The GO BTS dropping today have filled me with a very specific rage. It is pride month. Safe spaces are rare. How dare an abusive allocishet man decide to try to take that away from a queer fandom.
It is not an accident that we all see Aziraphale as the queer guardian of Soho. Its written in his DNA ever since he was described as gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Regardless of his ship with Crowley or Heaven's plans, there was one very clear truth in the GO verse: Aziraphale was a protector of humanity and particularly queer humans throughout history. In a world where representation of queer people is minimal and protectors of queer people even more so, he has been a shining beacon since the 90s.
And Whickber Street reflected that. Our queer angelic capybara may have caused little safe spaces throughout all of history but we got to see little glimpses of it. Multiple queer shop owners. Forgiveness of rent. Safety and protection that became evident in how it was missing in the finale with the street becoming run down and graffitied.
And the destruction of the three canon queer owned businesses we knew existed. Maggie's record shop is closed, give me coffee or give me death has changed ownership, and Mutt's magic shop is now part of the Chinese restaurant.
This shouldn't make me irrationally angry, but it does. How /dare/ he.
There's an underlying message here: As God I will take away your angel and you will fade away. You will die, close shop, and leave.
At best, its arrogant. At worst, its bigotry smugly wearing an ally shirt telling the queer community how much we need their good will.
Either way, it can fuck off.
Back after s1 I wrote a story about angels and demons defecting and all of us versus all of them. I've changed a lot since then and I'd write it differently now. But a piece of that core message hasn't changed: together we can and should tell the forces that would silence us to leave.
Our angel wouldn't leave us or his demon. Our demon wouldn't give up on his angel or our world. And we cannot give up on them or each other. Not now. Not ever.
Good Omens, Trauma, LGBTQIA+ Representation, and Stories
Do not read further if you want to watch the Good Omens finale unspoiled. Do not. Go back! Retreat! Stop!
Alright, you continuing is on you.
To say the least, the finale has been divisive (as predicted, though we didn’t know it would be this bad). I think a lot of the fandom has been processing it and coming to their own acceptance or coping mechanisms. I wanted to give myself some time to digest before I dived into “but did you like it?” because truly the answer is yes, but.
Before dig in, I first want to say this: Thank you to the creators for giving us your ending. For fighting for us. For doing what you thought was best. We know that it was not easy, and we appreciate you. To my fellow fans: yelling at anyone is NOT the way to solve any of your feelings. That goes for creators AND fellow fans whose opinion differs. We are all going to have differing views, and that’s okay. After all, we now have a multiverse of sand boxes to play in (and play we shall, I am sure).
We can start with what I loved: Aziraphale saving Crowley, the crosswords level of sass, Joshua, and Harry the Fish all left me with giant smiles. I wish we had been able to see more of this. You could tell the stories were rushed, but nonetheless they were able to shine some still.
It’s also not anyone’s fault the story was rushed. We knew that was going to be the case condensing six episodes down to one. It would never be able to solve all the hanging plot lines and Chekov’s guns that were out there.
Having said that, let’s dig into the gritty of where I saw a problem (after all, I haven’t seen a single person yet say they disliked Jesus). We’re once again left with the problem of a final fifteen, but part of it started before.
Repeatedly I’ve seen posts celebrating that Aziraphale and Crowley are now able to live without their trauma. That they can live without the pain they have suffered and the fear and simply be. And yes, that is beautiful (if a bit unrealistic, given the state of the real world). And as someone with extensive trauma, a chronic illness, married to a disabled person I wonder if they understand some of the message that’s being given.
Because between the lines of this is that Aziraphale and Crowley could not be given a happy ending. They needed their trauma removed to do so. That Crowley, in his depressive state, was far too broken to be able to come out the other side. And that he should not be given time to heal from that condition in order to make a decision fully, based in his love for Earth yes but also his love for himself and for Aziraphale.
That the solution to your depression is a suicide that helps others live their best lives.
I don’t think that the writers intended this to be the message. I truly don’t. Sometimes you have to have been through the worst to see it, and to be honest I’m delighted for the portion of the fandom that doesn’t see this part of the story. I wish that for everyone.
As someone who has, relatively recently, been in Crowley’s position I am grateful no one gave me the option to sacrifice myself for the world. I’d have taken it. Now? Now I’d tell God to go fuck herself. Because despite trauma, hope and joy find a way. Because I live in a world where my marriage is often invalidated and derided. Where my spouse has to constantly face a battle I can’t quite grasp where the world tells them they shouldn’t exist. Where the two of us regularly have to face our trauma, together. And despite it find the ability to laugh so hard we’re crying. We have found connections and found family and beauty, despite it all.
And that is the ending that our Ineffables deserved. The ability to finally find themselves without needing their history to be erased. To know that every stolen moment and bit of hope was, indeed, worth the battle to get to the end. Not to be told that both they and the world were too broken to save. Best start from scratch.
I will mourn them. And in doing so it is with the added weight of the queer people who never found their way out. Who were told they were too broken for this world. Who could no longer find hope. I will mourn for my community just as my first thought yesterday when the finale was done was how to best help them. What support would a community suddenly given this message need?
I know the creators did their best, and I will not hurl hatred at them. But I will, this one time, say I think that they were irresponsible. They valued art over the community around it. It was their choice to make, and I respect what they were trying to accomplish and the beauty they were trying to create. And I know many will see that beauty and they will receive their accolades.
This post is not for those who are pleased. It’s for the rest of you. The ones in the fandom that are aching and seeing yourselves erased and tired of fighting. Please don’t give up. Hope is there. Love is real and it does not only create universes but heals the pain within us.
Maybe 97 minutes simply wasn’t enough. If Aziraphale and Crowley had been given years to heal in their garden bookshop and come to their decision, I could understand it far more. If we had time to show multiple multiverse endings, including one where our Ineffables stood at the end and smiled at what they had created when they thought they’d be sacrificing themselves, that I would have understood a bit more. Perhaps if they’d instead told God to leave their universe and let them finally figure it out, something given through the wisdom of child-Adam back in season one. Maybe they didn’t have the story time for all of these. It could simply be that we can solve the problem with only a little more time.
I do think a multiverse was intended as Aziraphale and Crowley’s choice. I think they should have been able to see it through the snow globe that now sits on their mantle in my heart. A story in which we can have all of our stories and see all the possible choices and worlds we could have inhabited.
To see what we would have been without the trauma is not a bad thing. Nor are all the stories we have created for Aziraphale and Crowley. Thousands of them! All a slightly different version. All a slightly different them. That we have watched fall in love time after time.
Yet we are still valid as we are. Broken and trying and finding hope in the ashes. Because we, and 7 billion humans, all deserve the chance to hope that we can find a better world without sacrificing ourselves to do so.
I won’t be leaving the Good Omens fandom, not by a long stretch. This hasn’t been my first time that I’ve disagreed with canon nor will it be the last, I’m sure. I hope that the rest of you that are struggling with this ending also stay. There will be AUs and fix it fics and more stories for us all to tell.
I would be remiss if I did not say this: I am sure with time I am going to love Asa and Anthony. After all, I was writing a human AU with my partner as I fell in love with them. When I saw the ending, the bit of smile I did receive was the beauty of seeing two people who are no longer young still being able to find each other and fall in love.
I have seen many takes saying that they are sad that Asa and Anthony will only get twenty years. As someone who is destined to have much the same time frame in my life with my partner who I adore more than the world itself, this feels a bit like a slap in the face. Because that is still years of joy. It has still been us waking up next to each other each day and planting our garden for our future. I would have loved to have an entire life with them, but I am so very, very happy to get the time that we will have.
I have also seen takes saying Asa and Anthony are not canon nonbinary people any longer. They’re not canon cis, either. And until we adjust our thoughts to understanding we do not know someone’s gender or sexuality unless they tell us, we will continue to be in a world in which nonbinary people feel unaccepted at heart.
I am glad we finally have some sort of closure. I look forward to diving back into the sandbox (and have many thoughts already about doing so). I do, truly, believe that Aziraphale and Crowley could not have been erased from the Book of Life nor their world from existence. They’re still out there. After all, we have not forgotten them and I know I for one never will. They have given me far too much over the years.
Stay safe, fandom. Love one another and help each other through this. Don’t be angry at others for seeing things differently to each other, we are all different and that is something to celebrate. It’s not an attack on how you see the world, truly. Because we are all flawed beings trying to find our own joy.
Jesus really should have gotten the chance to confront his mother in S3, though. Like its a smaller problem I have compared to the rest of what I consider wrong but...
Please picture Jesus standing before God, Crowley and Aziraphale on his shoulders and Adam holding his hand.
"You're not my mum. My mum was there. She cared for me and fed me. She cried when she couldn't heal my wounds. She wasn't some distant figment who had condemned me for a contrived game she made up. Unlike you, she actually loved me." He pauses to catch his breath. "And she loved the world. She taught me to help those who I could and to care. To find the joy in a shared meal and quiet chat, and how much a story can heal. My mum was what the world deserved, not a heartless player of games that's stacking the deck."
God raises an eyebrow, "I'm afraid that's not your decision."
"Why not?" Adam chimes in. "Free will and all that, isn't it?"
Satan hides a chuckle as God's eyes narrow.
"Your not my mum." Jesus states firmly. "And I think its best you leave now."
"Leave? The universe I made?"
"That is his request," Aziraphale calmly steps to Adam's side as Crowley slides next to Jesus.
"You'll be alone. In this shop with nothing."
"I think that's our problem, isn't it?" Crowley grins.
"So be it." Its not a clap of thunder as God disappears but the smallest whisp of breeze.
Satan gives them all a small wave then he, too, is gone.
"What do we do now?" Fear finally creeps into Jesus' words.
Adam kisses the back of his hand. "Tell us a story. Let's start there."
Something that horribly bothers me about the concept that Aziraphale and Crowley are in every part of the new world is that implies they're also a part of the horrible parts.
Our demon who heard about the Spanish Inquisition and then had to get horribly drunk is...now a part of it. Global warming. Facism. Bigotry.
All those things Crowley took credit for that were so awful Hell couldn't even come up with them.
If the world was truly remade in their DNA, I think it would be far more loving and trusting.
And Crowley is horribly aware of what humans are capable of. And knows that demons aren't responsible for it. And that removing God from the equation wouldn't erase the true struggles of the world.
Which is why we need to learn to fix it rather than continue to muck it up.
Instead of angry and depressed napping Crowley, hear me out: genuinely worried and understanding Crowley who is livid with the situation but as in love as he’s been for six thousand years stress cleaning the bookshop
Do you wonder if Aziraphale stared up to the stars his first night in Eden, straining to see into the distance, and thought to himself that Crowley was right, you really couldn’t see the best stars from Earth?
The moment of choice is a moment of infinity. Its a moment of the multiverse opening and a million new versions of them being created, and how they find each other time and again. We have seen only one version, and there are so many more.
Breathe. And love them. And if you want, create.
And know their fate is now ours. They couldn't have been erased from the Book of Life: we remember who they are. We know them. And they will stay with us for as long as we continue and hold their story.
What if Crowley is at the Bookshop keeping an eye on Muriel after Aziraphale leaves and wanders upstairs? Would he be tempted to open the door to the bedroom? If one of Aziraphale's shirts was there thrown over a chair would he dare to put it on and wrap himself in a hug.
Crowley burying his face in the fabric both to hide the tears and because it's where Aziraphale's scent lingers. A whispered "I miss you, Angel" that he doesn't realize is a prayer, but Aziraphale hears it all the same.
To the Angel it is the gentlest touch from the being he loves most. The reason he's here. And it gives him the strength he needs to take a deep breath and push forward in his plans to stop heaven
