An Ace Perspective on Good Omens Part 2: Neil Gaiman, Canon, and Fandom

Transcript Transcribed by Hannah E.

Courtney: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Part 2. Yes, we are carrying on our conversation, which we started last week, about Good Omens. So, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. You can jump in halfway through this conversation if you really want to. But if you have not yet, I definitely recommend going back and starting with last week’s episode. But as for today, we still have much ground to cover, so let’s dive right into it.

Royce: So, in our last episode we gave a bit of an overview of the series as a whole, talked through Season 1, mentioned a couple of things about Season 2 and about Neil Gaiman’s online commentary before running out of time. And so, let’s pick back up with Season 2 of the TV series. Its six-episode runtime focuses mostly on what you mentioned earlier: Gabriel coming to Earth naked with a box, his memories are missing, and he walks into Aziraphale’s bookshop. And Aziraphale and Crowley have to hide him from magical sensors, because clearly something is going on, and Heaven and Hell will get involved. We find out towards the end that this is basically due to the formation of yet another Armageddon plot that Gabriel did not want to go along with. But a lot of that sort of fades into the background here and there in between some present-day situations and some flashbacks between Aziraphale and Crowley that sort of show their relationship through time.

Courtney: Which, kind of much like the first season, I found the flashbacks of them so much more interesting than, like, present-day conflicts happening. I could have maybe watched an entire season that was just predominantly flashbacks of them. Or, it would have been nicer if the flashbacks were more intentionally paralleling something happening in the present timeline. But I think the episodes that had these flashbacks were better than the ones that didn’t.

Courtney: And there are very satirical religious tableaus, like you said with the Adam and Eve thing. And the whole reason why that came up was because, like, “Oh, we’re gonna kill Job’s kids,” and all the angels are like, “But don’t worry, God will let him have so much more kids after that!” And Aziraphale and Crowley, actually understanding humans a little bit more, are like, “But humans love their kids. Like, they’ll still be sad, and replacing them with new kids is not going to fix the fact that you killed their current ones.” And so I find those funny. I find them interesting.

Courtney: And in the present day, Aziraphale and Crowley sort of talk a little bit more with some humans. And I usually like their interactions with humans. For example, Aziraphale is renting out a record store, and the owner of this record store cannot keep up on rent. And Aziraphale is just, like, too precious. He walks in because he ordered some records and he wants to pick them up. And she’s, like, crying, and she’s like, “I’m so sorry, I don’t have the rent. I know I’m so behind.” And he’s like, “Well, if you haven’t paid the rent, then clearly, it’s my fault for not collecting the rent!” And she’s like, “I’m sorry! I know you’re here to kick me out. I’ll be out by next week.” And he’s like, “But if you leave, where will I get my records?” And he’s just clearly so unconcerned about the rent. He just likes having a record store in his neighborhood, and he’s so nice to this, you know, woman who’s down on her luck. And I like seeing those little things. Because there will even be a funny — where she’s like, “Oh my gosh, you’re an angel.” And he’s like, “Nope! Nothing of the sort. Gotta go!” So, like, those are cute and good.

Courtney: But then, I don’t think I like any of the humans interacting amongst themselves with other humans. Like, the humans only seem interesting when they’re in proximity to the angels. And there is something that is just very shippy about it. There’s an element that isn’t inherently bad, but it’s worth noting that Season 2 does have some elements where it kind of seems like it’s fanfic-ifying itself. [laughs] Like, it shows them in a flashback, being flirty with each other at, like, the very beginning of the universe, or, like, what is Crowley creating? A galaxy or something?

Royce: I think that was supposed to be the Big Bang.

Courtney: Yeah!

Royce: Which kind of…

Courtney: The literal creation of the universe?

Royce: Yeah. Which kind of countered something said in Season 1, where he said he was a part of designing the alpha centauri system.

Courtney: Yeah. And they’re, like, so flirty as they’re, you know, setting this up. But then, in the first season, it showed them introducing themselves to each other outside of the Garden of Eden, like, watching over Adam and Eve; like, they didn’t know or remember each other’s names. But they do this mirror thing where, in one scene, one holds his wing over the other to protect from, like… I don’t know, is it raining or something in one instance, and maybe the other one, they’re in space and there’s, like, asteroids coming or something. So they shelter each other with their wings at different periods of time. And it’s like, you care about each other enough and remember these interactions enough to do that and parallel this, but you don’t remember each other’s names. And you were acting so much flirtier at the very beginning of the universe, but you weren’t really acting flirty at Adam and Eve. So they definitely… It’s fanfic-ifying itself. It’s like, “We’re gonna retcon some things for the sake of the ship.” [laughs]

Courtney: And because they casted this big miracle in present day to sort of hide Gabriel and everything, Heaven notices that this big miracle has been done, so they send someone to investigate, and that person’s a little bumbling and doesn’t understand humans or Earth or anything. And what were the specifics of the actual lie that they told them? It was something like, “Yeah, we’re trying to make these two people be in love,” and it’s, like, two shop owners.

Royce: The reason that the other angels were told that Aziraphale was trying to get this couple together was because they were trying to cover up the miracle that they performed on Gabriel. Aziraphale and Crowley were intending to hide Gabriel and intentionally wanted to not draw the attention of Heaven and Hell, because they knew they were both being watched. And so, they did a miracle together, trying to make each of their pieces very, very small, so that it wouldn’t be recognized. But they unintentionally did, like, a big, magic miracle that basically shone a spotlight on their little bookstore and drew everyone’s attention to them. And so, the cover-up was, “Oh, yeah, we did a love spell.”

Courtney: Yeah!

Royce: “A very powerful love spell.”

Courtney: “Very powerful love spell.” And it just so happens that this record store owner has a huge crush on the coffee shop owner. So, like, those are the two that they did the love spell. And they obviously didn’t do that spell, but now, Heaven’s watching them, and they’re trying to convince Heaven that they did do the spell. And it’s really funny, too, because this, like, really oblivious angel reporting back to Heaven is like, “Oh yeah, it’s all well and good. They explained it all to me, and you can only tell someone’s in love by waiting a couple days, [laughing] because humans are weird like that.” So there were elements of that that I found very funny.

Courtney: And I think if… I like the idea of a commentary on trying to force people together not being a good thing, and… I just don’t necessarily like the execution of it. Because, just like in Season 1, I find the human relationships in this show so irritating. I wanted so badly to root for these two women, but they did not have any chemistry at all. And I think that would work if it was even more heavily emphasized that these angels are bumbling, they don’t understand romantic or sexual relationships at all, but I think they could have played up the humor in that more if that was the case. And it actually kind of seemed to me that, for most of the season, the show kind of wanted you, as the viewer, to root for Maggie and Nina, these two characters. And it did very much feel like ship fodder. Like, it wanted fans watching this show to ship these two — at least until right at the very end, when they don’t end up together.

Courtney: And there were some moments where it’s like, “Oh, maybe they will! Maybe they…” Because, you know, the coffee shop owner — she’s already in a relationship. It seems to be a bad one. They’re having troubles. At a certain point, they break up. But, like, she just has no interest in the record store owner. And she’s a little mean to the record store owner. She’s like, “Why do you own a record store? Nobody buys records anymore.” [laughs] And it’s like, she’s clearly struggling. She can’t keep up on rent. But she clearly has a passion for music and records, and so…

Courtney: And I just don’t think the writing was clever enough to have been, like, a meta-commentary — like, “We want the audience to ship them, and then we want to throw it in the audience’s face that they shouldn’t be shipping these two characters.” I don’t think they actually went deep enough to have that work — when theoretically, maybe it could work, if executed differently. But I even have seen a lot of people in the discourse talk about how much they liked this relationship with these two women, and a lot of people saying, like, “Well, it’s because it’s sapphic, and you just don’t see a lot of that.” And it’s like, but they didn’t even have a relationship, and they didn’t even end up together in the end. [laughs] So… And I don’t know, maybe other people saw chemistry where I didn’t, but I did not see any chemistry with those two at all.

Courtney: So, I liked the moments when they were being funny with it, like the angels on their own trying to scheme how to make it appear to Heaven as if this love spell did actually happen and work and everything. Like, the way they talk is funny. Crowley’s like, “Oh yeah, humans are easy.” They’re trying to get them, like, caught in the rain together, because they’re like, “Classic. That works every time. Humans — you get them wet and close together and va-voom!” [laughs] And someone even, later, is like, “Did they va-voom?” And so, like, those things are funny. I love this, “I don’t understand how these relationship works, but this is how I’m explaining it!” Those are funny moments. And they’ll even say, like, “Oh, we gotta try to do the love thing.”

Courtney: But then, every time it was just the two humans talking together and we saw their relationship — Is this going to happen? Is this going to evolve? How does this change? How do they talk to each other? — I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it. I wanted them to either actually have chemistry and maybe grow into something, maybe even doing enemies-to-lovers kind of a thing — I know that’s a trope a lot of people like. It usually falls flat for me, but it’s a trope for a reason. Or make it funnier when it’s just the two of them. Give them funny moments. Give them, like, “We actually both equally hate spending time together. Why do we keep being forced into proximity with one another?” [laughs] Because then there’s more comedy that can come from that. But really, it just became kind of tragic, because one woman loves the other one and is pining after her; the other is not interested at all. One of them has other shit going on at home and doesn’t want any part of this. And so I didn’t like the execution of that one bit.

Courtney: And a lot of people were saying that the reason why they thought that the dynamics with these two women worked is because, well, they exist to be a parallel to Aziraphale and Crowley. And in some ways, maybe that’s true, because the end of the season is tragic and Aziraphale and Crowley get parted. And Crowley, like, very sadly looks at the two women in their own respective shops who didn’t end up together, like, as he’s about to go away.

Courtney: And it’s like, but the thing is, that feels very unearned because they do not have their lives or their own personal relationships together enough to even be really giving the kind of advice that they give. There’s a moment where these two human women get together and, like, berate Crowley. They’re like, “You’ve been trying to force us to get together, and you can’t just force people together like that! That’s not how that works.” And it’s like, I didn’t see anything that these two women, you know, have it together enough to be giving life advice to this immortal being. Because they’re also like, “Oh, you need to communicate better,” and “Look, we communicated.” And it’s like, I thought that was all very unearned.

Courtney: But also, if they’re meant to be a parallel to Aziraphale and Crowley, they do not have nearly the history or the relationship that these two actually have. They have organically been fostering their relationship for, literally, since the beginning of time, and these two women just probably wouldn’t have so much as become friendly acquaintances if these angels weren’t meddling in it, so.

Courtney: And on the note of paralleling, also, we have Beelzebub and Gabriel this season who — surprise? — are also an item now. [laughs] Which is kind of interesting. So it’s like, how many parallel relationships do we need? And Beelzebub and Gabriel, at least, I kind of find interesting. We don’t learn this until right at the very end, because Gabriel has lost his memory, and that’s the big mystery, is try to figure out what happened. And it turns out, in a flashback, after Armageddon didn’t work, these two got together to sort of have a meeting about it in secret. But then they keep meeting, and this humanizing thing happens again where Gabriel learns what music is. They’re meeting in a bar on Earth Heaven or Hell. And there’s, like, a Buddy Holly song playing on the jukebox. And Beelzebub has to, like, explain what music is to him. And he starts drinking things when his memory isn’t working. He has, like, a hot chocolate. And he’s like, “I really like this.” And he’s like, “So many different things are happening!” And he generally becomes less of an asshole.

Courtney: But all of this happens alongside him forming this romance with Beelzebub. And this one — they seem so much more overtly romantic than Crowley and Aziraphale have been, and so that is a little too close for me of “romance humanized this person” — or “this angel,” rather. And they kind of do the, like… Beelzebub even says, “I just found something that mattered to me more than choosing sides,” and that’s sort of paralleling from Season 1 when Aziraphale and Crowley are saying, like, “We’re on our own side now.”

Courtney: And some of them, I just… Some of it was a little too much for me. Because once his memory’s restored and they’re back together and everything, like, they sing that same Buddy Holly song at each other while holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. That is too much. That’s too much! I don’t like it. [laughs] There are earlier, more subtle things I liked. Like, in a flashback, Gabriel knows that Beelzebub likes this song, so he uses his magic to force the jukebox to play that while a human’s, like, trying to play another song on the jukebox. It’s like, no, this is the song we’re listening to. And it’s like, it’s because he knows that Beelzebub likes that song! Or even the more subtle, he was singing that song while he didn’t have his memory. He couldn’t remember anything else, but all of a sudden he’s singing this song. So the characters are like, “What does this song mean? It must mean something. He doesn’t remember anything else, but he’s singing it.” And so those are cute nods to, “This is something meaningful in the relationship they’re fostering.” Singing at each other, deep, longingly into each other’s eyes, holding hands — I can’t do that. I like the cute, I like the making that be their song, that’s fine, but don’t make it cutesy. Like, there’s something sickening about singing into each other’s eyes [laughs] that I don’t like in this context.

Courtney: But for Aziraphale and Crowley, at least, seeing a little more of their relationship dynamic, both in present day and in flashbacks, did make this season a lot more enjoyable than the first one to me. We get to see Crowley, at one point, get really protective of Aziraphale. When Gabriel had lost his memory, he, like, totally chews him out and says, “You told my only friend to shut his mouth and die, and I did not care for it!” And so, like, “only friend.” You’ve called him your best friend; you’ve called him your only friend. So those are the words that they’re using for each other up to this point. But, then, after they see Beelzebub and Gabriel being nauseating with each other, [laughs] then, they kind of do a, like, “Maybe that can be us.” And Crowley even says, like, “If those two can go off and be together, then so can we. We can be an us.”

Courtney: And I think this final conflict is so good. Because Aziraphale is sort of offered a — basically a promotion and is offered a place back in Heaven and is even told, like, “Yeah, you can bring Crowley back and you can make him an angel, too.” And so Aziraphale is just oblivious to how Crowley would actually feel about this and is like, “Sounds wonderful. We can both live in Heaven together, and it’ll be great.” But Crowley’s like, “What’s wrong with you? We decided Heaven and Hell: both bad.” And kind of in referencing that song from the end of the first season, as Crowley’s about to storm out, he points outside and he says, “No nightingales, and you idiot, we could have been an us.” And then they have a really big kiss. And I don’t know how I felt about the kiss. I liked the conflict. And then, you know, a cover of that “Nightingale” song even plays on Crowley’s car radio as he drives off alone, and he gets disgusted and sort of turns it off. And then there’s just some really tense music with no lyrics, a little bit angelic, as the credits roll.

Courtney: And I thought it was a really nice effect because we see their, like, prolonged video of their faces as they get further and further away from each other, with Aziraphale going up to Heaven and Crowley driving off in his car. But that’s why I thought that the two human women were so unearned as a parallel for these two, because we’re so invested in them. That conflict was so deep and nuanced and so explosive and well-acted and so much more interesting than any conflict that the human women had to deal with. There was so much more depth. And I doubt we’re ever going to see them again. I don’t think they’re… Well, I don’t know. They probably aren’t going to show up in Season 3. They don’t seem like they have a purpose anymore. It seemed like their purpose was just, like, to give the air of, “Sometimes people just don’t belong together,” and to leave off on that cliffhanger of, “Oh, maybe Aziraphale and Crowley won’t end up together after all.”

Courtney: But there are reasons why… And I know there are Aces out there that are sick to death of characters being interpreted as Asexual who aren’t human. I know there’s a lot of pushback of, like, “We want human Aces. We don’t want this character just to be Ace because they’re a demon or a vampire.” And I don’t care so much about that as long as the characters are highly interesting. I want good stories featuring Ace characters more than anything. But any, I think, fandom discourse or media analysis of this does need to include some amount of Ace and Aro perspectives, as well as genderqueer perspectives. Because I’ve seen some really bad takes about, “Oh, there were three relationships in Season 2, and I hate how they treated it, because you have a lesbian couple and a gay couple and a straight couple, and the straight couple is the one that ends up together, and the other two end up heartbroken.” I’ve seen that take so many times, and it infuriates me. Because also, what straight couple? Where? You’re talking about Beelzebub and Gabriel because, what, Beelzebub is a little more feminine? Like, there’s something inherently genderqueer about the angels and demons already.

Royce: Beelzebub is mentioned by Neil Gaiman, I believe, as having no pronouns and, in both iterations, was played by two different actresses, is pretty consistently depicted in a, you know, more genderless attire.

Courtney: Plus, like, Beelzebub — just as a concept, not in this show necessarily — like, very few people would be like, “Genderqueer” or “Femme-presenting” or anything like that. They’d probably be like, “A guy.” [laughs] And, like, Gabriel’s played by a man, but also the Archangel Michael is not, so there’s already something about that. And calling Aziraphale and Crowley a gay couple is not necessarily untrue, but it’s at least not the full story. And, in fact, maybe now is a good segue to talk about what Neil Gaiman has said. Because he has… The only thing that I’ve seen over and over is that he outright rejects calling them gay.

Courtney: So here are some things I found directly from Neil Gaiman. In response to one fan who says, “Neil, I like to interpret the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley as more romantic, and since they’re not sexually inclined, would you believe them to be Asexual and homoromantic or bi or panromantic?” And this was on Tumblr. And he responded, “I think that anything that happens onscreen is canon, and anything that happens offscreen is valid headcanon. And I also think interpreting what you see on the screen and deciding what it means is part of the joy of watching TV. And I am pretty certain that I wasn’t put on this Earth to tell anybody that their headcanon is wrong, nor should they give two hoots if I did. I might be wrong, after all. I tried to explain my position in…” and then he links to two blog posts and says, “Anyone who wants to know what I think should probably look them both over.”

Courtney: And then he links to another response from a fan who originally said, “I am hoping you can settle what is becoming a very unpleasant multi-fandom argument. Is Crowley canonically gay? Some people feel he is. Some people feel he is maybe bi or pan. But there is quite a lot of nastiness floating around Tumblr aimed at people who wish to write fanfiction about Crowley having romantic interest in people other than Aziraphale. Any insight you could offer into these characters would be much appreciated.”

Courtney: And Neil said, “I suspect that I am about to step into something I would be wisest to keep well away from. But what the hell, it’s that time. Canonically — which is to say, using the text in the book — you don’t get any description of Crowley’s sex life. The only thing the book says is, ‘Angels are sexless unless they specifically make an effort.’ You can infer and you can imagine. And lots of people have chosen, not unreasonably, to ship him with Aziraphale, but you are making stuff up. It could be making stuff up that happens between paragraphs, or making stuff up that isn’t mentioned at all, but it’s still making stuff up. The TV series gets deeper into Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship. It’ll be canonical for the TV series and not canonical for the book. If I were to pronounce on things that are not explicitly stated in the book, I still wouldn’t be telling you if Crowley was canonically gay. I would be telling you what I think, because it’s not canon unless it’s in the book. It won’t be TV canon unless it’s on the screen.” And there are a few other paragraphs in there where, like, “Making stuff up isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s part of the fun of fanfiction,” and et cetera, et cetera.

Courtney: But I find this so fascinating. Because here is an author saying, “The only thing that’s canon is what is on the page or what is on the screen.” And also, “There are two canons. There is a book canon and a TV canon,” which not all authors agree with. There are some authors and even some consumers who say, like, “What the author says is canon, and that is correct.”

Courtney: And that gets very weird when we get into things like Hazbin Hotel. Hazbin Hotel is one of those things where we watched the TV show and we didn’t see this big, wonderful, fabulous Asexual character that everyone made it out to be. It didn’t have all this fabulous representation — even more so than just the Asexual character. There were people that are like, “There’s a canonically Japanese character!” And it’s like, where? If I watch the show and I don’t actually know, I don’t think it’s canon. It’s at least not canon for the show. But then everyone will say, “No, no, no, it is canon, because here’s a Tweet from the creator from years ago. “No, no, no, it is canon, because on a livestream that was several hours long, at the one and a half hour mark, a year ago, this person said that, and this person did art for that comic, which is also part of the same world.”

Courtney: And it’s like, no, I can’t play that game, I refuse to play that game, I do not want to play that game. I was alive for the big JK Rowling interview where she said Dumbledore was gay. [laughs] And that was such a weird thing, because you could read the entire book series and not know that Dumbledore was gay. But the scope of media was also so much more different at that time. Anyone who didn’t read that article wouldn’t have known — who didn’t see that interview with her wouldn’t have known that Dumbledore was gay. So, no, I don’t think that that actually counts as, like, really good gay representation or anything.

Courtney: But it was also during a time where there were fewer gay characters, and there was less media noise. Especially with social media getting so much bigger and different social platforms getting so much more isolated from one another. There are conversations that only happen on Tumblr. There are conversations that only happen on Twitter. There are conversations that only happen on Facebook. Back then, that “Dumbledore is gay” thing was more of a big, consolidated, “Here is a big interview.” So I think it was a little more common knowledge than what we could compare anything present day to, but I still don’t accept it.

Courtney: But, you know, we were actually having a really interesting conversation — and this concept was kind of presented to me by Emmalee Larghi Dahlgren, who was the artist who created our logo for us and the Disabled Ace Day design. Emmalee’s a lot more knowledgeable about the fandom side of VivziePop and all of her creations than I am. And the word she used was, “It’s kind of like an ARG.” Finding all these little scraps of representation, finding each character’s sexuality, each character — the race they had when they were on Earth and when they were human, and all these little lore and history nuggets that have just been sprinkled for years over Instagram and Tumblr and livestreams and comics is something that people who are really interested in the fandom and in these certain places on social media actively look for and hunt for and keep tabs on. And framing it as an ARG was so interesting to me because it’s like, oh, collecting all of these is kind of like collecting badges. It’s like playing a game. It’s trying to solve the puzzle and find all these bits and pieces of information. And games can be fun, and ARGs can be fun. But to me, if you are someone who is engaging on that level, and then you talk to someone who just watched the TV show, maybe someone who doesn’t even have a Tumblr account, maybe someone who doesn’t even know the name VivziePop, you are having two completely different conversations about two completely different… not only pieces of media, but different cultures, too.

Courtney: And I think the idea of “There are different canons” is really important. Because I almost think we need to start looking at fandom as its own medium, once it gets to that level of something like Hazbin Hotel. And I don’t think every piece of media out there develops a fandom that becomes its own medium, but I think some of them have, or are starting to. So if you were to do a full media analysis on Hazbin Hotel the TV show versus Hazbin Hotel the fandom is its own medium: very different canons, very different conversations. And it’s when people try to have cross-canon conversations that there’s not only confusion but there’s frustration, there’s anger — especially when you get into marginalized identities in communities that are so starved for representation. People are going to get frustrated in both directions. If you’re so steeped in the fandom that it is so much more common knowledge and you have so much more access to information about, “Yes, Alastor is Asexual,” then you’re going to be really defensive of that and say, like, “Yes, he is. You can’t deny that he is, because this is common knowledge.” But if you watch the show and see this one very one-off line that he himself does not even seem to resonate with — someone else is like, “I know you’re an ace in a hole,” and he’s like “what?” and then you drop it forever — then another Ace who also cares about representation might look at that and say, “That’s not enough. Are we going to settle for this?” And when those two groups of people try to have the same conversation for what is ostensibly two very different pieces of media, two very different mediums, that foster very different cultures, it’s going to get messy and muddy and gross.

Courtney: And to bring it back to Interview with the Vampire, even, when you adapt to a new medium, changes are always going to be made. And, like I said in our episode about the show, most of the changes that were made in the AMC series — for the first season, at least — I liked. Most of them were good and very well-executed changes. But when you take two characters who canonically did not have sex, and in a new medium, you make them have sex, that is going to be very hurtful and very alienating to a big portion of the Ace community — especially when it’s like, “Well, this was a very small scrap that we had, that I could resonate with, that I could appreciate.” And when you put it in the context of, like, “Well, they’re gay characters, so we’re making it gayer,” then you do have a big portion of the queer community saying, “Yes, this is a good, positive change. We like more gay. We like it gayer.” But then all the gay Aces are saying, “It’s not more gay because you added the sex.”

Courtney: And it’s this weird thing where, like, yes, the entire queer community is marginalized, but you’re sort of erasing over one marginalized community in favor of another. And that’s where it gets really contentious. Because we all want representation, right? People usually — at least, the queer community does not have as much of an issue, if in a media adaptation, you take a character who is either straight or assumed to be straight and then make them queer, because then everyone will be like, “This is a win for the queer community. We have more characters now.” And the problem is that allosexual people think taking a queer, sexless relationship and making them sexual is achieving the same thing as adding more queerness or confirming queerness. And it’s not the same thing, and that’s what we want people to understand.

Courtney: And then the other blog post I’m not going to read. It’s not as relevant to the conversation we’re trying to have here. But he basically just said, like, “Yeah, if what you see on the screen isn’t what you pictured when you read the books, it might be hurtful, but I don’t want to take away your headcanons and how you interpreted this and what you thought.” Which is very interesting, that he’s usually very reluctant to confirm or deny anything. Because people will be like, “Is Crowley gay?” And he’ll be like, “I’m not going to tell you that because it’s not on the page. And what you think is Making Stuff Up, but also probably right. And if I make something up, I might be just as wrong as you.” So very wishy-washy responses like that.

Courtney: …Except for when one user asked, “For instance, when the book says, ‘Angels are sexless beings unless they really want to make an effort,’ which meaning of the word sexless does this refer to? Is it he isn’t gay because he’s not technically a male, or he isn’t gay because he feels no sexual attraction?” And he directly says, “The former was the way we meant it. The angels and demons and good omens aren’t human. They aren’t male, nor are they female. Not that they couldn’t be male, et cetera, if they wanted to make that effort. As it says in Good Omens, ‘For those of angel stock or demon, breed, size and shape and composition are simply options.’” Is it at all noteworthy that when people are like, “Are they gay?” he’s like, “I don’t know. They might be. They might be.” But when people are like, “Are they sexless in the don’t experience sexual attraction way?” he’s like, “No, that’s not what I meant.” [laughs]

Courtney: And he does this again, even. Someone, again on Tumblr, said “It’s mentioned that the angels are mostly Asexual unless they try very hard. In the past 20 years, the concept of Asexuality as a human sexuality has evolved. Was Asexual the way you and Pratchett envisioned different from the modern definition?” And Neil says, “What it says in the book is, ‘Angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort.’ Sexless isn’t synonymous with Asexual, at least not for Terry and me.” So here he’s like, “No, we don’t think they’re Asexual.” But when they’re like, “Gay? Bi? Pan?” it’s like, “Well, I’m not going to confirm or deny, because I would be wrong if I confirm or deny, but what you think is valid.”

Courtney: But then I found a Tweet, which he actually even linked to, once again on Tumblr, at one point, where he said, “I wouldn’t exclude the ideas that they are Ace or Aromantic or trans. They are an angel and a demon, not as male humans, per the book. ‘Occult/ethereal beings don’t have sex’ is something we tried to reflect in the casting. Whatever Crowley and Aziraphale are, it’s a love story.” And along with reposting that Tweet four years later, he said, “I’ve described their relationship as queer many times. I’ve said it’s not gay, because neither of them is a human male.”

Courtney: So, I do think it’s interesting what he will solidly confirm versus what he won’t. Because it seems like, when he’s not trying to confirm something outright, he’s trying to do it for the sake of people who have a very important, meaningful headcanon and he doesn’t want to spoil it for them. And yet, if we think about fandom — and this one did get a pretty big fandom behind it and a big boost after Season 1 came out, and a lot of the people in that fandom were Ace, and I think that’s why a lot of people asked him so directly, “Is this character gay? Is this character Ace?” et cetera, et cetera. And now thinking of fandom not only as its own medium but as something to investigate, as something to solve, as something that’s maybe even a bit gamified by individual people, is very interesting. Because there’s always sort of been the very pretentious, like, “I’m a bigger fan than you” — even before the internet. Like, “Oh, name all the comic books,” “Oh, name all the songs this band did,” “I know more than you” kind of an attitude. But this hyper-focus on what is and is not canon is so interesting, because then, people are almost trying to prove, “I have followed this creator more than you. I have read more of their interviews. I have followed more of their social media accounts. I have seen more bonus content. I have seen more livestreams. I’ve subscribed to their Patreon. I have all these bits of information.” And people will use it as, like, arguing points, when, oftentimes, a lot of it doesn’t make it onto the screen or doesn’t make it onto the page.

Courtney: And so, I’ve still seen an element of this here, where, across platforms in different places — Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr — someone will say, like, “Well, they’re Asexual because of this ‘sexless’ line from the book.” And then we don’t see them actually have a sexual relationship on the TV, but then everyone will be like, “No, no, no, no. You see, I follow Neil Gaiman very closely, and he said that’s not how he meant that word,” which seems to be the opposite of what he says he wants, which is to not bully each other for what they think or interpret. And yet, there are some things he will be very comfortable confirming or denying.

Courtney: But another element of concern in general fandom, in general celebrity worship, and in just sort of taking the words of an author or a creator as, like, the word of God: a lot of creators are terrible, actually. We have seen that with… JK Rowling has been a very prominent example, who’s gotten increasingly worse for years now. Neil Gaiman’s an interesting one because, as of my last research, there have been at least five women who have come forward with allegations ranging from him performing non-consensual sex acts on them to coercing, holding power over women, engaging in really inappropriate relationships with people who were employees of his or fans 40 years younger than him, or even, in one prominent example, someone who literally lived in a house he owned, who depended on him for housing and rent.

Courtney: And the interesting thing is, he’s been so active on Tumblr for so long and interacts with fans so much that there is an enormous fanbase not only for his work but for him as a man. And since these allegations started coming out, I started seeing people defending him in very unusual ways, because — let’s take Johnny Depp and Amber Heard as another example. Allegations came out against Johnny Depp. He obviously had a huge wave of fans who were defending him. But there’s a distinct difference in the way people have been defending Neil Gaiman, because every or most of the defenses I’ve seen of him have been people saying, like, “Well, he openly supports trans people, so this was all a coordinated attack by the TERFs to take Neil Gaiman down. It’s actually the TERFs and the Tories that are attacking Neil Gaiman, and we shouldn’t listen to these, because the only reason he’s being attacked is because he is an ally.” And as far as I know, he’s a straight white man [laughs] who has several accusations about using his immense power to abuse women. And it’s very strange that, now, people are still defending the rich, famous, powerful, straight white man, but they’re doing it under the guise of, “But it’s just because he’s a really good egg.” [laughs] You know? It’s a bit baffling.

Courtney: And I tried to figure out why I was seeing this. Because even when abusive men get defended, it’s usually not this very specific way I’ve been seeing, so I was curious where it came from, and I tried to dig into it. And there are a lot of very credible critiques about the first podcast and news site that went public with the first round of accusations — there are reasons why people critiqued their reporting. But there are still voices of actual women who are sharing their actual experience. And even after that initial podcast, so many people were saying, “We can’t take anything this podcast says seriously, because look at who made it, and this was all the TERFs, this was all the Tories. We can’t listen to them because they’re just trying to smear someone who approves of trans people.” But more allegations continue to come out — as often, if not always, happens in cases like this — and different women with similar patterns of behavior, stories that were told on different podcasts, different news sites, are all painting kind of the same picture.

Courtney: And as much as I tend to agree with him on “Canon is what is actually said and actually shown, and canon can be two different canons even in the same franchise when we’re working with different mediums and adaptations” — as much as I tend to agree with him on that, I think we should also agree with him on the, “But don’t listen to me. If I were to confirm something, maybe I’m wrong.” I think we just need to not listen to creators so much.

Courtney: I actually… This is something I’ve been trying to reconcile with, because everyone has so much access to everyone these days, but I don’t actually like knowing things about celebrities or creators. I don’t. I really don’t. And I think part of that is just how my brain is wired. I’ve never really resonated with the concept of having heroes. And people say, “Never meet your heroes, because what if they let you down?” But I’ve always been like, “You guys have heroes?” If I like a piece of media, I have no natural desire to learn more about the person who created the media, almost always. Sometimes, it turns out the person themselves might be particularly interesting or have a particularly interesting history. I’ve gotten a bit of a fascination, for example, with Marilyn Monroe, but in me, it’s not about Marilyn Monroe, it’s about her life and the response to her and what that can tell us about society that I find really interesting. It’s very rarely about the person if I’m interested in a person.

Courtney: And so, like, I know I mentioned earlier, I really like BoJack Horseman. I’m aware of the name Bob Raphael Waksberg. If I hear a funny anecdote about him, I might be like, “Ha, that’s neat, that’s interesting.” I don’t want to follow him on Twitter. I don’t want to learn about his personal life. I don’t have that impulse. And I also don’t really want more content from that person. I’m not like, “You need to make me more things,” because if they made a thing I enjoy, then I enjoy that thing, that’s it. If they happen to make another thing I enjoy, that’s great, but it’s not going to be the same thing, so I’m not going to expect something different or new. And I certainly don’t want them to go back and be like, “Remember that other character? Well, actually there’s so much more to that character that I never told you about! Let me tell you all these things about this character now.” Because if it was so important, it would have made it into canon. It would have made it to the page. It would have made it on the screen. So now you’re just telling me, “Oh, there were all these big wonderful things, and it didn’t happen.” The only time I care is if someone stopped you. If it was a corporate — like, you know, “Disney wouldn’t let this character be gay, but the creator really wanted it.”

Royce: Like, the original intent was for it to be on the page, but something prevented that from happening.

Courtney: Yes. Because then that becomes a social issue.

Royce: Yeah. It’s also more of, like, a director’s cut versus an original product. Like, had the creator been able to work freely, this is what the media they envisioned would have been.

Courtney: Right. And that gets into, like, capitalism and bureaucracy and marketability, and so that is a different set of problems, I think, and is interesting and worth looking at. But one example was… Hank Green, of all people. When Hank Green wrote a novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, I read it. And a second book came out. I read the second book. I don’t remember hardly anything about the second book, for some reason. I don’t know if it was truly less memorable or if I was just in a weird place mentally when I read it, but I liked the first book when I read it.

Courtney: Well, then, it turns out, after those two books got published, there was a smaller, like, pamphlet that he published at some point that mentioned one of the side characters in this book, in these two books, is Asexual. And that was a totally separate piece of… Like, it’s not part of the canon, it’s an extra thing, extra content by the author. Most people are never going to read this. Some people got really excited, because they’re like, “Oh my gosh! We’ve got another Ace character!” And I was like, “I wouldn’t have even known this if I didn’t have a Twitter account.” And I hate that I have a Twitter account. I don’t want the Twitter account, actually.

Courtney: And, to his credit… Someone even tried to give him a lot of credit. Like, “Wow, Hank Green gave us an Asexual character,” on, like, a Reddit post or something. And he actually saw it and responded and was, like, a little bit uncomfortable about it. He was like, “I don’t feel like I deserve this kind of credit you’re trying to give me, actually.” And so I kind of respected that. Because actually, like, if this character is Asexual, and you, as the author, you know this character is Asexual, and you just choose not to put it in the book, that just tells me that you don’t actually think that it’s that important. It’s not important to the story. It’s not worth putting in there. And maybe it’s not. Maybe sexuality, for this character in this story, is completely irrelevant. But you can’t try to score, like, brownie points with the queer community, because now you’re just collecting… like, you’re collecting tokens, you’re getting diversity points by being like, “Oh, but this character is this.”

Courtney: And that was part of my frustration with VivziePop when we reviewed Hazbin Hotel, because so many people are like, “There’s so much diversity. Look at all the different races and all the different sexualities.” And it’s like, most of them actually aren’t depicted, so I don’t think it’s meaningful representation. If it is in the fandom, that’s fine, but I’m not consuming the fandom. That is not a medium I like. Sorry.

Courtney: So, at the end of the day, seeing a relationship like this can still be revelatory for Aces. It can still be important for Aces. And it can be important for just what it means in society to have such a widely beloved couple that is not depicted as a sexual relationship but is clearly deeply meaningful that people are rooting for and people do care about. That is important to have that. That is why I would lose my mind if, theoretically, in Season 3, they, like, show them in bed together or have a sex scene. I would lose my mind. But it’s also worth critiquing that this series so far does humanize romance to an extent that I do think it is harmful and alienating for Aromantic people. Because now we have two examples, so one is backing up the other. This isn’t just an exception to the rule. This is now becoming the rule, that angels and demons: very inhuman, very unrelatable, very unlikable, until they start catching feels for someone. Then they get a little more likable. Then they start listening to music. Then they start eating food. Then they start to be compassionate. Then we want to root for them. Then they develop a romance and they go and try to run away together. If that is the only avenue toward humanizing the non-humans, that is a problem. That is as much of a problem as using sex as a shorthand for that.

Courtney: So I would love, ideally, for Season 3 to humanize other non-human characters without the presence of romance or sex. Humanize them in a different way. Show them that romance is not the key to being human and likable. And you do have to make it a likable character. It has to be someone we care about and root for. [laughs] And execute it well and treat it as important as you do the main characters — which I unfortunately don’t expect from a show like this, because so many of their side characters have fallen so very flat for me for so long. So, I don’t know. We’ll have to see what’s in store.

Courtney: But another — I guess my last little point when it comes to Neil Gaiman and these accusations: if the way you interpret a piece of media is queer in a way that is relevant and meaningful to your life, that is significant, that is important. Nobody can take that away from you. But I would caution everyone to not let that become such a deep admiration for the creator of that that you can find no wrong and you refuse to hear any valid critiques of them, or you refuse to believe it when they do prove themselves to be monstrous human beings. Because not only, in the worst case scenario, could that mean fans are now literally trying to argue in favor of a sexual predator who is, at the end of the day, a wealthy, straight, white man — as far as I know. I don’t know, maybe someone’s gonna come and say, “Oh, Neil Gaiman is actually bisexual.” I’ve never read anything like that. I don’t actually think that that’s the case. If I’m wrong, I am sorry. But it is only women who have come forward with these accusations, so there is violence against women happening.

Courtney: But, at the end of the day, what’s meaningful to you still might not have been what they originally meant. And so that’s why I get so confused when people defend them to the death like that. Because Neil Gaiman himself has said, like, “No, I meant sexless as in gender. Like, they are not males.” So if you read it a different way and that meant something to you, that’s important, that’s a part of your journey, that’s a part of your life. But if you’re then taking that as, “He has given us Asexual representation, and he’s given us trans and nonbinary representation, and he’s given us gay representation, so he’s such a big, huge queer ally, so no, he absolutely did not abuse those women,” let’s not play that game, please. Please. Please. Because then, in the immortal words of Neil Gaiman, “You are Making Stuff Up.” [laughing] And he did capitalize all three of those words every time he typed that out in that response: “You are capital-Making Stuff Up.”

Courtney: But I did sort of retroactively start to analyze some of the things I have read from Neil Gaiman. I’ve never considered myself… well, much of a fan of anybody, but I’ve never considered myself a fan of Neil Gaiman. Because I’ve read some of his work, but not even all of his most famous work. But as we were rewatching Season 1 and 2, I was like, “Does he not know how to write women?” [laughs] Because I didn’t like the harlot and the Jezebel and who she ended up with, and I didn’t like the descendant of the witch and who she ended up with, and I didn’t like the young girl character who was way too socially aware and that was her only personality trait. And then, when they tried to have the two women and they’re trying to force a romance together plot, I was like, “The only time I like them is if it’s one of them alone talking to one of the angels. I don’t like when these two women are together, because they don’t seem to have chemistry. Their dialogue is not hitting the mark for me.”

Courtney: But then I thought back to American Gods, which is a book I read, and that’s a very sexual, kind of sexist book. All of the female gods are very, very seductress, very sexual. One of them, at one point, was concerned about being so fat her thighs were rubbing together. One of them literally eats a guy through her vagina. And they just overall do not have as much depth as the male characters. And there is something very, very male gaze-y about it. And it’s been long enough since I’ve read the book that I can’t pull out, like, a million different examples off the top of my head, but I did start seeing, like, “Yeah, I have actually witnessed and felt instances of sexism in his work.” Which doesn’t make all the work in the world trash. It’s just an observation.

Courtney: So I guess, as for me, for final thoughts, for final opinions: I think Aziraphale and Crowley are exceptional characters. I see why they resonate with so many people. I love them as characters. I want more content of them. As for the overarching plot and writing of the show as a whole, it leaves some to be desired. It really does. I want so badly for it to be better. Because I like the premise! I like the concept. I like the plot. But, I mean, Royce, as you said last episode, you said it’s basically a parody of The Omen. So the concept of the Antichrist being born is not a new concept. Obviously, they’re drawing so heavily from biblical references for all their characters. So, there’s just something about the execution of the plot that just doesn’t hit the sweet spot for me. Which kind of is a shame, because I want more widely beloved sexless relationships.

Courtney: And I do tend to like media that does draw from concepts of Heaven and Hell and even gets a little weird and a little bit campy at times with it. But there are also original stories that I think have done a much better job of scratching that itch I have in a desire for that kind of content. Like, The Good Place is so good. It is not just the Good Place, it is the best place. I love it. I think the writing is great, and I think there are two very beloved and relatable sexless to different degree characters in there. And yes, they are not humans, but they are humanized, and their ability or desire to have sexual or romantic relationships has nothing to do with their humanization. So, I could talk forever on it. I’m not going to today, because that’s not the topic of today’s episode, but in the future, we absolutely are going to talk more about The Good Place, so. And I don’t even know who created that show, and that’s fine for me. That’s probably for the best. [laughing] I don’t need to know who creates the art I like. I have gotten better. I have. With tepidly dipping into the internet and social media, I have learned some things about some people who have created things. But, I swear, before the internet became what it is, I had favorite bands that I couldn’t name a single member of, and that was perfectly alright with me.

Courtney: But you know who I do know and love and appreciate are our MarketplACE vendors. That’s right, our MarketplACE for Aro and Ace small business owners, all members of our wonderful community whom you should definitely give your dollars to instead of the Neil Gaimans and the JK Rowlings of the world. And today’s featured MarketplACE vendor is Caramel Comics, an illustration and craft studio focused on creating art of nature, fantasy, food, and queer pride. Their motto is “A little art for everyone,” and they strive to have diverse, inclusive and sustainable products. They are also AroAce, BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, nonbinary, and trans owned.

Courtney: And since we’ve been talking about fandoms and headcanons and the queering of characters, I would be remiss if I did not point out that one of the items in their shop is a fabulous Sonic the Hedgehog sticker that just says, “I’m gay.” [laughing] I love it. And there’s a trans flag that says, “Sylveon is trans.” So those of you who are not in the know on Pokemon, Sylveon is a very pretty Pokemon that is basically just the color palette of the trans flag — it’s got the light blue, light pink, the white. So a lot of trans fans of Pokemon are like, “That’s the one. That one is trans, and that one is mine.”

Courtney: So if you’re less in the boat of the fandom and headcanoning things, you can get a classic “Be gay, do crimes” decal. An old favorite, no doubt. And there are some pride flag things here: pins, stickers. They’ve got little, like, ice cream pops that look like various queer pride flags, including the Aro flag, the Ace flag, even the DemiAce and Aro flags. Or you can just be like me and say, “I already have a lot of Aro and Ace things, so what I really want is the washi tape with all of the black cats on it.” [laughs] It’s so cute! I love it so much. It is also, incidentally, a little bit Aro, because it is green tape with all these adorable black cat designs on it in a repeating pattern. So, tons of things to check out at the shop. As always, a link to our featured MarketplACE vendor, Caramel Comics, will be in the show notes.

Courtney: So, that’s all we have for today. We did it! We finally did it. We finally actually talked about Good Omens. So, that’s all, and we will see you next time. Goodbyeee!