Everything is broken up. And dancing

pan, cis, she/her

[flameraven]

The Betrayal of "It was All A Dream."

So not long ago I listened to an episode of Ditch Diggers* where authors @tkingfisher and Mur Lafferty were discussing "it was all a dream"/universe reset endings, and why they felt so cheap and unsatisfying / why writers are advised to avoid them. 

And their point was, these endings feel unsatisfying because they tell the reader: all that stuff you just read? those epic adventures? everything that happened to the characters? Yeah, none of that mattered, it didn't happen, none of it was real. 

But if none if it happened, why did the reader waste their time reading about it? Oh you were emotionally invested in those characters? Jokes on you for caring, because none of the growth or danger they went through mattered. It was all a dream. The universe reset. None of that happened, actually.

It feels like a betrayal. And it is a betrayal of the contract the writer makes with the reader. All the time and emotional investment you put in to the story and the world is wasted, because none of it was real. I think that’s really the core of the issue with the ending of the GO finale. S1 told a beautiful, hopeful story about a bunch of ordinary people (and an extraordinary demon and angel) standing up for what they thought was right. Trying to stop the world ending even when it seemed hopeless. They stood up against powerful, corrupt systems that seemed insurmountable, and they managed to win. The world was saved. It’s a beautiful story and one we need now, when we live in a time where corrupt systems seem more powerful and unbeatable than ever! 

And we saw a beautiful, queer, and deep relationship built between Aziraphale and Crowley through history, despite everything keeping them apart.

The writers decided to throw all that out the window. Because if the world is reset and Heaven and Hell never existed, then nothing in S1 happened. Adam's choice to defy his Destiny and Satan is meaningless, because it didn't happen. There is a new Adam Young who was always the son of Arthur and Deirdre young. Newt and Anathema, Shadwell and Tracy, all those supposed "enemies" who found a connection in the person they were told to hate, who stood up to save the world, well that didn't happen either.  Aziraphale and Crowley, who we watched build a relationship over 6000 years despite incredible danger, who stood up to save billions of people (and dolphins, and gorillas) from pointless violence… all that history is thrown out in favor of two random humans. Sure, their relationship may be cute, but those are not the blorbos we spent so much time invested in. Aziraphale and Crowley died. And so did everyone else on Earth. Even if they were replaced with close copies, they died. They didn’t get a choice in that. Neither did the 20 million angels and demons in Heaven and Hell. A story about preventing the end of the world and the injustice of a universe slated to end before its time... gave us an ending where they destroy the whole universe. And the writers have the gall to pretend this is our happy ending?

The South Downs ending feels hollow because it’s not Aziraphale and Crowley finally getting to rest after 6000 years, finally building a life together. It’s just two random humans who sort of look like them.

There are sad or bittersweet endings that can still feel satisfying if they meet the characters' needs. This ending does not do that. “Everyone dies” is not a solution to anything. It’s a tragedy. So yeah, I do not accept this ending as canon. I am ignoring S2 and S3. As far as I'm concerned the story ended with the Ritz and to the world. I will keep writing and producing art of them from that moment. Because their story did matter. To many of us. And they deserved a real ending, not a “nevermind, none of it happened.”

*fantastic podcast about the business and work of writing as a career. Highly recommend.

[vivi-theakuneko]

Fix-it ver. Don't Stop Me Now

[fellshish]

i hate that i’m not over the gomens finale yet. i want to be a much stronger person. i want to be like oh well it’s just a tv show and canon doesn’t mean anything and i am. i do. mostly. like 70% of the time. or so. idk. and then there’s a wave of grief just crashing over me again

[hey-must-be-a-devilbetween-us]

I'm so sorry you're hurting, but I'm also so relieved to not be alone, i will also think that I'm over it, that i can move on, like whatever, I'll just do it myself, we're all doing it ourselves, making our own happy ending, making this world we loved again brick by brick.

We shouldn't of had to though. We shouldn't have had to be strong. We shouldn't have to be grieving, but here we are.

[aydracz]

The movie was not supposed to happen like this. I don't care what anyone says and what anyone's intentions were. Something something about the road to hell (how ironic).

If you leave half the fandom not sad but fucking traumatised, you haven't done your job well.

[biceratops7]

You know what?

The more I think about it, the more I think fuck this “real world” decision and its bullshit explanation. The implications are awful if you think about it for longer than a couple hours and it borders on character assassination.

Nevermind the fact that Crowley chose to erase himself and Aziraphale from existence, which has been talked about to death as unfair and unnecessary, it isn’t even the just thing to do. This wasn’t a noble sacrifice for the good of humanity, it was a defeatist act by someone who had lost all hope and is just finally too tired for the messy work of making things better. Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t the ones who wiped the slate clean, sure, but they were explicitly given the offer to put it all back. They chose not to, and to me that complacency matters.

It was them who pointed out that tossing life away, whether it be one person or the whole world, to create some spiffy, new and improved thing is cruel. It doesn’t matter that the humans set to die in God’s flood turned out “wrong”. They’re here anyway and deserve to keep living and making mistakes. Nevermind the Heaven-approved children Job will be rewarded with, what about his children now? Are they so worthless as to be interchangeable?

Heaven and Hell don’t understand humanity because they don’t see billions of individuals, they see the singular, conceptual entity of human-kind meant to serve its purpose in the great plan. Aziraphale and Crowley saw Anathema, Adam, Madam Tracy, Shadwell, Nina, Maggie, Mrs. Sandwich, etc. God makes it clear this new world would be a reset, and they still go through with it without a passing thought for the loss of those people.

The beings sent to mould the faceless conglomerate of humanity to their respective ends, who instead behaved as part of the whole, in the end fulfilled that purpose.

[crowleysgirl56]

TW: Neil Gaiman

So here’s an unfortunate reminder of the past. I’ve cut a screen grab of it rather than reblogging, because fuck that guy he doesn’t get another reblog out of me. I’ve also cut out the original questioner because I don’t think it’s fair to unnecessarily expose them even if the post is public.

I used to get so many notifications on people liking this reblog. Then when the allegations came out (which if I remember correctly was only days later) they thankfully trickled away. I got another one just now and it reminded me when I heard Aziraphale say pedometer in the finale it frankly felt like such a gut punch. Which is a shame considering it was during in what was, in my opinion, one of the best scenes in the finale.

It’s proof that what we got truly was all NG’s work and not something that was re-written as so many had assumed. The fact that this moment was also something preserved out of everything that had been cut, a thing specifically mentioned by NG and probably one of the last snippets we got before he was cancelled and thrust from this platform, is yet again another telling sign of how much the two other writers probably upheld his story and vision.

It has been sitting uneasy on my chest for over a fortnight now. I have more to say but will do so in another post.

[emptypatrycja]

To be honest, what hurts me the most is seeing something like “In every lifetime and in every universe". It just reminds me that they stripped away everything I found meaningful and beautiful about their love.

Yup, apparently I’m still not done being sad and angry about it.

[I’m not saying it’s wrong to like the soulmate trope. Of course it’s okay if you do. I just personally find it hollow.]

[bodiesinthelake]

"somebody killed my best friend. bastards! all of you!" to "no us. ever again" is CRAAZY. Crowley would never let Aziraphale die much less be the reason for it. I dont know who that pessimistic suicidal demon is in s3 but that is not my Crowley

[brokenanddancing]

My Crowley saunters into Hell and lies through his teeth to Prince Belzebub and the rest of management with a shit-eating grin, all for a chance to keep the world existing.

[enki2]

[aduckwithears]

Oddly, I feel happier and more at peace right now than I did in the same time frame after s2 dropped. It’s not that the ending as shown was (imo) happy, and it’s not that I liked the bittersweet angle. It’s that the whole thing strayed so far from what good omens meant and means to me that I can simply disregard it and go back to my happy place (book/s1).

[rofell]

We are living in a timeline where the GO finale involved Aziraphale and Crowley never properly making up, spending a grumpy day together, and then dying.

I need to keep reminding myself of that. Because this outcome was so unimaginable to me. In the 990 days I spent waiting for the finale I never once considered this possibility.

This is the ending that we got. I'm getting closer to accepting it, but I'm not quite there. That's why I'm making this post - not to rile up the fandom that I know is divided. I love the positive takes too, keep em comin'. I just... need a little more time to accept that this is what we got.

I think on the other side of it I will be able to say: Yes, that was a show I loved. Didn't love the ending. But that's true for lots of shows. You've just gotta exist in the moments before that end and in all the art that comes after.

[brokenanddancing]

I was so naive, i thought him stepping down from production meant he wasn't getting any more money

[sapierror]

also, I really don't know how to phrase this but to me the finale misses the joke, you know?

it forgets that the christian cosmology was the setting, told through corporate satire, not the villain. even God wasn’t an active tyrant; she was an absent CEO, leaving individual contributors like Aziraphale and Crowley to realize their job descriptions were irrelevant to the company's bottom line anyway, so they coasted by on minimum effort

that corporate satire was what allowed this to be a comedy, a space to tell a beautiful story about choices, humanity, and love. the finale for some reason treats that background seriously, it turns that setting into an omnipotent, dystopian threat, which completely suffocates both the romance and the humor by replacing a petty system you can outwit, outsmart, outmanouver with a bleak, unearned nightmare where "the company controls your every breath, and you can never clock out"

[brokenanddancing]

From what I've read, the book was making fun of the Cold War, but considering the various mentions of "Head Office" I can see the show as being more of a corporate satire

[heyitzfaye]

Again with another Good omens sketch bcz I miss them already:<<

This time Aziracrow human au !👀

[tawnyontumblr]

The softness! The records on the wall. This is lovely 😍

[fellshish]

fic link

[shoomlah]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

[shoomlah]

...And a reblog with a couple detail shots, as a treat. 🖤

[sapierror]

call it a hot take from a jaded fandom old, but I genuinely believe we need to bring back fandom-author secularism. the current lack of it is harmful to good storytelling. a piece of media must be judged by what is and what was put on the screen, not by the result of the effort the audience has to put in to patch up a broken narrative contract. somewhere along the line, we developed this bizzare expectation that the audience has to value a creator's (perceived) intent over the execution, as if a showrunner tweeting 'but it's poignant!' makes it true regardless of the actual content written and produced. a creator's social media feed is not an appendix to the script. I don't and I should have to care about what was said in interviews, at conventions, in tweets, etc. tell me the story, tell me what you want to tell me in the story and our relationship has fulfilled it's purpose.

to me, it's a fundamental rule of craftsmanship: if I am forced to do the heavy lifting in my own mind just to make the story work, the text has failed to earn it's keep. I can cherish a broken story , but it remains objectively broken nonetheless

this is about the good omens finale, yes, but also about many other things.

[alphacentaurinebula]

I agree with this so strongly. The text is the text. If a creator fails to put something in the text that they meant to, or if it is not interpreted the way they wanted it to be - that is not something they can fix with commentary.

I also think we need to stop putting creators up on pedestals. Obviously we’ve seen what happens when they don’t deserve/horrifically abuse that pedestal, but it goes beyond potential for abuse. No good comes of deifying creators, even kind and wonderful geniuses. Regardless of how brilliant their creators are, creations still have to stand alone. Having a brilliant creator should not prevent a work from being judged on its own merits.

[thepartysatmels]

I think the saddest moment is the crack you hear in someone’s voice when they are talking about something very upsetting but trying to be strong. Courage is underrated.