Fridge Brilliance
- I first thought the ending of the Good Omens fanfic Its Own Place was a cop-out because it had the Deus ex Machina of Aziraphale and Crowley's place of punishment turning out to be a renamed Earth. After some thinking, I realized that it's the only fitting ending for them. The original book made it clear that they don't belong to either extreme (Heaven and Hell) and that Earth is the "middle ground" where they can meet. Even after the Apocalypse, this middle ground has to live on in some form because while both sides love to paint everything black and white, real life just doesn't work that way. Making Purgatory Earth may be a tad convenient, but it makes perfect thematic sense. As for my related complaint about it being a Reset Button Ending, I realized that when Aziraphale disagrees with Crowley's lampshading remark, he's pointing out that while their physical location has been reset, their emotional state is where they've actually developed. They now fully know where they belong — on the middle ground and with each other. All this elevated a "good fic that could have been better" to "one of the best fics in this fandom, period". — Solandra.
