I am the wrong person to talk to when it comes to erasure and replacements and how shiny new unblemished things are a clean slate and therefore better. My apartment is filled to the brim with old things. I am helplessly attached to that which is broken and battered and resistant in spite of the trials they’ve been put through. I treasure every chip and crack that marks the antique porcelain and vintage ceramic I rescue from flea markets and I adore the crumbling gilt gesso frames I pluck from the trash. I am not put off by mirrors that have begun to lose their silvering and I still think leather bound books are a treasure even as their spines splinter and unravel under the pressure of a long life. I honor the craftsmanship that cannot be replicated today and that has been forgotten or shoved to the side as unnecessary and frivolous. I save things at my job every day, works on paper in such bad condition after being exposed to the elements and that which is life that they’re financially meaningless but mean everything to those who love them in spite of their damage.

A drawing before I'll have to lock in again and go to superhell aka school

My babieeees (I'm late but I wanted to make some art ~~~

MY BABIES <33

lots of spare planets up there

Because there's this bit in the book where Adam and his friends are discussing angels and demons/heaven and hell through the lens of the Them and the Johnsonites, which I personally interpreted to be in support of this line of thought:

" Seems to me, " said Wensleydale, " that if you asked people in lower Tadfield, they'd say they'd be better off without the Johnsonites or the Them. " ( ... ) " but I bet they'd think it'd be a jolly sight less interestin' if we all weren't here. "

And it was, in my opinion, " a jolly sight less interestin' " for them to have simply removed angels and demons entirely. To have removed that bit of fantasy that made the Good Omens universe what it was. Its entire premise.

I would've thought the conclusion would be more along the lines of what's being said here. Re-emphasising agency to choose to make one's "own side" despite the influences of heaven and hell in their universe. (Which, were arguably not as big and overwhelming as they'd hoped for anyway.) (And wasn't that the joke? That no matter what Crowley and Aziraphale did to influence humanity, it didn't matter all that much, because humanity's capable of both great good and evil all on their own?) (I see arguments that they meddled in Maggie and Nina's relationship in S2 but Maggie and Nina didn't end up immediately together like Crowley and Aziraphale had hoped either. Doesn't that then also prove the lack of real influence angels and demons have on humanity?)

Here I'm talking about the agency of humanity, of course, but also of the other beings in that universe. Many of which were already breaking away from the pure black-and-white thinking expected of them (other than our main leads, there was Gabriel and Beezlebub, Muriel and Eric, etc.).

To quote another part of the book I think many have already pointed out:

Being a demon, of course, was supposed to mean you had no free will. But you couldn't hang around humans for very long without learning a thing or two.

This was in reference to Crowley. Why not applied to other angels and demons as well? I would've personally loved to see more supernatural beings hang around humans and learn a thing or two. The shenanigans that would've ensued.

The show tried to make heaven and hell more important then what they supposed to be since season one.

To me, what was so beautiful about the relationship is that by any reasonable standard it should not have occurred. Heaven and Hell were diametrically opposed in the extreme, but through shared experiences, Aziraphale and Crowley built a deep love for each other and for humanity, growing past what was expected of them and building something truly unique all on their own. We never got to see that growth through to completion.

There were so much narrative potential there to explore: what it looks like for characters with this type of past living with this kind of expectation to come together and grieve together and grow together. I would think most of us expected that, and in my opinion, it was stolen from us.