Val Quainton - curmudgeon

What I've realized is that a lot of folks seem to think that those of us who like the ending, or have positive feelings towards it, all think it's a happy ending. This is not true. I know this is not true because, frustrated by the state of fandom, I started @gomens-timeaftertime, a Discord Server (TAT) for folks who liked the Series Finale. This is a "small" server of 100 people only because I have put a membership limit on it. Otherwise based on how we've had to kick people who were not active, the number of requests I have to join, and folks who were interested in participating in our Warm Close event but hesitant to join a Discord Server, TAT would be a lot larger if I had the bandwidth to moderate more people. Which I don't. So.

But the point is, in TAT the takes on the Series Finale are wildly varied. There are several people who found the ending to be a happy one (lots of reincarnation, snow globe, multi-verse, sort of head canons there). There are as many people who found the ending to be a sad one (Aziraphale and Crowley as we know them are gone, the world as we knew it is over, and similar head canons).

And these are all people who still enjoyed the ending and are having a great time Slorching about. We are picking apart details, putting together fan events, screaming, analyzing and when we complain, because we do complain, our complaints are largely focused on the loss of 6 full episodes. Because I think no matter what you thought of the ending, we can all agree that that deserved 6 episodes and fuck NG and fuck Amazon for all the shit that took that away from us.

The conclusion that one can draw from such a varied group is that the ending of Good Omens S3 is complicated. It can be interpreted in a myriad of different ways, and it is, in the most Good Omens sense, an ending steeped in shades of grey.

Which I find, personally, to be beautiful.

Anyway, "sad" has not been equated to "bad" within this community. We leave space for those who are mourning, but they still jump on the "Ice Cream Truck Bentley's eyes FOLLOW HER PAPA" excitement train.

Therefore it's my belief that the issue amongst the larger fandom is that there are some people who are of the opinion that sad/uncomfortable = bad. Bad writing, bad production, bad directing, bad. These are the folks who hurl accusations such as S3 being a "bury your gays" ending when the finale explicitly ends with a married queer presenting couple sitting in a house they presumably own and being sweet together. They also are writing break downs of how the ending is an abusers final gotcha, ignoring years of interviews and comments from NG, STP, Rob Wilkins, Rhianna Pratchett, and more all confirming that the ending has existed for a long time, and that it is a collaborative ending between the two writers, and that the goal had always been between NG and the Pratchett Estate, to deliver. Also it ignores that said abuser wrote the ending before his abuse was made public, so he had no reason to write a final "gotcha" when at the time he was still working under the assumption he would not be found out and he would still continue to create more and more series (Sandman comes to mind, but also fuck NG).

Folks are picking and choosing what interviews to include in their defense of "this is clearly a Bad Thing" instead of coming to terms with the fact that the ending was not what they expected, and that is disappointing. They point at the genre labels (a deeply flawed labeling system of stories across media types meant to promote marketing and sales and not actually indicative of the story content itself). They point at specific quotes and ignore full interviews (specifically interviews where the contradictions are addressed as information previously NDA'd or unpromised was intentionally kept under wraps). They invent thoughts on how the entertainment industry works (there is no secret cabal trying to personally victimize you in the writers room, and frankly if this was a cash grab, they would've gone with a less divisive ending). They applaud someone for taking an illegal recording of an unaware actor who is making a glib remark (and let it be known, having worked in the industry: actors know what you're looking for pretty quickly when you ask them questions and will not hesitate to say whatever they think will keep themselves safe, "on your side" and make you go away faster, especially if they are under the impression that they are not be recorded).

In sum, these "fans" are using their personal interpretation (aka: head canon) of an intentionally complicated ending, and justifying the vitriol and disrespect they are spilling on other fans, the cast, the crew, the creators, the Estate, and more, by saying that the ending was, unequivocally "bad" and anyone who doesn't agree with them is wrong, stupid, an abuse apologist, and more.

Because why? Because it wasn't a clear cut happy ending? We know that the finale was already adjusted to fit the times (Jesus showing up as a celebrity on a giant plane has very different vibes in 2026 than in 1996.) So we know that this ending was conjured during a different time. And while the time we are currently living in is harder, increasing the desire for more uncomplicated happy endings, that doesn't mean we are entitled to such endings.

So okay, there's all of that.

Let's talk more about the fandom fracture.

Because the thing is, when the finale came out, I was a community leader in some large fandom spaces. And as someone who truly loved the ending (I love how complicated it is, I love that it is both gut wrenching [Michael destroyed their universe, and they decided to accept it to free themselves, and that means they are gone] and uplifting [fuck me am I a slut for soul mates and reincarnation tropes. They found each other again in a different life, a real life, without the movie framing, the found each other and got to make their own choices, and fuck that's what it is to escape a fucked up system and live, truly live, wow, does this mean they keep going and keep finding each other again and again? It must]) it was incredibly difficult for me to sit and watch people not just be sad, but be angry.

And this is where I think as a fandom we fucked up.

In trying to give space to those who were grieving a complicated ending, and the end of an era, and a show that should've gotten 6 hours, not 90 minutes, we legitimized those who decided "sad" and "not what I wanted to see" equals "bad writing/production/directing." In doing so, we gave them the space to come up with conspiracy theories ("not STP's ending", you know, a dead man who can't speak for himself, and I guess we can say fuck you to his living loved ones who fought for this ending?, "NG wants to abuse us all", I cannot even with this one it is so deeply insulting to his actual assault victims. Stop., "NG actually had a different ending in mind, and the six episode script will prove it", ... what.)

In doing this, we harmed the rest of the fandom, both those who enjoyed the ending and fell more towards the bittersweet to happy interpretation of the ending, as well as those who actually needed the space to process and just thought it was a sad ending, without ascribing bad to it.

So when I say things like "you're allowed to just...not like the ending" this is not me saying that the ending was happy, actually, get over it. Nor is it me saying you gotta buck up and smile. Its me saying you should take a step back and look at this ending more objectively. Do you actually hate the ending? Or did it just make you sad? It can be both! You can hate the ending because it made you sad and you wanted to be happy--but then that's on you to grapple with. No one went out to "do" this to you. No one went "You know what, let's make this a sad ending specifically to ruin this person's life." It's just a story, and sometimes stories have sad endings. And frankly, this is why I often tell people I don't "do" in progress media. My anxiety struggles with cliff hangers and I absolutely read the wiki summary before committing to a thing to make sure the ending is going to be what I want it to be. Good story telling can hurt and sometimes I'm into it. And sometimes, I'm not.

And maybe if it just made you sad, you should think about distancing yourself from communities where people are mad. Because it's okay to be sad about an ending meant to be complicated and at least a little sad (if not more). But that doesn't mean you've gotta throw the whole thing, including your fandom community, in the trash too. It does mean that maybe you need to take a more active stance against those who are insisting that their head canon is the only "correct" interpretation of the ending, are throwing around incredibly triggering topics around without care because that's part of their head canon, and are, at the end of the day, disrespecting and hating on the people who made a story.

Frankly, those aren't the kind of people you should want to be in a community with anyway. Misery loves company, and if you're sad, maybe don't hang out with the folks who are mad, they aren't going to help you feel better. And I say that as someone who is mourning the end of some incredible friendships because people who I thought would never have been absolutely engaging in some frankly disturbing behaviors.

In sum: there are so many ways to interpret the Good Omens ending, whether you're looking at the Television Series ending or the Book ending (I mean come on the book ends with them discussing the "big one" and it is not clear which side Crowley thinks they are on, humans or not humans). This kind of shades of grey, wait 20 years and come back again and see how it's changed, ending is precisely the kind of story telling I'd expect out of either STP (GNU) or NG (rot).

And if we're going to preserve the community that has become so important to us, then yes. We need to stop letting the loudest (not the majority, just the loudest) people trample the joy of our community. We need to hold them up to better fandom etiquette: no yucking other people's yum, kink-tomato, all that doesn't just apply to NSFW works, it also applies to "My head canon is different than yours, and you gotta stop shoving your deeply triggering take down my throat without a content warning." We've got to be more firm in that the very existence of Asa and Anthony is not, actually, something that should be spoilered because they are the result of suicide because that is a head canon, not a fact.

And frankly, if you want your communities, your big servers, your whatever, to live on, you've got to take this seriously. Your mod teams have to agree that, personal feelings about the ending aside, the ending is open to a multitude of interpretations, there is no space for conspiracy theories that are harmful or disrespectful to cast, crew, actual NG victims, etc, in these spaces, and that these spaces are meant to come together in celebration of the story, not to complain about how much something sucked. If you want your spaces to survive, to not become cesspools of the worse kind of feedback loops, you've got to make sure there's more joy than hate.

What I've realized is that a lot of folks seem to think that those of us who like the ending, or have positive feelings towards it, all think it's a happy ending. This is not true. I know this is not true because, frustrated by the state of fandom, I started @gomens-timeaftertime, a Discord Server (TAT) for folks who liked the Series Finale. This is a "small" server of 100 people only because I have put a membership limit on it. Otherwise based on how we've had to kick people who were not active, the number of requests I have to join, and folks who were interested in participating in our Warm Close event but hesitant to join a Discord Server, TAT would be a lot larger if I had the bandwidth to moderate more people. Which I don't. So.

But the point is, in TAT the takes on the Series Finale are wildly varied. There are several people who found the ending to be a happy one (lots of reincarnation, snow globe, multi-verse, sort of head canons there). There are as many people who found the ending to be a sad one (Aziraphale and Crowley as we know them are gone, the world as we knew it is over, and similar head canons).

And these are all people who still enjoyed the ending and are having a great time Slorching about. We are picking apart details, putting together fan events, screaming, analyzing and when we complain, because we do complain, our complaints are largely focused on the loss of 6 full episodes. Because I think no matter what you thought of the ending, we can all agree that that deserved 6 episodes and fuck NG and fuck Amazon for all the shit that took that away from us.

The conclusion that one can draw from such a varied group is that the ending of Good Omens S3 is complicated. It can be interpreted in a myriad of different ways, and it is, in the most Good Omens sense, an ending steeped in shades of grey.

Which I find, personally, to be beautiful.

Anyway, "sad" has not been equated to "bad" within this community. We leave space for those who are mourning, but they still jump on the "Ice Cream Truck Bentley's eyes FOLLOW HER PAPA" excitement train.

Therefore it's my belief that the issue amongst the larger fandom is that there are some people who are of the opinion that sad/uncomfortable = bad. Bad writing, bad production, bad directing, bad. These are the folks who hurl accusations such as S3 being a "bury your gays" ending when the finale explicitly ends with a married queer presenting couple sitting in a house they presumably own and being sweet together. They also are writing break downs of how the ending is an abusers final gotcha, ignoring years of interviews and comments from NG, STP, Rob Wilkins, Rhianna Pratchett, and more all confirming that the ending has existed for a long time, and that it is a collaborative ending between the two writers, and that the goal had always been between NG and the Pratchett Estate, to deliver. Also it ignores that said abuser wrote the ending before his abuse was made public, so he had no reason to write a final "gotcha" when at the time he was still working under the assumption he would not be found out and he would still continue to create more and more series (Sandman comes to mind, but also fuck NG).

Folks are picking and choosing what interviews to include in their defense of "this is clearly a Bad Thing" instead of coming to terms with the fact that the ending was not what they expected, and that is disappointing. They point at the genre labels (a deeply flawed labeling system of stories across media types meant to promote marketing and sales and not actually indicative of the story content itself). They point at specific quotes and ignore full interviews (specifically interviews where the contradictions are addressed as information previously NDA'd or unpromised was intentionally kept under wraps). They invent thoughts on how the entertainment industry works (there is no secret cabal trying to personally victimize you in the writers room, and frankly if this was a cash grab, they would've gone with a less divisive ending). They applaud someone for taking an illegal recording of an unaware actor who is making a glib remark (and let it be known, having worked in the industry: actors know what you're looking for pretty quickly when you ask them questions and will not hesitate to say whatever they think will keep themselves safe, "on your side" and make you go away faster, especially if they are under the impression that they are not be recorded).

In sum, these "fans" are using their personal interpretation (aka: head canon) of an intentionally complicated ending, and justifying the vitriol and disrespect they are spilling on other fans, the cast, the crew, the creators, the Estate, and more, by saying that the ending was, unequivocally "bad" and anyone who doesn't agree with them is wrong, stupid, an abuse apologist, and more.

Because why? Because it wasn't a clear cut happy ending? We know that the finale was already adjusted to fit the times (Jesus showing up as a celebrity on a giant plane has very different vibes in 2026 than in 1996.) So we know that this ending was conjured during a different time. And while the time we are currently living in is harder, increasing the desire for more uncomplicated happy endings, that doesn't mean we are entitled to such endings.

So okay, there's all of that.

Let's talk more about the fandom fracture.

Because the thing is, when the finale came out, I was a community leader in some large fandom spaces. And as someone who truly loved the ending (I love how complicated it is, I love that it is both gut wrenching [Michael destroyed their universe, and they decided to accept it to free themselves, and that means they are gone] and uplifting [fuck me am I a slut for soul mates and reincarnation tropes. They found each other again in a different life, a real life, without the movie framing, the found each other and got to make their own choices, and fuck that's what it is to escape a fucked up system and live, truly live, wow, does this mean they keep going and keep finding each other again and again? It must]) it was incredibly difficult for me to sit and watch people not just be sad, but be angry.

And this is where I think as a fandom we fucked up.

In trying to give space to those who were grieving a complicated ending, and the end of an era, and a show that should've gotten 6 hours, not 90 minutes, we legitimized those who decided "sad" and "not what I wanted to see" equals "bad writing/production/directing." In doing so, we gave them the space to come up with conspiracy theories ("not STP's ending", you know, a dead man who can't speak for himself, and I guess we can say fuck you to his living loved ones who fought for this ending?, "NG wants to abuse us all", I cannot even with this one it is so deeply insulting to his actual assault victims. Stop., "NG actually had a different ending in mind, and the six episode script will prove it", ... what.)

In doing this, we harmed the rest of the fandom, both those who enjoyed the ending and fell more towards the bittersweet to happy interpretation of the ending, as well as those who actually needed the space to process and just thought it was a sad ending, without ascribing bad to it.

So when I say things like "you're allowed to just...not like the ending" this is not me saying that the ending was happy, actually, get over it. Nor is it me saying you gotta buck up and smile. Its me saying you should take a step back and look at this ending more objectively. Do you actually hate the ending? Or did it just make you sad? It can be both! You can hate the ending because it made you sad and you wanted to be happy--but then that's on you to grapple with. No one went out to "do" this to you. No one went "You know what, let's make this a sad ending specifically to ruin this person's life." It's just a story, and sometimes stories have sad endings. And frankly, this is why I often tell people I don't "do" in progress media. My anxiety struggles with cliff hangers and I absolutely read the wiki summary before committing to a thing to make sure the ending is going to be what I want it to be. Good story telling can hurt and sometimes I'm into it. And sometimes, I'm not.

And maybe if it just made you sad, you should think about distancing yourself from communities where people are mad. Because it's okay to be sad about an ending meant to be complicated and at least a little sad (if not more). But that doesn't mean you've gotta throw the whole thing, including your fandom community, in the trash too. It does mean that maybe you need to take a more active stance against those who are insisting that their head canon is the only "correct" interpretation of the ending, are throwing around incredibly triggering topics around without care because that's part of their head canon, and are, at the end of the day, disrespecting and hating on the people who made a story.

Frankly, those aren't the kind of people you should want to be in a community with anyway. Misery loves company, and if you're sad, maybe don't hang out with the folks who are mad, they aren't going to help you feel better. And I say that as someone who is mourning the end of some incredible friendships because people who I thought would never have been absolutely engaging in some frankly disturbing behaviors.

In sum: there are so many ways to interpret the Good Omens ending, whether you're looking at the Television Series ending or the Book ending (I mean come on the book ends with them discussing the "big one" and it is not clear which side Crowley thinks they are on, humans or not humans). This kind of shades of grey, wait 20 years and come back again and see how it's changed, ending is precisely the kind of story telling I'd expect out of either STP (GNU) or NG (rot).

And if we're going to preserve the community that has become so important to us, then yes. We need to stop letting the loudest (not the majority, just the loudest) people trample the joy of our community. We need to hold them up to better fandom etiquette: no yucking other people's yum, kink-tomato, all that doesn't just apply to NSFW works, it also applies to "My head canon is different than yours, and you gotta stop shoving your deeply triggering take down my throat without a content warning." We've got to be more firm in that the very existence of Asa and Anthony is not, actually, something that should be spoilered because they are the result of suicide because that is a head canon, not a fact.

And frankly, if you want your communities, your big servers, your whatever, to live on, you've got to take this seriously. Your mod teams have to agree that, personal feelings about the ending aside, the ending is open to a multitude of interpretations, there is no space for conspiracy theories that are harmful or disrespectful to cast, crew, actual NG victims, etc, in these spaces, and that these spaces are meant to come together in celebration of the story, not to complain about how much something sucked. If you want your spaces to survive, to not become cesspools of the worse kind of feedback loops, you've got to make sure there's more joy than hate.