redundant_angel

OP blocked me but nevermind that now.

Who killed the mood though?

4879 pages of Good Omens fics.

What follows is just rough estimates:

Pre S1 there's about 180 pages of fics in the all media types tag on AO3 2600 pages in the s1-s2 era 1900 pages in s2-s3 (this is fairly equal per day, the s1-s2 was a longer time) Post s3 so far 185 pages (understandable it's low, since it's been 82 days)

but:

495 pages were created post s1 in ~80 days 426 pages post s2 in ~80 days (I thought it would be significantly more - people jumping to fix things?) 185 pages since S3 in ~80 days

For fics tagged with 'fix-it' (151 pages):

12 pages after s1 58 pages in ~80 days after s2 37 in ~80 days after s3

It's not exact or anything, few pages here and there and says nothing about the total amount of words… but still.

S1 ended happily, no fix its required and no one had any idea there might be S2 and yet the fandom exploded. If S3 was happy and good, I am sure there would have been a similar explosion...

The fact that there are far fewer artworks and fics is not the fault of the fans. We aren't the ones who 'killed' the mood.

Everyone expected depressed Crowley in S3 because everyone expected Aziraphale made a big enormous stupid mistake by going to Heaven. The Book of Life was supposed to be made up. Aziraphale easily manipulated by lies. The job non existent. Aziraphale breaking them up for no good reason. Or because he still wanted to serve Heaven or something. Those were the main theories.

But that's not what happened. Aziraphale did become Supreme Archangel and he did stop Second Coming. He did have a good reason to go and he explains it too. If he had time (and help?) he might have even stopped Michael from getting hold of the Book of Life and destroying everything. If he wasn't relegated to just the side character, he might have made a difference to the ending.

My point being, Crowley is depressed in the finale because he gave up. They made him give up. Not because Aziraphale left. If Aziraphale stayed Crowley would not be happier and Aziraphale knows that. Crowley must have known that. What would they be doing? Watching poor Jesus being paraded by Sandalphon, being forced to judge people on some random, arbitrary measures made up by Archangels who have no idea how Earth and humanity even work? Wait until Universe and Time is destroyed and only eternity remains? Crowley was depressed because the show decided that the universe is not worth saving, can't be changed and should be destroyed.

And I disagree with this Crowley and that ending.

The Crowley I know would have gone to help Aziraphale somehow. Like when he drove to Tadfield in a burning car after Aziraphale got accidentally discorporated and like he did when he realised missing Gabriel was not random and meant trouble.

Crowley knew Second Coming was on the cards and what it meant. He wouldn't have been blind drunk in an alley for years knowing Aziraphale is on his own, with all the awful Archangels who hate him and who tried to kill him in Heaven. He would have found a way.

They should have found Jesus and brought him along to argue with Mother and fool her at her card trick. They should have brought along some humans who would look at them like they are crazy for suggesting to not bringing the universe back and fight for it. Mrs Sandwich should have unloaded that speech at god and not the angel who tried so hard to hold it all together.

They should have kissed against the bookshelf while Jesus and Adam decided to get rid of the sides once and for all, cross out what was written and let the universe run for as long as it felt like it.

The Bombshell

It Was Just This Once

Rating: E

Chapters: 1/?

Summary:

Professor Anthony, astrophysicist and author extraordinaire, got everything he ever wanted in life.

What about the demon Crowley?

Just this once, Crowley promised himself, reaching out with one hand and pushing it through the cool, thin film of reality. Just one little teensy time, and then he would be done. He’d promised he wouldn’t, but just once. Once couldn’t hurt.

Read on AO3

Special thanks to @quitequaintrelle for the beta!

(a/n below the cut)

propaganda

aziraphale’s hands: plump and broad, well-manicured, strong due to carrying books around, familiar with gripping swords (wink).

crowley’s hands: long and slender, potentially more dexterous due to snake-like qualities, nail polish, claws and/or scales.

He's God, isn't he? Part of the "triune godhead." Then we could have gotten a completely different version of the scene in the bookshop, one where Jesus defends the world he knows and the people he's met and the things he learned (in his short time back on Earth) about love and generosity and helping people become better people. 

Maybe Aziraphale and Crowley ask him to create a world without angels and demons. Maybe he says, but aren't they people too? Can't they learn about love, and generosity, and helping people become better people? Of course they can. Look at the two of you.

And we could have gotten a beautiful mirror to the end of Season 1, where Christ does the same exact thing as the Antichrist, where he doesn't destroy the world but puts it back just the way it was. Even slightly better. 

Actually, that is exactly how fandom works.

This fandom has gotten so pedantic and inconsiderate and antagonistic and just downright cruel that the definitions of "death" and "suicide" are being debated and flouted and disregarded for... what? Stats? To be "right" instead of being considerate and empathic and decent? This is what happened on screen at the end of Good Omens 3: Aziraphale and Crowley requested that God annihilate them and create a new universe without them in it. Because apparently they were part of the problem. Then, 13.9 billion years later, Asa and Anthony, who looked like Aziraphale and Crowley and shared a handful of their traits but ostensibly none of their memories, met one another. Followed by a scene in which characters that looked like other angels and demons and humans from "the original" "fake" universe also appeared, with no indication they had any memories from or anything in common with their counterparts in the other universe. The final scene at a cottage in the South Downs twenty years later shows, what the content of the preceding 10 minutes indicates, Asa and Anthony stargazing and drinking cocoa. Anthony acknowledging the song of a nightingale nearby and Asa responding that "you wouldn't know a nightingale if it perched on your nose" seems to conflict with Crowley in S2 stating "no nightingales," as that implies he would know what they sound like. Asa asks if Anththony ever wonders if there's more out there - pointing to the sky - and Anthony's response is, in paraphrase, that it doesn't really matter to him, because he has Asa. This absence of Crowley's innate curiosity and questioning and answer seeking personality traits seem to indicate as well that Anthony and Asa have not gained Aziraphale and Crowley's memories/personalities. If you want to get into semantics, I suppose instead of suicide we can use the term "elective euthanasia." But at the end of the day, they still died. That is considered major character death. Even if it's "temporary," even if it's "a ruse," a request for death and the dissolution of a physical body would feel fairly cut and dry in any other situation. A ghost or a reincarnation or a lost soul adrift in the void with no memory of who and where it came from are all interpretations of what remains of someone after death.

Is this irony? Sorry, I'm not terribly media literate. You can have the headcanon that Asa and Anthony are Aziraphale and Crowley. You can make the art and write the fics. Your fanworks deserve to exist just as much as those who do not share your interpretation of the ending. But, and especially for those of you who claim GO3 is #ForTerry, I do have to wonder why you continue to insist and force upon others that it is canon, and one that Pterry would want. We can't know. Terry Pratchett is no longer alive to tell us how he feels about the ending of GO3. And we have comments from various sources close to him with conflicting information about how Terry would have felt about it. But to me, the ending does not seem aligned with Pterry's own words. "Dementia in its varied forms is not like cancer. Dad saw the cancer in his pancreas as an invader. But Alzheimer’s is me, unwinding, losing trust in myself, a butt of my own jokes and on bad days capable of playing hunt the slipper by myself and losing. You can’t battle it, you can’t be a plucky “survivor”. It steals you from yourself." - Sir Terry Pratchett

“I hate things that try to take away what you are. […] When you take away memories, you take away the person, everything they are.” - Sir Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith.