the view from the cusp of the good omens renaissance and a spot of asexuality on the horizon?

[cimorene]

We enjoyed the Good Omens miniseries (in spite of some difficulty in stopping thinking about maybe buying this house we want in order to think about it) and I thought it was really very good, although I spotted some flaws I want to enumerate later, and I do understand some of the reasons people might be justifiably dissatisfied with it as an adaptation (although, that said, I've also seen a few complaints that are still baffling to me).

I want to reread the book before I make an actual review and reaction post though, in order to do so in more detail. I used to have the book nearly memorized, as around 15 years ago now between 2004-2006(ish?) I was very active reading and participating in the lj-based fandom (and once remixing, which definitely contributed to the nearly memorizing bit, because of all the rereading and note-taking I had to do). But now I haven't read it in years, so the details have gone a bit fuzzy.

I'm already enjoying the discussions and meta, and have been especially thinking about the fact mentioned by brownbetty here that this canon presents an unusually and uniquely explicit case of a canon romantic relationship that is also canonically asexual (although as she also points out, not exactly in the sense of asexual humans). The reasons for stories like Crowley and Aziraphale's to be rendered in erotica in fanfiction are obvious, of course, but it's still a bit surprising that I've encountered so few serious attempts at a full-fledged and explicitly asexual romance in this fandom (particularly compared to other fandoms which have seen more ace exploration in spite of the ace element being mostly speculative). I'm also a bit bemused that that discrepancy didn't strike me more strongly fifteen years ago when I spent so much time in the fandom, but this is probably simply due to the increased visibility of asexuality and a great many more ace fics out there in the rest of fandom.

Still, this question is interesting to me, and we're seeing so much new fanfic already (already before the show even came out, if you want to get really specific - my one Good Omens fic was already getting a higher rate of notes a year ago or more and they've been increasing steadily since) that I think there's good reason to hope we'll see it explored more in the near future.

Comments

[hebethen]

I wonder if it's because it's an older fandom and people are kind of carrying those habits forward? I've seen a lot of pleased nostalgia and less of completely new fans -- but then again social circles are self-selected and biased!

I thought the kids' side of things felt... less than it could have been, but I can't put my finger on exactly why. Definitely enjoyed the expansion of the immortals' backstory, though.

[cimorene]

Hm, yeah, I'd be surprised if I knew anybody personally who was unfamiliar with it! But it's obvious on AO3 so far that some complete neophytes are being drawn in as well.

They put less screentime, comparatively, into the Adam plot thread of the story, or at least it felt like it, I agree (although it didn't really bother me). I wonder if this was due to having more stuff to say about Crowley and Aziraphale, or concerns about child actors and so on, or something else, perhaps. In this area, as well as many others, they would run up against the fact that a great deal of what's going on as well as what's great about the book is contained in the narration. Not just because it's so funny and the jokes can't all be put into dialogue, although that's true, but also simply because it's an omniscient narrator whose commentary is both inside and outside points of view, and they quite rightly felt they needed to be sparing with how much voiceover narration they included (and they did leave in quite a lot).

[hebethen]

Yeah, for sure, there was a lot of voiceover. I was very on the fence about that at the start but mellowed out a bit on it as it went on. This is a hard book to adapt to screen!