Text wall incoming.

Happy New Years fan fam. We made it another trip around the sun. And some of those days were made of light and laughter, and some of them were gritted teeth and grief. But we made it. So it’s time to talk about what happens in a year.

What happens when the fundamental understanding of who you are and what you need as a person undergoes a seismic shift? When the edifice of all your understanding has been shaken to rubble around you, and you’re forced to finally reckon with the cracked foundations of who you are?

This was that year for me. To be clear, the buildup had been coming for a long, long time. The methodology I had used to construct my life was unsustainable at best, and deliberate self martyrdom at worst. And of course, this is where learning through the lens of fandom comes in. I have waxed (less than) poetic here before about how fictional media is the gestalt through which so many of us begin to process our trauma. The fulcrum that allows us to lift the weight of what we carry and look deeper into it. That fulcrum this year, for me, was Good Omens. More specifically, it was this glorious and beautiful fandom’s unflinching and enthusiastic willingness to take the narratives offered there and parse the deeper meanings within them. And what are those meanings? What lens has been provided that finally allowed me to see things within myself that desperately needed to be brought into the light of day?

It begins here. Self denial. The act of burying oneself and one’s deepest desires and fundamental needs beneath the asceticism of “I should have/be”. The heart of this for many of us, myself included, lies in religious upbringing that is further complicated by neurodivergence and queerness. What does that mean? It means that you start out at a remove from the rest of humanity. You do not speak the same language, you do not know the steps of this dance. You are a stranger in a strange land. When you compound that with the church informing you that you are a fundamentally broken and unworthy creature during all of your developmental years…well.

All of us need human connection. It is a fact of our biology and evolution to crave community and acceptance. So you begin to whittle yourself away. You nip and tuck and shave and hide everything that may stand in the way of communion. You accept that who you are fundamentally is unworthy of love. You take it into yourself and it becomes a core tenet of who you are. So the foundation is laid and you begin to build a life upon it. Which leads us to our protagonists.

Crowley has stepped away from the idea that you must be “perfect”. He accepts who he is, even as he still holds onto his anger for the rejection that this has caused. “Unforgivable, that’s what I am!” He says. He is hurt and he is furious, but he knows himself. He places the blame squarely where it belongs. With the institution that rejected him, not with his inability to fit into their narrow ideas of who he should be. He doesn’t play the self denial game or go in for martyrdom. He does what he has to do to get by and remains true to himself and his core beliefs. He continues to ask his questions without apology and he continues to seek truth and attempt to share that understanding with others. He decided the rules were shite, so he stopped playing by them.

Aziraphale. Oh Angel. Az as a character exemplifies self denial. He doesn’t fit in within the parameters of the institution, so he tries to make himself less so that he can belong. He ties his concept of self worth to that institution and his acceptance within it, all while knowing it is impossible for him to be accepted as he is. So he denies his own nature. His fundamental needs. He doesn’t sit comfortably within his own skin AT ALL. He is angry, but doesn’t allow himself to embrace it. He has the questions, but won’t ask them. He feels (and is) rejected, but doesn’t allow himself to acknowledge it. (As an aside here, we see this difference in how Crowley refers to himself as a former demon, but Az still refers to himself as an angel). So he doesn’t allow himself to feel, or to have the things that he wants and needs. He keeps thinking that if he sacrifices enough of himself, he will get the community and acceptance he longs for. In the end it leads him to lose the things and people he cares about most. And he hurts himself and them in the process. He is still trying to play by the shite rules.

What did I learn from this? Self denial and martyrdom ends in tragedy. In the end you hurt, not only yourself, but the people you care about. You cannot move through life paring yourself down to pieces for other people. Every time you remove a block from the foundation of who you are, in order to try and gain acceptance and community, you create a wound that doesn’t close. You are slowly bleeding out. When you don’t acknowledge the anger and the questions and your need to BE, those wounds fester. You wind up rejecting the people who want to care for you, even as you reject yourself in service of those who don’t deserve the care you’ve given them.

So. This was the year of realizing that I needed to stop playing by the shite rules. This was the year of realizing that my foundations needed rebuilt. This was the year of realizing that it’s ok for me to be angry and ask questions and realize that I am enough as I am. I don’t need to be less. I don’t need acceptance from people who want me to be less. All of the years I spent denying myself and prostrating myself on the altar of other’s expectations have gained me nothing. And strange as it may seem, I have one angel, one demon and an entire fandom to thank for that insight. Here’s to the next year friends. As @neil-gaiman says. Bravery. And joy.