in an angel's bookshop: a tattered tome

here you will exclusively find meta-related stuff and content that seems useful to fic writers. for instance, way back in the day i produced posts compiling all the quotations in Good Omens related to a specific subject, from different characters' powers to Hell's hierarchy. See the about page for a list of all my collections of quotations as well as other organizational tags.

[books-and-omens]

oh BY the WAY

This scene proves, doesn’t it, that living in the car is Crowley’s choice. When Aziraphale comes back from Scotland, Crowley shoves the box at him before he gets to the threshold. He gives Aziraphale no option to even say, “won’t it be easier to leave the plants here” let alone to propose anything else. Was Crowley, by any chance, actively avoiding a conversation about him living in his car this whole time?

Crowley is absolutely not okay, we know, we know. He is frustrated, he is struggling; he is asking what the point of it all is. Yes, he is fiercely protective of his independence when he says “my car”, “the precious, peaceful, fragile existence I have carved out for myself”—and the same time, he is still not willing to talk. He probably does not even see a way to have important conversations safely; the fear of rejection might still be too much. His instinct remains to run away from trouble. With something as terrifying as vulnerability and openness, he needs Nina and Maggie to tip the scales.

He has the swagger. He acts like he knows what’s happening, like he has things figured out.

I think we’re just starting to see how much that has not been true.

[forineffablereasons]

I think the car thing goes one step deeper than just not being open to a conversation, which is that Crowley living in the car is a symptom of lingering fear.

It’s a getaway car.

This is established in s1 when Crowley literally tries to load Aziraphale up and, apparently, drive the Bentley to Alpha Centauri. It’s a very strong symbol of safety for Crowley - he survives the wall of fire on the M25 because he believes the Bentley will carry him through, and he drives it all the way to Tadfield on fire believing beyond the shadow of a doubt that the car will deliver him safely.

S2 shows that Crowley’s flat is owned by or paid for by Hell and thus he’s had to move out. Fine. There’s a suggestion that Crowley is or has been submitting expenses for reimbursement anyway, and Crowley is still capable of doing miracles. There’s no real reason at all for him to be living in his car.

But he’s always ready to move. He’s always ready to go to Aziraphale. When Aziraphale rings him up and says, come here, he’s two minutes away. By living in the Bentley, Crowley is always, always ready to run away.

Presumably the only reason he hasn’t yet is because he can’t ask Aziraphale to leave the bookshop - both because Aziraphale loves the shop but also because doing so would require the same bravery he finally pulls together in ep6. But he’s ready on a moment’s notice.

In s2e1, Crowley is tense, struggling with what he’s supposed to do now, anxious about what will happen next. He’s doing regular check-ins with Shax, keeping tabs on what Hell is up to despite his fear of being found out (asking Shax if she thinks Hell knows, Shax responding that Hell wouldn’t care anyway). He’s lingering within a 5 minute radius of the shop. When Aziraphale leaves with the car, he monitors them - he can tell that Aziraphale is going too slow (urging Aziraphale to be faster about going and coming back). And Crowley doesn’t officially give in to Aziraphale’s request to use the car until Muriel arrives - until Heaven’s representative shows up to monitor Aziraphale.

Then Crowley immediately capitulates. Tosses over the keys. Literally minds how they go.

Because Crowley trusts that Aziraphale will be safe in the Bentley. Because Crowley thinks of the Bentley in terms of protection and escape. He grounds himself with Gabriel and Muriel to allow Aziraphale to leave in the safest way possible, away from prying eyes.

He’s living in the car so he can leave on a moment’s notice. So he can get to Aziraphale on a moment’s notice. He knows they’re not safe.

Which means that his “offer” in the Final Fifteen™️ to stay and just keep on together is just as much of a fantasy as Aziraphale’s plan to fix Heaven, and they both know it.

[burnttongueontea]

🎯

[echodrops]

Undeniable Proof that Aziraphale is That Bitch™

Over the last couple of nights, I’ve been skimming my copy of Good Omens again, because so many people in the comments of my other post were somehow surprised by the suggestion that Aziraphale might be a garbage angel. But like… He is. He really is.

So here, an itemized list of Aziraphale being absolutely Extra (capital E) with evidence:

1) That time he chose his CD player over Heaven.

“That’s it, then,” said Crowley, with a gleam of triumph. He knew Aziraphale’s weak spot all right. “No more compact discs.”

2) That time he lit a traffic cop’s ticket book on fire because he didn’t want to pay a fine.

As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley’s amazement. 

“I’m pretty certain I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

Aziraphale blushed. “That was me.”

3) That time he collected Bibles, but all of them were evil.

And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles… These Bibles included the Unrighteous Bible… the Wicked Bible… the Discharge Bible… the Buggre Alle This Bible…

4) That time even the apocalypse couldn’t dent his manicure or his obsession with occult prophecies.

No one knows what happened to the legions of unsold copies of Agnes Nutter’s book. Certainly none remain in any museums or private collections. Even Aziraphale does not possess a copy, but would go weak in the knees a the thought of actually getting his exquisitely manicured hands on one.

5) That time he may or may not have done… something ominous to the mafia.

Or sometimes, while they were talking, other men in dark glasses would wander around the shop shaking their heads and saying how inflammable paper was, and what a firetrap he had here.

Aziraphale would nod and smile and say that he’d think about it. And they’d go away. And they’d never come back.

Just because you’re an angel doesn’t mean you have to be a fool.

6) That time he was just an absolute mannerless heathen.

“You said it was him!” moaned Aziraphale, abstractedly picking the final lump of cream cake from his lapel. He licked his fingers clean.

7) That time that he actually considered moving to Hell with Crowley.

“I suppose–get off the road you clown–” Crowley said, “your people wouldn’t consider–and the scooter you rode in on!–giving me asylum?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

8) The raw confidence it took to deliver THIS:

“Some Southern pansy,” Shadwell said, “I heard him. He was in here, suggestin’ things to yer. I heard him.”

Madame Tracy’s mouth opened, and a voice said, “Not just A Southern Pansy, Sergeant Shadwell. THE Southern Pansy.”

9) That time the line “You go too fast for me Crowley” was amusing to any book reader who remembers book!Aziraphale beating Crowley’s top speed by over 90mph while driving a scooter:

Look at Crowley, doing 110mph on the M40… …This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And it probably wasn’t going at more than two hundred miles per hour.

10) That time his sass game was so strong even Crowley had no answer.

“We seem to have survived,” Aziraphale said. “Just imagine how terrible it might have been if we’d been at all competent.”

“Um,” said Crowley.

And this isn’t even mentioning the time he left a loaded gun in the hands of a sugar-high 11-year-old, was the only main character responsible for actually killing an animal, dropped the book’s one (1) F-bomb, manipulated a human into agreeing to murder a child, performed what looked exactly like a demon summoning ritual, lied to God, and broke the first commandment…

TL;DR: Aziraphale is a L E G E N D and Crowley legitimately wishes he could be this cool.

[notachaconne]

St James Park pics for Good Omens fics

So I am very grateful for all the fic writers who have been cheering me up on the Good Omens binge I inexplicably had this winter. You are all magnificent and I love and appreciate you and your freedom of expression and your crazy, contradictory, beautiful ideas. So, I decided to go to Tate Britain as a pre-Christmas treat, and I decided to walk there from Charing Cross, and on the way it occurred to me that some of you might like to know what St James' Park actually looks like in winter.

The time, in these pictures, was between 12:30 and 13:00. Sunset will be about 4pm. Dawn about 8am.

If you are a writer and you have a London question or there's something you'd specifically like a picture of, comment and I'll see what I can do.

I hope someone enjoys this.

Did you know that that the most striking birds there are not the ducks, but the black swans? Did you know how pretty they are, with their bright red beaks and black feathers? Did you know they have concealed white underwings that you can't see unless they get cross and fluffy? Or that they are so much smaller and more elegant-looking than the white ones?

There are SO MANY coots. The ones with white beaks are called coots. The ones with red beaks are called moorhens. The coots have blue feet. Enormous blue feet. The moorhens' feet are striped. There are hundreds of these, way more than ducks.

There are also hundreds of terns, and of course reasonable numbers of pigeons and some Canada Geese. I saw a heron, too. The music here is coming from a military marching band on Pall Mall, behind me.

In reality, we are asked not to feed the wildlife. But it's traditional. Do with this as you will.

View from the bridge. That's Buckingham Palace. Pall Mall is to our right. I've always wondered why it's called Buckingham. I think I checked at some point, and the results were a bit disappointing, considering why the name is famous.

View looking the other way. That's the London Eye. Admiralty Arch, which now appears to be a pretentious hotel, is just out of sight to our left, I walked under it to get here. You can compare maps and it should make some sense. The huge wakes in these pictures are being formed by mute swans (the white ones).

I can't get over how Crowley the black swans are. But they are much smaller than the white ones. These mute swans are fluffing up, but you can still see they're much bigger to start with.

Anyway, I continued southwards, out of the park, past the police headquarters I think it is, and I reached this food joint, which has seating and a lot of art.

Just along the street is the rather splendidly named Adam and Eve pub. No idea what it's like inside.

Continuing south, there is a good place to get street lunch on weekdays. Falafels, tortillas, etc, but I'm out of picture space (10 per post).

[avidcollectorofdust]

I imagine Crowley’s relationship with gender to be similar to his relationship with computers, in that he’s not quite sure what it is or what it’s for, but just that it seems the sort of thing the human Anthony J Crowley would have at least three of

[imaginaryalex]

On Aziraphale and “I’m soft”

I was talking with @irisbleufic about differences between show! and book!Aziraphale, and especially about the line “I’m soft” in the show, because it really threw me for a loop, but the reblog chain contracted some incredibly odd formatting, so this is a hopefully more-comprehensible version:

@imaginaryelle:  random but re: Aziraphale’s show characterization vs book: I enjoy both, but they are so, so different in weird ways and when I rewatch the show I’m just left with dissonance & wondering WHY that change happened. The “I’m soft” line struck me the hardest, because I have literally never thought of Aziraphale as soft. Not emotionally. The closest to the book we got was maybe the french executioner? But then he just ignores the implication. The show version feels almost unfinished, as a character.

@irisbleufic: I mean, Aziraphale is physically soft, no question, but in any other sense?  Whoa, nope.  Not unless you count how soft he is for Crowley once he gets put through the wringer of a failed apocalypse and unlearns some of those rude, holier-than-thou tidbits he says to Crowley from time to time.  I mean, he’s soft for Crowley before their ordeal, but the ordeal is what adjusts (and hopefully eradicates) his prejudice. I’ve always found the whole “I can’t expect you to know what love feels like” thing remarkably callous, and the fact that Crowley gets cut off before he can say what his perception of a great sense of love is like just…ugh, I’ve always loved that moment so, so much, because it’s quite a perfect encapsulation of this entire disconnect between book characterization / miniseries characterization that we’re talking about:

“Odd,” muttered the angel, “I keep getting these flashes of, of…” He raised his hands to his temples.“What?  What?” said Crowley. Aziraphale stared at him.“Love,” he said.  “Someone really loves this place.” “Pardon?” “There seems to be this great sense of love.  I can’t put it any better than that.  Especially not to you.” “Do you mean like—” Crowley began. There was a whirr, a scream, and a clunk.  The car stopped.  [Enter Anathema, etc.]

@imaginaryelle: Yes, yes, I love that moment too! Okay, it took a bit longer than I hoped but I finally got my thoughts in order on this, and it ended up way longer and more like an essay than I originally thought it would, but I really enjoyed playing with it so I hope you enjoy it too.

Yes, absolutely Aziraphale is physically soft. He’s even described exactly that way by Shadwell (“the soft one in the camelhair coat”), and it seems to be pretty clearly about his appearance and presentation. Shadwell thinks Aziraphale is gay, fastidious (tries not to touch anything in the WFA headquarters) and an easier mark than Crowley, though he still finds the idea of threatening him “terribly risky.” We also have Aziraphale’s plump hands in the gun conversation at Tadfield Manor and the Compline reference too. But those and the intelligent/English/gay footnote are actually the only description of him I can find in the text. The only reference to height is that snake!Crowley has to look up at him, but that doesn’t tell us much. Which was surprising to find, because I had thought there was a little more than that, but yes. Physically Aziraphale is soft and I love that about him.

On a non-physical level, yes, exactly, in the book Aziraphale is extremely callous. Quite often. It actually surprised me, going back through my notes, how rarely he’s portrayed as anything else, but I think it does overall build a picture of him that, to me, has always been pretty immovable. I’ve never really been able to set aside that Aziraphale is, as Crowley says, a bastard. And he’s fairly thoughtless about it a lot of the time. He’s offhandedly pretty harsh on Crowley on a number of occasions, most of which got really toned down in the show. There’s the conversation about love, yes, which got especially confused in the show (the presentation made it seem like Aziraphale was talking about the Manor rather than all of Tadfield and they didn’t follow up on it well, and then it’s further muddled by the stain-miracle interaction). I would love to read pretty much anything on the subject of what Crowley was going to say there and how things are different for demons, because mmmmm, world building, and of course I love Crowley too.

But back to Aziraphale: there’re other callous remarks to Crowley too. In their very first interaction we have this:

“Yes, but you’re a demon. I’m not sure if it’s actually possible for you to do good,” said Aziraphale. “It’s down to your basic, you know, nature. Nothing personal, you understand.”

And then, when Crowley keeps on with his “but what is it about, really” line of conversation:

“Best not to speculate, really,” said Aziraphale. “You can’t second-guess ineffability, I always say. There’s Right, and there’s Wrong. If you do Wrong when you’re told to do Right, you deserve to be punished. Er.”

Like, here, let me just rub your face in the Fall for a second. You can’t help your basic nature but also you deserve punishment. Ouch. (And this is not in the show. In the show he references Crowley’s being a demon as related to “[making trouble] is what you do” and has what looks like a pretty disturbing experience watching his gift of kindness result in the immediate death of a lion by flaming sword.)

It’s implied book!Aziraphale is embarrassed about having said that, but he doesn’t actually change his tune. He brings up the “you’re a demon” thing twice more, both in situations where it’s clear he thinks he has the moral high ground, because of course he does, he’s an angel. (book!Aziraphale is less openly doubtful of Heaven’s rightness until closer to the end, I think.) In contrast, throughout the show it’s often Crowley who reminds Aziraphale that he’s a demon, and thus not nice, not forgivable and not to be thanked while Aziraphale maintains that Crowley is a good person. For another example, book!Aziraphale, in the wake of failing to find records of Adam at the manor, has zero reaction to Crowley’s fear, and Crowley is pretty obviously freaking out:

“What are we going to do now?”

“Try and get some sleep.”

“You don’t need sleep. I don’t need sleep. Evil never sleeps, and Virtue is ever-vigilant.”

“Evil in general, maybe. This specific part of it has got into the habit of getting its head down occasionally.” [Crowley] stared into the headlights. The time would come soon enough when sleep would be right out of the question. When those Below found out that he, personally, had lost the Antichrist, they’d probably dig out all those reports he’d done on the Spanish Inquisition and try them out on him, one at a time and then all together.

He rummaged in the glove compartment, fumbled a tape at random, and slotted it into the player. A little music would …

… Bee-elzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me …

“For me,” murmured Crowley. His expression went blank for a moment. Then he gave a strangled scream and wrenched at the on-off knob.

“Of course, we might be able to get a human to find him,” said Aziraphale thoughtfully.

“What?” said Crowley, distractedly.

And shortly after this, of course, Aziraphale finds the Book and just leaves when Crowley’s trying to confirm they’re still on the same side. In the show, this interaction doesn’t even happen. Crowley’s annoyed that they can’t find anything, but he’s not scared, and Aziraphale’s idea about using human operatives and his discovery of the book are split across several scenes and a fair chunk of time passing. Tv!Crowley watches him go into his shop into a sort of confused way, where book!Crowley is “feeling very alone” after not getting a real answer to two questions in a row.  

Keep reading

[echodrops]

Undeniable Proof that Aziraphale is That Bitch™

Over the last couple of nights, I’ve been skimming my copy of Good Omens again, because so many people in the comments of my other post were somehow surprised by the suggestion that Aziraphale might be a garbage angel. But like… He is. He really is.

So here, an itemized list of Aziraphale being absolutely Extra (capital E) with evidence:

1) That time he chose his CD player over Heaven.

“That’s it, then,” said Crowley, with a gleam of triumph. He knew Aziraphale’s weak spot all right. “No more compact discs.”

2) That time he lit a traffic cop’s ticket book on fire because he didn’t want to pay a fine.

As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley’s amazement. 

“I’m pretty certain I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

Aziraphale blushed. “That was me.”

3) That time he collected Bibles, but all of them were evil.

And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles… These Bibles included the Unrighteous Bible… the Wicked Bible… the Discharge Bible… the Buggre Alle This Bible…

4) That time even the apocalypse couldn’t dent his manicure or his obsession with occult prophecies.

No one knows what happened to the legions of unsold copies of Agnes Nutter’s book. Certainly none remain in any museums or private collections. Even Aziraphale does not possess a copy, but would go weak in the knees a the thought of actually getting his exquisitely manicured hands on one.

5) That time he may or may not have done… something ominous to the mafia.

Or sometimes, while they were talking, other men in dark glasses would wander around the shop shaking their heads and saying how inflammable paper was, and what a firetrap he had here.

Aziraphale would nod and smile and say that he’d think about it. And they’d go away. And they’d never come back.

Just because you’re an angel doesn’t mean you have to be a fool.

6) That time he was just an absolute mannerless heathen.

“You said it was him!” moaned Aziraphale, abstractedly picking the final lump of cream cake from his lapel. He licked his fingers clean.

7) That time that he actually considered moving to Hell with Crowley.

“I suppose–get off the road you clown–” Crowley said, “your people wouldn’t consider–and the scooter you rode in on!–giving me asylum?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

8) The raw confidence it took to deliver THIS:

“Some Southern pansy,” Shadwell said, “I heard him. He was in here, suggestin’ things to yer. I heard him.”

Madame Tracy’s mouth opened, and a voice said, “Not just A Southern Pansy, Sergeant Shadwell. THE Southern Pansy.”

9) That time the line “You go too fast for me Crowley” was amusing to any book reader who remembers book!Aziraphale beating Crowley’s top speed by over 90mph while driving a scooter:

Look at Crowley, doing 110mph on the M40… …This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And it probably wasn’t going at more than two hundred miles per hour.

10) That time his sass game was so strong even Crowley had no answer.

“We seem to have survived,” Aziraphale said. “Just imagine how terrible it might have been if we’d been at all competent.”

“Um,” said Crowley.

And this isn’t even mentioning the time he left a loaded gun in the hands of a sugar-high 11-year-old, was the only main character responsible for actually killing an animal, dropped the book’s one (1) F-bomb, manipulated a human into agreeing to murder a child, performed what looked exactly like a demon summoning ritual, lied to God, and broke the first commandment…

TL;DR: Aziraphale is a L E G E N D and Crowley legitimately wishes he could be this cool.

[thiswomanshouldbewriting]

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.

[violetfaust]

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.

[thiswomanshouldbewriting]

Ok this is the best addition you could possibly make.

[lunasong365]

#see also: aziraphale will kill for crowley  #crowley will die for aziraphale

[nemeanlionblepping-deactivated2]

Aziraphale when Crowley dunks a duck: Wow :// Really ://// My ://///// Dear? :////// Seriously? ://////////////

Aziraphale when he literally suffocates a dove: hey sir hissy fit, is your dog ever gonna show up or

[gayforgoodomens]

Man imagine being an eternal super being of hyper consciousness and reality-bending powers able to do anything and go anywhere you please in the entire universe, and still thinking being an insignificant human enjoying tiny cafés with your best friend and driving your car on Sunday mornings is the most meaningful and happiest existence you could ever dream of living

[sadlynojellybeans]

Why, why do you keep hiding these thoughts in the tags

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

[gayforgoodomens]

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

[whispsofwind]

Where did I read the sentence “you can’t give a Principality a territory and then act surprised when they become territorial”

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

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.

[amuseoffyre]

“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.

[mikkeneko]

reblogging for the wink

[flameslikeanything]

Interesting how in the book Crowley and Aziraphale’s character arcs are both about becoming brave and disobedient and in full possession of their own free will enough to stand up to the Authorities that they clearly despise/distrust but are too terrified to do anything about. Interesting how the major turning point for Aziraphale is when he’s possessing that televangelist and yelling at all his followers that no, they shouldn’t trust Heaven and that they’re all just going to be casualties in a pointless war and the powers that be don’t care about them. Interesting how the major turning point for Crowley is when Aziraphale gently puts his hand on his shoulder and tells him he’s got nothing left to lose, and he might as well stand up and do what he can to fight his terrible boss now, and then they walk hand in hand out onto the tarmac ready to die together. Interesting how both of those scenes got cut from the miniseries huh.

[great-blue-heron-apostate]

Anathema is singlehandedly the reason the apocalypse was about friendly aliens and Atlantis and miraculous clean power instead of whatever horrible things demons had been whispering into Adam’s ear every night as he slept, and it was purely because she was passionate about what she believed in and caring and not condescending or dismissive to children, even when she was incredibly busy preventing the apocalypse and had every reason to be stressed and on edge

If you don’t think Anathema sitting down with the Them and talking about questioning what they’d been told and how adults can be wrong so often actually helped them stand up to the Four Horsemen and Satan himself, then you’re dead wrong

I guarantee at one point (or probably multiple times, really) one of the Them went “actually my (parent/teacher) says things work this way” and Anathema followed it up with “yeah? But what do you believe?” And that saved the world

[mikkeneko]

I reblogged this once ‘cause it’s true, and am reblogging it again because it reminded me of something I’ve been thinking for a while, and have yet to see discussed in Good Omens meta.

Adam’s awakening follows the pattern of a young person awakening to the concept of social (and environmental) injustice, and his rage is consistent with the explosion of rage that young people often feel upon having this awakening.

I think this is more obvious in the book than in the series, but it’s present in both. Let’s take a look at what, exactly, Adam learns from Anathema.

Anathema didn’t only believe in ley-lines, but in seals, whales, bicycles, rain forests, whole grain in loaves, recycled paper, white South Africans out of South Africa and Americans out of practically everywhere. She didn’t compartmentalize her beliefs. They were welded into one enormous, seamless belief compared with which that held by Joan of Arc seemed a mere idle notion. She was pleased to find such a rewarding student, and even loaned him some copies of New Aquarian Digest. 

He learns about friendly aliens and Atlantis and crystal healing, sure. But he also learns about deforestation and the butchery of whales and the proliferation of  greenhouse gases and environmental pollutants. The Good Omens book is much, much more strong about its environmental message than the TV series, for whatever reason. (Having read NG’s other works, I strongly sense his own environmental rage at work there.) What Adam learns from Anathema is that the world is a wider and more complex and wonderful place than his childhood imaginings ever dreamed of – and also that human carelessness and greed is killing it.

And Adam begins to get angry. Powerfully  angry.

“It’s all very well for them,” said Adam. “Everyone’s goin’ around usin’ up all the whales and coal, and oil and ozone and rain forests and that, and there’ll be none left for us. We should be goin’ to Mars and stuff, instead of sittin’ around in the dark and wet with the air spillin’ away.”

The Them avoided one another’s faces. With Adam in this mood, the world seemed a chillier place.

“You crow up readin’ about pirates and cowboys and spacemen and stuff, and jus’ when you think the world’s all full of amazin’ things, they tell you it’s really all dead whales and chopped-down forests and nuclear waste. ‘Snot worth growin up for, if you ask my opinion.”

The Them exchanged glances. There was  a shadow over the whole world. Storm clouds were building up in the north.

“It’s all too much of a mess,” he said. “We should start again. Just save the ones we want and start again. It’d be doing the Earth a favor, when you come to think about it. It makes me angry,  seeing the way those old loonies are messing it up…”

After seeing the weight of injustice in the world and the weight of apathy among the adults who are supposed to care for it, Adam decides that the proper thing to do is burn it all down and start over. The effects of Adam’s rage may be supernatural, but the rage itself is entirely relatable, even familiar. How many of us, on reading about the massive injustices in the world today, have not at least once had that thought? How many among us have not wished, at least once, that we could just burn it all down and start again.

The difference is that Adam can.

And he almost does. And he lashes out at his friends and he hurts and frightens them because he is furious and he understands enough to be angry but doesn’t understand enough to really grok that the ones he cares about the most will be the ones who get hurt by his rage. That the ones who would suffer from his desire for destruction are the ones who are already the most vulnerable.

Adam understands that, by the end. He gets it, before it’s too late.

May we all come to such understanding in time.

[qtheallpowerful]

Not So Soft Really

I’ve been seeing a lot of “I’m soft” posts regarding Aziraphale, and it bothers me. Not because it wasn’t a cute scene, it was. But that isn’t Aziraphale. Aziraphale is a bastard. Crowley says so, and just about everything we know about him from the book supports that. It’s not as evident in the show, which is sad, but it is still there.

Book

Aziraphale purposefully edits the bibles outside Bilton and Scaggs making them rare editions which he can then collect.

Modifying the Bentley, despite knowing that Crowley is very particular about it. He made the straps tartan, again knowing Crowley’s dislike.

The entire way he handles being in possession of Madam Tracy, not to mention the way he talks to the people he is possessing on his way back to England.

The unpredictable hours he keeps, preventing people from even visiting his shop.

Only token objection to the dunking of the duck and the gun switch

Lighting the traffic warden’s notebook on fire

Show only

The way he so callously breaks up with Crowley in the bandstand.

How he talks to the quarter master in Heaven

Leaving Jean-Cluade to face the Guillotine

All these things show that he isn’t ‘soft’ at all. That is why when Gabriel calls him soft he is so very disappointed. He isn’t soft, and he doesn’t want to be soft. He is stubborn and knows that he has an affinity for material existence. He also wants to do the ‘right’ thing and be angelic, but because of his need to believe in the Ineffable Plan, he doesn’t actually know what that is. The result is that he doesn’t actually do much of anything. That’s why he is so nervous when speaking with Heaven in the show – he is afraid that he has done the wrong thing accidentally. It is the same fear that he had since The Beginning and has followed him throughout all of creation.

[irisbleufic]

Never forget the squished dove! Aziraphale thought nothing of putting a live bird up his sleeve. It makes his protest over Crowley dunking the duck that much more hypocritical.

[futureevilscientist]

Aziraphale:

Says there’s no point in trying to explain a feeling of love to Crowley, because he’s a demon

Lies to God’s face about where the sword went

Talks Crowley out of running and convinces him to do a last stand against Lucifer together

Makes people who try to threaten him and his shop disappear

Was on board with killing the Antichrist to stop the Apocalypse until he realised his own side wasn’t interested in stopping the Apocalypse

[princesshamlet-deactivated20210]

when i watched good omens, i didn’t expect to love tv crowley, and it fuckin blindsided me. all at once, i thought, oh gosh, damn, and fuck, roughly in that order, and here’s why.

where tv crowley and book crowley most significantly diverge is the bookshop fire. in the book, “Crowley cursed Aziraphale, and the ineffable plan, and Above, and Below.” in the tv show, instead of cursing him, he calls out for him desperately before falling to the floor with a quiet “you’ve gone.” for book crowley, az is “Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.” for tv crowley, aziraphale is his “best friend.” naturally, in the bookshop fire, tv crowley is in fucking agony. this is not how book crowley reacts.

see, one of book crowley’s most basic traits is his optimism. “Because, underneath it all,” the book says, “Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times—he thought briefly of the fourteenth century—then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him.”

it’s a really beautiful passage. and i can’t relate to it at all. 

after the fire, book crowley thinks he might “get completely and utterly pissed out of his mind while he waited for the world to end.” where book crowley only considers it, tv crowley actually does it. he does go to wait out the end of the world while drunk, and does give up, and he does break down, and he is not an optimist; he is a mess. that struck me. i’ve never seen a heroic character so blatantly need help before. but crowley gets help; he finds a friend and confesses how much aziraphale means to him; he gets back in the car and forges onward through the fire, even though he’s clearly Not Okay.

and there, on the flaming m25, book crowley and tv crowley diverge again. tv crowley is not an optimist; he’s not holding the bentley together with the hope that it’ll all work out. but he does it anyway. tv crowley doesn’t have optimism, but he has something that is, to me, even more important. in the show, “Crowley has something no other demons have, especially not Hastur: an imagination.”

an imagination. strangely enough, in the book, crowley admits to lacking it: “They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination,” book crowley says. but tv crowley has that imagination, and that is what saves him–and that, to me, makes so much sense.

tv crowley is traumatised. when he fell, some part of him broke, and while he claims he “sauntered vaguely downwards,” he really took a “million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulphur,” and it hurt. tv crowley is hurt. and so am i. 

i also give up. i also break down. i don’t, and can’t, ever believe that the universe is looking out for me–or for anyone. i am not an optimist. but you know what? i have imagination. i have friends. and if it came down to me to help save the world, that is exactly what i would rely on.

[fadagaski]

Book Crowley was written by two youngish men at the dawn of the post Cold War era. He is a young man because they were young men. He has optimism because that was the mood at the time. Optimism that decades of MAD was over.

TV Crowley was adapted by a man who is older, and more cynical, and has lost his best friend to Alzheimer’s.

[welshscotsmanandlife]

 ^ Yes this.

Book! Crowley was written by young men with the world at their feet, and really, why wouldn’t you feel optimistic as your life starts out?

TV! Crowley was written by a man who lost his best friend to Alzheimer’s and no, it wasn’t a fire, but this man knew/ knows intimately that you don’t just pick yourself up from that straight away. You go and you drink and you mourn andyou grieve and you cry.

And only when that’s happened and you come to terms with the fact that this man is never going to come back, you shift to accommodate that loss and then you look toward what needs to be happening.

TV! Crowley’s reaction was so much more realistic for the relationship he and TV! Aziraphale had and it would’ve been out of character for him to just dust himself off and drive straight to Tadfield, because it would have been like saying those six thousand years meant nothing to him. But they did and so he broke.

[friendraichu]

I’d like to point out that Neil was just 30 (Terry was 42) when the book was first published, and Crowley was based on Neil. So it makes a lot of sense how that character evolved from the original book iteration. A character that reflects Neil aged with him! 🙂

[nunystuff]

Crowley Soundboard™

Bonus:

[forineffablereasons]

theory: discorporation is psychosomatic-based 

evidence 1: angels/demons don’t need to eat, blink, breathe, or sleep

evidence 2: crowley believing he won’t be discorporated in the bentley means he isn’t; hastur, lacking imagination to believe such, is discorporated like immediately

this leads me to: so theoretically crowley or aziraphale could get shot or guillotined or whatever and as long as they believed hard enough that they were still in their bodies, they could be, at least long enough to miracle themselves healed.

which leads me to: they both accidentally do things that should kill them on the regular - eating poisonous food, falling down ten flights of stairs - but they don’t realize those things should kill them, and therefore they don’t. 

obvious conclusion: 

this is the real arthurian britain they didn’t want you to see

[agentveemo]

additional conclusion: they were honest to god almost discorporated by paintball pellets because they believed they’d been shot with real guns