deanplease

The Mission Statement of Humanitas is:

Humanitas honors and explores film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way.

Please submit GO S2 for consideration. GO in all its forms asks the hard questions of what it means to be a human being. It explores, in a meaningful and engaging way, human beings making their choices in how to move through this world and their lives.

GO S2 DESERVES consideration. As you know, Writer’s can self submit. Deadline for submission is April 1, 2024.

LIVE DANGEROUSLY- Please submit GO S2 for the 2023 Humanitas Prize.

First of all, I love your work. I loved Coraline when I was a kid, and now I also love Good Omens and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. My question to you is: How do you feel about people hating your work or the characters you created? If they affect you in any way, how do you deal with it?

I'm asking this question because I've seen people hating on the ending of Good Omens S2. Nowadays, I also see fans who are hating on those hating/criticising the show. A friend of mine thinks that this is because hating a writer's creation can be an insult to the writer.

However, my own opinion of people hating my work is that they are free to have their opinion and that I don't really care. They can create their own things if they like. But I'm also aware that I am not a writer nor an artist, only an engineer. Perhaps when you're creating art, it becomes more personal, and you will have a different point of view.

Lastly, thank you for your work, and I hope that you will continue creating :)

I haven't seen a lot of hating on the end of Season 2. I've seen a lot of people feeling strongly about it, and having big emotions, and wishing it hadn't happened, but not much hate.

Hang on, I'll go and look at some Amazon 1 star reviews of Season 1.

Okay. I read a few. Screenshot follows. Skip it if you don't like transphobia or ableism.

Definitely some haters over there. But not anything I'm going to worry about. I made the show I set out to make. I don't think it's one they would have liked under any circumstances.

Probably some of the haters would enjoy Season 3 and some of them won't be back.

But the overall review shape is rather lovely:

Can you give us false hope on a happy ending for season 3. Please I’m begging you.

Absolutely.

I've had a discussion about Good Omens today, with a friend of mine. They say that Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship became what it is in S2 because of the love from all the fans, and it wasn't really intended to be that in the beginning (when you and Terry wrote the book, and also at the time of the first season). Now, I may be wrong, but I do recall you saying this was always the intended development to the relationship, is that true?

Did the love from the fans, as well as the meaning Aziraphale and Crowley undoubtedly hold for the queer community play a hand in what we've been shown in season 2?

I'm sorry if this is redundant, or repetitive, or if it's been asked a thousand times (it probably has). Thank you for your patience, and for writing such good stories.

Did your friend actually watch Season 1? We're in the same story we were in then. It hasn't changed. It's still heading to the same place that we were going in Season 1 -- the same place it's been heading since Terry and I decided how it ended, back in 2006.

Once we knew that we were going to be filming in Scotland the idea of making a story set in Edinburgh seemed like an excellent idea: we were right there, after all. Cat Clarke had an idea for a story set in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, but it didn't really work for us, and we decided that the time of the Bodysnatchers might be a good way of exploring the moral questions involved in what was happening back then, which was really fun.

The many Scottish accents was my idea shortly before filming.

The thing is that to my bones, I had this certainty that it would never happen. I've watched/read queer love stories, ones that ended happily and ones that didn't, ones as side plots and ones that are the plot--but if I ever encountered one with actual uncertainty, with the double-meanings and the overemotional turmoil, I thought, "Oh, that's how it's going to be," and I resigned myself to wait for the writers or the actors to say they're TOTALLY together, we just didn't need to be obvious about it. And Good Omens isn't, in the trailers, wholly about a romance. Of course it is, but there's some plot squished in amongst all the romance, so I thought it would be one of those uncertainty-stories, where I'd know and you'd know they love each other but we didn't need to make a big deal about it. I didn't think they'd say it. I certainly didn't think they'd kiss. I watched Crowley stalk up to Aziraphale and grab him by the coat and I still thought, "Nah. Not gonna happen."

The only writers who had ever represented people like me in relationships like mine with any authenticity, who gave value to the drama and the camp, were romance writers. If it wasn't in the romance section, I was resigned to being a side note or a shoo-in, a love INTEREST instead of a love STORY. And I didn't realize how earth-shattering it would be to be, for lack of any suitable word, Jane-Austened like that. Can't speak for all queer people, but I just wanted to thank you for giving that to me and my partner--who still, for the record, cannot do much more than giggle like madmen at gif-sets and plot how to get our other friends to watch it too.

It takes two half miracles to hide an Archangel, but three to do a foreword (and surprise bonus afterword): thanks to you all smashing the £2m stretch goal on the Good Omens graphic novel Kickstarter, we're delighted to add the ineffable *trio* of Michael Sheen, David Tennant & Jon Hamm.