#and arospec

[wistfulnightingale]

I Need a Path OUT of This Tumoil and Chaos (also, I Still Believe in Nightingales, and in Our World!)

One Neurodivergent (and Acespec) Human's Perspective

*****

Prior to May 13 and all the, um, recent developments in Good Omens and our fandom, writing about Our Ineffables on Tumblr and AO3 (and my very full list of almost-finished fanfics!) had been my haven, my sanity and safe space. I know I'm not alone in that.

I'm also pretty sure that I'm not the only one who feels lost now -- not only because of GO3 itself, but because of how our little Tumblr space has become a chaotic turmoil that I don't even need to describe. We all see it, every time we scroll.

In the first week or so, I wrote and vented and tried to sort it all out too. I seldom post what I write now. The feeling of it being a minefield of potential conflict is... intimidating, to say the least. (Long history of people-pleasing, me. Lots of personal work becoming more honest and authentic. Unexpected conflict still feels like trauma.)

I love Good Omens too much to leave. But I'm exhausted from draining my energy navigating the turmoil, and from trying to process so very very many thoughts and opinions -- and so many of them are insightful and valid, even when folks are angry and arguing. My neurodivergent brain can only make it through so much before I become emotionally exhausted all over again.

And I'm really, really tired...

You see, I'm ADHD and Autistic. (Can I hear a Wa-Hoo?) My neurology already runs on emergency-crisis-adrenalin-hyperdrive. It's exhausting, but that's pretty much how it works. (That's why Azi's fumbles felt so relatable!) It takes actual strategies to get it all to run at a "normal" baseline.

A lot of the folks who followed my blog before this absolute mess told me they're neurodivergent too. We enjoyed each other's writing and comments, even when topics seemed to have nothing to do with neurodivergence. I miss those lovely little interactions, those familiar people. So many have gone silent, at least with their own voices. Maybe our chaotic feelings colllided against each other. Maybe they're also feeling the strain of this constant turmoil... or just heartbroken.

(I miss you all. You know who you all are. If you're thinking, "Probably not me," then it's definitely you, too!)

Processing strong emotions quickly isn't a strong suit for me. It takes me extra time to work through all the layers - especially when anger or conflict is part of it. I also tend to count on "best intentions". So, when folks are angrily saying, "You shouldn't have thought that..." or "You should have seen this coming..." Well...

I'm also on the asexual spectrum. (Although I'm an absolutely "hopeless romantic"!) It was always part of my subtext for how I perceived Our Ineffables. That's become a bit of a minefield now too. Emotions are running high, and it doesn't feel particularly safe for aro/ace folks to mention ways we felt represented -- moments we still felt were meaningful -- or to grieve that our possibility of representation also disappeared in a cloud of sparkles.

And that's a sad thing. I'm pretty sure that ace/arospec folks loving the ace/arospec relatability we see in Aziraphale and Crowley isn't actually harming anyone, not in the big picture. And that neurodivergent folks believing we see autistic traits in S1/S2 Aziraphale and ADHD traits in Crowley is not somehow adding to the GO3 destruction...

No one here, no one who genuinely loves these characters, is here to support erasing anyone. We all just wanted a little bit of space to see these beautiful characters as relatable in our own ways, like we used to before May 13.

We deserve that space. Some of us need it. I need it.

And my little acespec autistic heart doesn't like feeling cautious and afraid, not in the space I loved and felt safe in just a few weeks ago.

So... I need a path.

Maybe this path will feel calmer for you, too. Or maybe it'll help you to find a similar path that's more authentic to how YOU see Our Ineffables, and what YOU might still love and want from Good Omens.

For me -- I'm going back to the roots of I Believe in Nightingales. If, like so many of us, I can't accept GO3, then I'll see if I can just keep enjoying what I've always loved.

I always loved Season 2. I saw it for what it could have (or should have?) been, not for the negative direction it was being taken in the F15. I naively thought the Final 15 was a desperate attempt at coded communication, not the actual breakup of 6000 years of trust and affection. (Wrote lots of theories and justifications for it!) And of course, we saw GO3 plunge far deeper into those negative and fatalistic waters. The F15 set off a chain reaction of brokenness, ultimately culminating in a Choice...

(Now, I'm not pitching the case that this was true. It's not the only p.o.v. - it's merely my own. I'm not inviting angry arguments. My intention is simply to restore a peaceful little Tumblr garden I hope to preserve. Or to invite you to make a similar haven of your own, with whatever You love about Good Omens.)

When we remove the heavy hand of "Fate" (ie fatalistic writers) and change the ooc meanings from the F15, Season 2 gracefully becomes a beautiful story of a subtle and loving long term relationship, an "Old Married Couple". Simply believing that the Metatron couldn't so easily break their trust in each other opens a world of subtle love and infinite trust for Our Ineffables' relationship.

It also opens the way for so many other beautiful possibilities -- maybe they are acespec, maybe they are both neurodivergent, maybe Crowley is aromantic, maybe they are helping each other heal from the past...

So that's what I want to keep writing about.

And I'm tired. Truly. The grief and loss of what could have been GO3 is already hard enough. The anger and outrage is too draining for me to sustain. Maybe for you too. I just want to hug my Ineffables close -- the Ineffables I believed in, the ones that helped me find perspective and sort through all the layers -- and try to be happy again.

Hopefully, we all can start making space for people to believe what they believe and feel what they feel. I want us all to move towards restoring that. I want my blog, I Believe in Nightingales, to be a Safe Space for people who enjoy both S1 and S2, who like exploring Our Ineffables' traits and characteristics. If that's not what you like or believe, that's truly okay, but please scroll on.

A lot of folks are doing that now with the posts they see -- leaving argument and anger behind. If everyone does it, regardless of tags, we can move on as a community again. Accusatory or insulting comments are unkind, and none of us need to be doing that to each other. The world is difficult enough. For my part, I never had to deal with those sort of comments before May 13, and frankly, I'm too damned far into adulthood to be willing to start dealing with them now.

(Auntie Nightingale's lecture is nearly over now, dears. Here, have a nice cup of cocoa!)

But I'm still hopeful. We still are the same people. We just have an extremely stressful challenge to get through. We were a Kind and Accepting community before this. We still can be.

It's Our World, and we all share it.

To Our World... 🥂✨

[indagonightmare]

Gender isn't real, I'm just an emo fag