Jax

Hello everyone, I am an oldie who was part of this fandom group for years until too much negativity poured into it. I let go for a while and decided to come back, but seeing that the TRR fanbase has quietened down breaks my heart.

Not only was TRR fun, wild, and romantic, but it was so much fun because of the wonderful fanbase that supported it.

I MISS YOU GUYS!!!!

Some of you might roll your eyes or laugh when I say this, but coming onto Tumblr and engaging with you all was my therapy.

So..... I would like to get the ball rolling by starting a Royal Romance Writing Reboot.

Please share this post so we can reach out to everyone! Whether you enjoy reading, writing, artwork, or just like sharing your thoughts, I hope you'll jump on the train.

The ending of Good Omens has left a lot of people heartbroken and hurting. Our queer comedy has turned tragic, and the characters we know and love have been erased - rewritten, and not quite the same. And like Job, I think I quite liked the old ones.

If you enjoyed the ending, I'm genuinely glad you got something out it. I'm not here to argue with you, nor do I want to sour your joy. Stop here and read no further if you wish.

But I want to talk to those like me, who are mourning something very real, and who are frustrated to feel like our desperation for representation of queer connection, the sort we can see ourselves in through it's multitudinous nature and previous ambiguity, was taken advantange of - as has happened to our queer community more times than can be counted.

I want to share a hopeful thought I've been having, now that I've had a few days to process how the conclusion of this story failed to live up to my hopes, however dismal they already were after S2. Many others have already written excellent posts about the betrayal of themes, inconsistency in character writing, and the cultural significance of refusing physical intimacy to our man-shaped beings after shoving them into a kissy-face box (and I say that as someone who didn't want them to kiss in S2!). I won't go on about that here. Instead, I want to share another perspective:

Relief. I'm really relieved it's OVER.

I have strayed back from Good Omens ever since a few months past S2, and even those were uncertain for me. I struggled to find the same joy in it that I had before, when I wrote about half a million words of fanfic for them in 4 years, and made real friendships in the AO3 comment section, and felt seen by the aspec corner of the GO community in a way I never had. I felt anxious about the show continuing, especially when its remaining creator turned out to be a piece of shit. I put away all the prints on my walls and shifted my attention. The fandom was more split than I've ever seen it (until now, probably) and I no longer wished to take part.

Yet, now that these inauthentic additions are truly done, I feel like I can finally...relax. I can decide what to leave and what to take. I can go back to the things that used to give me comfort, and find comfort in them again knowing that everything past nightingales in Berkeley Square is not a true ending I actually have to accept. It's not one Terry Prachett ever wanted as far as any of us will ever know, and not even really one that other fucker wanted, since he didn't get to control it completely. With half our writership gone and the other half rightfully ejected, there's not much "canon" validity to it in my opinion. It's AN ending. But it's not mine.

(I think a lot of us Tired Queers can think of media we've already had to pick-and-choose our way through. Maybe Xena. Maybe Sherlock. Now this. I'm sorry we're here again. You're not alone.)

I've been revisiting some of my favorite fics, which I haven't looked at in 2-3 years, and feeling this happy bubble of nostalgia. I'm realizing that we have actually been given a gift in the simple existence of a finale: the ability to go back to how things were before that S2 announcement, when the story was left in our hands and we had no expectation of continuation. I can choose to come back here, to a pre-S2 world, and even a pre-show world, and take control of the narrative. I mean, that's what we've always done, with our fics and imaginings. The story is ours now. Aziraphale and Crowley are ours. The worst was done to them, literally a fate worse than death trope, but we can still continue to love them. They're safe, because they belong to us humans, and I fell in love with our angel and demon just as they are. That's the feeling I want to carry forward.

We all have our own baggage and weight that we bring to this story, in our respective lives, our queerness, and the bonds we've made over this shared love. For many, this is years of our lives that Good Omens represents, and we need to respect that in ourselves and each other. Yet, poignantly, I don't think that the bad means we need to throw out the good.

first, i’m a narcissist and will not read it if it’s not about me

second, I love the feeling of people liking me

Me: I think Hawkeye and Trapper were in love.

Dad: Me too. They certainly look at each other that way.

Professor Sharp *catches MC*: "Where on earth did you find these things?"