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@demonic-rubber-duck
Crowley
this is so awkward because Pestilence seems to have come back out of retirement this year so now there is FIVE Horsemen and only FOUR Horses
use a carriage
Clueless angel? Oh yeah
It’s that story I’ve been telling! Vandal! Here’s a link to part one if you want to support and share but don’t want to reblog such a long post <3
New story starting next week! Posting every Tuesday! A week early on patreon! go team xx
aziraphale and castiel could NOT hang out bc aziraphale is a snob and cas knows fucking nothing about high culture spends all his time with two guys who definitely made him watch south park and has never been to a nicer restaurant than MAYBE ruby tuesday’s. working class angel hero. sorry about this post
#aziraphale: ah don't you remember seeing this opera when it was new? #castiel who literally spent three hours researching neopets bc of one reference dean made: is opera singing #crowley keeps inviting cas over because he finds it fucking hilarious how mad aziraphale gets #'how can he NOT know michelangelo personally?! darling how can he not ?!' #castiel: they wouldn't let me out of heaven for a while idk what to tell you. can we go to applebee's. #crowley: SURE. LET'S TAKE AN ANGEL OF THE LORD TO APPLEBEE'S. AZIRAPHALE THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE @lovelyirony
GOD MADE TRANS PEOPLE FOR THE SAME REASON HE MADE GRAPES BUT NOT WINE WHO ARE WE TO DENY THIS DIVINE ALCHEMY OF THE SELF?
daniel lavery, “something that may shock and discredit you”
In the early second century, in response to the question "Why has God not made man just as He wanted him to be?" Rabbi Akiva said "For the very reason, the duty of man is to perfect himself."
I wrote this nearly a year ago, at the time I had never read the work of Daniel Lavery, Rabbi Akiva, or other queer writers who has written similar things.
In fact, a few people accused me of plagiarizing, but it didn't bother me.
It didn't bother me because it was proof that it was real. It was proof that throughout history there has always been fruit and wine, there had always been bread and wheat, that there had always been people like me who looked at the magical transformation of one to the other and said "there I am, just as God intended"
it never hit me how shortsighted Heaven is until i realized they put a Principality (whose entire raison d’être is to protect places and people from harm) in charge of Earth, and then were genuinely surprised when Armageddon came and said Principality went absolutely off-the-grid feral trying to stop it
Where did I read the sentence “you can’t give a Principality a territory and then act surprised when they become territorial”
Honestly, given how Heaven reacts to everything throughout Good Omens, I’m 99% sure that they meant for Aziraphale to be guarding against the humans, and Aziraphale just had one of his “I’m going to selectively hear those orders” moments, and the rest was history.
“And,” Gabriel said with a wink, “you’re going to be a guardian in the human realm.”
Aziraphale nodded and winked back.
As methods of communication go, a wink is quite versatile. You can say a lot with a wink. For example, Gabriel’s wink meant:
You’re going to go down to that earthly territory and make sure those hairless monkeys don’t do anything to get in the way of the divine plan and make sure they know what it is to fear the wrath of the Almighty and behave themselves as lesser beings should.
And as far as he was concerned, Aziraphale’s answering wink meant: I shall indeed descend to the earthly plane full of gross matter and hairless monkeys and be sure to keep them in their well-deserved place, beneath our divine heel.
Whereas Aziraphale, on the other hand, thought that Gabriel’s wink was more along the lines of: You lucky beggar Aziraphale, getting to go down there and look after God’s new humans and all the exciting things they have to make and discover. Now you go down there and experience all the humans have to offer and protect them with your life.
And therefore, his own wink had meant: Message received and understood. The humans will never have a more stalwart guardian. Looking forward to seeing what sushi is when it comes around.
It took quite some time for angels to learn the important of using words when dispatching pedantic principalities on human-sitting duty.
reblogging for the wink
Folks let me talk about Crowley and sunglasses, because I have a lot of emotions about when he wears them and when he doesn’t, and Hiding versus Being Seen.
We’re introduced to the concept of Crowley wearing glasses even before we’re introduced to Crowley, by Hastur: “If you ask me he’s been up here too long. Gone native. Enjoying himself too much. Wearing sunglasses even when he doesn’t need them.”
Honestly Crowley’s whole introduction is a fantastic; we learn so much about his character in a tiny amount of time. The fact that he’s late, the Queen playing as the Bentley approaches, the “Hi, guys” in response to Hastur and Ligur’s “Hail Satan”. I like this intro much better than the one originally scripted with the rats at the phone company, but I digress.
Crowley wears sunglasses when he doesn’t need them. Specifically, he still wears them around the demons, and when he’s in hell.
You know where Crowley doesn’t wear glasses? At home.
We never once see him wearing glasses in his flat, except for when he knows Hastur and Ligur are coming. That’s an emotional kick to the gut for me. Here’s one of the only places Crowley’s comfortable enough to be sans glasses, and when he knows it’s going to be invaded he prepares not just physically with the holy water, but by putting up that emotional barrier in a place where he wasn’t supposed to need it.
An argument could be made that Crowley actually never needs glasses. We’re shown that it’s well within the angels’ and demons’ powers to pass unnoticed by humans. Crowley and Aziraphale waltz out of the manor in the middle of a police raid, and going unnoticed by the police takes so little effort that they can keep up a conversation while they stroll through. Even an unimaginative demon like Hastur apparently doesn’t have trouble with the humans losing it over his demonic eyes. The humans in the scene at Megiddo are acting like “this guy is a little weird” and not “holy shit his entire eyeballs are black jelly”
That means that Crowley’s glasses are a choice, just like Aziraphale’s softness. Sure, he could arrange matters so that nobody ever noticed his eyes, but he doesn’t want to. Crowley wants acceptance, and he wants to belong, and he’s never, ever had that. He didn’t fit in before the Fall in Heaven, he doesn’t fit in with the demons in Hell. With the glasses, and with the Bentley and his plants and with the barely-bad-enough-to-be-evil nuisance temptations, he’s choosing Earth. This is where he wants to fit in, perhaps not with the humans, but amongst them.
Even after Crowley is at his absolute lowest, when he thinks Aziraphale’s dead and he’s on his way to drink until the world ends, he takes the time to put a new pair on when the old ones are damaged. He needs that emotional crutch right now, even with everything about to turn into a pile of puddling goo he’s not ready for the world to see his eyes.
Which is why I swore out loud when Hastur forcibly takes them off.
It’s about the worst thing that Hastur could have done. Rather than leading with a physical threat, his first act is to strip away Crowley’s emotional defences. It’s a great writing choice because god it made me hate Hastur, even more than all the physical violence we see him do.
It’s also the moment that Crowley really truly gets his shit together, and focuses all of his considerable imagination on getting to Tadfield and Aziraphale to help save the world. He’s wielding the terrifyingly unimaginable power of someone who’s hit rock bottom and realised it literally could not get any worse than this. He doesn’t put another pair of glasses on after discorporating Hastur, and he spends the majority of the airbase sequence without them.
He puts them back on again, I think, at the moment that he really lets himself hope. When he thinks ‘shit, there may be a real chance that we get through this to a future that I don’t want to lose’.
The vulnerability is back, and he needs Adam to trust him. In Crowley’s mind being accepted by a human means he needs to have his eyes hidden. Someone give the demon a hug, please.
Interestingly, there’s only one time in the whole series that we see Crowley willingly choose to take his glasses off around another person. Only one person he’ll take down that barrier for, and even then he’s drunk before he does it.
Dear God/Satan/Someone that makes my heart ache. Crowley’s chosen Earth, but he’s also chosen Aziraphale. He’s been looking for somewhere to belong his entire existence, and it’s with the angel that he finally feels it.
When the dust settles and the world is saved and they finally have space to be themselves unguarded, I like to imagine Crowley takes off the glasses when it’s just the two of them; the idea of being known doesn’t scare him quite so much anymore.
Unconditional love is a terrifying thing.
can you imagine just being an angel and your main field agent on earth he’s been down there for six thousand years and like… he’s a bit of a strange one, like? he’s gotten really into the human thing, has this humansona and this humansuit that he doesn’t just wear all the time, but he like… maybe sleeps in? and eats stuff through? and all this gross stuff? and that’d be one thing if he was doing it like, once or twice, just to see what it’s like, but he’s full on living like a human, which is super bizarre
but you know, he gets his work done, right? sure, he’s a bit frivolous with the old miracles there, and to talk to him he’s highkey super bizarre and seems to ask a lot of questions while pretending he’s not asking questions in the strangest way possible, but except for reminding him to be aware of a bit of restraint now and then, he’s a fairly sound guy
and you know what? he used to be a fuckin general in the war, so the guy’s allowed a bit of a strange turn, no? flaming sword and everything, and he was one of the guards at eden, so he’s earned his right to go a bit funny in the head
and then
and then
it turns out that for six thousand years, he wasn’t just a bit eccentric at all, he wasn’t just being a little frivolous
he was embezzling miracle money to help fucking hell, and do bad stuff as well as good ones, and also he gave away his fucking flaming sword and INVENTED WAR, and he was lying to everyone’s face for six thousand years like. just because he’s shtupping some demon?
what the fuck, aziraphale?
what the fuck?
Outrageous!
I love how Aziraphale and Crowley each give off the vibes of being both The Normal One and The Weirdo in their relationship, depending on circumstances.
Like, one minute Crowley's like "it's a bicycle angel, ffs, you're scaring the human", and then the next Aziraphale's all "did you just drown a duck, Crowley?!"
I dunno, I just like to imagine people in Soho (and later the South Downs) talking to each other and getting increasingly confused because half of them have seen Aziraphale scolding Crowley for gluing coins to the pavement, or rescuing him from himself the 99(thousand)th time he's decided to do something insanely stupid because it's Cool™️ and are like "that Mr Crowley is a real wildcard. Good thing he has Mr Fell keeping him from getting into too much trouble."
And then the other half have just seen Crowley trying to explain how modern slang works to a willfully ignorant Aziraphale for the 99(million)th time, or having to quickly yank him out of the road because he's just walked straight into moving traffic, and are like "Mr Fell is a time traveller from about 1853, and Mr Crowley is the only reason he's survived this long in the modern day."
And then, after a while, people get to know them more and gradually come to the conclusion that "oh right, they're both insane."
Happy 30th Anniversary to Book Omens!! (on May 1st) hugs and kisses to my favorite book~~ and cuddles to all of us right now u-u9
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Another art request 💜 Reverse AU - Angel Crowley arguing with his plants
#fandom has written off Gabriel as dumb but like #you don’t show up unannounced with a violent enforcer your employee is clearly uncomfortable around and trap him in a room by accident #this is deliberate mob level intimidation #“politely” reminding him exactly what theyre capable of if he steps out of line #and its terrifying #he cant even look at them
@ileolai hitting the nail on the head as usual!
In addition, Sandalphon is blocking the exit. And he and Gabriel are standing at complete 180 degree points with Aziraphale in the centre. This is a thing I have known sadistic interviewers to do: to deliberately sit (or stand) at such angles to the victim/interviewee that they can never have both interviewers in their eyeline at the same time. To make eye contact with one, you have to lose sight of the other. Normally I’ve seen it done with the two interviewers at 90 degrees, so the interviewee has to keep turning their head. This is even more cruel: Aziraphale has to turn his back on whomever is not speaking. It’s a deliberate tactic to make a victim more awkward and wrong-footed, and in this case, even physically vulnerable.
Yep. You’ve articulated what I was trying to get at with ‘’trap’’. You don’t block off the exits like that to have a polite conversation. You do it to threaten somebody.
It’s like they took the mob intimidation bit from the original book and turned it into something far more horrifying and with more weight for his character arc, because this is what gangsters do to scare people. imo Gabriel is fairly well aware of whats going on long before the surveillance photos come into it and he just likes watching Aziraphale squirm with anxiety over how much he knows, because he’s not stupid, he’s a sadistic bully.
And Aziraphale is playing the game so well. He tells himself he trusts them but he absolutely doesn’t. He smiles, he nods, he tells them nothing. He has a quick answer for the jibe about the evil smell. He shows zero reaction to their loud comments about pornography (react, and prove you’re more used to humans than to angels? That you find angels embarrassing now? That you know more about earth than the guy who stationed you there?). He’s covering his ass expertly—he knows how to defend himself. He’s watched angels fall.
@kedreeva oh NO you’re right.
Like don’t get me wrong, I like a good clueless boss as much as the next person. But that’s not Gabriel. Michael asks if Gabriel minds Michael following up through back channels and Gabriel plainly says “there are no back channels, Michael” and it’s not because Gabriel thinks there are no back channels, of course there fucking are, he’s been using them too. But how dare Michael bring them up so baldly. How dare Michael betray the ruse, and to his face like that. They’re the good guys, you know.
I’ve been convinced that Gabriel smarter and even more malicious than he pretends since the watch-through when I realized Gabriel knows Adam is the Antichrist BEFORE he gets to the airfield. Even Crowley doesn’t know Adam’s name (”You, boy, Antichrist–what’s your name?”) and Beelz has no idea which of the kids he is until Crowley wordlessly points him out. But Gabe says, “That one. Adam Young.” The only way he can know is if he’s somehow keeping extremely close watch on Az.
Gabriel’s bland “I’m sure there must be some explanation” to those pics of Az and Crowley is not the shock of a being who finds out he’s been betrayed by a trusted employee for at least 400 years. It’s not even the vindication of finding out that an UNtrustworthy employee has in fact been guilty for 400 years. He’s entirely unsurprised and his denial that back channels exist is a tacit approval for Michael to finally bring this out in the open. “Go ahead and do what you want but I didn’t tell you to because I’m the good guy.”
Yeah, Gabriel has been waiting for Az to slip up for six thousand years. So why doesn’t he just use his knowledge of the Arrangement against him? Because LOTS of angels and demons have arrangements. Michael has Ligur; Gabe himself has some unnamed downstairs source. If Gabriel punishes Az and/or Crowley and one of them knows about this, the whole system could come crumbling down. (It’s fine to be a hypocrite as long as nobody knows about it.)
So he’ll just wait for Az to take that one step too far and to Fall, get chucked out of heaven. But that never happens. And it pisses Gabriel off.
Oh I absolutely agree. I didn’t even catch that.
Some other moments that make me suspicious:
Gabriel saying to Aziraphale in the sushi restaurant, “it’s a miracle he hasn’t spotted you yet” about Crowley, when 218 years ago in 1800, Gabriel spied on Crowley and heard him talking very specifically about Aziraphale and his ability to thwart, which I think counts very much as having “spotted” Aziraphale. It’s a deleted scene, but it definitely got far enough to be worth considering.
In that same 1800 scene, when Gabriel and Sandalphon show up at the shop, Aziraphale argues that he needs to stay on Earth because Crowley has “been here as long as I have.” Later, when Gabriel comes to tell Aziraphale that Armageddon is starting, Aziraphale reminds him how long he’s been here, and Gabriel responds, “so has Crowley.” These lines - the whole incidents - seem referential to each other.
Finally, Gabriel asks Aziraphale, “how was the hellhound?” after Warlock’s birthday party. Theoretically, of course, Aziraphale could have informed the angels that he was planning to attend the party…but we don’t see him or hear any reference to him doing it, and in fact Aziraphale didn’t know himself that there was supposed to be a hellhound until the 11th hour. This looks to me like Gabriel knowing more than he lets on (except in strategic moments like this).
All this leads me to believe Heaven knows WAY more than it lets on. I also kind of wonder - if Hell has the same level of knowledge as Heaven, was Crowley chosen as the Antichrist’s deliverer as a punishment, some kind of bizarre torture meant to “test” his “loyalty”? Was Aziraphale’s station on Earth meant to be a punishment that the angels are now unhappy about because he enjoys it?
I don’t remember where I read it, but I really liked the theory that being on Earth is a punishment for Aziraphale, but a reward for Crowley.
Aziraphale failed in Eden, so being on Earth, basically cut off from most of Heaven, would be a punishment (except he actually loves it, which must frustrate Gabriel to no end).
On the other hand Crowley’s stunt in Eden was a major success, and it would make sense that staying on Earth would be a reward. Hell is clearly miserable. Threatening to take that reward away would give Hell yet another tool to blackmail and control Crowley. I don’t think they would have given him the Antichrist if they didn’t trust his abilities, it was too important of a job to use it as a test or a punishment, anyway.
Also, from what we saw in the show, I wouldn’t be surprised if Heaven knew a lot more than Hell does. Unlike the book, Heaven is very present, and organized in a cult-like manner. Gabriel really reminds me of a cult-leader, friendly and apparently innocuous on the outside while being actually ruthless. Such a group would have the means and the motive to create a very efficient surveillance system, under the guise to protect the sanctity of Heaven.
On the other side, Hell is much more chaotic, ruled through threats and violence. Collaboration is actively discouraged. Fear is encouraged, and I got the impression that powerful demons prefer to terrorize minor demons into obeying instead of actually checking if orders are being carried out (“Do this or I’ll skin you alive” instead of “Do this and I’ll come down later to check you actually did it”). Such an environment isn’t optimal for a good surveillance system, because information will be lost in the chaos, or hidden in fear.
You can also see this difference in the way Heaven and Hell contact Aziraphale and Crowley. Hell constantly talks to Crowley through the radio or the telly, basically a constant reminder of “you are never safe, we are always watching and we will hurt you if you make a mistake”. Except that’s really inefficient, and it allows Crowley to hid things under their nose despite being very scared of his superiors. Correct me if I am wrong, but Hell representatives only interact with Crowley in the flesh when he is called to pick Adam up, and when Hastur and Ligur go to murder him. The demons usually keep their distance, which means the information they get may be distorted.
Heaven on the other hand? The Archangel Fucking Gabriel goes personally, multiple times, to talk with Aziraphale. In the sushi restaurant, at the park, in the bookshop. He gets into Aziraphale’s personal space all the time, and he usually plays it as friendly interactions. In a lot of instances, he isn’t even trying to scare Aziraphale into compliance, he is emotionally abusing him. It’s not “we are always watching so you should be terrified”, it’s more of a “hey buddy, you see how I really care? I am here and you are really disappointing me, why can’t you do this one thing right?”.
Only when he brings Sandalphon the emotional abuse takes a step further into a more threatening territory. Gabriel has a more hands-on approach than his counterpart, and if he asks the same of his underlings he probably gets very precise information.
In short, I think Gabriel knows a lot more than Hell on what Crowley and Aziraphale are up to, and would absolutely love to punish Aziraphale, except he can’t because then he would put his own back-channels into jeopardy. So he turns to petty bullying and cruelty under the facade of the Friendly Boss/Family Member.
Sorry everyone for reblogging the same post three times in a row but this addition is so????? GOOD?????
Also, the notion that Heaven knows more than Hell does a great job of fitting in how all this is really just Heaven’s game.
The contrast is fascinating, honestly. “I was reprimanded for performing too many frivolous miracles, got a strongly worded letter from Gabriel” vs. “My lot do not send rude notes” / “Is it my fault they never check up?”
Hell is inefficient. That’s clear from their offices, it’s one of the major traits separating Heaven and Hell. So they might not check up on you often, beyond lazily sending reminders over electronic media. If you are caught not doing your job, the consequences are dreadful - ‘reprimand’ is a mild word for it - but it doesn’t happen often. Your odds of getting busted for any one thing are very low, so if you’re a renegade demon, you might as well live on the edge and take that chance.
Heaven is exactly the opposite. They’re ruthlessly efficient and organized, and you bet they monitor miracles. Aziraphale can’t so much as miracle up a handkerchief to sneeze in without them getting on him about it. That’s why he’s so much more cautious, so hesitant, always so wary of pushing boundaries. His consequences may be, at least on the surface, milder, but he is MUCH more likely to have to face them. And they add up. Beyond the notes, there are warnings, and beyond the warnings there are threats, and beyond the threats… well, Hell got their ideas from somewhere, didn’t they?
Heaven was deliberately kept absent in the book, when the whole thing was a Cold War analogy where they were Britain-NATO and Hell was the Soviet Union–two organizations that were not really particularly different at a deep level, i.e. you needed real expertise to tell their armies apart, and which tended not to really care about the things that are important to people, and which were quite likely to wind up obliterating life on Earth in a stupid shoving competition.
Hell was semi-present and explicitly awful; Heaven didn’t care about the right things but they cared about doing things the right way, and weren’t deliberately cruel. Just unfeeling. The narrative shared Aziraphale’s disinclination to be really critical.
Heaven is the thing that therefore got the most new building-up and updating to the current political climate, in the miniseries, as it became a central player. Its identity didn’t necessarily change, but what Gaiman was trying to say about it sure did.
Visually, they went with the effect of Heaven as the upper reaches of a skyscraper and Hell as its mouldering horrible basement, but the structural impression is of Heaven as the government and Hell as organized crime.
While the latter is a lot more likely to just come around and fuck you up, and to make sure their employees are scared of their capacity violence on an immediate level, the former is much, much more powerful, their reach is longer and they and know a lot more. Their scary goes a lot further. Good Omens the book had one foot in the nuclear age and one foot in the information age, but it’s been 30 years.
I’m convinced this is the moment Crowley fell in love.
It clearly was and no one could ever convince me otherwise. Btw what I love the most about this exchange (apart from the obvious) is that Az didn’t give away his sword out of foolishness or carelessness, it was an act of kindness and Crowley fell for him just for that reason, he was being kind but by doing so was already messing things up. And we perfectly know how Crowley loves chaos and breaking the rules xD
And even then, at the very beginning, Aziraphale knows, he KNOWS, that he wasn’t supposed to do give the sword away, that he’ll be in trouble if he gets caught, he’ll even try to lie to God about it. He knew he was doing something of which Heaven would Not Approve but he saw the humans and pitied them and showed them kindness and tHAT WAS HIS REBELLION and Crowley always said he didn’t mean to fall, he just asked questions. Well, Aziraphale didn’t stop to even ask the question, he just did what he thought was right, out of kindness, out of love, so damn RIGHT this is the moment Crowley fell in love because I believe one of the first questions he asked was “why can’t we be kind to each other?” This is why he showed no surprise at the crucifixion. But Aziraphale just went ahead and helped the humans because they were cold and vulnerable and weaker than him, and Crowley saw that and said to himself, “Ah, here. Here at last is someone I can worship.”
YES THIS IS CORRECT
Aziraphale is chaotic good and spent 6,000 years trying desperately to be lawful good before he threw his hands up and went, “My boyfriend’s way is better than any plan you fuckers have,” and embraced his true self.
Crowley, gripping a tire iron in one hand and the Antichrist in the other while the whole world shakes: “WAIT BUT AM I THE BOYFRIEND?”
“Oh, you. You, though. You’re not like the others, you’re not like *anyone* else. You’re… special.” –Crowley’s face in that gif
And then Aziraphale switches bodies and uses 6000 years of pent- up chaos to play Crowley, only overdoing it a tad and even then, we see him being dramatic under pressure anyways.
this concept has been torturing me for weeks so you all have to suffer it too
@sleeping-potatoe
Suffer?! It’s beautiful
I can’t get over the fact that both Aziraphale and Crowley desperately try to protect each other, but do so in opposite ways.
Aziraphale, who is afraid of falling but even more afraid of what Hell might do to Crowley, tries to protect them both by pulling away, putting distance between them, even straight up putting an end to their relationship if he thinks he needs to.
Crowley, like the hopeless romantic he is (not that he’d ever admit it), is on the the other hand constantly working on the idea that so long as they’re together, he’ll find a way to make things work. He’s always on guard, circling Aziraphale ready to protect him, he wants Holy Water so that he’s ready to fight back, and straight-up tells Aziraphale to run away together, even if it’s completely stupid and suicidal, because that’s all that matters to him.
My favorite thing about this is that Crowley is on guard, protective, ready to battle. That is, he protects Az like an angel would.
Aziraphale uses lies, evasion, and deceit to shelter Crowley. That is, he protects him like a demon would.
Ok this is the best addition you could possibly make.