For two months now I have been grieving, and in my grief I have tried to reach out to other members of my community and make them understand that some of us are truly in pain. I don’t think I have been successful.

(Fandom etiquette is not institutional censorship. Quite frankly I’m offended that folks here take issue with me asking them to care about other fans, and meanwhile Amazon Prime gets to cut out queerness in GO after exploiting its queer fanbase for clout. THAT is actual censorship I am angry about.)

(To clarify what the final straw was for me: discussions in which I asked my fellow fans to be sensitive towards other grieving fans in our community in regards to what is widely shared w/out tags has been compared in separate vague posts by others to censorship & the Hays Code.)

But if I’m going to be painted that way anyway no matter how careful I am, there’s no point sticking around here anymore and spending so much time picking my words carefully.

Post-GO3, I’ve tried my best to be reasonable, sensitive, and articulate when discussing my grief and frustration. I wanted to speak up for other fans. And I guess I wanted to prove to you all that us GO3 dislikers have good reasons to feel the way we do, and we aren’t all vicious harassing bullies.

For years I carefully separated and tagged my fanworks containing controversial subject matter, even though it brought me joy, because I knew it was triggering to other fans. Why did I do this if the same courtesy won’t be extended to other hurt fans in return?

I’m upset that conversations in which I ask members of my community to be kind to their fellow fans and consider using the tagging etiquette system we’ve had for ages is painted as me demanding censorship. Meanwhile the big corporation that wiped out queer intimacy on our screens gets a pass.

I know it’s tacky to announce one’s departure, but think I’m done with Bluesky. I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of trying to be patient and empathetic while I’m grieving only to have my words twisted and bad-faith assumptions made against me.

If the souls themselves are choosing this, what was up with that disembodied recorded voice saying “your soul is important to us” before the epilogue? And what are the odds that so many characters would end up reincarnated in the same neighbourhood in London in the modern day?

I interpreted the new universe as our own because the new one complies with our scientific theories about the creation of the universe (Big Bang, 13.8 billion years of development). The fictional Whickber Street also became the real Berwick Street.

But Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t advocate for them. They asked for universe with no angels or demons in it, and agreed when God reminded them that they would never exist in the new world. They didn’t express any concern over wiping out all other angels and demons along with themselves.

That would be a really fun idea! I recall that the Good Place did something similar with its afterlife. I wish we’d gotten something along those lines in GO3, but there’s nothing in the text to indicate that’s the case, sadly. Could be good fodder for a fix-it fic!

You’re right that serious topics should be treated sensitively. I wish I saw the same energy expressed in this conversation also directed at GO3 for showing dangerous subject matter, instead of at a fellow fan for using a word to describe what they saw on screen.

GO3 itself has triggered suicidal ideation among fans in our community. And yet other fans have been sharing GIFs and stills of triggering scenes (namely A/C sacrificing themselves and dissolving on screen) willy-nilly on social media.

Loni, FunkyEarthChild — I respect both of you and we’ve known each other a long time, so this is why I am saying this now, as an earnest plea (CW for discussion of suicide in the following replies):

But A/C specifically asked God to create a universe with “nothing ineffable.” Either God broke her word (in which case A/C did not get their final request and they sacrificed themselves for nothing), or Asanthony aren’t actually them, because how would reincarnation work in a mundane universe?

(This is a suggestion for fandom shorthand when talking about whether one thinks Asa/Anthony are the same characters as Aziraphale/Crowley or not)

A+A = A+C or A+A =/= A+C

I had to watch Asanthony on screen, but I don’t have to accept them in my own personal fanon if I do not want to. That’s all I can do now to cope with this canon ending. Tags and filter tools are so helpful with this. You’ve been using tags for your works, loni, which I really appreciate. 💚

For some of us, GO3 destroyed everything we loved in canon. The ability to choose and curate what we want our own versions of the story to look like in our fandom spaces is the only recourse we have left.