and that whatever happens, he knows what he is doing and why. I’ll get back to this.

The majority of the season was fun, but significantly less good than the first one. As I said, the standard was very high, so no surprise there. What I was surprised by, however, was just how much the characters who are not Crowley or Aziraphale (I wouldn’t even call them side characters, they are just as if not more vital to the plot) added to the whole. They were not in this season, and the show is definitely poorer without them. Gone with them are the fun and whimsical worldbuilding things that made this story so good, like the witches and the prophecies and the children and their way of making sense of the world. It is also a loss not to have any of those very colourful people mentioned again.

The side characters that this season does have are a lot less interesting than the ones in the previous season. They also don’t seem to add as much to the theme as the old ones did. Every character in season 1 revolved around love, love for humanity and love for someone they were supposed to be adversaries with (looking at you Anathema and Newt). Meanwhile in season 2 we get two shopkeepers on the same street who kind of have a crush on each other. It is much lower conflict, and much less relevant to the theme of the story. Ass far as strength of character goes, I feel like none of them live up to, for example, Mme Tracey.

The scope of the story feels smaller, too, possibly because the action is almost all happening on Aziraphale’s street, while season 1 had a significant part be in Tadfield, and Aziraphale and Crowley were moving around much more. We also get fewer, but longer, history flashbacks, and no voiceover narration or animated sequences to illustrate said narration.

A lot of the plot is ideas that I’ve seen online in the fandom. I’m not sure whether it is because we were particularly good in guessing stuff, if said tropes were already known from previous things said by Gaiman and Pratchett, or if Gaiman got inspired by popular headcanons and used them in his work. I also don’t care where the ideas came from. I definitely enjoyed seeing things on screen that I knew from up here, including but not limited to that one crack ship I used to read some fics about back in 2019 because one of the two partners uses genderneutral pronouns.

Ah, talking about. Gender. And general queerness. It’s there, but feels less overwhelming than it did four years ago. Maybe that’s me, but I definitely did miss the parts where Crowley was presenting as female. Most shopkeepers on that street seem queer in some way, and one of them has a visibly nonbinary partner, but it was all very much in the background. I would have liked these things to be a little more prominent. Season 1, I still go back sometimes and rewatch Pollution’s introduction, just to hear God use they/them pronouns. Season 2 didn’t have any moments like this.

Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley and Aziraphale... Oh dear. Please let me repeat again that I am not going to be able to be completely objective about them. (Neither is anyone else in this fandom. At least I’m honest about it.)

So I was very happy with most of the season. Not great, but it was nice and fun. And then the ending hit.

As I said, Neil Gaiman clearly knows what he’s doing. What he is doing, is setting things up for a third season. As far as cliffhangers go, this one was very elaborate, instead of just throwing in a scene at the end, but also, I really, really wish that he hadn’t.

I’m not sure that Neil Gaiman understands just how important Good Omens was to many of us BECAUSE of the happy ending. And obviously he doesn’t owe us anything and is not responsible for my emotional reaction, but this doesn’t change the fact that I am very, very deeply hurt, because it feels like we’d been given the perfect fairy tale, back in 2019, and now it all got ripped away. And for what. Also, I do trust Gaiman, but I do very, very much NOT trust Amazon. If he doesn’t get a third season, then I don’t want the story to be left like this.

There are a lot of deep conversations that we could, and should, have here. About streaming shows and their obsession with cliffhangers, about our cultural inability to conceive of two characters who are just together, without any drama, and also love stories that are not about getting together. We could talk about abusive situations and how difficult is to get away and not be dragged in, and how maybe the show will explore that. About queer representation in particular and how tired many of us are to see our few couples being kept apart again and again, with no promise of a further season to fix things (remember First Kill).

I am not going to have any of these here. Obviously.

What I AM, however, bothered by, is just how out of nowhere it seems to have come? I honestly feel like Aziraphale’s character development had been set back to episode 3 of the first season, where he still believed that Heaven was good and worth trying to work with. After that, he realized that it is very much not the case, openly defied Heaven, was almost killed for it, and then got a happy ending by getting rid of them all and being allowed to stay on Earth. WHY IS AZIRAPHALE EVEN SLIGHTLY INTERESTED IN THE IDEA OF GOING BACK TO HEAVEN AND RUNNING THE PLACE?! I mean, that was the whole point of his character, wasn’t it?? An angel who loves Earth and humanity enough to defy the will of God, just so he can stay and spend more time here. WHY WOULD HE WANT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE NOW??! 

So the thing is, I understand why he would want to go back to an abusive institution. I wanted to go back to school, too, after the first attempt almost killed me. The problem is that I did not see this coming. If you want to change a character’s motivation this much, then you need to set it up very carefully. Throughout the season, we’ve seen Heaven be generally kind of awful, and Aziraphale didn’t show any signs of missing being part of it. There also isn’t anything they can really offer him, because he was already together with Crowley. It’s very weird. Gaiman seems to be setting up a getting-together story, but like, we’ve been through that already in season 1? He actually talked about it multiple times himself how he purposefully structured it as a love story? And like, he IS a very talented and experienced writer. He would be absolutely able to set up some interesting conflict for an already-together Azirapahle and Crowley, that doesn’t feel like setting their arc back half the story??

I don’t understand why he chose to do this. I am always very annoyed if I don’t understand where storytelling choices are coming from. It’s why the Supernatural finale pulled me back in so strongly.

I am also very hurt, but mostly angry. I don’t feel like I really have the right to be, but I am.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: American Gods

Author: Neil Gaiman

Rating: 8/10

American Gods is a classic "fantasy novel for adults" of the kind that is all but disappearing, now -- a novel which is written in the style of a literary novel for adults, but which is actually about themes and ideas that apply only to adults, and which is told through an intensely human cast of characters, who may not be very wise, or very good, or very brave, or very anything, but who have an incredible amount of heart, and are the sort of people you would like to know, in real life.

If you ask me, what I was looking for in novels, this is the thing I want more of, in these days of the bloated and endless "children's" section.

In this sense it's a bit of a disappointment. The central theme of the novel is the inevitability of the moral law, which is presented to us as an idea which "we know" and yet which has not been thought of in many centuries:

People were human beings.

People made mistakes.

People were fallible.

It was therefore right and just for there to be a divine being in charge of the universe.

Every time people thought to be as gods, that belief was replaced, often in the most painful ways, by another one.

There was a pattern there.

One day God would come back.

And when he did, the world would be restored.

The world was in darkness.

People were terrified.

Every human being had a story to tell to the next person that met him.

All sorts of terrible things had happened to the world.

There was no justice.

No mercy.

The darkness was eternal.

If that sounds like stuff you find in children's literature, well, it is -- but it sounds like stuff that is written by adults, that is written as fiction, and that is concerned with ideas and themes that only adults can understand. It's like if one of Shakespeare's plays -- say King Lear -- were written in a style accessible to children, and yet were concerned with themes that can only be understood by adults (even though, say, the characters are all talking about the same sort of things Shakespeare is always talking about: the nature of kingship, family relationships, and so on). It's the exact same effect -- even though the themes may not be "children's themes" at all. The themes feel timeless. They're timeless to people. It's that timelessness that lets the novel move at a fast-paced, exciting pace that makes the novel feel like a book, and not like something you could find in a library and enjoy over a slow dinner.

That fast pace is a bit of a weakness, though. There are several sections in the book where the narrative drifts and gets kind of stilted: the narrator keeps saying that his characters are "the sort of people you would like to know, in real life" -- but that's not, precisely, what happens -- the book is a collection of myths and stories told by a man whose real life is not very interesting (and whose real life is in fact more closely resembled by the myths and stories). The narrator has a lot of opinions on things, and none of them are "interesting," and the novel seems a bit bored by the narrator himself -- he's too much of a literary character, this narrator, too much of an author, not enough of a "we," which is the real person he's trying to write about. I can't imagine that Gaiman wrote this character with any sort of care.

I've talked before about Gaiman's tendency to include things in the "real world" and in the "fantasy world," without much distinction between them, and that makes for a lot of very confusing material -- it's like if you had two separate series of "characters," one set of characters being the inhabitants of New York in the 20th century, and one set of characters being, well, New York in the 20th century, and the two sets of characters occasionally having very similar adventures. I don't know that that's actually the case -- it seems like a lot of the time in American Gods we're reading about the same "characters" in different "stories."

There are parts of American Gods I liked -- parts I liked a lot, in fact, some parts of it I liked in an almost embarrassing way, because they're so likeable. They are so likeable because we're shown the most likeable parts of the "fantasy world," the parts in which it's so clear that there is nothing of value in this world, because it is a world that is nothing but a series of stupid myths told by the sort of person who is, well, not your sort of interesting person. These parts are about the sort of people, that is, who would tell you that there is no "good," no justice, no mercy, and no reason to believe in the world at all. It's the sort of person who tells you that everything is nonsense. It's the sort of story where you are left to wonder whether your author's judgment has been corrupted by his "interests."

And you can feel Gaiman not trying to save you, in these parts -- it's almost as if the author himself had doubts about his own judgment in the matter, and this was the kind of story he wrote in order to try to prove his own judgment correct. Gaiman the author doesn't have much of an aesthetic sense, but the novel itself has an excellent one.

So the book is like one of the old sort of fairy-tales, like the Brothers Grimm, but not a lot of other people realize how much they remind us of those old fairy-tales; the Brothers Grimm are so far from our lives that they almost become like myths and stories that must be told to children, who in the end would like nothing better than to be allowed to know all those myths and all those stories. American Gods is like the old fairy-tales, and you can feel the author trying to write the sort of book which his ancestors used to write, while not really understanding the things his ancestors were saying.

If you're at all the sort of person who wants to try to understand these things, I think you can understand American Gods quite well. If you aren't, I don't know whether you can or whether you should. (There is a second, much more recent, book on this theme -- the Sandman series -- that might be of interest to you. It's like if American Gods had been much more recent: the moral is "there is no good, but also no justice, and no mercy, and no truth, so don't bother believing anything," except that the narrator is a different sort of person who has his own "stories" and "interests" and these don't have to do with telling you these ideas -- he is telling you stories about the Sandman and about "dreams." For the most part the two are like two series of parallel books: they have the same themes and they are written by the same sort of person.)

[charliethomascoxuniverse]

‘Stardust’ gave him the space to grow

BY MARK OLSEN Los Angeles Times (X) AUG. 5, 2007

In “Stardust,” the character Tristan Thorne finds himself in the fantastic realm of Stormhold, where he must protect a star, fallen from the sky in the form of a beautiful young woman, from all manner of dangers and pitfalls, including pirates, witches and ruthless princes.

Tristan is played by Charlie Cox, 24, who found himself plunged into a leading role as a romantic foil opposite Claire Danes and alongside such mega-wattage costars as Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer. Yet before he could set off on his magical journey of Hollywood enchantment, Cox faced what turned out to be perhaps the biggest challenge of the role -- simply winning the part.

Director, producer and co-writer Matthew Vaughn first saw Cox on an audition tape the actor had done for another project and didn’t think he fit the part of Thorne. Vaughn, already having seen hundreds of actors for Tristan, eventually gave in to the casting director and agreed to meet Cox. As soon as the young actor entered the room Vaughn knew he’d found his Tristan.

Almost.

As so much of the story revolves around the burgeoning romance between Tristan, a shop boy yearning for a life of adventure, and Yvaine, the fallen star, Vaughn couldn’t fully commit to Cox until he found his leading lady as well.

“The whole point was to find the couple,” explained Cox. “Matthew’s very serious about this. Chemistry on screen, you can’t act it, it’s got to just be there. So he said, ‘I can’t just cast one of you.’ ”

Vaughn knew he was asking a lot of Cox, putting him on the cusp of a big break while also potentially setting him up for a whole lot of nothing.

“I said to poor Charlie, ‘You haven’t got the part until I find Yvaine,’ ” recalled Vaughn, “because it’s about having the right chemistry. I might find an Yvaine and suddenly you’re not right. So I said, ‘You’re going to have to bear with me for a bit.’ And so every time we auditioned the girl, they auditioned with Charlie.”

“Stardust,” based on the book by Neil Gaiman and co-written by Jane Goldman, has a very specific tone and feel, something like a pop-up storybook come to life. Along their way Tristan and Yvaine must fight off a witch who wants to cut out Yvaine’s heart for everlasting life, a set of princes scheming after the jewel around her neck to ascend to the throne of Stormhold, and assorted other extraordinary perils. Grounding this all is the rather sweet, slightly screwball relationship that emerges between Tristan and Yvaine.

As Tristan, Cox somehow manages to walk a tightrope between matinee-idol dashing and puckish whimsy, as the film veers from a childlike innocence to an absurdist, Candide-style picaresque. He largely functions as the audience’s emissary to a world of magic and wonder, where anything might and does happen.

As the story progresses, his character evolves from sweet, simple bumbler to swashbuckling adventure hero. The lack of baggage viewers have toward Cox from previous roles is part of what helps to make his transformation convincing.

“That’s why I wanted an unknown,” said Vaughn. “You genuinely see him grow in front of you without realizing it. If it’s Orlando Bloom all geeked up, you know he’s going to take off his glasses and get a new haircut -- ‘Hey, I’m Orlando, the hero.’

“A lot of people could play the nerd part well, the awkward teen, but couldn’t play the hero. And a lot of people could play the hero well but couldn’t do the nerdy guy.”

A stepped-up challenge

Cox, a London native, dropped out of drama school when he was cast in a small role in “The Merchant of Venice” starring Al Pacino. He would then land a supporting role as the brother of Sienna Miller (a “Stardust” costar) in “Casanova.”

None of his experiences quite prepared him for the physical and emotional challenges of playing the lead in a film such as “Stardust,” where suddenly he was working nearly every single day for four months and sharing major screen time with major stars.

“It really helped my character,” said Cox of his own amazement and bewilderment at finding himself with such a plum role. “In the same way that Tristan is in the story, I’m entering uncharted territory. Every day is something I’ve not experienced before. When I think back on my experiences on the film, and even to some extent doing this stuff” -- and with this he casts both hands around the plush hotel suite in which he is sitting, acknowledging the catered lunch, the inquiring journalist and the small cabal of handlers in the next room -- “I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, a bit like a rabbit in the headlights and trying to keep myself together.”

At the recent Los Angeles premiere of “Stardust,” Cox looked dorkily dapper in a three-piece suit and cheerfully posed for photos with all of his costars. He worked his way down to the farthest reaches of the press line, daring to go where bold-faced names rarely do. He needed to be frequently prodded along by a minder, having not yet mastered the tricky maneuver of the polite but definitive disengagement.

As he entered the lobby of the theater he was greeted by a coterie of the well-wishers and glad-handers who attend such events. Soon after, De Niro and Pfeiffer entered through the same doors and Cox was suddenly swept aside by a celebrity undertow, momentarily lost as the crowd rolled toward his costars.

The Hollywood pecking order has a way of constantly reminding who fits where, but for now Cox is more than happy with what “Stardust” has done for him.

“I know people complain about it, ‘Oh, this junket’s a lot of work,’ ” he said earlier. “But right now, this is what you work toward. I’ve done films where I would have loved to have been asked what it was like to do the movie, how I got the role or how I feel about this business, but I’ve just not been significant enough.”

[adarkrainbow]

I talked previously of an article that explored one aspect of the oral versions of Little Red Riding Hood (right here), but I realized... Maybe people are not aware of the main dfference between the “oral” versions of Little Red Riding Hood and its “literary” counterparts. 

And this difference can be best summed up by the issue of a comic book. Not just any comic book: issue 14 of the famous and excellent “Sandman” comic book, created by none other than Neil Gaiman. I don’t think this comic needs any introduction now - and even if I had to do one, it would hard to sum it all up easily, as this is a vast, complex and deep but immensely fascinating comic series (as expected from any of Neil Gaiman’s works). 

Issue 14 takes place during a specific arc - the Cereal Convention arc. The protagonist of this volume of the story is a young girl trying to find back her missing little brother, and who is escorted in her quest by a Chesterton-like character who clearly knows more (and is more) than what he seems... And during their journey they stop by a motel where a “Cereal Convention” is happening... Which turns out to be a thin cover for a convention of serial killers, here to share their particular “hobby”, gush over their personal stars and debate over the details of their job. (This arc is a true balancing arc between dark comedy and full-on horror).

During their stay at the motel, the Chesterton-like character (Gilbert) tells the protagonist (Rose) about a disturbing version of “Little Red Riding Hood” - which actually serves as a metaphor and warning for the situation they are in (especially since one of the “guests” of the convention is a dangerous pedophile-killer, who wears a wolf-eared cap in a parody of the Mickey Mouse hats). The version of the Little Red Riding Hood story here is presented by Gilbert as an “original version” of the story, predating Charles Perrault’s own story (he also claims that Perrault invented the “red hood” part of the story). Now, I want to clarify something: while it is a real oral variation of “Little Red Riding Hood”, it is not the “original” story, or rather it is impossible to prove. Again, this was one of the “folklorist misconception” that ruled over research in the 20th century (the comic was from the 90s), that oral, countryside versions of the tale HAD to be the “original” versions predating the literary tale (when the truth is that half of them are younger than the literary tale, and the rest we cannot prove). So while this version exist, I do not support the concept that it is an older version than Perrault’s story.

Or rather I do not support it “yet”, because I need to check the book Neil Gaiman took the story from - which he revealed in interviews to be 1985′s “The Great Cat Massacre” by Robert Darnton. I know this book is quite famous and divisive, and I haven’t read it yet, so I cannot actually judge more or speak further of the nature of this variation. But I will check it one day and update my thoughts. 

But putting beyond all that, I need to say that this comic and this issue was the first time I ever heard of the oral variations of Little Red Riding Hood, it opened up to me a whole world of darker fairytales hidden behind the real ones (before I only knew of the edits the Brothers Grimm did, like turning evil mothers into wicked stepmothers), and this story stayed ingrained in my mind, and for me it will stay without a doubt the quintessential “darker, oral variant of Little Red Riding Hood”. And while I actually couldn’t find back the tale as such in my researches, all the oral variants of the tale I found included the elements mentioned in this issue one way or another (one folkloric variation had for example the meat part, without the wine ; and another had the stripping section, but with different details). If you have checked my previous post on the “pins and needles” articles, you’ll recall the nasty bit where the wolf feeds the girl her granny’s sexual organs.

Now maybe the pictures do not load or you do not want to read them, so here is a brushed and rushed recap of the variation told by Gaiman:

A girl (no “red hood” involved) was told to bring her grandmother milk and bread. As she was walking through the woods, she met a wolf who asked her where she was going and she told him. The wolf rushed to the grandmother’s house, killed her, sliced her flesh on a plate, and poured her blood in a bottle, before wearing her clothes and getting into bed. When the girl arrived, the wolf-grandma encouraged her to eat “some meat” and drink “some wine” left in the pantry. The girl obeyed, but each time the cat of the house screamed at her “Slut! To eat the flesh and drink the blood of your grandmother!”. Afterward the wolf asked the girl to undress before climbing into bed with him/her ; the girl removed one piece of clothing after another, each time asking her grandma where she should put it, and the wolf answering “Throw it in the fireplace, you won’t need it anymore”. And then the end of the story plays out as Perrault’s... 

[excalibent]

Good Omens

I saw a post about Good Omens, so I’m making a post about Good Omens, and none of you can stop me.

Not that you would, I guess.

Spoilers for Good Omens, and slight spoilers Making Money, and Going Postal.

Searching out something in the text to have a say on is a bit difficult, given that it does an extremely good job of presenting complicated and important ideas in ways that are damn near impossible to miss when you come at it with a sledgehammer and a magnifying glass. I’m not overly familiar with the works of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, but I’ve read Making Money and Going Postal, and loved them both to bits.

The kind of symbolism that seems to hang about in the background of Good Omens is stuff like the part of Making Money where - beyond the explicit, direct, unapologetic claim that money is a representation of value rather than value itself - a character pulls a lever in a simulation of the economy, and literally makes a bunch of gold appear out of thin air. The statement is clear: money is fake, and value is fake, and the only reason valuable things exist is because we made up that value from literal nothing. We just looked at it, thought ‘hey, that’s valuable’, and so the inert, shiny chunk of rock became valued. Then, the part of Going Postal that actually planted this idea of value being linked to things with qualities beyond their material properties, that the letters themselves were indescribably valuable to the people that received them and some could have been traded for hundreds of dollars for the simple fact that they were so valued, and in this, the revelation that stories can and will impact the people that read them - not just in general, but especially if it’s a story that they were meant to hear.

Where can we find these moments of stark, important - yet, in some way, abstract - statements in Good Omens?

Frankly, they’re all over the place; there’s the idea that you don’t win if you don’t fight, and if you truly believe in your principles - healthy food, peace, a cleaner earth - you can fight, and even win. But winning doesn’t last forever, and you can’t fight forever. You’re only human. It’s a point that Death underlines, in the end; creation doesn’t mean anything without destruction. As much as we value things that are, we also need to reconcile that these things are also defined by everything that they are not. And, additionally, if you are going to ‘win’ in any meaningful way, it has to be because your children fight for that future, too. The point that, in the end, the anti-christ is human above all else, the idea that celestial beings - in the realm of human experience - are interchangeable, that fate is a book that was written centuries ago that doesn’t even end when the end of all time arrives, it’s all very interesting to think about, but it’s hard to really describe without stating what feels obvious. Again, Good Omens was very good at getting its ideas across.

The thing I’d like to look at with a more critical lens is probably a theme that does pop up explicitly, but sometimes only in the background: you reap what you sow.

For Crowley, this happens explicitly when the entire highway bursts into flame because it resembles the sigil of the great devourer of worlds. As per the text - “Crowley had built it, and now he was stuck in it.” This also hits Aziraphale; his bookshop burns down because of the candles that he lit. Obviously, he didn’t intend them to burn it all down, but the consequences of our actions are rarely apparent until you come back to see where the kindling was.

And what’s more interesting, above all, is Adam. He builds a circle of friends, and as he comes into his power, he starts trying to control them, to reshape them from the group he had lead into a group he could lead into Armageddon, but they don’t agree with any of it; regardless of the greater circumstance, Adam and his friends had assembled because of like minds, more or less, and that’s exactly what he got when his powers came to him - people that cared about health, peace, the world around them, that would really rather not burn it down - and when he rejects his powers, they return to him, because as he had chosen them, they had also chosen him. There wasn’t a greater hand moving pieces into place, it just kind of happened, and the friendship that they had was overwhelmingly more important than staying angry after Adam started going all funky in the head, when it turns out that he falls down and might be hurt.

They’re right to leave when he had taken away their freedoms, but the kindness they gave him when he needed it more than anything else was probably the most important part of the story; the people around you will support you when you treat them well.

(Obviously, Heaven and Hell had not treated Aziraphale and Crowley very well; sure, they only brought down punishment in the end, but all throughout, aside from being treated as menial workers poking about on Earth, their disagreements were entirely dismissed out of hand the moment they - Aziraphale, mainly, and repeatedly - meant to bring up whether what they were doing was what they should be doing, besides.)

[digitalcockroach]

i think a lot of tumblr has weirdly strong feelings and opinions on Neil Gaiman and Good Omens like it's popular and popular to hate and victim to Tumblr Discourse, there's a loud subset of (usually young but not always uhg) fans that are obnoxious uwu soft bean terminally online types, and there's a a kind of reactionary hatred and criticism for Neil and Gomens itself (and laugh at me if you must but there is some of that coming from a homophobic, transphobic, abliest place. it is not coincidence that these reactionary hate for fandoms is worst when a fandom is predominantly queer and neurodivergent like i get it whatever we all need someone to bully not the point here) and there are PLENTY of things to not like about the man, the show, and the fandom but like

one sentiment i see going around in the wake of s2 is that Neil Gaiman is just a Bad Writer which like. objectively doesn't really add up. in terms of technical skill and success of his work? he's very skilled and respected as a writer, he's considered a master of his craft, he's won awards, yknow? whether the stories he tells are compelling or interesting or important is subjective, hate em all you want, but he is TECHNICALLY a good writer which leads me to my main question

WTF happened to s2 of Gomens????? like i liked s1 enough to watch it 3 or 4 times, i loved the book in high school, i was excited for new content despite my misgivings about extending a completed story! and this is what we get? the major worldbuild hook, an arch-angel thrown out of heaven without his memories now in the care of the angel and demon who saved the world from said arch-angel essentially, is a fucking C plot after fanservice azi/crow flashbacks and a weird uncomfortable not-romance between two random new characters (and this isn't even mentioning the major spoilers for way stupider plot decisions). none of the humans from s1 are there. there's 0 tension (except for in the final cliffhanger scene) bc they just. basically say "nah no you wont" and fix all their problems. literal deus ex machina resolution. the writing is bad, the ACTING is bad in the case of the weird ass Beelzebub recast (WHY would you draw attention to it by mentioning they look different TWICE) who moves like a tiktok teenager and can't lipsynch and oh yeah has a completely different personality. i get that some things were on purpose, i see the hints and foreshadowing for a s3, i get that some ooc-ness of characters is likely to be revealed as part of a bigger plot eventually but y'all. i sat through this Bad season of TV hoping the few interesting and genuinely cute moments would pay off, and they did not. why would i wait for another season of this shit to actually resolve anything?

I'm just fuckin disappointed in it yknow it was a total fanfiction of itself and i have literally read better gomens fic than what s2 did

[sharoscylla]

i don't have time to do any more tmnt AUs so here are some free ideas I had over the past day

GF/TMNT au where Stan is Splinter (AKA: Mutated Fighting Rat Man) and he's got four turtle sons (and a human son, Soos, obvis) I'm feeling like 1982-1999 are pretty much identical to how they go in GF canon but him and his turtle sons get mutated like in 1999 as well and the boys are roughly the same age as Dipper and Mabel. given the setting they're probably more likely to have cloaking amulets or whatever?

rottmnt movie AU where, when Casey gets sent back to 2020, Old Ass Leon gets sent back 550~ years and now he has to figure out 1 how to get to Japan from Pre-Colombian North America to help deal with the uhhh fuckin shredder situation 2 whether he even should try to change his own personal history in such a way since it was due to the direct influence of the shredder that his family was personally able to resist the krang for as long as they managed to 3 what he actually can be capable of changing without creating an unrecognizable world completely unlike his own

tmnt but they got mutated during like WW1. could be set in the 20s and have a combined Call of Cthulhu/Great Gatsby vibe tbh. i might decide to do this one later because it sounds cool as hell to me lol

kind of a body horror-focused reverse-mutation AU where the turtles in fact start out as humans and get turtled. i know this is what happens to jennika anyway but i am Envisioning It In My Mind and I would like to see it.

TMNT au partially inspired by Neil Gaiman's "Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?" where, upon having realized he has four turtle sons driven to grief-stricken despair about their places in the world, Splinter just fully invents bad guys and ninja cults (and dresses up as the shredder) just to Give Them Something To Do, it ended badly with one of the turtles dead, and the fic itself is taking place years later as the three surviving sons get together to try to make sense of their lives and figure out how to move past this.

kind of a mutagen bomb background where the event that mutated the turtles and splinter also mutated like 100,000 other people, so mutants are a fully recognized class of American citizen and it's also a lot harder to train your turtle sons to be literal ninjas when they are in fact fully expected to go to normal high school and do normal high school things. then again if you're allowed to have a passport as a rat and four turtles you can also travel to and from japan where your cousins and parents live lmao

the turtles are in their late 30s/early 40s but there's no apocalyptic wasteland or anything they've just been getting progressively weirder and weirder as the world moves on without making a space for them. mikey in particular is relating way too much to the Eve 6 guy. every time one of them moves out he ends up moving back in within a year because none of them has ever lived alone and the quiet is too much when they try.

another Dark Tower crossover, but what if Roland had 4 teenage mutant ninja turtle friends when he was a teenager. There's no way Susan Delgado dies in that timeline, there's too many child soldiers around for that to happen.

[survey--s]

671.

What is the one thing you remember most about January of last year? Not much, really. Mike was off work for most of it but otherwise it was just a pretty typical January from what I can remember.

You look at the clock and it’s 11:11, do you wish? No.

How do you think you will look 3 years from now? Probably about the same, just a bit older.

Once you graduate (if you haven’t already) are you leaving your hometown? I left my hometown for university, then went back for a few years, then left again about seven years ago.

What is your dream job? I love what I do now. I'd also love to work in a zoo but I don't have the qualifications to do anything like that and I can't afford to go back and take another degree.

What would be number one on your bucket list? Travel to all the continents.

How old do you think you’ll be when you make your will? I don't really feel the need to make a will - I'm married without children so everything will go to my husband (and vice versa), which is all our will would say anyway.

You get a text message. who do you hope it is? Nobody really.

Are there any songs that you hear that just make you wanna dance? Sure.

Do you get any of your songs from limewire? Ha, how old is this?! I kinda miss LimeWire.

What’s the oddest thing you are wearing right now? I don't think I'm wearing anything odd - just leggings, a t-shirt and a hoody.

You and your best friend get in a fight. why do you think that is? We only ever really argue about his mess.

Do you use the word “basically” a lot? I don't think so.

Do you use proper grammar or use IM talk? Proper grammar.

What is your biggest annoyance at the time? Mike has a cold and kept me awake half the night coughing and now I'm exhausted ha.

You see the person you fell hardest for. what do you do? Well, we're married so...just what I do everyday lol.

Have/are you depressed? Yes, I have a depression diagnosis though it's been pretty well controlled for the past few years now.

Did you grow up in the united states? No. I've never even been there.

Are you dreading tomorrow? Nope, I'm looking forward to it actually.

Do you call anybody ‘baby’? I call Simba "Baby Beans" lol.

If your school had a winter formal on new years, would you go? Fuck that.

Where is the fanciest place you have ever visited? I have no idea. Buckingham Palace maybe?

Who is the one person you can completely be yourself around? My husband, my parents.

Are your pop-ups blocked on your computer? Yes.

Do you know a guy that has voice cracks, but it’s cute? No.

Do you wear earrings on a normal basis? I wear them everyday. They're just part of me at this point - I don't even think about them, they're just "there".

What stereotype would people associate you with? I have no idea.

How old were you when you realized that life goes on? I mean, isn't that just something you always know?

Do you consider yourself mature? When the situation calls for it.

Are your parent’s night owls or morning birds? One of each. My dad is a lark and my mum is an owl.

Do you like to sing? I do, but I'm not very good at it.

Are there some songs that you will never understand the lyrics to? I'm sure, but none are coming to mind right now.

Do you own a lot of picture frames? I think we have about five or six.

Who is your favorite author? Neil Gaiman.

How many pillows are on your bed? I use two, and Mike has a special memory foam one that's supposed to help with his snoring. Then there's two decorative ones as well.

How is your hair right now? Damp from my shower and up in a messy bun.

Is your phone fully charged? No. The battery on it has just dropped massively recently. I'm thinking of switching to an Android when my contract is up as this is the third time this has happened on iPhone.

What’s your favorite thing about the holidays? No stressing or getting up early to work.

Are you still in school? No. I haven't been in education for 12 years now.

How many days/months until your next birthday? Three weeks.

What is your favorite type of cake? Good old fashioned Victoria Sponge with fresh cream, cheesecake (not the baked kind) or coffee and walnut cake.

How many rings do you wear on a day-to-day basis? Just two - my wedding and engagement rings.

When will you next laugh until you cry? I mean, you can't exactly plan things like that.

[robinschadel-author]

Brainstorming: The Notebook Hack

Writers, do you collect notebooks? Of course you do! Do you love looking at the pretty covers, the beautiful pages, the feel of the crisp corners as you riffle through them? Why am I asking such obvious questions? And do do you toss them in a box unused because you feel none of your ideas are "good enough" for this work of art? If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you know this trope in the writing community, and it probably has a grain of truth in your own process. But what if I promised you a hack that I've found that allows me to actually put ideas down in a notebook and use it for productive brainstorming sessions? In this blog post, I'm going to briefly talk about brainstorming and then discuss my notebook hack. It works for me, so I hope it will work for you! Brainstorming Brainstorming is a process used to generate ideas for a novel by coming up with as many ideas as possible, without judging or evaluating them. These ideas can be related to plot, characters, setting, themes, and more. The goal is to generate a large number of potential options, from which you can later select the best ideas to use in the novel. Brainstorming can be done through free-flowing discussions, written lists, mind mapping, or other methods. It is an important step in the writing process, as it helps the author to explore different possibilities and develop a solid foundation for the story. Easy enough, right? Whether a plotter or a pantser, brainstorming is a process you incorporate. And I realize it's often idiosyncratic. But I want to share this notebook hack I've found that works for me. The Notebook Hack The Notebook Hack has two parts. The first part is the aesthetic choice of the notebook, and the second is how I brainstorm with the notebook throughout the drafting and editing process. Aesthetics Matter So let's start with discussing the aesthetic choice of notebook. For the longest time, I used Moleskine notebooks for brainstorming. Why? Neil Gaiman used them. I always started strong, but then I fizzled halfway through the brainstorming process. Usually, I had maybe the main characters named and described, a few key locations for the setting, and maybe a general problem that would drive the plot. Nothing more. I wanted to keep working, but I couldn't bring myself to keep drafting. I tried nerdy themed notebooks, and even though I finally finished a novel I brainstormed in one such novel (Liam's Doom), I only used ten pages out of the two hundred in the journal. Thirty dollars wasted. My current project, a romance novel, has been brainstormed (and is still being brainstormed!) in a journal I found on Amazon for like $10. This journal has a femme Victorian aesthetic with flowers and little poem quotes on the textured brown and cream pages. It's a beautiful piece of art, and since the novel I'm writing has this feminine Victorian vibe with touches of Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter," the journal functions in a way other people describe "mood boards" functioning for them. Brainstorming Throughout the Drafting Process So, now let's talk about using the pretty journal. Don't brainstorm all at the beginning. Hey, wait a minute! Don't run away. I know we've been taught that brainstorming is the first step. And that's not wrong, but writing is both a linear and a circular process. So let's talk about how to brainstorm throughout the drafting process. In the Beginning Before I start writing, I do some of the brainstorming. What I do is figure out the following things: - The Overall Mood of the Novel - The Main Characters - Physical Description - Mental and Emotional Description - Social Relationships (Family, Friends/Allies, Rivals) and Current Situation (Needs, Wants, Fears, Goals) - The General Conflict - The Major Story Beats: What are the events that need to happen in the novel. For Example: Since I'm writing a romance novel, these include the Meet-Cute, The Denial of Love, the Adhesion that Forces the Protagonists Together, Growing and Blossoming Love, Growing Doubt and a Break Up, A Dark Night of the Heart, the Final Push for Love, and the Happily Ever After. - Scene by Scene breakdown of the First Chapter While Drafting Now, when I've started drafting, my brainstorming isn't done. I'm an overthinker, so I'm constantly thinking about things in my books. My drafting journal reflects that by becoming a combination of mood board, sketchbook (for maps and the occasional bad portrait), detailed drafts of chapters/sections when I get to them, a place to press flowers, a collection of memos, random ideas, scene ideas, and a daily journal of my writing experience. Sometimes, I even write a "To Do List" of things I need to go back and add, research, etc. I treat the brainstorming journal now as a place to collect anything connected to the book. Honestly, I've found that giving all of my book-related thoughts, no matter how tangential they are, a place on the page helps me critically evaluate them before committing them to a page in the manuscript. I've learned to treat my brainstorming as an ongoing process that occurs throughout the drafting process. Doing that, I fill the notebook and find myself with more excitement for the project and motivation to keep going. And that's invaluable. What about you? What brainstorming and writing hacks work for you that you'd like to share? And if you'd like to see the books I write using this method, you can find them here. Read the full article