From the Neil Gaiman: Dream Dangerously 🥺❤ (you can watch it here in US or with US vpn :) <3) (or just this bit on youtube here :))
Neil Gaiman: I miss him most when I get stuck. You know, I'll just be
working on something and I'll go, "Oh, this isn't quite it," and all I want to do is just call Terry, tell him what's going on and have him say, "Ah, grasshopper, the answer is there in the question." And I'd go, "Oh, for fuck's sake, Terry, just tell me."
J. K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman are such a funny contrast to me, like
Rowling: Oh, and by the way, I put gay characters in my books.
People: Is there anything... showing that?
Rowling: No. Also trans women don't deserve respect
People: wtf
Gaiman: Here are some immortals that transcend all human concepts of gender and attraction who use a variety of pronouns, and also some clearly canon human queers.
People: Are the immortals queer?
Gaiman: That is an entirely valid way to view them.
Other people: Ugh, pushing a modern woke agenda. It used to be-
Gaiman: Fuck you
Sir Terry Pratchett: on writing Good Omens with Neil Gaiman
I love the whole interview but this little snippet most of all:
Terry: “You can usually bet, and I’m sure Neil Gaiman would say the same thing, that, uh, if I go into a bookstore to do a signing and someone presents me with three books, the chances are that one of them is going to be a very battered copy of Good Omens; and it will smell as if it’s been dropped in parsnip soup or something in and it’s gone fluffy and crinkly around the edges and they’ll admit that it’s the fourth copy they’ve bought”.
what baffles me is that crowley is actually good for aziraphale. not in the sense that the good actions he does are done for aziraphale, but in the sense that crowley teaches aziraphale to be good to himself
in s2ep4 when aziraphale is looking for a magic trick to do, he first says that he can't go to the magic shop because he's not a professional conjuror. crowley disagrees, convincing him that he's a professional as he is "about to perform on the West End Stage"
afterwards when the shopkeeper calls aziraphale a "talented amateur", it's aziraphale himself who makes a point in proving that he's no such thing as he's "booked to appear in the West End"
and then when they're backstage talking to furfur aziraphale clearly calls himself a "working professional magician". over a few hours, crowley makes aziraphale confident in his own identity
not only does crowley love aziraphale (in whatever way he expresses it) but he literally makes him better. crowley, who believes he is incapable of doing good, manages to make an actual angel, better
I am convinced that Good Omens is just the first version of those old demon x angel gacha life videos. Like, did Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett go into the future, watch one of those videos, go back into the 90's and think "This would make a great book"?
From the Neil Gaiman: Dream Dangerously :) (you can watch here in US or with US vpn :) <3) (or just this bit on youtube here :))
Terry Pratchett: Neil once said, 'Your fans all look jolly. And my fans all look as if they're about to commit suicide. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get them to marry?'
“I love the idea of what Crowley's idea of Aziraphale is. His idea is a lot more heroic and standing-up to everybody than Aziraphale's idea of Aziraphale.”
“Just as Aziraphale's idea of Crowley is somebody who can be flippant and insouciant when faced with the monsters of Hell”.
“They're probably each rather better at dealing with things than the other one is, but that's what they think the other one is probably like, and I love that”.