Chapter Text
Introduction
In terms of study, the fandom of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman just may be the perfect focus. With the object of their fandom being about how texts are read and interpreted, the parallels write themselves, and it's easy to jump right into the metatextual questions when the text itself provides answers. With regards to authorship and the question of who controls the meaning of a text, fans of Good Omens know that a reading against the grain (even one that undoes something as monumental as the end of the world) is as valid as any other. After all, if the mere suggestion that something might be written differently somewhere else, in bigger letters, underlined, twice, is enough to save the world, who's to say that what one person writes in their corner of the internet is any less powerful? (Pratchett and Gaiman 2007, 337)
Good Omens fans are having to put that theory into practice now, twenty-eight years after the novel's publication, as a new adaptation and possibly new edition of the story is on the horizon. It's not the first time an adaptation of this novel has been made, but as the first major television series with one of the original authors as showrunner that draws from Pratchett and Gaiman's collaborative notes for a scrapped sequel to expand the universe of the novel with more characters, more backstory, and more Queen songs, it's safe to say this one is a bigger deal for fans (Hemley 2014, Hoff 2013, Cain 2016). Though sadly only one is an active part, the spirit of both authors is promised to be throughout the series, painting the show as less of an adaptation and more of an author's preferred edition of the text, one that (even under its own philosophy) challenges the authority of any "mere" fan reading. If Good Omens the novel is the prediction of the apocalypse, the series is the equivalent of God Himself coming down to explain everything.
Particularly regarding queer representation and the long-standing fan reading of two characters (angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley) as a romantic pairing, a division is happening in this fandom as the series approaches. Some see it as negating their queer reading; some see it as running counter, but not any more or less valid than their own; some see it as an authorial flex of power; some see it as a combination of any or all of the above, and more. I argue that Good Omens fans (and, in particular, Aziraphale/Crowley shippers) attempt to navigate this question of authority through the same intertextual means by which fans generally do, as well as academics (Busse 2017, 65). Looking at interactions on Neil Gaiman's Tumblr and Twitter accounts, fan works, and discussions among fans, I claim that Good Omens fans take authority over the text by rebutting authorship in a way reflective of both fan practices and academic queer studies.
Though no research has been done into the Good Omens fandom specifically, this paper applies the conclusions and terms found in the existing conversations regarding authorship in fandom and queer fandom works. Following the framework laid out in Ashley Polasek's review of Sherlockian discourse, Good Omens fans also engage in a variety of both "affirmational" and "transformational" modes "as a method for members of the LGBTQ+ community to appropriate" text through casual "headcanon" as well as formal literary analysis (Polasek 2017, 5.15). However, I argue that although fans allow a greater degree of emotional investment, allowing a greater variety in interpretations which may be "oppositional to the source text's clearly expressed condition," Good Omens fans use methods indicative of "academic discourses" as well, interpreting within "fairly limited lines of well-supportable readings" as well as traditionally "fannish" transformational works to make their reading more authoritative and capable of challenging the author (Busse 2017, 106–108). I argue that the studied intertextual relationship between "social commentary, historical circumstance, and 'culture'" and literature—and between literature and academic theory—functions similarly to that between those same forces and fan works, and between fan works and the values/norms/views of those fans with regards to their object of fandom (Garber 2001, 205). After all, "All writing is intertextual, communal, and performative to a degree; fan fiction just tends to be more so" (Busse 2017, 142).
It is necessary to clarify exactly what I mean by the intertextuality of Good Omens and its fandom. I use the basic definition of and terminology related to "intertextuality" laid out by Elaine Martin, drawing on the terminology of Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes, to argue that fan works and discussions function as intertextual analysis, citing Martin's points that intertextuality has a close connection with creations like pastiches and has evolved "so that it is not [...] exclusively related to works of literature or other written texts, including virtual texts" (Martin 2011). I also use Obsession_inc's definitions for "affirmational" and "transformational" fan works (obsession_inc 2009) to argue that in both affirmational and transformational practices, Good Omens fans reach the same queer reading through different approaches to authorship in ways that mirror how queer theory academics treat their own texts.
In this paper I first give an overview of the landscape of the Good Omens fandom in the lead-up to the adaptations' release, beginning with the state of things before the announcement of the mini-series, to determine (by applying definitions laid out by Busse and Polasek) where Good Omens fans do and do not follow discussed patterns of affirmational and transformational fan work. I then describe how their views of authorship have come against this new "canon," where the remaining conflicts stem from, and by what intertextual means Good Omens fans are negotiating the role of the author in updated texts with regards to queer representation.