Queer, autistic, and I love One Piece and Stranger Things. I also very much enjoy most things David Tennent is in and sanders sides. I talk about one piece and post links to my one piece fics on my side blog @outofpocketonepiecethoughts
I've been spending a week telling myself that the ending of Good Omens S3 didn't affect me because the only canon boys for me are the ones in the book, but...
that's probably untrue because I also seem to have written a whole fanfic just to retcon it.
I don't consider this a fix-it fic, it's more of a I DARE YOU TO PROVE THIS DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN fic.
So here you go, spoilers under the cut:
And Everything Else
It was dark. Aziraphale had the unpleasant sensation of a million trillion atoms buzzing back into place. He could see nothing past his… nose? He thought there was a nose. Which was odd in itself; that wasn’t supposed to be.
“Crowley?” He ventured.
The sardonic groan that answered him from the void was reassuring.
“I say, Crowley! I thought we were dead!”
Somewhere below his left ear, Crowley wheezed. “Not dead, discorporated. Though I’m starting to wish it, got a whopping great headache.”
“But - why? How?”
“S’wot bloody happens when reality explodes, I should think.”
“No no, how are we still here? I distinctly remember nobly extinguishing ourselves from existence in a rather stirring act of self-sacrifice. You were there too, don’t you remember? Demands were made of the divine, the nature of reality was debated, certain feelings were disclosed…”
The angel stopped short, a sudden swoosh through the darkness seeming to indicate that his newly re-formed wings had shot up.
“Crowley!” he gasped. “Do- do you suppose that’s what saved us? Is our bond stronger even than the dissolution of time and space?”
Aziraphale couldn’t see his rangy companion but he could just feel the ironical arch of those brows.
“That’s one theory” came the languid reply. “Or could be… I dunno, could be that both our names are still written in the Book of Life.”
Something about his tone said he was suppressing a self-satisfied grin. Aziraphale swiveled toward him.
“Whatever do you mean? There’s no interference of the divine, remember? The new universe doesn’t have a Book of Life.”
“Right, but this universe does.” The demon flexed a wing experimentally. “This universe sticks around so long as the book does. We wrote a new one, if you’ll recall. And what do you suppose it says?”
Aziraphale strained to remember, and found his lips moving over the words like a half-forgotten rhyme. “There were four of them in that bookshop, which was the whole world…” he whispered.
“Exactly. Four beings… including yourself. Including yours truly. Still listed, still very much existing.”
Aziraphale tried to concentrate. He could feel the last of his molecules reassembling, and it made his fingers tingly. “But God said-”
“She said we can’t exist in the new universe. Didn’t say anything about the old one then, did she?”
“But- but Crowley!” cried the angel, wringing his hands, “Then what was the point? You said you wanted a new earth! A new start, without the meddling of the divine! You said a world without free will isn’t worth living in.”
“I did, and it isn’t. Think, Angel. Four of them in that bookshop. Where are the other two? The prime meddlers, if you will."
Aziraphale paused and blinked about into the void.
“Why yes - the devil and the lord herself, what’s become of them?
“It seems,” Crowley droned, sounding very much pleased with himself, “that when we requested an impromptu celestial reset they both jumped at the chance. Became rather occupied mucking about in an alternate universe where they don’t nominally exist, or some such. Probably a confounding affair with vague doppelgängers and the likes, if I know them.
Aziraphale started. “They left, just like that? To go exist in another universe?”
“To go not exist in another universe. But they’ll never not be entirely. S’long as there’s good, long as there’s evil. You wrote it yourself, God was here the whole time. Bit of a paradox but it’ll do in a pinch.”
“So” began Aziraphale, slowly, “if they’re off being nonexistent in another universe…”
“Then they’re not interfering in this one, just so happens” finished Crowley. His eyes twinkled, Aziraphale knew they did.
“Crowley!” he cried, somewhere between scandalized and impressed. “You mean to tell me this whole time- that it was all a ruse to get heaven and hell to finally leave the world alone?”
“What,” said the demon, “did you really think I was just going to throw away 8 billion people? Ninety trillion perfectly good star systems? And after all the trouble we went through trying to save them the first time.” He sniffed. “Ruddy waste if you ask me.”
“Why Crowley, you dear thing! I…. I don’t know what to say! You’ve saved the day! You’re a miracle!”
“Alright, alright,” he grimaced. “Don’t rub it in.”
“Don’t be modest, dear boy! Why, you’ve saved the entire universe!”
“We did, Angel,” he muttered. “Us.”
Aziraphale placed a hand on what he thought must be Crowley’s shoulder and squeezed it fondly.
“Though…” said Crowley, thoughtful, his tone sharpening abruptly, “I suppose I don’t have to tell you any of this.”
Aziraphale straightened. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Just that you jumped onboard with my throw-out-the-universe-and-die pitch awfully fast. You really mean to tell me you didn’t want to save the world just as much as I did? Have a little go at subverting divine will?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Crowley’s voice was closer to his ear now. “Awfully convenient, wasn’t it, your happening to write our names down in the Book of Life like that. Without knowing it would save us.”
The Angel pursed his lips. “I… may have had an inkling.”
Crowley threw up his hands. “Of course you bloody knew! So why the charade? Do you get off on listening to me re-explain it all?”
“Oh, but Crowley!” the angel huffed, flustered. “It’s just, you do so love saving me.”
“I want you to know that I’m rolling my eyes, Angel,” said Crowley, “even if you can’t see it.” But he did not sound displeased.
Aziraphale brightened. “Well, to business then! The universe, you know - it’s rather… missing at the moment. How are we supposed to get it back?”
He felt Crowley shrug. “Rewrite the book, I suppose. I think there’s still a pen in my - yes, seems I’ve got my pockets back.”
“Re-write the entire universe! That will take ages! Eons!”
“You have somewhere else to be?”
The angel looked about into the vacancy. “Nowhere at all, it seems. I’ve nothing but time. Or lack thereof, I’m not sure time exists yet. Well then… how shall we write the world? Put back everything just as it was?”
“What, you want to put everything back? Including Gabriel?”
“Now Crowley…”
“Ooh and let’s leave out slugs. Never could stand them, all squiggly-like. Maybe we start with ‘No Gabriel, no slugs.’”
“Gabriel stays. And I don’t know, I rather liked slugs. All the overlooked things. They were… important.”
“Fine” drawled Crowley. “Have it your way. Here, I’ll start it off.”
“But what will you write?”
“I dunno, does it matter? Best of times, worst of times. Dark and stormy night. Call me Crowley. Take your pick.”
“Mind your penmanship!”
“I can’t bloody well see, now can I?"
“Wait! I’ve a good opening." Aziraphale groped about until he located something distinctly pen-like and something distinctly book-like. And he said the words as he wrote “Let… there… be - light.”
There was, and it was good. But also rather far away. The faint glow seemed a small question on a non-existent horizon.
It was enough for them to make out the gray outline of pages, though. Crowley contemplated their lines of script for a moment, then plucked back the pen back and hurriedly scrawled “And everything else.” He handed it off to the angel for approval, looking doggedly pleased.
Aziraphale pulled at a curl. “Perhaps a bit vague?”
“Sure, but it’ll save us buckets of time. 'Everything else' ‘bout covers it all. Humanity, polar bears, airplanes, Queen albums.” Crowley shuffled. “…Love. All that rot.”
They stood side by side in the yawning gray. Aziraphale suddenly found himself unsure what to say. So they gazed into the elongating dim, and they waited. The light was growing stronger, minuscule but steady. Somewhere far away and faint, Aziraphale thought he could hear the call of birds.
“Everything else. It’s coming closer,” said Crowley.
“I expect it is.”
“Taking it’s time, isn’t it?”
“Patience, now. The universe wasn’t built in a day.”
“Seven, if I recall.”
The light continued to grow, as did a great far-off din of jungle noises and the muddled song of rushing rivers.
Crowley bounced on his heels.
Aziraphale hesitated. “Crowley. Was it… all an act?”
“Hrm.”
“You know. The part where you looked at me like that, was it real? Just before we discorporated. Like you weren’t sure if the universe really would end, or if everything would work out, but that it somehow didn’t matter just then. Because the way you were looking at me, it was as if I was the whole universe.”
Crowley had assumed the demeanor of a deflated beach ball. “Are you really going to make me say it?” he murmered. “Last time I tried to tell you it didn’t work out so well.”
Aziraphale felt suddenly small. “Tell me what?”
The demon studied his feet. “Oh, that I love the world, but… s’not much good to me if you’re not in it.” He looked up at Aziraphale then, helpless, and it was a question.
It was almost here now, the Everything. The steady swell of light, the din of waters and winds and animals; a cacophony of life, surging towards them.
In the growing bright Aziraphale could finally make out the bedraggled figure next to him clearly. Crowley looked like he had been through every ring of hell and back and tripped down every escalator of heaven to boot. All for his sake.
The angel faltered. “Oh, Crowley. I’m sorry, dear fellow. So sorry for leaving you. I never should have gone. Only, I wanted so badly to put things right for the world but I ended up making a terrible muddle of things instead. You must know I never wanted to go - that it was all for you, because of you. That of all the things I love in the world, I love you most of all. Oh, what dreadful ideas I get sometimes, running off and leaving you with no one but house plants and gangsters for company! Why if only I had stopped to think-”
Crowley's gaze softened as he looked at the babbling angel, adoring. The universe was closer now, so close, and the sheen of a thousand expanding nebulas reflected in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Crowley,” Aziraphale stammered on, “terribly sorry.”
It was with infinite fondness and not even a hint of irony when Crowley touched his face and murmured back “I forgive you.”
The Everything rushed upon them then. And when they kissed it was with the brilliance of every star and a symphony of madly whirling planets and the chaos of a trillion galaxies exploding into being. There was a giddy leap of waves, and the great sigh of leaves in summer and friends calling out to one another and the tiny shuffling of every insect; a great burst of sunflowers and love songs and feel of their hands as they touched and the dizzy corkscrew of time itself. Reality brimmed over with with nightingales and orangoutangs and libraries and mugs of tea and the great contented shiver of all the things that ever were or would be as they clinked back into place.
It was awfully good, Aziraphale thought, as they held onto each other. There was so much light. And everything else.
Ryland Grace is not a coward, he’s just a normal guy. An I think that he actually still might have said yes if he’d had the time and space to think about it tbh.
Like how much time did the other applicants have before they even put in their applications? How many discussions and hours and days and weeks did they have to make the decision to even apply? How much more time did they have before they signed the contract and made it irrevocable?
Grace had three hours. Three hours and the illusion of choice. Of coirse he said no! I would like to think that I would be willing to die for earth if backed into that corner, but I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to do it in three hours.
Also, this was such a long shot. The odds that it would work were so infinitesimal even if all went to plan. They were “asking” him to die for a long shot when he already didn’t think he was capable of. He didn’t think he could do it. His self-esteem was not the best.
Also, collectivism was not really his thing. He had people that he cared about, but they would all be either old or dead (his friends) or middle-aged (his students). The Hail Mary, even if successful, was not going to make a meaningful difference in most of the lifespan for any of the people he cared about. His students would either survive against the odds or they’d die of cold or hunger or starvation or sickness whether he succeeded or not.
They were asking him to die, in three hours, for the tiny chance of a better future for people he didn’t know. Everyone he did know would either survive or die without his input in the time it took for him to get there and the beetles to get back. He didn’t believe he could even do what they were asking him to do. They were asking him to die with no time to think or to choose, for the idea of a future for people he didn’t know, for a tiny chance of doing something that he didn’t even think he was capable of in any event.
Of course he said no! But if he had the time and space and a better reason, we know he would have said yes, because he did for Rocky.
I've said so on bsky about this, but it's worth saying here:
Scammers will use pressure, panic, over-payment, and rigidity* to try and get their scam to work.
A REAL honest to goodness client will work with you, show at least some modicum of patience, and be flexible. So if you are provided a link or file you don't absolutely trust, you can ask for a different file type, or request the reference via a different method.
*What I mean by rigidity is that they'll INSIST they cannot use a different payment method. they'll INSIST they only have that one reference. They'll INSIST to overpay you. They'll be very rigid in what they want you to follow because they need you to do things a certain way for the scam to work.
Alright... here's my unsolicited opinion of the good omens finale.
I personally didn't dislike it, but I'm trying to weigh good points and themes against what I didn't like and, in general, the direction the story took... and the more I do it the more I find myself thinking that the project, and consequently us (as a fandom), all went overboard.
Let me explain.
It's alright to be bitter and we absolutely need time to wrap our heads around it, but I think it would also be quite alright to consider that technically, none of this, not even season 2, is canon. Only season 1 was.
I think with the creation, or rather renewal of the fandom once season 1 was finished, the authors of the show - mainly Gaiman, I'd say - decided to capitalize on our enthusiasm. There wasn't even going to be a second season, but he changed his mind at one point. Then he started saying how s2 was a bridge between the 1st and the 3rd.
While glad to see David and Michael on screen again, I remember feeling doubtful during my view of s2. It wasn't just the "bridge thing" - it felt like fanfiction of the original thing. Not in a negative way, of course, but the feeling was there. This ending felt like a continuation of that.
And they both don't feel like they should necessarily be tied to season one or the book. That ending, yes, it was pretty open, but it felt so good. There was love for humanity, and all the time in the world for our beloved protagonists. The first day of the rest of their lives.
This one, on the other end, pushes the love for humanity and free will to the extreme. And there was no more time. Yes, they found each other again, yes, there were nightingales... but it's not the same.
I do think fix-it-fics will be a good way to cope, but I also think that maybe, just maybe, all this could have just stopped in 2019. Maybe re-reading the original book or rewatching season 1 could work as a palette cleanser of sorts.
This is just my opinion, of course, and I'll be glad to hear what others have to say, if anyone wishes to do so.
The more I think about it, the more I believe the divide in the Good Omens fandom right now is a philosophical one.
We’re asking, where does the soul live?
For those who think that who we are is shaped by a life time of experiences. That we grow and change with each each heartbreak and trauma. We see the ending as something horrible. We’re witnessing the death of our beloved characters and we are grieving for them.
For those who believe in a soul, who believe that Asa and Anthony are Aziraphale and Crowley because of the something intrinsic that lives inside them, what they’re seeing is a rebirth and a second chance. In that sense the ending is beautiful. They both get exactly what they’ve always wanted. To live as humans without the pressure of heaven and hell. In that sense, the ending is a joyous one.
Sadly these beliefs are deeply held, often the roots begin as far back as our childhoods. No amount of screaming at each other about media analysis is going to change anyone’s mind. Please just accept that there are multiple ways that one can view the ending and that those who are upset are experiencing grief. This is an extremely normal and valid reaction to end of something so meaningful and should be treated with care.
That said, your grief is not an excuse to lash out and those who don’t deserve it.
mad again. crowley's whole point is that humanity doesn't deserve to suffer for the crimes committed by heaven and hell, so his solution is to create a new universe without angels or demons. sacrificing themselves for humanity, sure, I get it. but what about all the humans who were wiped out with the book of life? god gave them the option of returning all those humans, and instead his solution is to start all over a la the great flood, something crowley was staunchly opposed to. so not only is there no happy ending for crowley and aziraphale, but there's no happy ending for recently corporeal jesus, or mrs sandwich, mr arnold, nina and maggie, adam and the them, newt and anathema. it's job's kids all over again. they didn't want the new children the angels offered them, job and sitis wanted their children back. it's the same choice they gave adam. he wanted things to go back to normal with heaven and hell behaving themselves so he could play with his friends. how could crowley and aziraphale be happy sacrificing their existence knowing it condemns all of the humanity they know and love?
The destruction of the entire universe and every soul in it is a truly depressing ending. Just because God replaced it with another universe that looked similar doesn't change anything - this is Job and his children all over again. Job doesn't want new children, and neither do I.
Jesus should have appeared when Aziraphale summoned God with the New Book of Life.
He's God, isn't he? Part of the "triune godhead." Then we could have gotten a completely different version of the scene in the bookshop, one where Jesus defends the world he knows and the people he's met and the things he learned (in his short time back on Earth) about love and generosity and helping people become better people.
Maybe Aziraphale and Crowley ask him to create a world without angels and demons. Maybe he says, but aren't they people too? Can't they learn about love, and generosity, and helping people become better people? Of course they can. Look at the two of you.
And we could have gotten a beautiful mirror to the end of Season 1, where Christ does the same exact thing as the Antichrist, where he doesn't destroy the world but puts it back just the way it was. Even slightly better.
Because angels and demons should have a chance, too.
If you liked the good omens finale, I’m happy for you. I really am. I wish I could like it, but I can’t, and I’m gonna rant about it under the cut.
The thing that upsets me most about the finale is that they try to trick into thinking it’s a happy ending. Like, look, see, they’re together, but Aziraphale and Crowley, with all of their history are literally gone and the people the ending tries to pretend are them are just two dudes who look similar and have similar interests. But they’re not them. They’re not even a reincarnation of them because souls don’t exist in this new universe. The ending is a tragedy and I hate that it tries to pretend it isn’t.
And you know what, I’m also a little upset there was no kiss. I see people making fun of people for being mad about no kiss, but that’s really not fair. Season two ended on a horrible kiss. People wanted closure with a good kiss, that was reciprocated, and not fuelled by desperation to get the other one to stay.
And like, it would have been easy to write a better ending. It was right there with all the blank books. They could’ve rewritten the book of life and thematically that would’ve shown both their love for humanity, the world, and each other. I can’t believe anyone thought erasing the two main characters from existence and replacing them with two people who are kinda similar in a couple ways was a good fucking ending.
Like, it definitely could have been worse (cough: stranger things finale), but it also could have been a lot better, even when considering the serious time constraints.
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I really thought that Aziraphale and Crowley were going to rewrite the Book of Life.
I really thought they were going to become the Illustrator and Author.
I really thought that's why all the books in the shop were made blank.
I really thought God wasn't going to actually exist in a true form, and instead be a kind of omnipresent power of creation.
I really thought that they were going to have their forced-proximity-making-up-with-each-other as they were required to work together to write the new Book of Life.
I really thought that they were going to choose *their* humanity and not a new one.
I really thought they would still be themselves at the end.
I really thought the moral of the story was that the humanity they had was worth protecting, and that life itself (whether mortal or otherwise) was beautiful and inherently important.
I really thought this story was about a love that transcends.
I understand the path they took. However. I do think it missed the mark on what the show was really trying to say.
this is prime proof that this ENTIRE WEBSITE is autistic because nowhere else would a no tags post that's just an informative list about slang get this much traction.
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