if you liked the finale, this post is NOT for you.
please just move on. i don't want to be consoled or convinced. i just need to get a few things off my chest. and if this post resonates with no one but me, that's fine.
this post will talk about very sad things. if you're not in the mood to be sad, scroll past. i don't want to add to anyone's pain. i mean it. don't read this if you're having a bad day! take responsibility for your own well-being.
likewise: don't use your grief as an excuse to be a dick. don't come into my comments and insult other fans or cast and crew. THE CAST AND CREW ARE NOT TO BLAME. they did an impeccable job with what they were given. i'm talking about the story here, not the people who worked their asses off to bring it to life (with only one notable exception).
with all of that out of the way, here't what kills me: the Neil "i've never been deprogrammed from my Scientology upbringing" Gaiman brand of cynical violence this finale reeks with. the cynical violence of killing Aziracrow. yes, killing.
because Aziraphale and Crowley are dead. i'm sorry, but that's what happens in the finale.
the characters we fell in love with, the characters that inspired thousands and thousands of fics and art, stopped existing on a random Wednesday, and no, the human AU versions of them are not them. it's great they'll find each other in every universe, and the notion of them never dying as long as we remember them is cute and all, but Aziraphale and Crowley, the fussy angel and his slinky-hipped demon boyfriend, with all their trauma- and time- and immortality-formed traits and idiosyncrasies (which read as neurodivergence and queerness in myriad ways) are dead. the story killed them. the story made them sacrifice themselves so a new universe can be made that has no place for them.
and all i can think is fuck that. i never wanted a new universe, i wanted this one, as fucked up as it is, with them in it. i wanted Aziracrow to inspire us to work to fix what's broken. to remind us that it's still worth fixing. instead, i got a story that told me that it's not worth fixing, that an entire universe traumatized by an oppressive system and everything and everyone in it (including you and me and everyone we love) are not worth fixing, and that anyone who tries will not only fail, but get erased from fucking existence for it. that there needs to be a new universe, where eyeryone is the same. and maybe that's what kills me the most: the erasure of difference. the erasure of the rough edges. of anything that mis-fits. see also @gabe-dasha's very good post about this aspect of the finale.
don't get me wrong: that Heaven and Hell as institutions have to go altogether? that's 100% Pratchett. but having this play out the way it did? where the only members of those institutions WORTH ANYTHING don't get their happy ending after 6000 years of pain and fear and yearning and trying their best? that's a level of cynical violence i've never seen Pratchett engage in. but Gaiman does.
i've disliked NG as an author looong before we knew what an asshole he is as a person because i never could help but feel he treats his characters like teenage serial-killers treat small animals. this finale is exactly that, and i can't fucking stand it.
the final thing i need to say is that i'm disgusted by the plausible deniability of it all. i've already talked about the Hays Code here, and the finale's little human AU epilogue reminded me too much of exactly that. yes, we get a very rom-com meet-cute. we get two close-ups of marriage rings and them holding hands. but you know what? the versions of them that did kiss died, and i know it's not "bury your gays", but a homophobe could still watch this comfortably and say "how nice, they're such good friends". i didn't want them to kiss because i think kissing is the ultimate marker of romantic love, but movies do. and male characters that don't kiss are not gay in movie language. no matter how often they say "i love you". and the way those scenes were shot leave, in real Hays Code manner, enough plausible deniability for denying their queerness, and i cannot describe to you how fucking angry that makes me. Amazon supports the current us-fascism whole-heartedly, and i'm sorry, but in this finale, it fucking shows. and maybe that's the most devastating part of this.
in conclusion: i'm mourning my ineffable silly gay dads. i hate Neil Gaiman and Amazon even more than i already did. i mourn the loss of Terry Pratchett more than i ever could. i don't feel like i can engage with this fandom right now. i stg i don't begrudge people liking the finale, but i just can't, and honestly: i don't know if i will ever be able to. in any case: i need time to heal my nervous system.
I’ve always had question marks about s2, but since 3 aired, the cracks are really starting to show. At least for me. The f15, the apology dance, even some scenes in 1 are drawing my suspicion now. Every scene that NG (fuck him) wrote on his own is appearing in a different light now.
It doesn’t make me love Aziracrow and most of the side characters less, mind you. I’ve made them my own a long time ago and their mine now. But still. It’s like there was always this underside to some of the scenes that I never perceived until I saw what it leads to in the finale.
It’s almost like breaking up with someone because they crossed a very serious red line, then realizing in the aftermath how often they showed red flags in the past but you thought it insignificant…until you looked at the big picture and saw the pattern.
~ 1,000 matches (yes, I counted every single one) + 100 g of glue
The matches had been waiting for this project for ten years. I collected and kept them after they were used, hoping I'd eventually find something worth making out of them. I guess this portrait became a sustainable art project.
Every match was individually trimmed and carefully re-burned to the exact shade I needed before being glued into place.
The only unburnt matches are the iris of Crowley's eye.
Fun fact: after spending a month and a half carefully working with fire, the only time the artwork actually caught fire was during the final details. While I was using my barely-alive Soviet-era wood-burning tool around the pupil, two match heads from iris suddenly ignited right in front of my face. Thankfully I managed to put them out before the fire turned 1,5 months of work into ashes and possibly set my apartment on fire🌚 I nearly had a heart attack.
Tags: Zombie Apocalypse, The Second Coming, Post-Good Omens (TV) Season 2, Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing", Aziraphale Loves Crowley, Crowley is a Mess, Crowley Loves Aziraphale, Minisode: 1989, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Aziraphale Gives Zero Fucks, POV Alternating, Bearded Aziraphale (but he doesn't like it), Evil Metatron, Unhinged Aziraphale, (why is this not already a tag?), Aziraphale Has PTSD, Soft Crowley, Emotionally Significant Hugs, some light angst in the Minisode (Crowley's POV), No beta we fall like Crowley, Canon-Typical Violence, Heaven is Terrible, God is absent, and thank fuck for that, Original Minisode, Ineffable Idiots, Happy Ending, on-screen kiss, closed-door sexy times, South Downs Cottage, in this house we try to fix things
Summary:
Crowley and Beelzebub team up with Whickber Street an Co. against the Second Coming and the Undead while Aziraphale learns another devastating truth about Hell and Heaven when the latter imprisons him for "forming a de-facto partnership with a demon".
Features a 1989 Minisode (two parts) where Crowley is (suicidally) devastated about the AIDS crisis and Aziraphale tries to help his demon.
Excerpt (Chapter 2 bc 1 is part 1 of the minisode):
Crowley snaps out of his memory with a startle to find that Nina makes her Don’t be stupid face at him. He’s seen a lot of this face in the past six months; especially in dreadful conversations about love and relationships and other awful things like feelings.
Crowley grunts in frustration. “Urgh, okay, fine.” He fixes his eyes on Beelzebub. “But we must be smart about this! Level-headed! No spur-of-the-moment, stupid decisions made from stupid heartbreak and even more stupid longing. We plan, and we execute. Coldly. Got it?”
Of course, there was nothing level-headed or smart about what transpired shortly after. A lot of spur-of-the-moment, stupid decisions from stupid heartbreak and even more stupid longing were, in fact, made, and all of them, Crowley will hate to admit, by none other than himself.
i wrote this shortly after s2 aired on the height of hyperfixation lol. it's a then-canon compliant s3 speculation that has all the elements i thought we'd get in s3 (and then didn't) like an honest conversation btw. our ineffables, characters from both seasons returning, a happy ending for Aziracrow, and a goddamn kiss.
i always felt my writing wasn't good enough in comparison to what other peeps in this fandom are capable of (i adore you!), but you know what: fuck that inner perfectionist, and also: it IS better than the dumpster fire that was the finale. it's not often i go like "i could do this better than the paid professionals", but in this case i truly think most of us would've done way better than what these horror clowns came up with.
if you've read, kudos-ed, commented: thank you thank you thank you!!!
got your own post s2/s3 spec/fix-it fic? i'd love to hear about it! and get a link to it!
👋 So, i’ve been seeing a lot of frustration around about GO S3 posts lately, and I wanted to offer a maybe a different perspective.
When people ask for S3 posts to be tagged, they’re not saying your opinion is wrong in any direction. They’re not saying you’re “bad” for loving it, hating it, or feeling somewhere in between.
They’re asking because tags are tools. That’s been true for years in fandom.
They’re how people find the conversations they want to join, and how they avoid the ones they’re not ready for. Fan-sites like Ao3, spaces like this, and countless others all rely on tagging to help people curate their own experience. That’s how to make and keep a space safe.
-Some people are grieving.
-Some people are excited and want to celebrate every moment of S3.
-Some people are in the middle, they love parts and hate parts.
-Some people are still processing.
-Some people, yes, some still haven’t even watched it yet.
None of these reactions are wrong.
Tagging isn’t censorship. It isn’t invalidating. It isn’t asking anyone to hide their joy or their disappointment.
It’s simply a small courtesy that lets everyone use this app the way it was designed: to seek out the content we want and filter out the content we don’t.
The same courtesy should apply whether your post is mixed, positive, negative, analytical, or simply emotional.
-We all process differently, that’s ok.
-We don’t all have to agree on S3.
-We can make it easier to coexist in the same fandom.
Okay fam: are we ready to talk about the Crowley-shaped elephant in the room?
Much has been said, speculated and theorized about Aziraphales motivations and motifs in the F15. What was he (really) thinking or trying to say? Why did he act the way he did? A not insignificant part of this has involved blaming him, calling him naive, cold, stupid and more. And much has been said in his defence.
But almost nobody ever seems to talk about how absolutely BONKERS it is of Crowley to choose this moment for his big love confession.
I mean, honestly: why THE FUCK would one do that? after they've been so painstakingly careful for millennia? They were just attacked by demons, then had an impromptu heavenly tribunal during which the fucking VOICE OF GOD chose to intervene. they've been threatened. they are being watched. Aziraphale returns from his little chinwag with the Metatron and is CLEARLY anxious; a fact that Crowley is supposed to pick up on (the something's wrong-voice and all that), and furthermore: the Metatron is STILL THERE. Right across the street. Watching. Listening.
i know there've been metas about poison and mind control, and maybe that's it, but idk i would've preferred a scene that makes sense for the characters and is consistent with what their state of mind should be after everything that went down in that scene.
the F15 however seems more and more like drama for drama's sake, consistency and logic be damned. abysmal writing, worse than most soap operas.
or am i missing something? if so, please please please tell me. i've been wrecking my brain and i just don't get it.
When I seriously tried to end my life, I was taken to a hospital. There were people who took care of me. Back then, I couldn’t accept it. I hated it. I didn’t want to be saved. I just wanted everything to end. To stop existing, you know.
So, for months, I was cut off from the freedom to choose what to do with my own life, until it became clear that I was no longer a danger to myself.
Did that mean I could accept it at the time? No. It felt like they were torturing me on purpose. Like it was cruelty. I saw the world through agony because the world was agony to me.
That’s how depression works.
Even after I was no longer under clinical supervision.
And now I am grateful that my “free will” was restricted, because if that free will means self-destruction, then now, being alive and functional, I can say this with certainty: yes, the will of a person who wants to destroy themselves should be temporarily restricted.
Yes. That is the right thing to do.
I can say that because I was there.
Sometimes I still don’t want to live. But now I keep going. There is therapy. There is medication. There is an understanding that the way I saw the world back then was shaped by illness.
That doesn’t make this world any better, of course.
But it also doesn’t mean that the worldview of someone in the depths of severe clinical depression can be even remotely objective or justified.
I want to ask the writers of Good Omens 3:
What gave you the right to use a character—one beloved by tens of thousands of living, traumatized people—to tell them that suicide is the answer if you’re suffering?
That it’s funny to mock a depressed character, and then have him kill himself, presenting it as some higher wisdom or whatever other bullshit.
That it’s romantic?
That it makes sense because… because—WHAT?
Because of fucking determinism and because the world is so unfair?
Who gave you the right to be this cruel and dismissive?
Who gave you the right to spread something this deeply sick?
Who gave you the right to literally tear open barely healed wounds for people for whom this character and this story were hope, a way to survive?
Are you telling me that back then, when I wanted to die, I should have died? That I should have been given that “choice”?
Is that what you’re saying?
The truth is, I don’t think this wound will ever heal.
Because the more I understand what they did to my Crowley, to my Good Omens, to us—the worse it gets.
Do not listen to people telling you to stop complaining and expressing your grief. Do not let them insinuate you’re hurting queer rep in future media. Queer rep - same as queer people - is in danger right now. There’s no two ways about it. But trust me: if media execs decide to make us even more invisible, it won’t be because you complained once too often in a tumblr post. In a time of worldwide right-wing backlash against progressive movements, that’s ridiculous abuser logic. Don’t fall for it.
[if anything, media execs deal in attention, good and bad. They know we hate-watch stuff. They know what kind of buzz large fandoms can create and how we can carry niche content into the mainstream. The worst thing for them would be if we stopped talking about it.]
Complain as much as you want and need. I for one love reading it. It helps me with my own grief. Makes me feel like there is still a community here that has a place for me and that won’t judge me for my pain and won’t tell me I’m too much or that my feelings are inappropriate. You see? By talking about your pain, you’re actually helping others. It’s a good thing. As long as it still helps you too, of course.
There’s no time limit. A someone else pointed out in comments, the first legit modern day fanworks came about because people couldn’t cope with Sherlock Homes‘ death ten years after the fact. Ten. Years. And they’re still going!
So please, let it all out. Make memes funny to the sardonic and the ones with gallows humor. Complain, whine, moan, wax poetically or prosaically. I want to hear it, and I know for sure I’m not the only one.
i think i know what post this is in reference to so im gonna put my reply to it in here because the op blocked me (as is their right, i just wanted to put it somewhere it could get seen)
Yeah. Sure. It’s all our fault. If we never get queer rep again, it’s our fault because we complained too much.
Not that we’ve been surviving global fascist downward spiral since at least 2016. of which a finale that eradicates its queer MCs to replace them with Hays-Code compliant versions is certainly not a symptom of. No no. That’s not it.
apparently, it's "gaslighting oneself into a spot of stockholm syndrome"-time again, this time: "GO was always cOsMiC HoRroR, so, if you're disappointed in the finale, it's your own fault because you were too mEdIa iLlItErAtE to see where this was always going."
like, yeah, whatever, if that's the take: fine.
but the moment it's used as a precursor to complain how stupid the fandom is, it becomes pretty transparent that this is not about initiating an interesting discussion about literary genres but mainly about taking a dump on people in grief.
In the comments of that post about Ao3 refusing to separate the shitty Aziraphale/Crowley knockoffs from the real ones in the tags because one of the tag wranglers is extremely pro go3, someone posted a link to a tutorial on how to make an Ao3 skin that excludes certain tags (any tags). I wanted to pull that out and share it with everyone who wants to avoid ever seeing any fic that has those characters in it. Link
