In no particular order: Sherlockian, Good Omens, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Star Trek, OFMD. I have very decided opinions about shit, so deal with it. I speak fluent Beatles. She/Her.
On a meta level, Good Omens S3 was EMOTIONAL ABUSE.
... Meaning, I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman did it ON PURPOSE, knowing how much it would upset the fans.
Neil knew how badly we wanted Aziraphale and Crowley (OUR version of Aziraphale and Crowley---the specific version of them we met in Season 1) to be together. He knew we wanted to see them resolve their issues and ultimately choose to be with each other in the end.
Instead, Aziraphale and Crowley forgo that emotional journey in favor of unnecessary pain. Neither of them experience real character growth in the finale; they are shown to be the worst and unhappiest versions of themselves, without getting a real shot at redemption. They never fix their communication issues. They don't express their true, authentic feelings for one another (don't @ me with that bullshit hand kiss thing). They never manage to get on the same page emotionally---even when they both agree to commit suicide (which I'm pretty sure was not the "one thing" Aziraphale wanted).
"Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?"
EMOTIONAL WITHHOLDING is a common abuse tactic utilized by men like Neil. They enjoy creating ATTACHMENT in their victims and then "TAKING IT AWAY".
It's easy to see how much Neil enjoyed frustrating his fans in retrospect. He actively taunted us on social media with the catchphrase "WAIT AND SEE" and threatened to make Aziraphale and Crowley kiss---but in a way we "wouldn't like". He loved dangling the implied promise of a happy ending over our heads, which we now know he never planned to deliver on.
Neil was unkind to his audience. He was also unkind to his characters. Aziraphale and Crowley are treated as punching bags throughout the entire series---shown to be "messy" for the sake of entertainment, but not as a real obstacle for either of them to overcome. God herself says she enjoys seeing how much Aziraphale values his relationship with Crowley. And this turns out to be her justification for "taking it away". (Tell me THAT isn't some fucked up shit.) Aziraphale and Crowley experience real emotional pain as the result of her actions---and this is demonstrated by the incredible acting of Michael Sheen and David Tennant.
Neil explicitly sold this as "a love story" when he created the show. Based on the tone of the book, an eventual union between Aziraphale and Crowley would have made the most narrative sense. It would have emphasized the overarching themes of love, agency, and the futility of "choosing sides". But that would have required Neil to possess the same ethos as Terry Pratchett---meaning LOVE AND RESPECT FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS.
We were never going to get a good love story out of Neil. Men like Neil get off on "PUNISHING" people for no apparent reason; he obviously did this with our beloved characters, to disastrous result. Nonetheless, we still manage to ascribe deeper meaning to Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to the phenomenal acting team and the dedication of this fandom. Aziraphale and Crowley remain the greatest love story of all time, not because of anything Neil actually wrote, but because of everything that was projected onto them by the people who cared. We assigned their relationship a depth "Neil himself" never could have imagined---one that exemplifies our maximalist ideals of love and the decision to choose it again and again, in spite of everything. It is never going to "end" on Neil's preferred terms. In this rare instance, fan interpretation STILL MANAGES TO ECLIPSE THE SOURCE MATERIAL---and that is because LOVE is always a more powerful story than ABUSE.
Hello, lovely friends. I am so grateful for all the wonderful people in this fandom that are supporting each other after the finale. I've had (quite an excessive number of) inspiring converations in replies on how everyone is grieving and healing 😅 This is a compilation of those thoughts so hopefully people can find something meaningful in it. These are the things that have been helping me heal. I hope it helps you heal a little bit, too ❤️
Message 1: This is just another bad fanfiction
So. We all know exactly who was responsible for this mess. NG wrote a self-insert hero-worship shrine to Crowley/himself. NG acts like the God in GO3: a cold, all-powerful being that doesn't care about anything he's creating or how any of those people will be affected by it. NG claimed it's all a 'tribute to Terry' while twisting what he wrote and profiting off Terry's legacy. This was DESIGNED to hurt us. There's a great post by adevilputaside4me on how GO3 was emotional abuse. NG knew EXACTLY what the fans wanted for years, the south downs promise over and over, yet he chose not to give us any of it. And it's important to recognize we didn't deserve it. It was disrespectful to everyone who has devoted some portion of their life to this story. But we don't have to let an abuser control us. It's time to reject one hateful man's interpretation. Why should we accept such a poorly-written story? Why should we give ANY weight to an ending that was created from nothing but cruelty and personal gain? Why should we let such an unkind person decide what happens to the story and the love WE have carried for years???
The finale also tried to erase the story of S1/the book. Season 1 is a hopeful and fun comedy, enjoyable to watch, over and over. S3 is 100% tragedy and despair, doom and death for every character. The ending tries to tell us there is no meaning in the book/S1 since it was always headed for destruction, but we DON'T have to accept it. Why should the lesson be "destroy yourselves and start over" when it provides zero comfort and no one can even apply that in their real lives? Why accept an ending so devoid of hope? Why accept an ending that lacks all the meaningful, inspiring, and relevant themes of the book/S1???
So, I choose to reinterpret the whole mess as 'bad fanfiction' because only then does it lose its power. Burying things sometimes works, but something that painful doesn't just leave you. So by seeing it as one interpretation, it releases the obligation to forget it completely. I've read lots of fanfictions where I didn't like the characterization, story, etc, then I just go 'eh I didn't like that one' then delete the tab and move on. It can still exist for other people if they want, but we don't have to accept or engage with it. There are thousands of different interpretations out there and they all coexist for us to pick what we want from them. Nothing is canon without your permission. Take whatever you need from it and leave the rest behind. We don't have to accept something we know is cruel and wrong. Canon has always been exactly what we make of it.
I'm not saying it's easy to change your mindset overnight. This was literally designed to hurt us, so pain, grieving, etc are completely valid responses. And the 'canon' has a huge reach and impact. But the more we practice letting something go, the easier it gets. It's a habit, not a switch. Over time, it will have less and less control over us.
Message 2: Nothing can take your favorite parts of this fandom away from you
A huge source of comfort for me has been reimmersing myself in all the things I loved about Good Omens that originally brought me here. This is a lovely list by ineffabildaddy of all those pieces of the canon we haven't lost. The original story, the love we feel, the joy we've had, the meaning we've found, the connections we've made, and the hope it's given us for so many years. That will never go away. Nothing can EVER take away the impact this fandom has had on you. And for the material itself, the good thing about canon is that it isn't like normal time or memory. It sort of always happened and always will. Even if some new interpretation tries to take it away, the original material always exists for us to go back to, whenever we want, over and over again. The 'canon' universe may have disappeared, but the book/S1 will exist for the fans forever, so it can never truly be destroyed. I think it was a post by hellogoodomens where I first saw the line "It starts, as it will end, with season 1." If that is canon to you, then that's what Your Good Omens™ will be, for the rest of your life.
This is not the first time a show I'm into has ended badly (I'm sure many can relate). But I try not to let the bad endings drive me away from what drew me there in the first place. It is my love for the source material that got me to stay and that love for the source material prevents me from ever leaving. The reason this upset so many of us is BECAUSE of how much we loved the original story. The ending disrespected us all, but it's so important to find ways to reclaim the joy we originally found here. Nothing can FORCE you to enjoy something less. I loved the book/S1 before, and I still do now. Just encouraging you not to let one person's terrible opinion take something away from you that brings you meaning and love and joy. If you have been in any way moved by that love and that story, who is anyone else to say it isn't real? Who is ANYONE else to say that story is over, or that the love you felt no longer exists????
Message 3: Fanworks can be even more valid than canon
I think endings like these are designed to push a fandom down, to make us feel defeated and depressed and powerless. So that the writers (NG) feel like they have some kind of 'authority' or 'story ownership' over us that we don't. But the thing that is pushing me forward, is remembering how much power we actually have as fans. Because in any form, writers create reality and there will ALWAYS be more of us (fan creators) than there are of them (canon writers). The depth and possibilities of fan content will always rival that of canon. Compared to the finale, I've read literally hundreds of AziraCrow fanfictions that were more in-character, more respectful, and so clearly written by someone who LOVES them both and how they love each other. If the fans can write the story with more talent and justice than the actual creator, then the fans' stories are what I'm going to believe in. NG wrote from his ego and greed; we write from our hope and love. Therefore, I believe our versions are MORE valid and impactful, BECAUSE we created them from love instead of spite and cruelty.
In terms of quantity, the fans have always imagined SO MUCH MORE of the story than the 'official' writers or 'official' canon ever could. If you look at the time and effort spent (79,000 AziraCrow fanfictions on AO3!!!), the fans have more ownership and power over the material than canon ever did. This is as much OUR story as it is the creators.' Who are they to tell us how OUR story ends?? Who can tell us they don't live happily ever after when tens of thousands of fanfictions disagree??? And if fan content has moved us this strongly (sometimes even MORE than canon has), and if the volume of content is virtually endless, if it celebrates the story and the characters more lovingly than canon does, who can tell us the fan content isn't real? Who could DARE to tell us that it isn't just as valid, and perhaps even more so, than canon is ?????
At its core, there is literally no objective truth here. Good Omens is a made-up story and all of these characters are made-up and canon is just as made-up as fanfiction is. I've said it before and I'll say it 6000 more times: The only difference between canon and fanfiction is the budget. This fandom has existed for decades and created so many wonderful things and relationships—all because of our love for these characters. Tens of thousands of versions of them being happy are NOT worth less than one canon version of them being destroyed. We, as fans, have so much more POWER than we think. Every single one of us has helped to create their story, and every single one of us are such a beautiful and necessary part of this fandom. The strongest power in the universe isn’t God. It is us. The fans. The story can never be destroyed as long as we continue to create it for ourselves.
Message 4: Love cannot be destroyed
I think for many of us, the ending of this particular story has struck so much deeper and been so much more painful than we were expecting. I don't think I've ever been this devastated from the ending of a tv show. And I think I realized that the reason this hurts so much is because we love so deeply. We love them and we love this story. We all represent the love Aziraphale and Crowley have felt and wanted to express to each other for 6000 years. We carry them in all of us. NG tried to tell us that the happiness we wanted for them is impossible. The entire universe tried to tell us that our dreams will never be realized. But does anything that happened in the finale change how much we care about these characters?? Can anyone tell us that they don't love each other, and that love isn't enough to keep them together?? Can anyone say the love we poured into thousands of fanfictions is lost forever??? I think not. NO ONE can take that love away from us. Their love will always exist no matter what did or didn’t happen on screen. You cannot destroy an idea. You cannot destroy love. Beyond any other versions of them, Aziraphale and Crowley‘s love—their happily ever after—will live on for eternity in all of us.
And in the end, this was so painful because of how much we cared. We wanted to see the love inside our hearts reflected in the love of our characters on screen. There is certainly a lot we were all hoping for that we never got to experience. But at the same time, I think the pain from the finale doesn't have to lessen the love we feel. We can remember all the good things we have in Good Omens AND feel the pain of what we deserved in the finale, and neither of them have to invalidate the other. It gives me a lot of peace and comfort to know that as long as we love these characters, that love will never die. We will always have that feeling, the meaning and relationships and richness and everything else they brought into our lives. We get to carry that with us forever. And we get to share that with each other to help us all heal.
Message 5: We know the real themes of good omens (better than the finale/NG ever did)
Given everything I've said, I think these messages can bring moments of great peace and comfort, but only because we experience moments of great anger and loss. Sometimes switching back and forth, or at the same time. Which is all completely valid and why I'm so grateful for everyone else sharing their own grief and dissatisfaction. Because the anger and loss reminds us how much we cherish the original story. All the unique ways in which we love it are what is giving us all these unique and detailed frustrations with it. I see it as a million different unique and powerful acts of love toward the story of Good Omens. And everyone who is still creating and sharing that sentiment is keeping alive the true spirit of the story. The Real Themes of Good Omens™, if you will. Because we understand that better than the finale/NG ever did. I have always taken comfort in the true humanism and hope of Good Omens, and remember that however hard the finale tried to break us—to tell us that love is impossible and hope has no reward—WE KNOW BETTER.
Therefore, please enjoy a summary of The Real Themes of Good Omens™ as a representation of the best and most hopeful take-aways from this story. It's sort of based on this analysis post I made except more general on the themes themselves.
Human incarnate: Humanity is messy and flawed and wonderful and the true beauty of it comes from all of that existing together. A little boy saved the world using only his humanity and his love. Not because he was perfect. But because he was human.
Everyone has free will: Meaning, everyone has the power of self-determination and humans get to decide for themselves exactly who they want to be. Free will is described as the defining characeristic of humanity, that our uniqueness and freedom of self is what makes us who we are.
There are no sides, only choices: No one is truly good or truly evil. Everyone has the power to be kind or cruel. We all make choices every day that make us the people that we are. There is nuance and depth in every choice and every person. We have the power to make the world better and choose what kind of person we become.
Love conquers all: The love and hope you feel toward people, the world, and the future is so powerful. Our love for others can randically change and heal. Our love for the world ensures it lasts long enough to have a future in it. The only way anything ever gets better is because people have enough love and hope to make it so. The love you give is never wasted, the love you feel will never die.
Anything of value can be fixed: Everything that's worth anything can be fixed without destroying it. Everything deserves to be saved because it all has intrinsic value. Every person deserves to exist exactly as they are, and no one needs to remove any trauma or any other part of themselves for things to get better. No one needs to change who they are to experience freedom and love.
In the true Good Omens story, Aziraphale and Crowley loved the world, and us—as humanity—enough to save it. Terry Pratchett is confirmed to have written most of the original book and is the one who INSISTED that everyone be revived at the end. That no one should die so Adam could live. The story, as we know it, is largely a Terry Pratchett creation, and anything NG did on his own could never hope to capture the same spirit and respect and care that Terry put into it. And so we cherish the hope and love from Terry in this story. No matter what the finale tries to tell us, we know what Good Omens and Terry Pratchett were always saying. The world is loved and we are the world. So we are all loved too.
Final note
I know a lot of people are suffering after the finale, and we as a fandom have been suffering for years now. We have been in the absolute trenches of AziraCrow hopes and dreams and endless waiting and failed promises but what has always kept me going is the love in this story and the love in the fans. In honor of these characters, in honor of our fanatical ancestors, in honor of each other, we will continue the story and the love.
I hope this helps you remember the best things about Good Omens and all the meaning it will continue to bring to our lives. The story is never over as long as we keep it in our hearts. And all the nightingales therein.
I feel strongly that NG never liked the idea of crowley and aziraphale as a romantic couple. I believe he originally just wanted to write crowley and it was TP who convinced him to split that idea into two characters who were foils of each other?
He went along with fans and their fantasies and shipping in the past because he is an expert at getting people to develop parasocial bonds with him. Then, once those bonds have been broken, he turns back on his fake aziracrow enthusiasm and destroys the relationship AND the characters as revenge.
Good thing media belongs to its audience. He may have created these characters, but he does not control them in the minds and hearts of those who have grown to love them. So for me, the official canon ended in S1 (with the flashbacks from S2 included) and the story continues in my mind how I want it to continue.
Hi, Anon!
I just kind of rambled my response to this out, so forgive my scattered thoughts.
While we can’t know his motivations and reasoning for sure, I [sure as heck] see no obvious refutation to any of these statements.
Whatever GO3 was, it will be very hard to convince me it wasn’t done as an act of malice. I think he likes hurting people and I think he mistakes people being upset with his writing for being a good writer.
I believe he wanted to make the story his very own, even if it meant annihilating it. There may have been jealousy involved. I think the weird ways the characters are developed away from their book-selves suggests this.
To me, it’s infuriating to think that we were given an intricate and intriguing S2 just to set us up for being gutted, but I think that’s the case. I’m pretty sure he was heading for the nihilistic ending all along because nihilistic endings are his lodestone. He wanted to be very sure we fell in love with the characters, understood them to be in love, and to expect a triumphantly happy ending before dashing subverting our expectations. (What he thought would happen with his Adoring Parasocial Fanclub after that, though, I have no idea. Maybe he wanted to be the calm soothing voice of wisdom? Shudder.)
I believe there were statements that were made that were against shipping the Ineffable Couple (though if that was going to be a problem maybe they shouldn’t have held hands and been referred to as a “couple” in the book), though I don’t know what they were, exactly, and I’m not gonna look for them. Since I strongly believe he was going for the universe reset ending from the time he decided to do an S2, the question in my mind is, was it made worse or more brutal as a punishment to an “unfaithful” fandom?
It is entirely possible. The careful reactions we’ve seen from the actors (who knew the projected ending from the start) suggest to me that it was, somehow, altered to be more hopeless—but that may also be an artifact of the clumsy editing from 6 episodes to one.
At any rate, in the end, I too believe S1 was the real thing and everything following was fanfiction. And you’re right: there may be legal rights to those characters, but the entire human history of myth and legend says they’re OURS. They broke the bonds of fiction and have the sort of autonomy that great characters like Sherlock Holmes and Fionn mac Cumhaill andThor have achieved—they are greater than the stories their authors originally told and can live beyond the time and means of their invention.
I have also wondered about this. One clue was when Crowley commented practically first thing in S2 EP1 (paraphrased): “Angels, demons, heaven, hell - what’s the point? It’s all pointless.”
I think how GO3 ended was always how it was going to even if NG hadn’t been forced out. And looking at what we did get and how it could have been fleshed out into six episodes, I think the response from the fandom would have been even stronger than it is. Of course, those of us who don’t like the idea of annihilation for humanity and our beloved characters would have been accused of being uneducated idiots who don’t appreciate the undoubtedly more sophisticated nihilistic ending. And the NG parasocial ass-kissers would have been out in force to drive the rest of us out of the fandom. So I suppose we should be grateful things didn’t end up worse. 🙄
✨️some thoughts under the cut, feel free to ignore it and just enjoy the picture✨️
Whenever I dislike something very much, I change my mind often within a few days. It's been a week, it hurts less, but I didn’t change my mind this time. I don't accept the final. It doesn't feel right to me, and it doesn't feel fair. I wrote a very angry text earlier and it was rather emotional, not gonna delete it though, it made me feel better. I don't care if the s3 ending was intended to be so bitter or did they genuinely thought it's right and good, I just know that it doesn’t match the whole picture to me (and also, it's just not what I wanted, not gonna lie, but there are so many ways to end the story, and they chose THE WORST). I'd like to say it one more time: the problem for me is not the characters make the choice they did, it's the writers put them in this situation in the first place. And EVEN in those circumstances, i believe that our angel and demon would come to any other solution than this one.
When I was drawing this, I was thinking about what makes our beloved characters themselves. It is their shared past and experiences, thousands of memories that influence their personalities and choices. It's their long story, their history. It's not just a "soul", though it matters too if it exists. So, when it was erased this easily, no reincarnations could fill the hole that many of us got. Asa and Anthony are sweet and I kinda liked them after all but their happiness doesn't really bother me as much as Aziraphale and Crowley's.
Besides, I was so so sad about not only they were destroyed, but all of the people and the world we knew. It felt so wrong, especially when you think about Adam giving the Earth a chance despite it being so twisted and bad in many ways. Because, firstly it's up to no one to decide the fate of everyone, and secondly, it is wrong to give up on trying to fix things and make it better. It's so important to remember our past, our pain and our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them in the future, and when it's just gone it feels like a loss, not a win. I'm not even talking about all the good things that humanity had, and now it's all went different way. We have seen that people live just fine, and in the new world everything is very similar to ours, but this feels so... not related to us? Idk, it feels like something else. I wonder what humanity had to go through during this time, but as I said earlier, I wanted to get a chance to live on for our world, and not for someone else, who didn't even exist yet... Don't we deserve this?
That's why I've drawn this picture. I usually draw something for fun or just to create something pleasing to my own eyes, but this one feel special because of so much thoughts behind it. Pretty simple thoughts but anyway. In my head Aziraphale and Crowley are alive as old selves, happy and loved. In the cottage, of course.
The last thing I would like to add is just my opinion (as everything above, sure) but I want to say it anyway. I believe that every author should tell the story the way they want, without necessarily listening to anyone's suggestions about it. But for me this story was a comforting one, the one about and for all of the people, and now it’s neither. After the S2 I felt like this show is going to end somehow lovely, with everyone achieve the peace they deserved, and that the ending would be the most cliché (in a good way) we could imagine. Because this is what we NEEDED. We needed something that ends fair and everyone is happy, that would be a beacon to help us through the hard times in reality. There are not so many stories nowadays that seems like a fairy tale that gives us hope, like the S1. I think we all have the right to grieve about something that was so important to us and turned out to be a kind of betrayal, despite the fact that it was the author's choice. They had that right, and we have the right to say what we think about it. Also, people who paid to watch it have a right to complain about the commercial product they dislike because it is obviously rushed and not really written very well hahaha but that’s not what I’m talking about. Even if this ending would be written brilliant with a full six episodes, it would be easier to accept but I probably wouldn’t.
I'm not the talkative one when it comes to openly expressing my opinions, it's always been a hard thing to me, but this is what happens when you make an introvert feel the pain about something they love deeply lol. I know a lot of people have already said exactly what I just said but I needed to vent it too. I feel so much easier after putting all of this into words and sharing. Glad if you read it! I’m open to discussion if you have anything to add or disagree.
It’s been a month already and I’m still trying to figure out how we got from Season One’s “I’ll talk to the Almighty and the Almighty will fix it” to the “fuck it all let’s just kill everything and start over maybe it’ll turn out okay” ending we got.
We are living in a timeline where the GO finale involved Aziraphale and Crowley never properly making up, spending a grumpy day together, and then dying.
I need to keep reminding myself of that. Because this outcome was so unimaginable to me. In the 990 days I spent waiting for the finale I never once considered this possibility.
This is the ending that we got. I'm getting closer to accepting it, but I'm not quite there. That's why I'm making this post - not to rile up the fandom that I know is divided. I love the positive takes too, keep em comin'. I just... need a little more time to accept that this is what we got.
I think on the other side of it I will be able to say: Yes, that was a show I loved. Didn't love the ending. But that's true for lots of shows. You've just gotta exist in the moments before that end and in all the art that comes after.
A quick sketch of Aziprahale with long hair (the choice surprised me, but I nonetheless enjoyed the style).
I'm glad we got an ending to our favourite angel and demon's story after their adventures in S2, but I have to admit that I'm not very fond of the trope they used at the very end (in general, not only here), so I still don't know what to think about it.
There were moments that I enjoyed and I will always love these two - I'm glad that the fandom is rich in talented people who will continue to keep GO alive <:
Prints and other stuff on my Redbubble and Threadless
I've been up since 3:30am today, so bear with me if this doesn't make a ton of sense.
I keep thinking about the reactions I've seen to the Good Omens finale. I watched Good Omens, I read the book, I liked them both, I understood why people loved them, but I was not living in the walls about them. I was not making playlists and reading meta at 2 a.m. and developing strong opinions about the emotional significance of someone’s left eyebrow.
With BBC's Sherlock, unfortunately, I was. Yes, friends- I was a Sherlockian. And even more- I was a die-hard JohnLocker. (still am, tbh)
So, I recognize some of what I’m seeing now, even if I don’t think the situations are identical and I’m not interested in flattening them into the same thing. It’s not just Sherlock, either. We’ve seen versions of this happen with Supernatural, where years of devotion and subtext and fandom labor collided with an ending that left a lot of people feeling mocked or dismissed or emotionally stranded. We saw it with Game of Thrones, too, in a different register, where the backlash was less about one relationship and more about the feeling that the story had spent years building toward complexity and consequence, only to sprint through the landing and ask everyone to accept an ending that seemed to be at odds with everything it had been building to be. Different shows, different failures or perceived failures, different levels of textual support, different fandom cultures, but there is a particular flavor of fandom grief that looks very familiar from the outside: not just “I disliked the ending,” but “wait, was I watching the same story you were telling?”
That was the thing with Sherlock, at least for me. It wasn’t only that the ending was disappointing. Lots of endings are disappointing. It was that the show had spent years training a certain kind of attention. The lingering looks, the domesticity, the jokes, the emotions all mattered. The music swelled in certain places for a reason, or at least it sure seemed like it did. And then, when people said, “Hey, this emotional thread was the thing we cared about,” the response, from the show and from plenty of people around it, felt very much like, “Why would you think that?” Which is maddening, because it is genuinely maddening to feel like a story taught you how to watch it and then acted surprised that you learned.
So, when I see Good Omens fans saying they feel hurt or betrayed or foolish for having cared so much, I get it. I may not be feeling it with them in real time, but I remember getting that bruise. I remember how weirdly embarrassing it is to be that upset over television, and how that embarrassment makes it worse, because then you’re not only sad, you’re also mad at yourself for being sad. And no, I don’t think it is “just a ship,” because that phrase has always felt like a way to make people sound sillier than they are. Sometimes the relationship is the emotional architecture of the story. Sometimes it is the reason the rest of the plot has weight. Sometimes people aren't angry because two fictional people didn’t kiss enough- they're angry because the ending seemed not to understand what the story had asked them to carry.
But then I see some of the reaction going past “I’m hurt” and “I hated this” and “I think they fumbled the ending,” and that’s where I start to lose the thread. Not because fans have to be grateful. They don’t. Nobody has to sit there clutching a little fandom napkin and whispering thank you, sir, may I have another just because a show gave them an ending, any ending. Bad writing can be bad writing. Rushed pacing can be rushed pacing. A finale can be disappointing or hollow or weirdly evasive or just not enough. I understand feeling betrayed by a story. I understand feeling like the people making it knew exactly what mattered to the audience and then either didn’t care, couldn’t land it, or made choices that felt almost designed to miss the point. But there’s a point where the anger starts sounding less like criticism and more like ownership, and I don’t quite know what to do with that.
Because here's the thing: creators don't owe us the ending we wanted. They don’t owe us our preferred emotional resolution. They don’t owe us our head canons with a blockbuster budget. They don’t owe us the version of the story that lived in fandom for years, even if that version was beautiful and meaningful and, in some ways, better. That’s the part that gets uncomfortable, because fandom does make things feel shared. We build so much around these stories. We make art and fic and meta and playlists and jokes and private languages and entire cities of feeling. We keep the lights on between seasons. We sometimes make the thing richer than it ever was on its own. So, when actual canon comes back and does something that doesn't match head canon, it can feel like someone walked into a house we helped build and knocked down a wall. But it was never really our house. Or maybe it was our house, but canon was never the landlord. I don’t know. The metaphor gets wobbly if I poke it too hard. (3:30 am, remember?)
I just know there’s a difference between saying, “I don't like this version" or "this ending hurt me,” and acting like the people who made the thing committed some kind of personal offense by making choices we didn’t like. And there is definitely a difference between being angry online and threatening actual people. I hate that this even has to be part of the conversation, but apparently it does. If you’re sending threats to writers, directors, producers, actors, or anyone else because of a finale, you’ve left the realm of fandom reaction and wandered into something else entirely. Be mad in your own space. Write the post (but don't tag the show runners etc.) Make the meme. Refuse to rewatch. Decide the finale doesn’t count in your house. (Sherlock S4? Don't know her.) Go write the fix-it fic where everyone gets the emotional resolution you think they deserved. That is a normal and honorable fandom tradition. But real people are still real people.
I feel bad for the fans who are hurting. I really do. I remember the trenches. I remember loving something so much that the ending felt less like a bad episode and more like being made to feel stupid for having cared in the first place. But I also keep flinching at the entitlement in some of the reaction, because disappointment is not the same thing as being wronged. Criticism is not the same thing as custody. Loving a thing deeply does not mean the people making it are obligated to hand us the keys.
I’m not saying that from above it all. I have absolutely been ridiculous about fictional people before and will almost certainly be ridiculous about fictional people again. (seriously- have you WATCHED Heated Rivalry??) I just think there has to be some space between “this meant something to me and I’m hurt” and “how dare they not make the version that lived in my head.”
I’m also not judging anyone for being sad, or mad, or for deciding canon can go sit in the corner while fandom fixes it. That’s practically a sacred tradition. I just think, somewhere in the middle of all that, it helps to remember that caring deeply is real, but so are the people who made the thing. Maybe some of them are sad too. Maybe some of them know it didn’t land the way they hoped, or that it couldn’t be what everyone wanted, or that the version they got to make wasn’t the version they imagined either.
OKAY. So, below the cut I will be going into heavy spoilers. Above the cut I'm going to vague-post.
The TL;DR of this is: I didn't HATE it, I didn't LOVE it, and am unhappy with how the end was inevitably handled EVEN THOUGH I DO love the Epilogue and its implications, and I understand WHY they did it. My feelings are very VERY mixed (though on second rewatch I do like it a little more) and I'm now understanding that it's COMPLETELY because of how Aziracrow was inevitably handled. It's a PERSONAL feeling, and I don't fault ANYONE for liking the episode, at all.
I'm going to break this up above AND below the cut. Please note ALL of these are my PERSONAL preferences, and as the days post-finale move on, my feelings have changed a lot and I suspect they will continue to do so (like, when it first ended, I was VERY MAD and hated the Epilogue. Now I'm not, and I actually love the Epilogue now as I sit more and more on the implications of what happened):
NON-SPOILER POSITIVES
First and foremost: I am happy that we got an ending, especially in this day and age where everything gets cancelled before a finale. And we almost DIDN'T get it, thanks to You-Know-Who, but got it because of the Cast and Pratchetts wanting to finish it for the fans.
The episode was visually beautiful. I suspected it would be because Rachel's episode in Sherlock S4, T6T, was the best looking one too.
I loved the implication of "in every universe". That was actually really beautiful.
The first 30 minutes were really good and solid. I enjoyed it, minus a few things (which are spoilers).
Hands are held, I did want hand holding and I got it.
Seeing them together again did make me happy. I was worried they wouldn't be on screen together until the end.
The more I sit on it, the epilogue is actually really beautiful.
A second rewatch was needed to sway my feelings a bit more positively.
Canon relationship, arguably for infinity, which I do love.
NON-SPOILER NEGATIVES
I am sad, so VERY sad, that we will never see Michael and David in these roles ever again. I love their Aziracrow so SO much.
The episode suffered a LOT from the condensed runtime. You can tell it was patch-worked together the best that they could with a limited timeframe, like a first-draft story.
That said, think the script needed another few rewrites to make the story flow better. And possibly more time, like another year. I'm not sure if they were forced to film sooner than they were ready to, but it feels like a situation where they were.
Characters were introduced that inevitably don't serve the main plot other than to get Aziraphale back to Earth and to shit on him.
Some scenes were a waste of the runtime.
The Book of Life plot clearly had a bigger role in the 6 episodes, possibly as a mirror season to Season one, as this one is really REALLY chaotic.
There's a lot of plotholes, and a lot of things unaddressed.
Again, probably due to time constraints, Crowley and Azzie feel REALLY out of character, TO ME. But that's a personal feeling, not a fault of the actors.
The S3 Final Fifteen kind of makes all the previous 12 episodes feel moot and pointless.
OKAY, now for the spoilers:
SPOILER POSITIVES
I liked the crossword scene. That was really cute and had me giggling, because of COURSE Aziraphale would do something nerdy to save his hubby.
Back to the epilogue, on second watch, I saw the credits (Amazon force skipped them on me the first time so I missed the little things at the end) and I kind of am heartbroken in a good way? Like it's good knowing they'll always have each other no matter what? It actually feels like a Romeo and Juliet situation, where they are LITERAL Star Crossed Lovers, forever to meet and get together, basically forever reincarnating for infinity. And in that light, I can see the implication is that their love is so strong and beautiful and is the basis for the new Big Bang, and is the template for all love (that's my interpretation, anyway). Not sure if I'm explaining myself, but it's how I'm reconciling with losing Aziracrow Prime.
They did get to hold hands, a few times, and all the times were lovely. I do love that they defiantly held hands at their end, which made me tear up, and the sweet hand holding of Asa and Anthony at the end.
AND speaking of, on second watch, I can see the Aziraphale and Crowley in Asa and Anthony. Asa and Anthony ARE them, just without the memories, trauma, and history. It IS still hard for me to get invested in THIS iteration of them, but it is there and I'm willing to admit that I was wrong in that sense.
On another note, some of the lines in this episode were very devastating, and felt like Aziraphale especially finally putting it all out there. The words "I love you" were never spoken directly, but a line like "Why give me Crowley if you're going to take him away" is right there and could be interpreted that way.
While I would have liked a reconciliatory kiss, after reading some other interpretations of the one we did get made me see that it was sweet in its own, private way. If you watch, Crowley does kiss Azzie's fingers at the end, too.
I liked the Queen song picked for this episode. It fit with the moment.
SPOILER NEGATIVES
I'm REALLY trying my hardest to believe that Crowley would give up THIS version of humanity. Just... he feels a bit OOC for me, I don't know. The whole episode, minus the scenes where he tempts Aziraphale with food and with him in heaven, feel OOC.
Aziraphale never used a pet name. I'm so upset about that.
The whole Aziraphale in Hell scene was a waste of screentime, in my opinion. Yes, it was funny and amusing, but it felt pointless to the story when everyone pretty much figured out it was Michael. The demons were all pointless in the episode, too, to be honest. And what happened to Shax and Furfur??
There are a LOT of plot holes and inconsistencies that I am REALLY trying to just "suspend my disbelief" on, but I can't with:
1) the rewriting of the Book of Life in the bookshop finale. They could have written literally anything else, getting rid of God and Satan and Heaven and Hell and reversing time and STILL keep the humanity that they love and their minds and souls intact AS the two who have loved each other for 6000 years, basically living as powerless immortals. Actually the whole Book of Life plot was all over the place. I don't know. I know that the implication is that Good Omens takes place in the universe BEFORE ours, but I really liked the idea that it took place in our universe, you know? Just the whole Book of Life plot line itself, actually, is really REALLY flawed and contradictory with itself.
2) Crowley's miracles disappearing for plot reasons so that they would never have to address how OP Azzie and Crowley are together and the fact that Crowley has time-manipulation abilities, which would both solve the ENTIRE story.
3) The Book of Life not eliminating Azzie and Crowley when it was destroyed?
4) God apparently ships Aziracrow, so to ME that feels like if they got together nothing would have happened to Aziraphale anyway!!!!!! BECAUSE GOD LIKED WATCHING THEIR SILLY LOVE. This really upsets me.
5) Why introduce Jesus if nothing comes of it in the A plot??? He was literally just a used to bring Aziraphale back to earth.
6) I still feel like there was no resolution to the S2 Final Fifteen. Why do ALL of that, and then not have them address it even a little bit?
7) ALL the allusions to them being a couple in S2, and characters basically telling them "WE SHIP YOU" led to nothing.
8) Them destroying the universe contradicts the message from S1 where they demanded it was worth saving? UGGHGHHH.
9) They kept making a big deal about how powerful Crowley himself is or was, and hinted at him being an Important Angel In The Past. Not even once implied in the finale.
10) There are more but these are the egregious ones for me. Note, though, that most of these points, I do feel like they were possibly addressed in the initial 6 episode script. But what remains now purposely avoided addressing the plot threads from S2, which is SO frustrating.
I now realise my initial upset at the finale is because Aziracrow Prime, as we've come to love them for 12 episodes, learning how they fell in love and how much they care about each other, doesn't get their happily ever after. THAT is the version of them I fell in love with and was rooting for. I know WHY they chose to do what they did. I really really do. But it doesn't hurt any less for me, because their relationship felt very special, that against all odds, an angel and a demon learned how to love each other despite everything being against them, and they deserved their happy ending too.
And that said, not enough Aziracrow in the episode. I feel like they needed to reconcile more believably?
I'm going to sound petty, but a damned hug or love confession in the private bookshop scene was being built up RIGHT THERE, you could see where it should have slipped in, and it didn't happen. It frustrated me. Don't get me wrong, that whole scene was so beautiful, but you can tell that this scene was meant to be a nearly-full episode, possibly where they finally reconcile and confess AND discuss the final choice in the original script.
All in all, especially after watching it again, I DO like the movie a bit more now, I really do. But my investment in the Good Omens universe was ALWAYS, ALWAYS Aziracrow Prime, and that part was taken from me, so I think I will always struggle with that part of "canon". I was forced to watch three haphazard "romances" on screen happen with barely any build-up for the characters to get together at all, and one mirror relationship for them that foreshadowed a hopeful end for Aziracrow Prime, but the one relationship that the series revolved around and the one I invested the most time in literally got obliterated?
Feh.
AGAIN, I know that the end implies that their souls are now Star-Crossed-Lovers, and that is beautiful, IT IS, and that Asa and Anthony are just one of many iterations of them together again, YES, super cute. But I think it would have hurt less they at least got some TIME together AS a "confirmed" couple (which I feel the OG script did give some room for)
Anyway, thanks for reading, and sorry this got so long. I'm sure I'm missing some other stuff, but these are what came to mind as I wrote this. I'll add more if I remember them <3
I've slid into a new fandom and I'm seeing a lot of super soft takes in fic or in canon interpretation, which kind of surprised me because I saw it as raunchy fun smut with a (really) good romantic story thrown in.
I started wondering if maybe it's an age thing? I don't know. But if you would please ...
I engage in fandom takes that are ____ and I am ____.
Soft, romantic, sex is optional; under 35
Smut takes, romance is optional; under 35
Soft, romantic, sex is optional, over 35
Smut takes, romance is optional; over 35
NUANCE! I'll explain.
Voting ended onMay 9
If you bychance have a sizeable following, please reblog. I'd like to hear from as many fandoms as possible, too, so put your fandom/s in the tags.
I'm having so many thoughts and feelings about the new trailer for GO 3 after (finally!) seeing it this morning. I had to drive four hours for a conference, but at last I have time to write down everything going through my mind.
Everything about this is truly a bittersweet moment. Watching the clip, it was like seeing old friends that have been gone for so long, that you thought you might actually never see again. It felt new and interesting yet so familiar and comforting at the same time. A simultaneous sense of wistfulness at what we lost and relief at what we did end up getting, in the end. You could feel how much love and care was put into this production by the cast, the crew, Rachel, Rob, and Rhianna, who are the reason we even have this final season.
But more than anything, this was the most excited that I have felt about Good Omens in years.
Aziraphale. Crowley. David. Michael. Together again, on our screens, bringing a kind of magic that no one else can bring. The situations are new, some of the characters are different, but they are a constant. They remain. And I hadn't realized just how much I missed seeing them together until now.
A few of the things that I liked best about the trailer: Aziraphale with the Metatron stark white hair wearing a grey suit that felt more like a suit of armor than what he wore in medieval times. Crowley with a few loose curls over his eyes, still with that fire inside of him, depressed yet devilishly determined. The trademark GO humor, helping to strike a balance in the tone of the show between levity and seriousness.
And then there was this:
The swelling of Crowley's heart that you can almost visibly see. The crinkles at the corner of Aziraphale's eye that tell you he is smiling. This has convinced me that they are absolutely going to kiss again, without a doubt, and yet I'm so glad it was not teased in this trailer. Because I love that it's something we can imminently feel without even having to see it.
And the sheer amount of emotion radiating between the two of them. Between not just Aziraphale and Crowley, but also Michael and David.
How the energy coming from them is downright electric, to where you can't ever doubt the love they feel for each other. Something we would not ever have gotten if anyone else was playing these roles.
It's been seven years since the first season of Good Omens came out, and the closeness between Michael and David has only become ever-more prevalent. More powerful. We see it now anytime they are near each other and bring this out of each other.
No one else they've ever acted with does this. No one else in their lives does this. And what a joy, what a privilege it is that we'll have one more chance to see them like this as Aziraphale and Crowley. I have no doubt they will work together again on another project, but to have this--to have them as these characters when we almost didn't--is truly, singularly special. To us, but most particularly to them.
To the world.
To the end of Good Omens, and the beginning of so much more...
I have been around fandom long enough to have seen this pattern repeat across multiple eras, platforms, and source materials, and at this point I am more or less convinced that almost every fandom starts out as a loose little republic of shared delight and then, given enough time and enough proximity, turns into a border dispute. First everyone is thrilled to find other people who love the same thing. There are jokes, edits, gifs, fic, screenshots, quotes, mutual excitement, and that intoxicating early-stage feeling that maybe this time it really is just fun. Maybe this time people will simply enjoy themselves and leave it there.
And then, as always, the shift begins.
What changes is that fandom stops being only about the thing itself and starts being about what kind of person loves the thing. That is the hinge everything swings on. It is no longer just “I love this actor” or “I love this ship” or “I love this show.” It becomes “What does my love for this thing say about me, and what does your love for this thing say about you?” Once that happens, fandom starts sorting itself with unnerving speed. Who is a real fan. Who is fake. Who is too horny. Who is too invested. Who is pretending not to be invested. Who is old enough to be embarrassing. Who is young enough to be dismissed. Who is morally suspect. Who is trying too hard. Who gets to speak with authority. Who has to prove they belong.
I saw it in BBC Sherlock, and not just in the obvious shipping-war ways people remember now, but in the broader sense that fandom very quickly became something you performed. The whole “Cumberbitch” era was not just a silly nickname. It was part of a moment where attachment became identity and identity became branding, and once that happened it was no longer enough to like something. You had to like it correctly. Doctor Who has shown the same thing in a different register because it is so long-running and multigenerational, which means the question of who counts as a “real fan” never dies, it just changes clothes. Older women get treated as embarrassing the second they are visibly invested, while younger fans get dismissed as unserious, shallow, or hysterical. Good Omens has shown, at least from the edges where I have watched it, how quickly attachment starts bleeding across categories people pretend are separate: the text, the ship, the actors, the creators, the fandom’s own internal moral culture. And now, from what I am seeing through friends in Heated Rivalry fandom, the same cycle is happening again, only faster. That is the part I find most interesting now. Not that fandom has suddenly become strange, because fandom has always been strange, but that the internet has compressed the timeline so dramatically that what used to take years now unfolds over days or weeks.
There is also the point where creators notice fandom’s intensity and start feeding that awareness back into the text, which in theory could be playful but in practice often feels more like mockery, bait, or punishment. Sherlock did this so blatantly that I still do not know how anyone can pretend it was affectionate. The Empty Hearse lifted recognizably from actual fan theorizing around the fall, put those ideas on the wall, and then handed them back through Anderson, framed as a conspiracy crank who had gone round the bend. Yes, he was right that the story did not add up, but he was still made ridiculous. The show borrowed fandom’s labor, borrowed fandom’s actual theories, and then smirked at the people who had done the work. Supernatural did something related with Destiel. It knew perfectly well what that relationship meant to a huge chunk of fandom, knew the scale of that investment, and then gave fans the “I love you” moment only to immediately kill Cas in a move many people experienced as manipulative at best and a “kill your gays” beat at worst. Creators are not passive victims of fandom. They watch it, study it, court it, borrow from it, and sometimes turn around and sneer at the people whose obsession keeps the machine running. So fandom ends up in this humiliating position of being both exploited and scolded, invited closer and then laughed at for approaching.
And then there is the part fandom is especially bad at being honest about, which is parasociality. People talk about parasocial behavior as though it only applies to the most obviously unhinged fan, but really it runs through the whole structure. It is not just “crazy fan thinks celebrity knows them.” It is the whole spectrum of emotional intimacy people build with public figures, fictional characters, pairings, and even with other fans they have never met. Social media does not create that from scratch, but it absolutely feeds it by making every scrap of visibility feel like access and every scrap of access feel meaningful.
That is also why fandom is so bad at recognizing the line where “interest” turns into “monitoring.” When people ask what stalking looks like in fandom, they imagine the most dramatic version, but a lot of fandom stalking is much more socially laundered than that. It looks like tracking follows and unfollows, tagged photos, public sightings, family members, exes, property records, flights, deleted posts, playlists, jackets in the background of selfies, passport photos, and every other scrap of metadata that can be turned into a theory. It looks like collaborative puzzle-solving around another human being’s life, except the puzzle was never actually offered up for public assembly. And because a lot of this information is technically public, people soothe themselves with the idea that public means harmless. It does not. There is a point where pattern recognition becomes fixation, and fandom is very, very good at pretending it cannot see where that line is.
The partner dynamic is only one part of that larger machine, but it is a revealing one. Sometimes the so-called "normie" partner becomes the villain, the interloper, the woman who ruined the fantasy. But just as often, and this is the part I keep seeing over and over again across multiple fandoms, she (let's face it- it's usually a she) becomes a sainted figure, a goddess, an icon, the real object of fascination now, actually. She is brilliant, beautiful, talented, perfect, magnetic, and suddenly everyone is falling over themselves to explain that they do not even care about the original guy anymore, they are there for her. Sometimes that admiration is obviously real and warranted. But sometimes it feels more like a way to manage shame. Once a man is visibly taken, openly lusting after him can start to feel dirty, gauche, or humiliating, especially for fans who want to see themselves as more evolved than those other fans, the embarrassing ones, the fans who are too obvious and too openly thirsty. So the desire does not disappear. It gets rerouted into a more flattering performance. Instead of wanting him, the fan performs an exaggerated fixation on the woman he is with. She becomes the one they are “really” obsessed with now. And part of what makes that feel so off is the faint undertone that desire directed at her somehow does not count in the same way, that it is cleaner, safer, less serious, less threatening. For female fans there is a whiff of “this is harmless because lesbian desire is not real competition,” and that is not nearly as progressive as people seem to think it is.
The anti versus stan split comes out of the same machinery. On the surface those conflicts are about ethics, boundaries, harm, respect, accountability, and sometimes they genuinely are. But they are also very often status struggles being conducted in moral language. One group gets to imagine itself as loyal and discerning. Another gets to imagine itself as principled and clear-eyed. Both get to feel superior while remaining maximally emotionally invested. These fights are not only about the thing they are nominally about. They are also about who gets to care in the right way.
That, to me, is why fandom so often stops being about the source material and starts being about itself. At the beginning people are just enjoying a thing together. Then, before long, they are managing one another’s feelings about the thing. They are deciding which feelings are normal, which are embarrassing, which are dangerous, and which can be redeemed if dressed up in the proper moral language. They are assigning motives, ranking behaviors, drawing lines around respectability., acting like customs agents at the border of affect. And once a fandom reaches that stage, the community becomes the main event and the conflict becomes the content.
I don't think this happens because fandom is uniquely deranged. I think fandom is just one of the clearest places to watch belonging, desire, projection, status, loneliness, and moral theater collide in public. The internet did not invent any of that. It just put it on fast-forward. It made everything immediate, visible, searchable, collaborative, and performative. It made it easier to archive resentment, easier to find your faction, easier to turn half-formed feelings into public identities before people have even figured out what they actually feel.
Maybe that is why the pattern feels so familiar no matter the fandom. BBC Sherlock, Doctor Who, Good Omens, Heated Rivalry, Supernatural. Heck- even The X Files and Star Trek. The specifics differ, the slang differs, the costumes differ, but the pattern, the ebb and flow is the same.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, everybody insisting that this time, somehow, their version is different.
It never is. Ain't nuthin' new under the sun, chère.
