Article:
Beyond the Coffee Shop: Fan Community, Critique, and Conversation through Good Omens Alternate Universe Fan Fiction

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dc.creatorCremonese, Kara
dc.date.accessioned2024-12-12T11:41:20Z
dc.date.available2024-12-12T11:41:20Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.abstractThis article explores alternate universe (AU) fan fiction as a critique of plot, characterization, and the queer narrative through close reading and analysis of AU fan works in the Good Omens fandom. I argue that if we examine the trend of AU fan fiction within a specific fandom, we can see the kinds of conversations fans are having with each other, how they are connecting and communicating, and, perhaps most interestingly, how fans examine or critique the plot and characterization of canon works and create an ongoing conversation by changing the circumstances of the original texts. Writer Neil Gaiman and director Douglas Mackinnon’s 2019 television series, Good Omens—the first season of which is an adaptation of Gaiman’s 1990 novel with Terry Pratchett—is intentionally adapted as a love story between the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who must work together to find the missing antichrist and avert the Apocalypse. The main characters are canonically nonbinary but present as masculine and genderfluid, so their relationship is by its nature queer, and the storyline can be interpreted as a coming-out narrative. AU fan fiction often takes this a step further in making the characters human and emphasizing the lived experiences of queer men, closeted or otherwise. AU authors maintain this and other conversations with their readers by telling the same story in new ways. AU fan fiction may also create an avenue for the fan community to revisit beloved characters whose stories have concluded without rehashing known storylines, as was the case with Good Omens fans before a second season was announced. Collected via autoethnography, the fan works analyzed in this article demonstrate several ways fan authors communicate analysis of the plot and characterization of the Good Omens television series (and, by extension, the Good Omens novel) within the fan community.en
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/23325
dc.identifier.urihttps://journals.uni-marburg.de/fcr/article/view/8763
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/25119
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherPhilipps-Universität Marburg
dc.publisher.placeMarburg
dc.relation.ispartofseriesFandom | Cultures | Research. Online Journal for Fan and Audience Studies
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.de
dc.subjectFan Fictionen
dc.subjectFanfictionen
dc.subjectAlternate Universeen
dc.subjectTransformative Worksen
dc.subjectFan Communitiesen
dc.subject.ddcddc:800
dc.subject.workGOOD OMENS
dc.titleBeyond the Coffee Shop: Fan Community, Critique, and Conversation through Good Omens Alternate Universe Fan Fictionen
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticle
local.coverpage2024-12-13T02:40:58
local.identifier.firstpublishedhttps://journals.uni-marburg.de/fcr/article/view/8763
local.source.epage38
local.source.issue1
local.source.spage26
local.source.volume1
local.subject.wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43377320

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