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nalesnik-z-morela · 2 days ago

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Bandstand and Final 15

If S1 ended with the bandstand argument, I bet we'd have the same situation we have with S2, people blaming Aziraphale and calling him cruel and unreasonable for not wanting to do as Crowley asked.

Oh who am I kidding, many fans STILL think Crowley was right back then.

Was Aziraphale stupid?

Was it unreasonable of him to try and speak to God and stop Armageddon? Instead of just - trying to kill the Antichrist child and see what happens? Or run? (Run where?)

Aziraphale was heartbroken but he just had to try. That's the kind of person he is. He hoped someone will see how Earth doesn't need to be destroyed. They could go and speak to the child perhaps. There doesn't need to be a War.

But God didn't pick up his call. So we never get to know what She thinks and whether She'd do anything to help as Az hoped - and of course one could argue that everything that happened was exactly what She wanted (and wait for it, that's exactly what Crowley says on the bench as they wait for a bus). Because the 'spokesperson' who did answer Azi's call, didn't understand Az at all and fobbed him off.

After Aziraphale got discorporated in an accident (which looked like agony btw, Crowley wasn't the only one to suffer) he knew he was running out of time and resolved to speak to the kid himself. Kill him even, if there's no time for anything else. But save the world. If at all possible. He assumed he's on his own now, Crowley having left. He was not.

After losing his body (and abandoning Heaven doing a demonic thing), he learns his home and everything in it burned down.

And yet, he's determined to save the world even if he seems to be losing everything.

I see a lot of metas about - did Aziraphale know Crowley was talking about him when he said he lost his best friend...

I believe he did. But what if Aziraphale understood that after the argument, Crowley is saying he lost his best friend... because it is their friendship what is lost. Is that why Aziraphale is so careful with words at first, but when he learns Crowley saved a book, his book, THE book, he knows Crowley is the one thing he did not lose. Because how would Az know Crowley thought he lost Az in the fire? He didn't know Crowley went looking for him. He only knew he disappointed Crowley for not wanting to run and Crowley calling him an idiot and leaving. When Az reached out later from the bookshop, Crowley hung up on him. That's the last Az knew of Crowley before being forced away.

Just because things didn't work out how Aziraphale hoped or was trying to achieve, doesn't mean he was wrong to try.

If anything, he was right. And Crowley would stand right by him and say so too. Would killing the boy (which I don't think they would have attempted at all when push came to shove without the stress that came from being on that tarmac with forces of Heaven and Hell converging) change anything? No. Because they misunderstood (yes, both of them) how the Plan works (or doesn't work). It wasn't about trying to kick one step out from the Plan to topple it. It wasn't about killing the kid or persuading him to not destroy the faulty humanity. It was about shifting the whole mindset. About humanity but also about Plans.

It was about freedom to choose. Az told Adam to make up HIS mind. (Which incidentally, I think Crowley told Eve in Eden too.) Crowley gave Az the space to do so. To be kind. To be his usual self. To be an angel who is strong and brave and open.

Adam took it.

Yet, it still wasn't enough. Their superiors wanted a War. They believed the Plan. But Aziraphale didn't anymore. He changed something. Suddenly it was just a question of finding a loophole to do the right thing. SOMETHING HE IS A VERITABLE EXPERT ON HAVING HAD THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF PRACTICE IN DOING

And when it came to their punishment?

A loophole.

What would the guesses be I wonder on how would they escape? Run? Az deciding to Fall? They tricked them. Not with words this time but with appearances.

_________________

S2 is different. It's not Bandstand part 2. They changed.

Yes, Crowley poured his heart out, wanting to finally acknowledge how much he wants, how he wants things to be simple. Open. Just to be together. But the timing was so wrong you'd think Metatron tempted him into it, to confuse him.

Because Crowley has just been to Heaven and learned why Gabe was being pursued, what the new plans were and knowing Heaven, he must have known Gabe's 'nah' wasn't gonna stop anybody. Gabe just needed to be put away. Which Aziraphale put a stop to with his stubborn protectiveness.

So why wasn't he more on board in helping Az in F15?

gif by @capinejghafa "Tell me you said no." But he did! Aziraphale who said flatly no so many times. To the 'chin-wag' and how he all but laughed at the proposal of him being the new Supreme Archangel. Aziraphale who only blanched when Crowley was brought into the discussion. (Same as some 80 years before... his biggest fear is always Crowley getting hurt and them being forced apart)

(He found a loophole nobody expected, to escape)

"IF YOU WANTED TO WORK WITH HIM AGAIN" (this is the only way Aziraphale*)

So what does Aziraphale do? He gives Crowley a choice. He doesn't say - they are taking me back to Heaven, making me go (because Crowley would follow immediately no questions asked). He doesn't even say he said yes, he just says he got the offer and asks, will you come with me. After all, Az thinks this is forever, that he must leave forever (he looks so stressed and so scared in F15) and he knows they both hate Heaven and would never choose to leave Earth voluntarily - but he wants Crowley to be able to choose - he doesn't want to force him the way he was forced, over his loved one's safety. And his heart breaks when Crowley says no. BUT

Crowley could not follow to Heaven, he made his choice. But he also didn't walk away. He didn't storm off. He didn't drive away. He stayed. I do not think he waited for Aziraphale to change his mind. He knows Aziraphale. He knew the angel made up his mind. He waited so Aziraphale will see that he's there. That he will wait until he's needed. But from Earth.

*I'm sorry but if you think that should Aziraphale insist on staying that he would be left in peace to be with Crowley, than you are not paying attention to what Heaven can do.

To sum up: Their 'arguments' are never about them, they don't need to learn to communicate better (they need to be free to communicate better) they are already doing so much better than expected in the circumstances. They know each other. Their arguments come up because they are not free and there is no way they can be safely together. Yes, they love one another and want to be together (and no, Az does not need to wake up and admit what he's feeling or some such nonsense), but in their world as it is, it's impossible (or the possibility is only very brief) and that's not what Aziraphale can agree to, so he must fight on. He was given that sword for a reason. He will fight. Just not... the usual way and not for what was perhaps intended.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #good omens s1 #ineffable husbands #good omens s2

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nalesnik-z-morela · 10 days ago

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I have no idea how many times did i like this post while reading this

Life

I got out my opera glasses and went full Mr. Harmony lip reading here and I don't think the L word of Nina's that Crowley is mouthing at the end of the above scene is love.

I think it's life.

Earlier in the season, even before The Book of Life became the central concern of Crowley's plot and he then spent the week we watched with the ideas of life vs. existence on the brain? Crowley very notably used an unusual and interesting word to refer to what we would call his and Aziraphale's life together: existence.

Even as Crowley is using lovely words to describe his and Aziraphale's life together-- that it's *melts* precious and peaceful to him💘 -- he doesn't call it a life... he calls it an existence.

Why?

Because he's Fallen. Because he's damned. Because he's a demon who has been forcibly chained to Satan for all of eternity. He's metaphorically dead, even as he's alive. He feels he cannot actually offer Aziraphale a life because he feels that he doesn't have one to give.

Being damned means to Crowley that he's never, ever going to be free from Hell because that's his punishment. Does he long for that to be different? Absolutely. Is he an optimist and does he hope that maybe, one day, somehow, someway, it might change? Yes.

Is he also trying to be realistic about the likelihood of that after spending over six thousand years with no hope of change in sight? Yes. Is he a bit afraid to hope that it might because he doesn't want to deal with the crushing disappointment of never having it, if that's how it all turns out, so he just calls his life his existence to try to make it hurt less when he likely loses it down the line? Yes.

Is that basically the same thing as a certain angel not telling Crowley about a certain cottage in the South Downs because he's not sure if they can ever have this more free life together and he wouldn't want to crush Crowley more by having him know that there could have been a house that was just openly theirs, and not a bookshop covering up an embassy covering up a secret love den, if theirs is not a happy ending and they never get to go there together? Yes.

So, Crowley feels that if he is never going to be able to be free of Hell and he's never going to be able to forgiven from Heaven, he can't really make a life of his own because there is no guarantee that he can ever keep it. He's alive. He exists and he's living an existence and, deep down, he knows it's a life but he cannot call it one because he doesn't get to fully have what the humans do, not the way he would like. It's not for people like him. He wouldn't deign to call what he and Aziraphale have a life, even if other people might, if they knew about it, see it as one, because it's not good enough for him. It's an existence, carved out of just the best they can make work. They've made as close to one as they have been able to but it's an existence to Crowley because he doesn't have a free life of his own to ask Aziraphale to share.

Even though he really gave his heart away to Aziraphale a long time ago, Crowley can't let himself be Aziraphale's fully if he's Fallen because he's stuck belonging, on paper, to Satan, like all the other demons do. It's always "too late" for him because he is of Hell.

In his mind, he might have once had a chance but he fell and now, he's fucked, and, as a result, so are he and Aziraphale as a couple. Maybe there's some slim chance where they get to be together more than this but Crowley's been living this life for six millennia now and he's doubtful that it'll happen. He's an optimist but he's not really seeing a path to anything more than what they already give one another, which is everything they can.

So, it's not a life, it's an existence... and Aziraphale knows how Crowley feels about it. When Crowley referred to his life as his existence in 2.01, what Aziraphale objected to was not the word he used but that he made it singular as part of the argument.

Aziraphale didn't argue that it was their life, not Crowley's existence... he argued that it was their existence, together.

Why? Because Aziraphale just wants to be with Crowley and he's willing to view this as whatever Crowley wants to call it and whatever he can give him and make a world together around that. He knows they both try to give one another everything they can but they both wish they had more to offer one another. Aziraphale's own need to want to give Crowley peace and safety that Aziraphale feels he cannot offer him is what drives him in 2.06 to be tempted by an offer from Heaven that might allow him to do that, even if he knows it's likely a false promise and not the way forward.

He knows that, just as he feels he doesn't have enough to offer Crowley, Crowley feels the same way about him.

In 2.01, Aziraphale already knew Crowley thought of it as an existence because he felt he didn't have much else to offer Aziraphale, as he's not surprised by the word choice. Aziraphale has been willing to meet Crowley there and use Crowley's word for it and not insist that it was a life that they were carving out together because he could understand how Crowley would feel that it was more just any and everything they could give one another within the limits of their situation. They both accept the term existence because, to them, what they already have is likely going to be all that are ever able to be and they both know that they would like to be able to offer one another more.

The if we could, I would things that they likely talk about sometimes... waking up together and having breakfast... the little cottage by the sea with the big garden... marrying each other... are always, by necessity, pretty much relegated to romantic pillow talk daydreams, rather than real plans they could make, because Armageddon and possibly of losing one another for eternity is always looming on the horizon-- and that's only if they don't get caught and killed first.

It wouldn't be much different from what they already have, except that it'd also be completely different because they'd be free.

They'd be them as they already are, just openly.

So, when Nina tries to get Crowley to define his and Aziraphale's relationship using common terms of out humans in the year 2023...

Crowley can't do it.

Even if he knows that the term she used-- partner-- is not technically incorrect for what he and Aziraphale are to one another.

By the end of the season, Crowley doesn't object to Nina using partner to describe he and Aziraphale. When she and Maggie come back to the bookshop to talk to Crowley, Nina refers to Aziraphale when she says to Crowley: "you and your partner have been messing about in our lives." Crowley doesn't argue the point. He knows it's true and that's what he and Aziraphale are. He's always known that.

The difference between the partner-themed conversation with Nina in front of the coffee shop and the one in the bookshop is that, in the time between them, this happened:

For the first time, they weren't the only ones, and they thought that if they have friends who are like them, maybe they suddenly have a chance. Maybe some things might change. At the very least, it seemed pointless to Crowley after the Gabriel and Beez reveal to keep pretending that he and Aziraphale aren't a couple and, in letting Nina's definition in the bookshop scene of Aziraphale as Crowley's partner stand without objection, Crowley was showing that he felt that Nina saying that he and Aziraphale are partners is accurate.

Crowley's earlier conversation with Nina outside Give Me Coffee is really the first time he's ever had to answer the question of him and Aziraphale honestly in ages of sneaking around and he doesn't really know how to do it. He's used to it being a secret and he's supernatural and Nina doesn't know that so he doesn't know how to explain them to someone who isn't from that world. Nina looks at them and is trying to figure out where the hidden part is coming from and she theorizes an affair because that's a logical human response. How is Crowley supposed to explain that it's that he's a demon and this is a forbidden love affair that is probably going to end in tragic separation one day to a human woman who is just like so, how long have you boffing the bookseller?

How does he say look, listen, he's my entire world but I'm not allowed to have that world? If we were human like you are, we could be openly together. If there was no Heaven and no Hell, you wouldn't be asking me why you'd never seen me before and thought Aziraphale was single until a couple of days ago because I would have met you when you opened this business and there'd be a ring on my finger that would answer a lot of these questions for you.

He can't say that Aziraphale is his partner because people who are partners are openly making a life together and he doesn't have one to give Aziraphale to share with him. Is Aziraphale his partner in the rest of the way that Nina means? Yes. It's just not a word that Crowley feels then that he can use, even if it's the most accurate one, and one that he won't object to within a matter of days, when the circumstances begin to seem like they might be changing.

Yeah, when they flirt, as they were earlier in the season, they sometimes use words that dance towards human terms for it, some more joking than others. Crowley'll sass Aziraphale with a bit of dry "yes, my king" bow and scrape; Aziraphale will use French while flirting with Crowley that circles towards calling Crowley his wife.

They know they're in love and have many different words for it-- all the words for it-- and those words are not going unexpressed. They've been lovers for thousands of years. They consider themselves each other's partner in every way but for being able to call it that. They're a couple. The yearning, imho, is from pining for the more peaceful, open life they want to give one another and have not been able to fully realize, even as they've have made a good one out of what they have been given.

...but they've spent their existence, for the most part, pretending that they are not. Not really to one another but to the world. They haven't kept it hidden from one another but they have kept it secret from most others out of fear of losing one another if they were ever caught. Crowley knows that Aziraphale is the love of his life and he'll tell him so but partner isn't something he thinks he can give him, even if that's really also the best definition of what they are.

Crowley's response is basically I don't bloody know, Nina, we're each other's entire orbit, sun, moon and stars, okay? We also could be killed if someone figures out I've been sneaking out of the bookshop before dawn for ages now. I don't know what term would work for you for that. We're in love, is that what you want to know?

This same conversation, though, pushed Crowley towards admitting to himself that he's full of shit and he and Aziraphale have been basically married for forever now. He's not ever really just been existing. Their car and their bookshop and their bloody life that they made together when they weren't looking.

Crowley is already hesitant to say that Aziraphale is his partner when he's in the street and they could be overheard and when he and Aziraphale haven't discussed how they want to handle this. The other reason why he instantly shoots it down when, in reality, Nina has, by using partner, probably hit on the single, best word to describe Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship that currently exists, is because the word partner implies something that Crowley believes in that moment that he and Aziraphale can't have.

Partners have lives together. In Crowley's mind, as much as he fantasizes about it being different, he and Aziraphale can only ever have an existence.

They are partners but they can't call themselves partners because, to do so, would be to use the word like the humans do. When the humans call someone their partner, they mean that they are openly making a life together with that person.

Nina, who is a human, has taken one look at Crowley and Aziraphale and has figured out that that is exactly what they have been doing, which throws Crowley a bit. He's not used to anyone knowing about them, let alone asking him to define it, and Nina has seen them together and her assessment is that they're a couple. Crowley is disturbed to find out that Coffee Shop Human can see through The Great Existence Charade and is forcing him to stop lying to himself.

She says this is a life that he and Aziraphale have made. She sees no difference between them and other couples she's seen and Crowley objects to this because if he and Aziraphale were truly partners, he'd have a life to give him, which Coffee Shop Human cannot understand. He won't call Aziraphale his partner even though they've been in love for six thousand years and lovers since ancient fucking Rome because Nina doesn't understand that he's of the bloody damned over here and it's existence or nothing, those are the options...

Nina has not considered Crowley's demonic angst as a factor here-- shockingly! 😂-- so, she's just like what's your deal, Ginger Goth? Bookseller comes into my shop on his own in the mornings a lot and I've never seen you before but I just saw you two flirting so easily and he says you go way back. I never knew he had a partner. You two are adorable and I want what you have, so... what is it, exactly? What's the big secret that kept me from knowing you existed until the other day? Are you married, is that it? This some secret fling?

You might notice, though, that Crowley only answers one of Nina's peppered questions directly but, in reality, he answers all of them with the one answer he gives.

He defends Aziraphale's honor and insists that they're not having an affair, which we all agree with is true. Crowley insists that Aziraphale would never be his "bit on the side", which is both saying that the idea of there being someone else for Crowley is insanity and that Aziraphale would never be a part of an affair. Crowley never actually answers Nina about whether or not he has a husband or a boyfriend-- which is an answer in and of itself. He does-- Aziraphale. Aziraphale is all the things to him that a boyfriend is and that a husband is, but those things are for people with lives and he lives an existence.

What is interesting, though, is that, in the view of Heaven/Hell, Crowley and Aziraphale actually are having an affair because, to Heaven/Hell, Crowley belongs to "his Master", Satan. Obviously, Crowley doesn't see himself that way and neither does Aziraphale and, of course, neither do we. Under no circumstances is that anything resembling a consensual or safe relationship and we don't view he and Aziraphale as an affair because of it. There are those that they've kept their relationship from, though, who would see it that way.

Nina had unintentionally hit on a little truth of the situation-- Crowley's inability to fully escape Satan is part of why he feels he is not free enough to offer Aziraphale a life over an existence. In every way that there is for him to be, he is utterly Aziraphale's, but he's damned and that's why Aziraphale is just an angel he knows, even if he's really his boyfriend and his partner and his husband and a million other things. Aziraphale is his everything.

It's just not a situation that Crowley can explain to Nina The Coffee Shop Human, who has no idea that he's damned for eternity and how that could potentially get in the way of such things like marrying the bookshop angel.

The idea that Nina thinks that his love life seems less complicated to her than her own gives him pause because if she only knew?

Crowley is sure that Aziraphale will be erased into non-existence and taken from him because he's fallen and he isn't going to be allowed to have a happy ending. That's just how this works.

So, when Nina said "you and your partner," Crowley jumped in to deny that he and Aziraphale are actually partners, despite being very much what anyone would call partners... and when Certified Human Nina said they were talking about their love lives, Crowley found himself forced to admit to himself that he has one. He has a love life because he has life.

It's because Nina says "other people's love lives." It's because she looks at Crowley and just sees another person and one who, like everyone, is entitled to make a life of his own, and it suddenly occurs to Cupid over here that maybe he might have accidentally kinda sorta gone and made himself a whole damn life while insisting he had done no such thing. Maybe because it's a whole lot easier to decide that you're damned and nothing will ever work out for you so why bother trying to claim a life for yourself? than it is to stop letting others define what you are and go claim that life you want.

Further complicating things is that, earlier on in the season, Beez led Crowley to believe that The Book of Life is actually a thing. Crowley, in The Final 15, believes that the being who is watching them through the window is The Metatron and he believes that big threat in play in that moment is that Aziraphale is at risk of being erased into non-existence by his name being taken out of The Book of Life. As he tries to use their language to tell Aziraphale this and a plan for how they can get out of it, he even refers to their life together as "our existence"-- using that word again, instead of the more accurate life.

The ironic part here is that Crowley is using it here to try to get Aziraphale to see that he believes that the threat is The Book of Life but Crowley so often has referred in the past to their life together as an existence that Aziraphale doesn't understand the wordplay.

One of the most heartbreaking moments, though, comes when Crowley abandons a line of wordplay-- and not just because it's not going to work for conveying what he wants to say. It is probably because this lovely, deceptively simple-sounding line that we can see is really anything but simple? This one that starts with "and I would like to spend--"?

It likely comes from the actual marriage proposal Crowley seems to have had in his mind for ages because, as we know, Crowley is an optimist. An optimist and a romantic and he's thought of what he'd say, if things ever somehow changed and he ever felt really free to ask Aziraphale.

This line was: "And I would like to spend my life with you."

In The Final 15, he can't do it. He can't bring himself to say it because he thinks it's already too late. It's not for him. He's fallen. He's damned. He's going to lose Aziraphale, as he's been fated to do all along because a life isn't for him, he is doomed to just exist and keep on existing for eternity.

Crowley thinks that Aziraphale is going to go with The Metatron and be erased into non-existence and Crowley will then have never known him, never made this existence that was really a life with him, and what did he expect? That the romantic, happy endings that he loves and tries to make happen for everyone else could ever be something that he could actually have for himself?

The word Crowley is mouthing in the scene with Nina isn't love. He's not just realizing he's in love with Aziraphale. He's known that for thousands of years. He's mouthing the word for the thing he has always felt he cannot have but that Nina sees that maybe he already does-- a life.

It aches right now but I think it likely that, when they get to the other side of all of this in The Finale and Crowley gets to actually do the proposal the way he'd really like to, the fact that he cut himself off in the "And I would like to spend--" line will actually make it all the better because now, when he finally does really freely ask Aziraphale for that life together? It will likely be the first time Aziraphale has ever heard Crowley call what they have already made together not Crowley's existence but their life.

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #good omens 2 #good omens theory #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #ineffable lovers #ineffables

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