call me rainbow (they/she). leftist, fat, queer/bi, invisibly disabled, AuDHD and otherwise ND, polyamorous, 46 yo, white, nonbinary person. Currently hyperfixated on Good Omens and its actors, but will post about whatever stuff I find interesting. Lots of sexual innuendo here! Yes I recently changed my blog name
Like it's not especially mysterious or hard to fathom why (aside from run-of-the-mill puritanism) folks have Really Big Feelings about kink as a concept. We live in a (sexist racist homophobic transphobic etc) society. Quite a lot of people have had their sexual boundaries poked at and/or transgressed by someone (and "someone" is sometimes not even some specific individual but "society at large") claiming that [Sex Act XYZ] is normal/reasonable/no big deal, and therefore (explicitly or implicitly) obligatory. And when you have repeatedly received the message that your body does not fully belong to you, that your yes and no are valid only insofar as they align with others' reasonable expectations - well then it becomes EXTREMELY important to police the borders of what can be considered a reasonable expectation. Spoken or unspoken, the fear that people are giving voice to when they get pearl-clutchy about kink is often "You're saying all of this is normal - and therefore that I have to accommodate it if and when someone asks me for it."
That's not an unsympathetic fear! We live in a society that is not great with the concept of consent! If you're hearing "don't kinkshame" as "your no is invalid" (or if you've encountered someone who framed it that way, because those people do exist), then of course you're going to be anxious and angry about it!
Unfortunately you are also doing that very human thing of getting so deep in your feelings that you're arguing at cross-purposes. Because the ethic of safe sane & consensual kink is not "everything is normal" - it's that normal is a completely irrelevant metric. You want to get tied up? Cool, make sure everyone involved knows how to do restraints safely. You want to have sex without penetration, ever? Also cool. You like playing around with X sensation but not Y sensation? Cool. You get pantsfeelings (or for that matter completely nonsexual satisfaction feelings) out of shining someone's shoes? Cool. You enjoyed XYZ yesterday but you're not feeling it today? Cool. You get to choose. Your body belongs to you.
Also, not that I'm surprised but I do think it is fairly silly for Tumblr to decide that a post which essentially says "People struggle with the concept of kink because society struggles with the concept of consent," phrased in extremely non-explicit terms, requires a Mature Community Label because...idk, it contains the word "kink"?
[edited to add because obviously there’s some occasional issues with reading sarcasm, good omens is a comedy, not a cosmic horror. One of the few things I agree with Amazon about.]
it surprises me when people call the ending “not homophobic” simply because it leaves two men in a romantic relationship. the problem is not that anthony and asa fell in love with each other. the problem is that aziraphale and crowley, characters with one of the most unusual and deeply developed queer stories in modern fantasy, were sacrificed for it
a romance between two men does not automatically make a story good representation. especially when those characters are reduced to a set of generic traits: they are kind, they love each other, and that is basically it. we have already seen countless stories like that, and this is not just about gay relationships. people loved aziraphale and crowley not because they were a couple. they loved them as individuals: complex, contradictory characters with their own dynamic, history, and personalities that developed over many years. that is why it feels so strange to watch them be replaced with a flatter version of the same idea
to me, bad representation is not the absence of a kiss. it is when unique queer characters are erased in favor of a safer and more conventional romantic story. that is a disservice to the fandom
All of the queer people got a bad ending. It feels intentional as fuck. Everyone of them. Their lives destroyed, or meaninglessly killed off screen before ultimately being erased.
This isn't good representation, it's just being like heres some crumbs, and if you dont like it youre evil and harming fandom.
Agreed. Sure maybe they couldn't get the actors/actresses back for the Finale but they didn't have to invent a bad ending for them???
Imagine if Max (Mutt's spouse) only said that Mutt is elsewhere in the country or not around that particular day, no one would have questioned it. But they just had to say he died in what appeared to be an act of self-unaliving???? It was so unnecessary.
Maggie and Nina lost their shops and had to move away.
AziCrow end up becoming stardust.
And everyone in the world got evaporated. Worst ending for all the humans, especially queer people.
And for anybody with even a lick of hope remaining, PRIDE merch from the GO shop was delivered with a "letter from Aziraphale" that says HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT PRIDE IS ABOUT
And as an aroace person, I do not believe that two people not kissing is ace representation. Representation is not the absence of something, but the declaration of another. Without an acknowledgement within the story of any kind towards the reasoning behind it, the absence of a kiss is simply that.
The shining plethora of diverse queer characters were eradicated. In interviews, those involved in Good Omens stated a kiss between Aziraphale and Crowley was deemed unnecessary.
And no, a finger to mouth boop that you would give to a statue or a dog or a corpse does not count as a romantically declarative kiss. It's insulting to claim that it is.
By the end of the show, radical queerness was not celebrated, not declared, but packaged into something palatable to the queer-ambivalent and casually queer-phobic masses.
The queerness of Good Omens 3 was not silent as a queer positive statement. The queerness was just silenced.
On the matter of tags: an earnest attempt to communicate
As a random member of the Good Omens fandom community, I’d just like to toss my hat into the ring and attempt to clear up some misunderstandings. I also want to encourage some honest, good-faith dialogue in a severely fractured fandom.
This is not an attempt to convince anyone to interpret the finale a specific way. This is a practical conversation about how we discuss the finale in fan spaces.
For the purposes of this discussion, I will be focusing on tags as they are used on social media platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram. AO3 tagging is considerable more complex and warrants a whole convo in its own right, so I won't focus on that here.
THIS POST INCLUDES DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE.
So, tags. Tags have become a thorny issue in the Good Omens fandom. I suspect this issue is so pertinent now, two months after the finale aired, because most of us have dropped “GO3 spoilers” tags, which people would have been filtering out if they did not wish to see anything from the finale. The finale is no longer a fresh commodity, so we are all trying to determine for ourselves what the next phase of our engagement with fandom will look like.
In fandom spaces, tags are a courtesy. No one can force anyone to use tags, of course. But tagging is a long-running standard of fandom etiquette across multiple online platforms. Tags are tools that help us find or filter out specific content. But what happens when we disagree on what tags should even be used in the first place? When tags themselves are a battleground?
I have seen assumptions that finale dislikers are demanding that all content with Asa Fell and Professor Anthony Crowley be tagged with “suicide.” It's possible that I’ve missed some significant conversations, but as someone on the disliker side, I have not seen anyone demand that Asanthony shippers use a "suicide" tag on all their posts featuring Asanthony. If anyone has asked that, I agree that it would be unreasonable! But I strongly suspect this perception comes from a game of fandom telephone in which different conversations are being conflated.
What IS being asked:
All content featuring Asa and Anthony should be tagged with their names or their ship name, Asanthony.
The "ineffable husbands" ship name should not be used for Asanthony.
Content warnings are strongly encouraged when sharing visuals of the scene where God grants Crowley and Aziraphale’s request to be removed from existence, specifically the moments as they disintegrate, as this decision is interpreted by many fans as a suicide.
Let’s address that first point now.
Tagging Asanthony as "Asanthony" makes sense. I think most people are already doing this. If you’re not doing this, well… I strongly advise you to reconsider. Tags aren’t just for those filtering out content, but for those seeking it. Someone who doesn’t want to see Asanthony can use this tool to avoid them, and someone who is specifically seeking out Asanthony content can use the tag to find them and share some appreciation.
Where we have some disagreement is the second point listed above: whether Asanthony deserve to be tagged with the general “ineffable husbands” ship name as well. I don’t think we’re ever going to agree on this one. Some people do see them as the same ship, and others do not. Personally I’m someone who does not see Asanthony as "ineffable," but I am okay to concede on someone using the general ship tag for them, as it really does boil down to one's own interpretation. In my view, so long as "Asanthony" is also used, tag them as you see fit.
Now for the third point. This is where I'll be talking about suicide.
Suicide is obviously an incredibly sensitive and distressing subject, one that is highly likely to carry a personal resonance for many fans on all sides of the GO3 debate. I understand why people are upset to have to bring this subject up in their tags when they do not see the final scene that way.
But if you do find it upsetting to even consider using that tag... that means you agree that this topic is distressing, yes? The ineffables' decision was genuinely genuinely distressing for people who interpreted their choice as a suicide. I am pleading with you to understand this: there are members of our community who struggle with suicide ideation, and that scene genuinely triggered some of these people.
You don’t like to see this tag imposed. Well, others don’t like to suddenly come across visuals that in their view shows a suicide. Not seeing Crowley and Aziraphale's decision as a suicide is just as much an interpretation as seeing it as a suicide is.
We will never agree on our interpretations of Crowley and Aziraphale's final request to God and how it played out. The fact remains that the scene where they make this choice and it is granted is triggering to a significant portion of the fandom. This is not a niche opinion.
We won't be able to reconcile our views on this. But we do have to share fandom spaces together. Blocking others who have a different approach to discussing this scene is always an option. But maybe we can also attempt to reach a middle ground in the form of a tag.
I have chatted with others about this, and an idea I have seen discussed is for the fandom to come up with a neutral term for the scene where God grants Crowley and Aziraphale's request, akin to how we settled on “the Final Fifteen” for the last fifteen minutes of season 2. This term should not favour one interpretation over another.
Some suggestions:
The Final Half Hour (or… the Final Twenty? How long is this scene? Anyone clocked it?)
The Decision
We’ve Come to a Decision (WCTOAD? Well, I do like toads)
Please chime in if you have other suggestions!
Like I said at the top, no one can force anyone to use tags. This is ultimately down to one's own discretion.
But I think it's fair to say that our fandom is currently in crisis. The community has fractured — or perhaps it is simply going through some very nasty growing pains. Maybe we can grow with it.
We will never be in a place where we all agree on GO3’s choices. Right now, we are all figuring out how we want to navigate this story and fandom we have all come to love. However we feel about the finale, we are all trying to find new ways forward.
We can argue about who’s right. We can block as we see fit. We can tag or not tag according to our own interpretation to make a point.
We can also decide to make productive choices that will help us all navigate our fandom spaces moving forward. Above all else, we can choose to be kind.
If you've read this far, thank you for hearing me out.
okay, for those interested, here is a full timeline of how we got to Count Binface:
1977: Star Wars is released, featuring, of course, Darth Vader
(Pictured: Darth Vader)
1984: Director Todd Durham releases his Star Wars parody movie, Hyperspace, featuring Darth Vader inspired villain Lord Buckethead.
(Pictured: Hyperspace poster featuring two Jawa-esque aliens flying through space in a shopping trolley.)
1987: Hyperspace is released on video in the UK, under the new title Gremloids.
(Pictured: Gremloids cover in the style of the original Star Wars poster, featuring Lord Buckethead.)
To promote the film, Mike Lee, the owner of the distributing company, ran for parliament as Lord Buckethead. He ran in Margaret Thatcher's constituency, Finchley, in order to get on TV. Lord Buckethead was representing the Gremloids party.
(Pictured: Lord Buckethead on TV with Margaret Thatcher.)
1992: Gremloids is re-released. Lord Buckethead rides again, this time against prime minister John Major in Huntingdon. (Here's a fun fact about Huntingdon: I was born there! :D) 87/92 Buckethead seems to have leaned pretty hard into the space supervillain thing, with campaign promises including 'demolish Birmingham to build a spaceport'.
(Pictured: Lord Buckethead on TV with John Major. Other notable candidates include Screaming Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party.)
2017: comedian Jon Harvey, having recently watched Gremloids and learned of Lord Buckethead's candidacy for parliament, decides it's a great bit. He runs against Theresa May in Maidenhead. 2017 Buckethead seems to have a wackier and also more political approach, with campaign promises ranging from nonsense like 'nationalise Adele' to gesturing at actually sensible policies with stuff like 'lower the voting age to 16 and restrict voting after age 80'.
He also made an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As with his previous incarnation, he was a member of the Gremloids party.
(Pictured: Lord Buckethead dabbing on stage with Theresa May.)
2018: Director Todd Durham asserts his legal ownership of Lord Buckethead. Jon Harvey opted not to go to court over Buckethead and handed over the reins. Todd Durham extended an invitation to anyone who wanted to be the 'authorised' Lord Buckethead.
(Pictured: the new Lord Buckethead.)
2019: Lord Buckethead, now played by journalist David Hughes, stood against Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He ran for the Monster Raving Loony Party, the UK's pre-existing gag candidate party. He ran with a similarly silly manifesto as the 2017 incarnation, but with a bit less of a political edge. His promises included 'All doorways to be increased by 1 foot (30 cm) in height' and 'Nigel Farage to be sold for parts'.
(Pictured: Lord Buckethead and Count Binface square up.)
Meanwhile, Jon Harvey in his new persona Count Binface, also ran against Boris Johnson. Buckethead and Binface face off! Binface ran as an independent with a manifesto once again blending silly and semi-serious promises such as 'nationalising model railways' and 'giving £1 trillion a week to the NHS'. This was also I believe the debut of his promise to 'move the hand dryer in the men's toilet at Uxbridge's Crown and Treaty pub to a more sensible position'.
(Pictured: Count Binface presenting the offending hand dryer, inconveniently close to both the sink and the urinals.)
He has a point.
2021: Count Binface runs for the position of Mayor of London for the first time, with promises such as 'London to join the European Union'. He notably finished ahead of far right party UKIP.
2023: Count Binface runs in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election following Boris Johnson's resignation. He once again gets more votes than UKIP.
May 2024: Count Binface once again runs to be Mayor of London, debuting his now iconic 'build at least one affordable house' promise. Notably, he finished ahead of far right party Britain First.
(Pictured: Count Binface with Rishi Sunak. Also pictured: Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Sir Archibald Stanton with a ventriloquist's dummy.)
July 2024: Count Binface stands in the general election, running in Richmond and Northallerton against prime minister Rishi Sunak. He debuts his promise to cap the price of 99p flakes at 99p. This is his most successful election to date with 308 votes.
(Pictured: Count Binface with Andy Burnham. Also pictured: independent candidate Robert Pownell, dressed as a fox for his own reasons.)
June 2026: Count Binface stands in the Makerfield by-election against Andy Burnham, (recently) former Mayor of Manchester running for parliament with the intention of standing in the Labour Party leadership contest.
(Pictured: Count Binface on BBC's Newsnight.)
July 2026 (this week): Count Binface announces his intention to run against Nigel Farage in the upcoming Clacton by-election. He is briefly the only other candidate in the race and by the time other candidates announce themselves the narrative of 'Nigel Farage vs Count Binface' has already bedded in. And then it was now, and then I don't know what happened.
At first I wanted to say something about this. But then I realize that they might be right. I just needed to see from another perspective! My media illiteracy has been cured!
In case you hadn’t heard, Michael Ralph, the production designer for all episodes of Good Omens, said this when asked about the significance of the snow globe in the finale:
Rob Wilkins came to me and asked me if I would invite in the final dress...there was no episode significance..I believe it was Rob who created the snow globe concept and manufacture of it as a piece of merchandise for the shop in London…...that's what I always thought...
I never designed it or used the concept of it in any of the episodes....people gave read into it and thought it has more significance, that's always been in everyone's imagination..I didn't correct their superstitions..
Include..not invite!!
I’m not saying the snow globe didn’t have any additional significance to Rob, but he definitely wants to sell them and that is what the Terry Pratchett estate started doing - before the finale aired and after he knew how it ended.
Idk where people are getting this "Good Omens iS sUpPoSEd tO bE a CoMeDY!!!" thing. No it isn't. No one ever said that.
The fact that a story is funny does not make it a comedy. Good Omens the novel has a horror ending for Aziraphale and Crowley (a fact everyone seems to conveniently ignore), and the motifs and themes of the novel are 100% cosmic horror. The show lays out cosmic horror allusions, motifs, and world mechanics from the very 1st episode. It's written by a horror writer. No plot points or story outcomes were revealed after S1 .
"Good Omens is a comedy!" is a bullshit idea the fandom made up instead of paying attention to the material in the novel or the show, and now people are melting down bc reality didn't conform to their baseless belief.
I expected more reasoned responses and a much higher degree of literacy from fans of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Watching the fandom shit itself with entirely unjustified outrage has for me been the most shocking and painful part of Good Omens 3 by far.
Not only did we not make it up, but here’s what I assume is enough proof (although there are many, many other instances of everyone calling it a comedy) since it’s apparently needed:
Good Omens is a fantasy comedy television series - Wikipedia
IMDb (owned by Amazon) classifies it as both “buddy comedy” and “dark comedy”, among other things.
It won an award from comedy.co.uk for Best TV Comedy Drama and Best Comedy of the Year in 2019 and the former again in 2023. That ^ link is from TP’s website.
It was nominated for a GLAAD award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2024.
David Tennant was nominated for a BAFTA TV award for Male Performance in a Comedy in 2024.
David and Michael were both nominated for an Astra award for Best Actor in a Streaming Comedy Series in 2024.
People on tumblr created at least two polls asking if it was a comedy after season 2 aired and NG (🤬) confirmed it was a comedy. CW: there’s a video of NG accepting the award at the top of the post linked above ^^ There are screenshots below the cut for anyone who wants to see the relevant parts without his face. They still show two extremely short (6 words or fewer) posts from NG.
It’s been 2 months since the finale came out. I’m still grieving but it’s hitting me less frequently than it did. Here are four memes I made recently. Note: the last one has the Thanos sparkle dust scene on it, but the last three refer directly to that idea 💓
Ten people you want to get to know better tag game
I don’t usually do these but every now and then I find them fun to do. Thanks to @bellisima-writes for the tag!
Last song: The Beetlejuice musical just finished its run here and I was lucky enough to go twice and I’ve basically had the soundtrack playing in my head constantly since. That Beautiful Sound is the one I keep coming back to most at the moment. Very catchy dance song, and fantastically staged.
Currently watching: just finished watching Small Prophets which is a gloriously beautiful comedy mystery fantasy show written by Mackenzie Crook. If you love Terry Pratchett this show is right up your alley, it has that very lovable strange humour and some cracking dialogue and brilliant characters that is reminiscent of STP’s style (excellent pallet cleanser if GO3 left you bereft). Have now started Widows Bay which is also hilarious but incredibly creepy.
Current obsession: …I honestly don’t have one at the moment. Nothing in the way that I have had like with Good Omens. Which makes me sad. I’ll find something again one day I guess.
Currently reading: just finished He’s Not For Me by Sadie Hepworth, a beautiful M/M romance novel! Find out more about her stuff here: https://sadiehepworth.com/links/?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZnRzaAS8ZfBwZG9mAmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDzEyNDAyNDU3NDI4NzQxNAABp1Wg2-dgN8CwxCEdsaTreUnsLBE3iECVxEElrhvmrmWbeLHaF-nR1fEWV0TX_aem_e7AE2HA7A2okrSH0mLX9Pw
Just a list of important links to all things related to Sadie Hepworth, He’s Not for Me, and Take It From the Top. Take It From the Top Preo
Currently working on: Well, I’m still working on The Wrong Bookshop. I’m sorry I’ve stagnated on that but I do promise to get it finished. Working on some other fics as well that I hope to get posted shortly.
Last google search: ticket sales for a famous medium touring here that a friend wants to go to. But also some research for my latest GTA submission, which would give the game away if I told you!
Last song: You’re my best friend by Queen. I have a Queen channel and yeah, it’s both sad and desensitizing (and happy, because I genuinely like Queen)
Currently watching: I’m rewatching The Good Wife with a friend who hasn’t seen it. It’s more compelling than I remembered. And we love Kalinda
Current obsession: still Good Omens. Don’t know how long it will last. You’d think having my heart broken would end a hyperfixation, but apparently not
Currently reading: Uhh, I just read a fun first chapter on a new WIP fic. It’s hilarious, go check it out https://archiveofourown.org/works/88369726
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Currently working on: Trying to find my next drawing subject. I have a lot of ideas but nothing is calling to me yet. Considering drawing this:
Last google search: 1960’s picnic basket (guess why 😂🫠)
No pressure tags for: @cleodeschamps, @catkelpie, @jenisstillhere, @supergeek21, @aydracz, @redundant-angel, and anyone else who wants to participate! 💖🥰
Frozen Peas: “the duck song” Good Omens style parody animation (no sound)
The only things I drew were Crowley, Aziraphale, the bowl of peas, the new letters, and the colors for the duck. The rest is from “the duck song” original, which you can see here
Inspiration from this reddit post: by @itzivyleaf201 (thank you!)
The dialogue between Aziraphale and Crowley is from this exchange in the Good Omens book:
📕Aziraphale tossed a crust to a scruffy-looking drake, which caught it and sank immediately.
The angel turned to Crowley.
"Really, my dear," he murmured.
"Sorry," said Crowley. "I was forgetting myself." The duck bobbed angrily to the surface📕
This video has NO sound 😅I was inspired to make this version by this drawing: https://www.reddit.com/r/goodomens/comments/1mljflo/got_any_fr
