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@foolishlovers
Wild Hearts by foolishlovers (E, 145k, complete)
In the idyllic English countryside, far from the hustle and bustle of the big city, two teachers at Willowbrook Hall set out to transform their students’ lives through the world of theatre. But for Mr. Crowley, the challenge of navigating his long hidden feelings and dear friendship with Mr. Fell may prove to be the greatest drama of all.
good bad job that's the worst anyone's ever done it
If the teacher's 10 million years late we get to evolve right
i just really miss my good personal friend anathema device and i hope she is doing well
Every time someone comments on my old fic, i feel like I'm an old actor getting paid residuals. Appreciate you, old-fic-commenters. Key source of emotional income, tbh.
I think the greater crime than the bad hair is that they turned Anthony into ANGEL Crowley. Astrophysics and all. Zero reference to snakes/ plants/ music/ cars. Crowley fought for 3 seasons to be seen as who he IS and not the angel he used to be, and not to be judged for his fall, and it was all for nothing. "God's best angel" give me a break no wonder he decided to off them both
Jesus was the best part of s3 I think
"for my money, the really big one will be all of Us against all of Them."
SO SPITTING MAD ABOUT THIS i had to edit and repost from x/bsky
am i the only one who remembers this good omens sequel idea that was laid so beautifully at our feet in the year of our lord 1990? that was important enough to be quoted near verbatim in S1? the one where mortals of the world unite cuz we have nothing to lose but our chains??
"ohhh you're upset about the finale because you only care about aziracrow you don't care about the bigger picture" nah man don't pin that on me. i am 40 or 50 years old and i do not need this. you can't gaslight me into forgetting that one of the fundamental charms of GO is that aziraphale & crowley are actually very bad at saving the world, they cock up pretty much everything they try to do and it's only through serendipity (or implied providence??) that their actions end up facilitating HUMANS' efforts to save ourselves. you can't gaslight me into thinking that the universe getting destroyed & recreated on a whim with absolutely zero HUMAN input or agency is a happy ending, or that it's at all in keeping with the spirit of the original story.
the concept of the multiverse got traction in genre fiction via comics where it was introduced as a PLOT DEVICE to reconcile timeline inconsistencies (and an unnecessary one at that; the way to deal with "timeline inconsistencies" in long form serial fantasy is to IGNORE THEM). writers should have never started relying on the multiverse so heavily as a storyline foundation (MCU i am looking at YOU) because the logical end result is to make stories MEANINGLESS! what's the point of fighting for anything if you can just escape to another universe where things turn out better?! "we found each other in every universe" bitch i care about THIS ONE! how does that treacly platitude teach ANYONE anything meaningful or relatable or transferable about real life?!
stand UP! i want the good omens sequel where HUMANITY rises up against this bullshit system and A&C are there to cheer us on. and if you think "oh there's no way A&C could ever have been happy in this universe, this was the only solution" get out of my way cuz if that's the limp attitude you bring when it's a WORLD OF FANTASY FICTION WHERE LITERALLY ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN i do NOT need you around me in this world.
First time I see that sentence addressed. I always envisioned the final big one as something that involved humanity beautifully again, like in the book. Not Az and Crow being elevated as super-turbo-protagonists, begging the Big Ceo of GO for a new start. How is this groundbreaking, or in the spirit of the original book? Everyone keeps chanting how the System was dismantled and it was the only way, but what A/C did is literally the opposite of dismantling an unjust System while triumphing over it. To dismantle a system through a sacrifice, you'd need to have the power to do so in your own hands. They don't have that. They relied on the System, in the end. And the system asked for their whole universe in exchange for that. God was still in charge, so the finale is basically the System asking you to sacrifice everything you've ever battled for, every minuscule space of universe you've carved for yourself and your loved ones, and then and only then the System will allow you what you really craved for, freedom from it. Except you die, everyone dies. The Big Liberation from Big Corporate, is literally Corporate asking the extreme sacrifice from you: death, suicide, all disappears forever. It doesn't feel groundbreaking, liberating, cathartic, thematically fitting to me. People are lauding the most Corporate Approved BS ending that could have ever been invented. The resistance is basically giving up and bowing to the bigger power, who graciously gives you a sop, to keep you happy. I just can't see this ending as revolutionary and anarchic as others are, if it's God himself granting it and it's basically Corporate sucking all the life out of the universe in exchange for one little request of liberation.
I also want to mention that they were forced into this position AFTER s1, none of it flowed naturally. They weren't ever meant to be the main players. Humans were.
Gabriel wasn't in the first book, he was a character from book 2. I'm not looking for the quote, but it was confirmed. It was also confirmed by the author that the relationship between Gabriel and Beelzebub was first being thought of when the actors showed great chemistry at the airbase scene at the end of s1.
So Gabriel was meant for s3 (accompanying Jesus out of a plane for the second coming), but was written out before that. Him and Beelzebub running off together became an idea in 2018 at the earliest. That's what left the Supreme Archangel position open. In s2, it was implied that the Metatron offered this position to Aziraphale because of the 25 lazarii miracle. Just for s3 to show that miracles can be disabled, so that was utterly pointless and made the Metatron look like a complete idiot, putting the guy who they tried to execute a few years prior in charge. They also could've just written him out of the book of life after the botched executions, when they thought Aziraphale had become native and was no longer an angel, but that was never addressed in s2, so I guess we're gonna pretend that never happened...
And then, after Aziraphale was forced into a position of power by awkward writing, him and Crowley 'give humanity free will' by stripping them of all angency and burning down everything so the world could restart. What happened to mending the world, instead of ending it? What happened to the free will humanity had proven they had, over and over again? What happened to 'suicide is NOT ON', to Sitis wanting HER children because people can't be replaced? Humanity was destroyed along with the 'leads' and we are supposed to find that beautiful???
So, all of Them vs all of humanity wasn't going to happen, because humanity was pushed into a supportive role for the new main characters, which was never the point. The humans went from the focus in s1, to metaphors for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship in s2, to barely a footnote (and collateral damage) in s3. Because there was never a consistent plot. And the story's underlying message got so messed up in the process that it's become unrecognizeable now. This property deserved better!
It should have been Jesus running around with Adam doing second coming shenanigans and philosophizing about The Big Stuff and experiencing modernity and regular life and friendship etc. while Aziraphale and Crowley are forced back together in order to look for him and wind up hashing out their differences from before while being endearingly useless to the broader mission, slowly falling back into their Earthly rhythm, addressing The Kiss and clumsily figuring out how to express and accept their love for one another until the two plots converge in an absurd high stakes climax where the Messiah and the former Antichrist implore above and below to embrace their own free will and acknowledge their self-imposed shackles, thereby freeing all beings alive dead and otherwise from an unending cycle of shame and judgement
This is why I keep saying it was an objectively bad story. They'd given us humans saving the world in S1. It should've been bookended with humans saving the world in S3.
They gave us Aziraphale and Crowley being all but useless in S1 and partly in S2. They should've been wrapped up in their own personal things while trying to find the Christ and Antichrist, talking about their problems and actually communicating but mostly fumbling their way through it all.
In S1 they gave us "you don't destroy the world if you want to save it; you put in the work to make it better" and then in S3 they just said "fuck it; let's burn it all to the ground."
They gave us an Antichrist powerful enough to revert the world he was more than capable of destroying. I guarantee they could've given us a Christ + Antichrist (with help from Aziraphale and Crowley) powerful enough to undo what Michael did.
And none of that even gets into the constant out of character behavior or the massive, gaping plot holes.
It failed practically every basic principle of storytelling.
imagine a universe where crowley and aziraphale look at each other, look at god, and say: are those really the only two choices?
it's actually inconceivable to me that they wouldn't ask the question. humanity, the cosmos, the one creature in existence each of them loves more than all of it combined. everything hanging in the delicate cradle of god's good grace. put it back the way it was, or destroy it entirely. you'd certainly ask. why wouldn't they?
it's a fallacy, crowley will say. a false dilemma. you're god. we can ask you for anything.
god just smiles, a thin expression that begins and ends in the corners of her mouth. the devil smiles too, but in the inverse. wordless answers all around.
seriously? that easy? crowley says to aziraphale under his breath, and aziraphale will roll his eyes, buoyant with fondness.
i do believe you're onto something, my dear. it's all in the name, isn't it? aziraphale is thinking of whickber street, a thermos full of the holiest water. dogs learning to balance on their hind legs. understanding dawns like a sunrise. the naming of the thing gives it power.
very good, god might say, but neither of them are listening anymore.
crowley's eyes are the color of sunflowers when he turns away from her, never to look upon her face again. well, what should we call it, then? bertha? jehoshua? free willy 2: the adventure home?
another eye roll, even fonder than the first. they might reach for each other, in this universe, the one that birthed them and all the stars and nebulas, the one that birthed you and me and everyone we've ever known and loved. they might hold hands, or embrace, cheek to cheek, arms sliding around waists. i like to think that they move at the same time. crowley's hands find aziraphale's face, aziraphale's eyes fall to crowley's mouth.
(they kiss, of course. how could they not? it's as immutable as gravity, inevitable as time, but not because of god. that's the beauty of free will; it creates itself. a great wagon, as rumi said. out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. i'd like to think there's a cottage waiting for them there, somewhere in the middle.)
but first—
we've come to a decision, one of them says.
there's a hell of a universe next door, says the other, and you two look ready for retirement.
There has to be a better solution
One of the main themes of Good Omens (the novel, season 1) is that people aren't inherently bad or good. They just make bad or good CHOICES. And having the power to make those choices means they DO have free will.
Now you could argue that power came from eating a certain apple in a certain garden and gaining knowledge about the difference between good and evil. Because you can't choose between two things if you don't know that there are things to choose from.
But I would argue the very ACT of choosing to eat the apple is what gives them that power. It was the first choice they ever made: eat the apple from the forbidden tree, or don't. A choice they only knew about, by the way, because God forbid them from doing it in the first place.
Why put a tree in the middle of the garden with a big “DO NOT TOUCH ” sign on it? Maybe because God was teaching humans how to have free will.
Which is why, in my opinion, the "create a new universe that has free will" reasoning doesn't make any sense. Humans already have free will!
And, what's more, Crowley and Aziraphale are proof that angels and demons do too. They just need a little help learning to exercise it. They need their own apple tree, in their own garden.
But what does that look like?
Well, if we use the same blueprint that Crowley and Aziraphale used… it's living with humans on Earth.
I honestly think there was a misguided attempt to show exactly this in the ending. Season 3's solution to help angels and demons learn to exercise free will is to do away with Heaven and Hell, and instead their souls get reincarnated on Earth. Possibly over multiple lifetimes, similar to the concept in Hinduism/Buddhism, in case they take longer than one lifetime to achieve “enlightenment” (Aziraphale and Crowley took 6000 years, after all).
The problem for me is that, if it does take multiple lifetimes to figure out free will, how can you keep advancing if you can't remember what you learned in a previous life? How can you learn from your mistakes when you don't remember making them?
Maybe the soul itself inherently retains some essence of what it has learned, and with each subsequent reincarnation, it is able to learn more and more. And you could argue that since Crowley and Aziraphale's souls reached enlightenment in the old universe, that is why they are able to find each other, and thus find peace, true happiness, joy and love, every time their souls are reincarnated in the new universe. Which is a beautiful sentiment…
But also a tragic one.
Because while Aziraphale and Crowley did the hard work to achieve their enlightenment, they—their consciousnesses that experienced that hard work—don't get to experience the reward. That's where I think a lot of the anger I'm feeling (and a lot of others are feeling) about the end of season 3 comes from.
Maybe they can't retain their memories because it's not fair for them to get to play by different rules? I suppose if you're going to come up with a new system, it has to work for everyone the same way. Even if it means absolute tragedy for everyone involved.
And to me, this is firmly a tragedy. A Romeo and Juliet level of tragedy. This is not a happy ending. They got their perfect system, sure, but it came at the cost of killing everyone.
There has to be a better solution. Especially because Aziraphale and Crowley proved that it IS possible to achieve their enlightenment in the OLD universe, in the existing system. And because the theme of Good Omens 1 was that the existing system isn't so bad after all. It's actually quite beautiful itself, in its messy, fucked up way.
And the bigger problem for me is the message that this sends about real life. Because real life is messy and fucked up too, but it's the only life we've got. We can't just restart our universe a different way. That's not how it works. And where Good Omens 1 provided comfort to us by saying “that's ok, because our messy, fucked up universe is actually really quite beautiful”, Good Omens 3 said “Never mind, sorry, you got the shit end of the stick but at least your favorite characters get to live in a better world!”
No. No. I don't accept that. It's not the show and book I fell in love with seven years ago. It's not the sentiment I agreed with. It completely negates its original meaning, and it makes me fucking angry.
And another thing.
Are you trying to tell me after everything Aziraphale and Crowley trusted God to keep her word?
The real ending is grabbing a book and writing God out of existence and figuring out the next steps together. The point is to beat her at her own game.
justice for good omens jesus he was amazing and I loved him so much. He had an amazing set up as a character just to immediately disappear in thin air without having any purpose in the plot 💔 I love you jesus
The End Of The Story - rated G, ~ 2000 words
A fix-it inspired by a comment on my Tumblr rant over... whatever that was.
Everything's gone but the bookshop. Satan's just appeared. Except... everything's not gone. Quite. Nor everyone.
God stared fixedly, for a long beat. “How did you get here?” She said. “Existence has ceased. This bookshop is all that is left of My universe.”
“I don’t know,” said the boy. “Something – the same thing’s happened before. I’m gone. And then I come back.”
“Habits are hard to break,” remarked Crowley. “I should know. Stock in trade.”
“You,” said the boy. “You taught me. How to see past what people pretend to be, to who they are. How to be gentle as doves and wise as serpents. How to turn anger into love.” He took a deep breath. “I’m angry now.”
“Who are you?” said God, low and threatening.
“Oh, Lord,” chuckled Satan, “don’t You know Your own son?” He smiled oilily. “So pleased to meet you. After Crowley’s reports, I feel as if I know you.”
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I'm back! It's been a while, I'll explain later, but... action was required.
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YOU ALL BETTER START TYPING ON AO3 RIGHT THE FUCK NOW
30 FEMALE CHARACTERS FOR 30K (as voted my my followers) "Glinda might be a little in the closet. Give it a little more time." 29. Glinda Upland ▸ Wicked
