#aziraphale loves food

[humbledragon669]

Lockdown Episode Write Up P2 – dialogue

Introduction

I don’t think there’s much linking the dialogue with the images (apart from the cake sequence), so I’ve broken this write-up down into tableaus and dialogue, because there are just as many Easter eggs (maybe more) to be had from the tableaus as there are from the script. This part of the write-up will address just the dialogue, with the tableaus addressed in a separate write-up. Right, housekeeping done, let’s get stuck in shall we?

Dialogue

So Crowley picks up on the second ring, sounding very irritated. Considering he’s about to tell Aziraphale how bored he is, you’d think he might actually be relieved about the prospect of somebody calling him. And poor Aziraphale; the brusque greeting clearly puts him off, presumably because he was hoping for a more enthusiastic response, particularly given that Crowley openly tells the angel he knows that it was him calling in the first place.

AZIRAPHALE: Uh… Hello. It’s me! CROWLEY: I know it’s you, Aziraphale.

My thoughts about this exchange? I strongly suspect Aziraphale is the only one that ever calls Crowley. Not only that, I think he’s probably calling the demon multiple times a day at this point. I mean, think about it – neither of them work for their respective agencies anymore. For the first time in 6000 years they can be open about their friendship, no more hiding. And for the first time in those 6000 years something other than Heaven or Hell is making it impossible for them to see each other. I know, they really could have formed a “bubble”, or just ignored the rules completely, given their otherworldly status, but they didn’t because don’t forget – this is a PSA film at heart. Everybody had to STAY AT HOME. Besides, it makes it so much more angsty if they can’t be within physical proximity to one another during this time.

AZIRAPHALE: Just calling to see how you were doing in Lockdown.

Aziraphale actually says makes it sound like this is either the first time the angel has spoken to Crowley during Lockdown (which had been going on for almost two months by the time this minisode was released), or that they don’t speak very often. Personally, I don’t buy this, not least because the demon openly says he’s incredibly bored. And what does Crowley like to do best when he’s bored? Hang out with Aziraphale. Be his personal nuisance.

CROWLEY: I’ve decided that if I can’t think of anything to do within the next two days, I’m going to have a nap and I’ll set the alarm clock for June.

I *think* this is the first time we have confirmation that he does sleep, at least as far as the show is concerned (I’m not counting cut/missing bits from the Script Book, or from the original book). There’s also proof here that he’s actually an optimist, despite his efforts to convince the world at large otherwise – he’s convinced that everything will be back to normal by June. Interestingly, the UK’s really strict national regulations had actually been eased by the time the minisode was released, allowing those who could not work from home to return to work (yeah, we didn’t really know what that meant either, considering those of us who were classed as key workers never stopped going to the workplace), but June was still a very optimistic estimate – whilst restrictions were eased as we went into July, local governments were given the authority to impose local lockdowns where necessary. And boy, did they.

AZIRAPHALE: Oughtn’t you to be out and about doing things?

It's interesting to hear Aziraphale actually encouraging Crowley to be more demon-like. And he doesn’t just encourage, he gives him very appropriate suggestions for things he could be doing to fulfil his demonly duties. To my mind, it suggests his preference for Crowley in a demonic state. Or it could be an opportunity to emphasise the STAY AT HOME message, seeing as (for once) Crowley seems keen to stick to the rules. Take your pick. I know which one I prefer. Either way, there are two pieces of information here that I find noteworthy – firstly, confirmation that Crowley can’t get sick because he’s a demon. I think it’s interesting what human weaknesses the angel and demon are susceptible to, and which not. Alcohol, for instance, albeit in larger quantities than a human could imbibe, has the same effect on their human bodies as it does to humans. Illness and disease on the other hand, it would seem not. Laudanum, as we see in series 2, has an entirely different effect on Crowley than it would do to an ordinary human, but Hastur informs us that ordinary fire would easily discorporate a demon. Makes me wonder if the effect that a Heavenly or Hellish being has on its hosting body is one to do with constitution – where the body has an increased resistance to toxic substances but is unaffected in its ability to deal with trauma.

The second piece of information in this little plea from Aziraphale is that he says Crowley still has a job to do. Which, given the outcome of season 1, he doesn’t. I don’t think it was made blatantly obvious that neither of them report to their respective agencies anymore, so perhaps this is just a slip of the pen, so to speak. It might have been a bit more difficult to slip in this blatant reminder to people that leaving home was a BAD thing to do and that staying at home was the GOOD thing to do otherwise, and this little speech is very clear about listing certain things that were being actively discouraged at the time.

CROWLEY: I could do that. I mean I could… but if I did then… well…people might follow my bad example and get ill. Or even die.

Crowley’s response is… less than enthusiastic. It’s funny to hear him say that people might follow his bad example – surely that’s exactly what he’s been contracted to do for thousands of years? But again, I am forgetting – the whole point of this piece of media is to remind them why we should all just STAY AT HOME. So, with that reminder, let’s look a little more about Crowley’s actual feelings on the subject, shall we?

CROWLEY: I know I ought to be making people’s lives even worse but everyone’s so miserable cooped up right now anyway I just… don’t have the heart for it.

And therein lies the problem for Crowley and his existence as a demon – he actually doesn’t like to make people miserable. He loves to cause mischief and make trouble, but not with the sole intention to bring misery into people’s lives. Ultimately, he’s just too soft at heart to be a very good demon, which David himself has described beautifully.

AZIRAPHALE: I’m not miserable. CROWLEY: Really?

I really love this little exchange. Crowley sounds genuinely shocked that Aziraphale is so certain in his proclamation that he’s not miserable. And it’s hardly surprising really – I strongly suspect the reason that Crowley is feeling so down in the dumps is because he’s not getting a regular fix of his angel, so it stands to reason that he would expect Aziraphale to feel the same way. He’s probably had a little bit of his heart broken to hear that his angel is seemingly coping without him so well. It’s a good thing we go on to hear that basically the reason why Aziraphale is so happy at this time is because he’s not getting any customers in with the threat of trying to buy one of his books, although the angel’s speech does present the writer with another opportunity to remind us of our obligations at the time – social distancing and STAYING AT HOME.

You have to be paying attention, but Crowley doesn’t seem too pleased with the idea that Aziraphale might have needed rescuing from some errant youths that he wasn’t able to help with; there’s a quiet groan from him when he hears the retelling of the story. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think there was some sort of double entendre going on here with Aziraphale’s tease of there being “a few young lads” who “broke in through the back���, so that groan could actually be one of relief rather than frustration. What is interesting is that Crowley openly mocks the only potential rescue scenarios that Aziraphale would have had available to him – he’s obviously smarting that he didn’t get to be the white knight for once.

CROWLEY: Did you smite them with your wrath?

I’d be very interested to know if the script had been finished and handed to David and Michael at this time, because that particular line feels like a very obvious reference to the smited/smote/smitten exchange. And if the reference is a genuine one, my double entendre idea doesn’t seem so outrageous, given Crowley’s tone – could he be a little bit jealous?

What now follows is the only time that the images in the minisode link directly with the dialogue going on at the time, and they’re all to do with cake. Trigger warning, what follows is a lot of pictures of cake. If, like me, you are inclined to go out and buy cake as soon as you see a picture of one, I would suggest you look away now.

What I love about Crowley’s reception of the knowledge that Aziraphale sent the little vandals away with cake is that he uses the same expression that Anathema uses when she asks about the name of Newt’s car.

CROWLEY: I’m going to regret asking…

His tone shows just what he thinks of the angel’s method for rescuing himself. And if you consider Aziraphale’s tale to be a truthful account of what took place, it does seem odd - that somebody could just have a little chat with some wannabe robbers to change their minds, and then send them away with some excess cake. There is however a missing scene in the Script Book where several thugs enter the bookshop and start to make a mess in an attempt to get Aziraphale to sell the land the shop sits on. In a somewhat “miraculous” turn of events (see what I did there?), they change their mind, clear up the mess they made, and leave without a fuss. I suspect the same sort of turn of events occurred to the lads that turned up to steal the cash box.

AZIRAPHALE: It turns out I have a whole cookbook section here in the bookshop.

I love this idea, that the bookshop is so sprawling and diverse that even Aziraphale doesn’t know what it contains, despite the fact that he must have stocked it in the first place. And I love it because that’s the how every second-hand bookshop feels to me. I’ve spent my fair share of time in Hay-on-Wye and its multitude of bookshops, and I genuinely feel like I could get lost in some of them. There are another couple of lines from Aziraphale that suggests that he does not think it possible to eat anything unless it comes from an eatery.

AZIRAPHALE: Well all the restaurants and cafes are closed […] and I got peckish.

Because he couldn’t just go to the supermarket and buy some cake, could he? Like the rest of us were doing (and were allowed to do). He even goes on to say that he had to miracle the cherries in for one of his creations – quite why it was only the cherries he miracled in I don’t know, I mean he must have gotten the rest of the ingredients from somewhere. Which leads me on to another question – where is the kitchen in the bookshop? There must be some facilities somewhere, otherwise he couldn’t make all of those delightful looking goodies. He’s got to have a kettle or a stove for boiling water/milk at the very least for making his cocoa, so where is all that stuff?

Aziraphale then goes on to reel off a list of cakes that he’s made (another nod to the domestic activities that were going on up and down the country – for those not based in the UK, you might not know that during Lockdown it was virtually impossible to get hold of flour or eggs, largely owing to the huge increase in home baking people did), which includes angel’s food cake (you could argue that all of the cakes he makes is angel’s food cake, hahah. Hah. I’ll get my coat). I don’t know whether it’s interesting, whether it’s an oversight, or whether it’s deliberate, but there’s no devil’s food cake on the list that he gives. I’ve made and eaten devil’s food cake before. It’s awesome. I don’t think that he wouldn’t have made this particular recipe because of its lack of deliciousness. I actually wonder whether its absence is an indicator of Crowley’s eating preferences (and as a reminder, I’m someone who is of the mind that he doesn’t enjoy eating – more on this shortly).

 AZIRAPHALE: And then, once I’ve baked them, I have to eat them all myself.

This line makes me properly snort with laughter, because he simultaneously manages to make it sounds like eating all the cake is something he definitely doesn’t want to do whilst also expressing sorrow that he has no-one around to eat them in front of with. The idea that this angel would ever not want to eat food is laughable. Crowley takes the bait on the sub-text though, employing some his tried and tested temptation techniques to try to get what he wants.

CROWLEY: I could hunker down at your place. Slither over and watch you eat cake. I could bring a bottle of- a case of something… drinkable?

This is my favourite line of the whole thing. The throwaway reference to his serpent form is delightful, and who’s to say he wouldn’t transform for his trip over to Soho to avoid being stopped by humans? There’s  the idea that he would very much like to get drunk with Aziraphale again, and this time without an impending Armageddon to spoil the mood, and with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be going home at the end of their binge. But most of all there’s that line about the cake. He doesn’t say he can help Aziraphale eat the cake – he says he can come and watch the angel eat it. Which would not only go some way to confirming my suspicions that he doesn’t like to eat but would also help to cement the popular theory that watching Aziraphale eat is a pleasurable experience for him. The whole line is said with such longing too, it’s impossible not to hear it.

AZIRAPHALE: I’m afraid that would be breaking all the rules.

If you listen carefully to Aziraphale’s rejection of Crowley’s (quite frankly, adorable) suggestion, you can hear another little bit of the demon’s heart breaking with disappointment. I suppose he probably shouldn’t be surprised that his request of Aziraphale to go against protocol wouldn’t have gone down well and besides we were all supposed to STAY AT HOME, remember? What sort of a PSA film would this be if people just went around to other people’s houses for some flirting nookie company when there was a Lockdown in place?

AZIRAPHALE: I’ll see you when this is over.

So of course, Aziraphale says no thank you very much (quite a lot of Tory party members could have learned a lot from the angel’s morals, and none of them are half as likeable as he is), but how incredibly sad does he sound at the prospect of not knowing when he and Crowley will see each other again? Crowley might have quietly voiced his disappointment multiple times during the conversation, but Aziraphale’s own disappointment here is stated loud and clear.

Crowley’s upset can be heard again after this very final sounding line from his angel (and this time it breaks my own heart a little bit) but he rallies well, changing his planned nap end time to July, rather than June as declared earlier. It’s a pretty perfect way to get out of missing someone, isn’t it? Just go to sleep until you can see them again; I’m sure there are a lot of people that would definitely be on board with that approach. He doesn’t leave any further room for discussion either:

CROWLEY: Good night, angel.

It’s very definite – conversation over, nothing more to say. My thoughts are that he’s just too depressed to carry on talking on the phone to the one person he would much rather be spending time with in person, and now that he’s found a quick and painless solution to the problem (a nap), he just wants to get on with it. Charmingly though, this parting line sounds nothing like the dismissal it seems like it is when you see it written down. The delivery of this line conveys the familiarity and comfort that exists between the two of them, and actually makes it sound like this is a regular conversation that they have, despite the dialogue suggesting otherwise. As it turned out, July wasn’t really long enough to get completely clear of the restrictions that would see our heroes united freely, but who can blame him for being optimistic? And at least if he’s asleep, he’s definitely STAYING AT HOME.

Well I think that’s the lot for this write up. So much for this being such a short episode that it wouldn’t need a lot of time devoted to it. It was a fun little thing; in truth I think it serves more as a PSA that as an additional source of storyline/character development but that hasn’t dampened my enjoyment of it. Time to move on to season 2 now (which I am both excited and a little bit nervous about – there is so much to say!), so for the meantime, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome 😊

[rcreveal]

Punting

Summary:

Crowley and Aziraphale are courting and a people watcher observes them on a pleasant afternoon.

Work Text:

Day 6 Prompt How you say I love you on a sunny Tuesday with sunshine in your hair

The water of the river below is smooth and dark, with silken ripples where mayflies alight and trout rise.  The warm summer breeze is cooling your back and rustling in the willows on the bank as you look downriver from your perch on the old stone bridge. 

From upriver come the sounds of laughing voices that seem to blend in with the birdsong and the breeze.  There's something in their voices, that lets you know these people really care for each other.

As the prow of the punt boat comes into view, you look down eagerly to see the party below.  Two men sit comfortably in the prow, one wiry and lanky, but whose only concession to the heat of the day seems to have been to take off a tailored black suit jacket.  He’s still wearing black slacks and a black dress shirt tucked in but with the sleeves rolled up.  His arm is companionably draped over the shoulders of a fellow all in cream and tartan, wearing more seasonal linen, but in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat.

As they pass through a band of sunshine, the red, sinuous hair of the darkly clothed man catches fire at the same time as his companion’s white blond curls become blindingly white.  You hear the man in the dark clothing inviting his partner to “Try the pâté” and the look he gives him over a sip of white wine as his companion’s face breaks into a delighted smile is love and satisfaction at a food love language well sorted.

As they drift further down the river, their red and blonde tresses blazing out in each sunbeam, you turn to walk back to your car.  It’s almost time to pick up your sweetheart for a surprise punt boat ride on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

[iwillfightgodandwin]

Man, Crowley must've been so uncomfortably-comfortable in the scene where Azi eats that entire fucking ribcage

[gahellhimself-blog]

Aaah finished!!

Some mistakes in the details.. but I was impatient to share it with us… so

Hope u like it

(Don’t have title for this one..)

Edit : forgot to promote my Kofi again...

So if u want and if you can, support me on KoFi :) For much more Gomens fanart and comics : Ko-Fi/GaelHimself

[asexualcybertronian]

My Pinterest board really brought up my good omens board for a recipe for stuffed marshmallow chocolate chip cookies. My life is complete

[j4y-k4y]

aziracrow in the wild wild west 🌵

[golswia]

ineffable retirement

[sic-vita]

GOOD OMENS + Aziraphale being relatable to me

[fiovske]

ngl the early s3 post-divorce pre-making up era angst of he-means-a-lot-to-me-but-if-any-of-you-ever-mention-him-in-my-presence-i-am-going-to-kill-everyone-in-this-room-and-then-myself crowley and aziraphale are gonna be delicious.and brother i am but a dickensian orphan waiting for my food to arrive

[armageddidnt]

Now we know EXACTLY what memory was running through their heads during that scene in season 1 👀

[humbledragon669]

S2E2 - The Clue Write Up P5 -Land of Uz: from a little alone time in the cellar to the return to present day

I’m hoping to get to the end of this Land of Uz segment in this part so let’s get stuck straight in from the beginning of the scene after the kids have been transformed into lizards. There’s a bit of Aziracrow backstory confirmed here, which is that Crawley is already drinking alcohol at this point in the chronology. We don’t see Aziraphale drinking alcohol until 42AD, some 2500 years later. I’d love to know when and what changed his stance on this one, seeing as he’s very clearly anti-alcohol at this point in the history.

Crawley on the other hand is very comfortable not only with the consumption, but also with the possibility of the side effects of human wine. His ability to assess the quality of the wine on offer would also suggest that he’s been doing this for a while, and even though it would seem Aziraphale has never seen him do it before, the demon doesn’t think twice about pouring and offering a cup to him - there’s just an assumption that it’s a perfectly normal thing for them to do. I do wonder if Crawley’s decision to drink alcohol evolved from whatever fall-out there was following the flood, seeing as we don’t have any indication that this is behaviour he engaged in prior to that. Whatever his reasoning, he can clearly see he’s not going to win this battle, deciding to try his luck instead with getting the angel to eat.

Now, we all know that what follows in this scene is probably one of the fandom’s favourite scenes across both seasons, so true to fashion I am not going to delve deep into it. What I do want to make a little comment on is how Crawley manages to persuade Aziraphale to give the food a try, because it’s pretty clever. First off, he anticipates the protests and uses the angel’s own justification about alcohol by positing that food should be considered differently because it doesn’t cause drunkenness. After all, that was the only argument that Aziraphale really gave for not trying the wine just seconds before. Ergo, no drunken consequences theoretically means no argument for not imbibing. What really tips the scales is that he presents Aziraphale with the ability to partake of the food of his own free will. He literally presents the gift of “choice” to the angel on a silver platter. He even makes the situation explicitly clear to him as he does so:

CRAWLEY: You’re free to try the food.

Given we identified Aziraphale’s desire for the ability to exercise personal choice in the scene in the courtyard a short time ago, this is a really smart card for Crawley to play. So smart in fact that Aziraphale doesn’t really put up much of a fight about it, even if he tries to make a big song and dance about how repulsive the whole thing supposedly is.

And there really is no mistaking how pleased Crawley is with this turn of events, is there?

The only thing I wonder about here is whether the demon had any idea about what feelings he was about to set fire to in getting to see Aziraphale eat. He is a demon after all, so I have no doubt that there is a part of him that talked the angel into consuming human food because it would be a lovely little victory to add to his collection, at least in the lead up to the event. I don’t think that motivation is what keeps him staring whilst Aziraphale gorges himself though, most definitely not, despite the fact that this is some of the sloppiest eating I’ve ever seen somebody do (and I’ve watched every episode of Adam Richman’s Man vs. Food). When did he know that the enjoyment he got out of watching Aziraphale eat wasn’t actually driven by a desire to turn another being away from their standards? I’m pretty sure he knows by the time we see them at the Ritz after Adam was born, but there are 3000 years between these two events. He may know as early as Rome, given his not-so-subtle hints about never having eaten an oyster before paves the way for he and Aziraphale to go for dinner together. Whenever he comes to the realisation, I don’t think there’s a person on Earth that could argue that watching the angel eat in the cellar has Crawley thirsting for something other than wine.

Well despite Crawley’s assurances about not being able to get drunk on food, Aziraphale has more than a little hint of intoxication about him going on here. And where exactly is he putting all of that food?! There’s barely more than bones left. IT WAS AN ENTIRE OX. In fairness, he must have been at it a while, because even Crawley looks bored by the gluttonous display going on in front of him.

There’s something about this little exchange that really tugs at my heart strings, and I think it’s because Aziraphale’s words suggest that this is him making an effort to understand Crawley. Not just knowing him, or liking him, or whatever else, but actually understanding the demon. Not only that, it’s pretty clear that he feels that a lonely state of mind isn’t something he wants for this being, despite the fact that they’re supposed to be mortal enemies, and he doesn’t look particularly convinced at Crawley’s insistence that he’s misread the situation either.

I don’t think I’d be breaking any ground in saying Crawley’s challenge to Aziraphale’s oath of allegiance to God, and the response to it, remind us that the angel has been teetering on the edge of being able to rationalise said allegiance for quite some time. It’s an interesting thought process to witness though - the staunch assertion of loyalty so quickly cast into doubt with Crawley’s reminder of the cruelty in the side Aziraphale is aligned with. It’s no wonder he looks so devastated when he considers the reality that his side could in fact be responsible for an act that he has been so painfully trying to stop Crawley from doing because it’s so inherently awful.

I find it interesting at this point to see Aziraphale effectively admitting defeat by returning to the food. He has no response to Crawley’s gleeful acknowledgement of the doubt he’s planted. Nothing. Not even an “I forgive you”. It got me to thinking whether we see Aziraphale accepting that he’s lost an argument anywhere else. And I don’t mean acceptance that they’ve reached an impasse or losing control of his emotions and saying something he’ll regret later, but actually realising that his point of view has fatal flaws that cannot be reconciled in the face of reason. In previous discussions of this nature, he’s usually been successful in justifying the terrible acts done in Heaven’s name with some sort of meaningless reasoning (God is going to make a rainbow afterwards for example, or the ever-faithful “ineffable plan” motif), but here, challenged with the notion that his side has seen fit to endorse the killing of innocents for no other reason than to win a bet, he’s lost for words. Uncomfortable as he might have been with casting Adam and Eve out of the garden, or the Great Flood, this particular cruelty looks to be something causing something of a revelation for him.

Quick note on Crawley’s challenge to Aziraphale’s apparent blasphemy.

CRAWLEY: Blasphemy, angel? That’s not like you.

It wasn’t 24 hours prior that Crawley was making it very clear to Aziraphale that they didn’t know each other at all. Yet this line is delivered with such familiarity, it’s impossible to think that the relationship between the pair is anything other than convivial. Leading on from that, I do find myself wondering how the rest of that night in the cellar panned out. What did they talk about? Did Aziraphale eat the rest of the ox? Did he perhaps try some alcohol? The use of the banner declaring that we’re now looking at “the next day” just feels like there’s a real emphasis on the amount of time that’s passed between these two scenes; the possibilities feel quite vast.

There’s that line: the one that started this whole flashback process off in the first place. And as previously noted, as far as we can see the only beings present for it were God, Job, Crawley and Aziraphale. It’s possible Gabriel was with God in Heaven whilst she spoke to Job I suppose, but I like the possibilities that open up if we consider that the line Jim utters that turns his eyes briefly purple is a line that he shouldn’t have any knowledge of even if he had his Gabriel memories.

I love the return of the whale motif in Job’s recanting to Sitis, even though we don’t actually hear God saying anything about them in her speech. I did some light research about the reasoning for the whale appearances and couldn’t find anything concrete, but there’s a fair amount of speculation that it might be in homage to Douglas Adams, whales featuring heavily in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books There is this though:

A quick note on pronouns here (something which I seem to finding more and more of note about as the show goes on). Sitis refers to God here using they/them pronouns. We heard Aziraphale using the she/her pronouns that we’ve become accustomed to hearing as recently as in the cellar, and the voice we hear in the previous scene remains feminine. I think the use of they/them might just be a scriptual loophole - I think both Job and Sitis would have been harbouring under the concept that God was a male figure, and that the knowledge that God is in fact feminine appears to be something that only agents of Heaven and Hell are privy to. Perhaps it’s just a quirk of the script - was it considered too confusing for Sitis to use he/him pronouns at this point? Settling instead for they/them as a compromise? That’s the only reason I can really come up with, because it feels slightly awkward to me.

There’s that devastated angel look again, and this time it comes with a little gulp as Aziraphale bears witness to the overwhelming grief that Heaven has inflicted so nonchalantly onto God’s most faithful servant. The juxtapositioning of his devastation against Gabriel’s cheery obliviousness, not to mention the music and the sounds of Job weeping in the background, makes it all the more painful for us to watch.

Whilst there’s no mistaking the relief on Aziraphale’s features (quickly followed by a look of guilt), I think it notable that none of the other angels from Heaven recognise Crawley, either as a demon or a former angel. Considering he has already been referred to (in the present day, which is in the future from where we are in this episode. Confusing much?) as part of a group of demons that were cast out, and that he is the one carrying out the orders from Satan that would see the bet with God settled, it seems likely that they might recognise him. I suspect this is simply one of those times when storyline convenience won out over the need to ensure that the script was plothole-free. I also think it worth noting that the moment Crawley enters the scene is the very moment he knows things are about to turn very ugly for Job and Sitis, choosing to step in and try to rescue to situation. He’s just a natural rescuer, isn’t he? Could this be the moment Aziraphale’s love of being rescued by him started to form? It certainly speaks to the demon’s true character if nothing else, which is that deep down, he really is quite a nice person…

Well, if we weren’t aware of Aziraphale’s frustrations with Heaven and its agents, he makes it painfully obvious when Michael decides to give an explanation of the origin of Crawley’s fake name. How he gets away with this eye roll in the presence of so many other beings, I have no idea: not even Crawley seems aware of it, concentrating on Michael’s irritatingly accurate debunking of his cover story as he is. There are two things about this scene at this point that I think are worth noting. For the first, let’s take a high-level overview of everything that’s going on here - a renegade demon and angel are trying to bluff their way out of trouble with some high-ranking angels having low-key thwarted the will of God. The soundtrack has some delicate pizzicato (that’s plucked, for those who aren’t musically minded) strings in the background, providing a comic feel to the scene, whilst in the background we can hear Job sobbing uncontrollably. The dialogue content feels perilous, but the delivery and subtext make it feel mischievous, seeing as Aziraphale is using his knowledge of the ignorance of the rest of the Heavenly host against them. All of those things brought together in one place makes the whole thing feel so… I think the word is uncomfortable. I think this is really clever - bringing tension into a scene using the juxtaposition of opposing elements means that we as an audience feel uncomfortable but can’t necessarily identify why.

The second of those two things I want to comment on here is that this scene is a good example of what happens when Aziraphale and Crawley have gotten their unspoken communication on point. They’re working together so effortlessly here - both taking cues from the other’s improvisations and instinctively knowing what the next play is supposed to be. They even manage to come up with some coded verbal communication for each other on the fly, and for it to be successful. If only they had been this switched on for the final 15, I suspect season two would have ended very differently.

See now, wouldya just look at that? Aziraphale knows exactly what to do with little more than a look and hand gesture from Crawley. Something else of note here is the appearance of the ���trust me” theme we see running through season two, this time with the prompt coming from Crawley. Granted, Sitis does look rather perplexed about what exactly is going on, but didn’t she figure out the “Bildad the Shuhite” was the one responsible for all of Job’s misery earlier on the episode? I find it a bit of a stretch to think that she would just go along with the façade, rather than identifying Crawley as the troublemaker to the others in the room at the time. I do love that the demon sounds so earnest in his plea to be trusted - he would know very well that he’s not supposed to be trustworthy (he even tells Aziraphale that’s the case twice in this episode), so his desperation for Sitis to go along with him should tell us (not that we needed telling) that this is his true character.

The contact between Aziraphale and Job looks to be the first (chronologically speaking) sleight of hand trick that the angel has done, just a couple of millennia before he repeatedly demonstrates that he’s actually very bad at it. Except when it really counts, as this instance (and one later on in the season) shows. And those bones that appear from Job’s robes are the proof that Aziraphale has well and truly given in to gluttony - they are PICKED CLEAN:

Quick note on the noise used for Aziraphale’s miracle as he turns the lizards back into children - it’s very close to the ones we’ve heard in this season from his already, the ones which are driven by need rather than intent, so I’m still not ruling that possibility out.

Alright last note about this section of the minisode, and then I’m calling it for this part. There’s something that goes unspoken, but is definitely implied, in Aziraphale’s choice to lie to Gabriel about the children. He actually gives his word “as an angel” that he’s telling the truth. I mean, does that not speak volumes about his mindset here? He verbally surrenders the very nature of his being in order to save a couple of children and maintain Crawley’s cover, the former of which supposedly goes directly against God’s wishes, despite the fact that he is so adamantly on her side. He’s earned Crawley’s respect though, so maybe it was all worth it in the end.

Alright, that’s the lot for this part. I think I should be able to get this episode wrapped up in the next one, which puts me one episode closer to being able to finish my WIP fic! For now though, and as always, questions, comments, discussion, always welcome. See you for the next one!

[sentientsky]

obsessed with the fact that every David/Michael interview looks like this

[geraiodli]

Azazel and Jophiel from @/asleepyy's au dining!! I hope nothing ever bad happens to them🫶🫶

Flat colours+line and bonus because I can

[wanyinchen]

uh oh you hurt his demon, whoospies

He may be a big softie but DO NOT push his buttons.

Hello everyone! I'm "new" to the fandom :D (LIES i have been lurking for the last two years before summoning the courage to draw for it, yes, i am like that, unfortunately)

[crowleysgirl56]

When you go to lunch at a fancy restaurant and are feeling a little peckish…

Honestly couldn’t help myself today.

EDIT: if anyone is wondering where this is, it’s called Room With Roses and you can find it in the Brisbane Arcade in the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane, Australia. The arcade itself is looking gorgeous with the Christmas decorations up at the moment. It celebrates its 100 year anniversary this year!

Website link for anyone interested: https://www.brisbanearcade.com.au

[ineffableaddiction]

Does anyone else want to see Aziraphale do a version of the orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally as he dines at the Ritz with Crowley?

No?