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[sock4life]

Everyone else: Crowley and Aziraphale better have a CONVERSATION aziraphale is going to do the BIGGEST I Was Wrong dance and then they’re gonna KISS and make UP-

Me:

[sock4life]

Season three starts there’s a knock on crowley’s car window he slobbers out of post alcoholic sleep and opens his eyes we see the camera image sharpening whoa it’s jesus he’s naked he’s holding a cardboard box

[sock4life]

love that aziraphale is, in fact, a terrible fucking liar, but continously gets away with the most insane shit throughout history because either a) he's an angel so everyone figures he can't/wouldn't lie or b) EVERYONE can tell he's lying but they don't have enough evidence to do anything about it so they have to just exchange snide glances and/or send their most annoying interns over to bother him until they get something

[sock4life]

I just find it really satisfying and compelling that they're both, in their own ways, willing to throw it all away for each other but can't because the other won't let them. They see each other for who they are and they love that person (while simultaneously managing to miscommunicate to each other that they don't know each other at all, how tasty is that?) and not who they'd be to keep the other.

They're both going against values they know the other to hold. They're both so shocked and heartbroken at the end of the confession because Aziraphale knows that Crowley could never let the world be destroyed like he says he wants to. Twice now Crowley has been like, let’s run away, let’s leave the apocalypse to happen, I don’t care so long as we can cling to each other in the wreckage, and Aziraphale’s refusal both times strikes me as coming from the same place as the surety in Job and the surety in the bullet catch. This is not who you are and this is not what you want. Crowley does not want to dismantle the broken system but I think to Aziraphale it feels like it should be a matter of not yet. And maybe that's why so many people are skipping to that in their memes and their anticipation of the rest of the story, it's obvious to us and it's obvious to Aziraphale.

And Crowley knows Aziraphale doesn't trust in the innate goodness of Heaven. He gave the first humans his sword and he was ready to fall for helping Crowley protect Job's kids and as soon as he realizes human suffering is alleviated by graverobbing he's all "dig up as many bodies as you like!" Crowley knows Aziraphale knows better than to think Heaven can be changed by one stubborn, genuinely good angel. He assumed Aziraphale would have told Heaven to stuff it because he knows Aziraphale knows better, knows he ought to have done. They know each other, they love each other, but they're both willing to throw away who they are and what they believe when offered the chance to protect each other-- Crowley would give up the world to flee with Aziraphale, Aziraphale would go back to Heaven if it meant he could take Crowley with him. They're both so scared of losing each other because the threat has been there for a very very very long time. They've spent their existence pretending that they're not and so they've never had an opportunity to just be together, so of course the possibility of it pushes them to this, and of course they both refuse. They wouldn't be them if they didn't.

[sock4life]

stop asking Neil gaiman if everything was a continuity error or on purpose or means anything, suspend your disbelief and over analyse every frame of the show as if the show runners have put far more thought into every single spec than anyone could possibly be expected to do like the good old days

[sock4life]

Crowley's out here talking about his "precious, peaceful, fragile existence," as if he hasn't been living out of his 90 year old car for three to four years with no associates to speak of except a mildly renegade angel, some browbeaten plants, and his tone-deaf former coworker who stole his apartment and who continuously heaps him with hellacious junk mail.

[sock4life]

crowley rly prepared to have a whole ass gay confession and aziraphale went”let’s go to gay conversion camp. TOGETHER” . the room was not read

[sock4life]

now that the dust is settled it’s still so wild to me that some parts of the fandom took one look at a realistic and complex relationship riddled with communication issues where each character has their own brand of religious trauma, and the practical promise of a third season, and thought to themselves “why isn’t this the fanfic perfect ending that I wanted”

[sock4life]

ate and left no crumbs

[sock4life]

I am living for the fact that Neilman’s character building decisions for Good Omens 2 was “look. You can be straight or you can be cis but being both at once is just forced diversity sorry guys :/”

[sock4life]

actually the entire season could have been solved in 1 episode if either of them bothered to check the bottom of the box. like. just flip the box. the entire time the answer to their mystery was there with them if only they didn't follow the status quo of this way up -- just like the entire time throughout their years their love was there staring them in their faces but couldn't be resolved because of all their rules about heaven and hell and which way was up

they start out the season trying to solve the mystery of an empty box (that sounds... // lonely? // yeah) and by the end of the season, the box has been filled up with books (the weight of everything they've put into their relationship). gabriel and beelzebub's relationship only needed the fly to go out (think out) of the box, but crowley and aziraphale were still trying to figure out what was in the box and what was in their feelings

and the mystery wasn't solved by them running around all over the place: it was solved by turning the box the wrong way up and emptying all the books they'd piled up in the box to read the writing on it, and actually aziraphale and crowley's relationship could only be resolved by turning it upside down -- aziraphale still needs to grapple with which way is up and crowley still has a lot of books baggage to empty, and all this time that's also been staring us in our faces

[sock4life]

I was watching the bts videos yesterday including the making of the opening credits and Mr. Anderson said “We added plaques to the back of chairs and Neil chose who to honour on them”.

He’s referring to the chairs we briefly see in the theatre where Aziraphale is doing his magic act:

Left to right: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and The Crow Road by Iain Banks.

I want to focus on these three in a row specifically because Neil chose to put those books there in that order and I had something of an epiphany last night about it all when insomnia was chewing on my toes.

These three books have also been mentioned out loud in the show in episode 2 when Gabriel is reorganising the shelves:

“It was the day my grandmother exploded” - The Crow Road

“It is a truth universally acknowledged-” - Pride and Prejudice

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” - A Tale of Two Cities

For those unfamiliar with the books, I’ll do a quick potted summary of each, with a focus on why I think they’re relevant and especially why the order of the chairs in the theatre feels relevant.

A Tale of Two Cities

Set during the French revolution with one lead who is an aristocrat who has stepped away from his class and background to support the less fortunate than himself because he disagrees with the way they did things. Also, he changed his name because he doesn’t want to be associated with the place where he came from.

The big culmination of the books is when said man is betrayed and set to be executed, but his friend takes his place. There is very literally a body swap by someone who looks very like him in order to save his life. This body-swap is done out of love.

aka - season 1.

Pride and Prejudice

Two people from very different class backgrounds have a very very bumpy start to their relationship because of misinterpretation, miscommunication and a lot of external pressure put on them by the rules of their respective societies. Both of them have different information and because of that, both of them are seeing exactly the same situation very differently. One of them tries to express his affection, but does it so badly that the other tells him there is no chance she will join him.

aka - season 2

The Crow Road

A young man tries to solve a mystery of someone’s disappearance using only the papers they left behind, with said young man’s background rooted in faith and belief in a higher power. There’s also a secondary plot about emotional growth into a more mature and more fulfilling relationship.

(And wouldn’t you know it, it’s the book handed to Muriel by Crowley, who tells them they’ll like it, and the Metatron comments on it)

aka - season 3

Needless to say, I am quite excited :)

[sock4life]

I think a lot of crowley’s choices this season are informed by the burning bookshop moment because he KNOWS what it felt like to lose aziraphale forever (or think he did), he’s a lot more in touch with the depth of his emotions for aziraphale and what that might mean

[sock4life]

I can’t stop thinking about how he says “you idiot. we could have been…” and then he pauses and can’t succinctly put it into words so he says “us”….I wish I could physically live inside of crowley’s speech

[sock4life]

i love how the kiss was awful. i love how it wasn’t a show of love but a desperate, viscerally angry gesture to try to get aziraphale to see exactly what he was losing and what crowley has, from his point of view, already lost. i love how the kiss was awful.

[sock4life]

I'm so tired of all these theories about how the coffee was spiked and that aziraphale didn't make the choice to work for heaven. like, first of all, it is completely in character - he has the opportunity to fix heaven! with crowley by his side! but second of all, don't you think it's just boring and lowstakes if aziraphale made such a massive decision purely because heaven made him do it?

aziraphale isn't crowley! he doesn't think heaven is bad, he just thinks the management is! and you don't go on working for heaven and believing that it's, at its heart, good, for *6000 years* to just turn around and say that it's not worth fixing!

[sock4life]

shiv was not being altruistic nor intellectually self-interested when she voted against kendall. that was pure raw visceral desperation to maintain some semblance of dignity that she felt kendall being ceo would shred her of. sometimes people do not act in other people’s best interests or their own best interests. sometimes people do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons just because it feels like the right, the only, thing to do. shiv could not let kendall be ceo. she just couldn’t. not because she wanted to sacrifice herself to “stop the cycle,” not because she made a calculation and decided tom was her best interest — because the thought of kendall being ceo and acting like That the rest of their lives when shiv earned that job, she fucking earned it, that was too much to fucking bear. watching him sit in dad’s chair, conduct that vote, grin with entitlement and cockiness and certainty — seeing that elicited a visceral painful all-consuming sensation not dissimilar to overwhelming nausea that, summed up in two words, would simply be: fuck. no. she couldn’t live with that. she just couldn’t. it’s not kind. it’s not smart. it’s just human. painfully, destructively human. because sometimes, that’s all there is to it. not just for shiv, but for everyone. god knows roman and kendall have had those same feelings, made those same self-destructing yet necessary-feeling decisions throughout the show. why does it have to be different for shiv? why can’t she be painfully destructively human, prone to impulsive ill-conceived viscerally felt actions, like everyone else? why are we incapable of allotting her the same nuance and humanity (the good and the bad), the same trauma-informed self-destructive life-ruining hamartias, as we do her brothers? why can’t we fit a whole woman in our heads?