Y'know, putting aside the potential a-/acephobic reasons, and the “not relying on overused romance tropes/shortcuts” reasons, I think one of the big reasons (that I haven’t really seen talked about?) that Good Omens gets accused of queerbaiting is that it’s basically the story of an existing relationship. It’s not the story of how Aziraphale and Crowley fall in love, or admit that they’re in love, or whatever that people tend to expect out of romance stories these days, at least, not in the traditional sense. Yes, technically we get to see their relationship develop and we do get to see them realizing and admitting to themselves that they are in love and that the other loves them back, but that’s not really the main focus the way it is in a lot of stories where romance is involved. There’s no “will they/won’t they” drama, there’s no big confession or relationship-affirming kiss or anything, because they’ve been in a developing relationship for nearly all of 6000 years. That’s like, literally what the Arrangement is. It’s their relationship, their “basically married”, their “involved”, their “together but we can’t say it outright bc people are watching and also we don’t wanna screw it up”. And people aren’t used to seeing that in stories about relationships (seriously, find me one example of a story where the main, endgame couple is together at the beginning and the plot doesn’t revolve entirely around them having issues that they need to work out. Hollywood/the publishing industry is allergic to writing about healthy relationships that stay healthy and in tact and exist after they get together). So when they see Neil Gaiman say “it’s a love story” they expect the story of Azi and Crowley falling in love and finally admitting it to themselves and each other and having a big climactic kiss to seal the deal. And when they get a couple who is basically married in everything but name, who have been together for 6000 years but have had to be so so careful and dance around their feelings bc ~bureaucracy~, who don’t need a big kiss at the end, just a loving, tender look because they can finally relax and be in love together… it doesn’t feel like enough to them. They were so busy looking for the “getting together” plot that isn’t really there that they missed the love story that was there. Which is a shame honestly, because it really is an excellent love story. There’s enemies to lovers and mutual pining and almost a sort of courtly love situation going on and it’s excellent. And people don’t see it because it’s not what they were looking for.
