“your interpretation is valid” is not a cop-out. sorry you have to hear it this way, but it’s not. it’s an acknowledgement of what the audience brings to any piece of art, intended or not, and how their experience shapes what they see or want to see.
is explicit representation important? absolutely! we need more of it all across the queer spectrum.
but for something like good omens, where the main characters aren’t human, where their relationship in the book has existed and been interpreted for 30 years beforehand – there was no explicit, word of god answer that wasn’t going to leave someone hurting.
for some people, it’s very important that crowley and aziraphale are asexual, that they’re a relationship that doesn’t require sexual intimacy to be the most important relationship in arguably the entire world.
for some people, it’s very important that crowley and aziraphale have sexual intimacy in their relationship. maybe because they see themselves and their queer struggles in the main characters, who have existed since before the world did, and managed to find one another and have the most forbidden romance.
for some people, it’s very important that crowley and aziraphale are best friends, completely platonic, whether that’s because they’re aromantic themselves or because they see something of themself and their best friend/s in these two utter disasters.
who chooses who gets hurt, here? why choose in the first place when the obvious answer is whatever the audience has brought to it and needs to see? and, if @neil-gaiman gave an explicit, word-of-god answer, there would still be dissatisfaction that it wasn’t answered in the canon of the show itself.
it’s okay to have nebulous love stories that leave the exact extent and labels up to the audience. it’s okay to create something where the answer is “what did you see? then that’s what happened.”
there’s room for all of us at the table. there’s room for love that is explicit and labeled, and there is room for love that opens itself up to definition by the people in the audience.
you don’t have to like that answer, but that’s how it is, and it doesn’t mean the creator is a homophobe or #cancelled or whatever else. it certainly doesn’t mean that the work is queerbaiting.
good omens is a love story: between aziraphale and crowley, between the Them, between anethema and newton, between madame tracy and shadwell, and between all of these characters and the world itself. good omens is bursting at the seams with love. the only way to miss it is to choose not to see it.
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
andulkaphoto
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
