C/W: Mentions of death and suicide
I guess it's time for me to talk about grief and G03 as someone who is dealing with grief from the loss of real people and Aziraphale and Crowley.
My first experience with the death of someone close to me was my own mother, who took her own life when I was young. Of course, I didn't learn the cause until I was an adult when her best friend who was there told me. Since then, I have lost every single relative of mine aside from my 3 biological children. I lost my best friend of 20+ years in 2023 and in 2020 I lost my stepson and half sibling to my children to a violent suicide.
When Aziraphale and Crowley evaporated on screen, my brain didn't see particals, I saw blood splatter. For months now, I have been dealing with flashbacks of my stepsons death. That's how grief and trauma work. It all goes through the same neuropathys. I couldn't see Aziraphale and Crowley's death as anything other than a suicide if I tried. And I did, believe me.
I'm sharing my story for two reasons. One reason being the people who tell others that the finale didn't cause harm. It caused a lot of harm to people in many different ways. The other being the people who belittle someone's grief because they are grieving real people. As you can see, I am grieving both. The grief I feel for real people doesn't make the grief I feel for two fictional characters any less.
Grief is complicated, and when you love someone fictional or real, your brain processes it much the same way. For people to discount the grief and suffering of people who loved our Angel and Demon, who held love for them for years. It leaves me angry and confused. People who are grieving wrote about them, talked extensively about them, made edits, and created art of them. Good Omens became a huge part of our lives, just like people who saw the ending differently. Yet somehow, in certain people's minds, their involvement in the fandom was wrong, too much?
Grief comes in all shapes and sizes, and to tell someone that their grief isn't real because they are fictional beings is pretty gross, in my opinion. For it to be met with anything less than compassion from other people in the fandom tells me more about the persons lack of empathy than anything else. Only the person grieving knows what they are truly experiencing, and no one has the right to tell them any different. So they didn't see the finale the same way you did? Oh, well. You don't get to tell them that their feelings are wrong and not expect pushback. To the finale lovers who haven't done this, thank you. This isn't aimed at you. I know there are people who loved the finale who would never belittle someone for grieving, and for those who feel trapped in the middle, my heart goes out to you as well.
As someone who has spent a lot of time in grief support spaces, not only is grieving fictional characters normal, but it's also healthy. It's part of being human in a world that revolves around stories. For everyone who is grieving, your pain is valid. Your grief matters. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. It's your personal experience and shouldn't be dictated by anyone else. Shame on those who try or compare theirs to others. You don't know what someone else is feeling or how small or great their pain is. The only person's feelings you know are your own
