LE PEN EST MORT!!!

My latest Guardian Books cartoon.

☕☕☕☕☕☕

I hadn't played Disco Elysium when I first read this so re-reading it now feels like bonus content.

Discworld Elysium Masterpost

Since I can't edit polls to retroactively link parts together, here's a masterpost of them all, updated as it happens.

Vote to solve a thrilling mystery of assassination and intrigue, or at least to eventually discover if the body in front of you is actually dead or not, that bit has been taking us a while.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8

part 8.5 alternate universe pain edition

PART 9 active pol

Fresh memes, getcher fresh memes! Nice and hot!

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

Best thing I've seen in a while

Discworld Elysium Masterpost

Since I can't edit polls to retroactively link parts together, here's a masterpost of them all, updated while it happens.

Vote to solve a thrilling mystery of assassination and intrigue, or at least to eventually discover if the body in front of you is actually dead or not, that bit has been taking us a while.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5 - active poll

Obsessed with the first season of Malevolent, still. They literally share a single brain cell. They’re both the same flavor of narcissistic, except one is a fragment of an eternal eldritch god and the other is Just A Guy. One is a monster (kind of) and the other is like, the opposite of a monsterfucker, he thinks he can Fix Him. Neither of them have ever been this vulnerable before and their solution is to just pretend it’s not happening. They would kill for each other. They will die for each other. They make terrible decisions and blame each other for the consequences. They imprint their own personality traits on each other like hickeys. They want each other out of their lives this very instant. They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves alone. If they both had mouths they would definitely have kissed AND bitten each other days ago. They have only known each other for a week.

The thing is, The Magnus Archives have rewritten my brain and are now associated with every tape recorder I even think about. And then of course there's the Horrors.

Imagining Sandalphon's reaction to any of the events in season 2 is hilarious.

We know Beelzebub's recasting will be addressed in S2, will Sandalphon's absence also be addressed?

Nope. He was off on a secret mission during the events of Season 2 and it was so secret nobody talks about it.

(I was really sad when Paul Chahidi was unavailable, but Liz Carr is so good and now I'm happy I have more Angels if there is ever a Season 3. )

I was right

I am not trying to ruffle any feathers, but I have to say this before Season 2 comes out, so I can act smug when I’m right. Here is my number one prediction for Good Omens Season 2:

There won’t be a voice-over.

Now hang on. I know it’s a controversial opinion. Let me explain.

I have noticed that virtually every adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s books has some sort of voice over, either diagetic (like Going Postal, where it’s part of the framing device) or non-diagetic (Hogfather). And I get it ! If you’ve read any of the Discworld book and have this weird brain quirk where a part of you is always thinking about how this would translate on screen, you’ve probably noticed two things:

1. There’s visual humour in text form. How ? This man was a genius and a will be missed forever.

2. There’s so much that just can’t be translated on a purely visual level. The footnotes! Should we just leave the footnotes out ? They’re so great! They add so much to the world in general. There are running jokes that only appear in the footnotes ! Should we just accept that it won’t make it to screen ?

Yes. I’m sorry, but yes. Some things will be lost. Maybe you can integrate one of these jokes as recurring background events ? A lot of people are not going to notice though. There’s an expectation that the reader will read all of the words, while the viewer may not see all that’s happening on screen (although, to be fair, you will be noticing new puns on every re-read for years in the case of the Discworld).

(In comparison, adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s work are less prone to voice over. If I remember correctly, Coraline didn’t have one. Sandman starts with a bit of voice-over from the main character, but nothing more after that. I don’t remember any in American Gods. MirrorMask has left me nothing but the memory of a fever dream, so I can’t be sure. )

This is not to say that the voice-over in season one was pointless. It establishes the tone, to start with. If you remember, the opening narration is about the age of the Earth, in which we learn that it was created on the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., and therefore learn its star sign. It’s a good way to show that yes, there are angels in this, and demons, and the garden of Eden, and if you want to think too hard about this, they’ve got you covered. But if you think that these depictions are either blasphemous or religious propaganda, it might be a good time to learn to take a step back (and a joke, in my personal opinion).

But there are definitely instances of narration that would never have happened if season 1 wasn’t a book adaptation. I am thoroughly convinced that Dog’s experimentation with chasing and being chased by cats would have been screen only. Maybe a scene. Maybe something happening in he background. Who knows.

And here’s the thing. Season 2 isn’t the adaptation of a novel. I remember a tweet by Neil Gaiman about how he and Pratchett had a sequel plotted out, but even that isn’t season 2. According to the same, tweet, Season 2 is how we get there.

My number 2 prediction is that there will be a an intense heist scene during which Sadie and Dottie both try to steal some incriminating letters unbeknownst to each other.