#crowley: just so you know I never considered our 'us' things 'you' things. I was just happy to being doing anything with you

[fakemichaelsheen]

-richmond, london, 1759-

crowley, intrigued: what are doing here, angel?

aziraphale, excited: you'll see. it's a surprise

crowley, groans: you know I hate surprises

aziraphale, grins: oh, you'll like this one *stops outside the newly opened kew gardens; gestures* ta-dah!

crowley: ...

crowley, confused: what am I looking at exactly?

aziraphale: it's a botanical garden. they house a wide variety of rare and exotic plants

crowley, still not understanding: ok...

aziraphale, sighs: we're always doing 'me' things, crowley. going to the theatre, dining at restaurants, walks in the park or visiting music halls. I mean, it's hardly fair

crowley, dismissive: they're not 'you' things. they're 'us' things

aziraphale, smiles: in that case, this particular 'you' thing can be a new 'us' thing

crowley, rubs his temple: yeah, fine. can we just go and look at plants now?

aziraphale, satisfied: yes, please *takes his arm* I'm looking forward to having you talk me through the collections

crowley, happy: hmm. okay *pauses* um, thanks, angel

aziraphale, pats his hand affectionately: you're welcome

[itsclydebitches]

Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.

It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.

The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.

Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...

[mind-empty-just-fictional-people]

Love Language

masterlist

summary: you’ve never said it, neither has he…is that weird?

paring: dean winchester x female reader

rating: R for language

word count: 0.6k

warnings: language, not being able to say “i love you”, talk of sex

author’s note: i always found it interesting dean never told lisa he loved her…like ever. which is strange to me, considering how long they were together?

gif source

Three whole years you’d been with Dean, and neither of you saw an end anywhere in sight. You had grown up a hunter and you’d hit it off with Dean almost instantly when you had met him about five years ago. What started off as a wholesome friendship became deeper and more passionate after a night of drinking.

He cared about you so fucking much, you cared about him too. You were deeply in love. But neither of you had ever actually said love.

It was beginning to really bother you. Why hadn’t he said it? Every other relationship you had up until now had imploded long before the three-year-mark because of your inability to say the three big words.

Did Dean not love you? Maybe that’s why he hadn’t said it yet. You knew you felt that way about him, that you L-worded him, but maybe he didn’t feel the same way.

“You okay?” Dean asked when he looked up from the lore book he was reading and was met with your blank stare.

“Yeah…just thinking.”

“About?”

“Do you think it’s weird we haven’t said you-know-what to each other yet?” you asked. He furrowed his brows before he realized what you meant.

“Oh…no? No, definitely not.”

“Dean,” you sighed, closing the book in front of you. “I care about you so much it’s fucking insane but-”

“Right back at ‘cha! Let’s just leave it at that,” he cut you off.

“But, isn’t it strange we can’t say you-know-what? I mean I’d fucking die for you and I can’t say the three words? That’s fuckin’ weird!”

“To be fair, you have died for me. Like twice now,” he replied, trying to lighten the mood. You smiled a little. “And maybe we haven’t said the words but we’ve done other things.”

“If you’re talking about sex right now I swear to god-”

“No!” he chuckled. “I’m talking about that time you jumped in front of a bullet for me. I’m talking about when you were dying in my arms and I made a deal with Crowley to save you. I’m talking about how you bring me chicken noodle soup when I’m sick and force me to stay in bed till I’m feeling better. I’m talking about how many times I’ve bought you tampons and pads and chocolates so you didn’t have to leave the bunker when you were on your period.

“I’m talking about letting you drive Baby, I’m talking about you letting me use your precious espresso machine. I’m talking about the way I look at you when you aren’t looking, and the way you laugh at my clearly un-funny jokes. I’m talking about holding you when you cry and bringing you breakfast in bed. I’m talking about you letting me sleep on your boobs because they’re more comfortable than our pillows even though I know you’re sore in the morning.”

You let out a laugh and slightly rolled your eyes, though you were swelling inside. Dean smiled as he continued.

“I’m talking about those three words that we don’t even have to say because we prove to eachother we feel it every fucking day.”

“God damn it Dean Winchester!” You shook your head, still smiling. You got off the chair, walked around the table, and sat down in his lap. You put your hands on his face and kissed him sweetly. “You mean everything to me, you know that?”

“I do,” he whispered as you rested your forehead on his. “Do you know how much you mean to me?” You nodded. “See, then I think that’s enough.”

“Me too,” you replied before you kissed him again.

[i-only-ever-asked-questions]

Map of Soho Good Omens Season 2 - Part 1 (Location and general map)

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Update: Map now identifies Lucky Snake and the coffee shop listed in Aziraphale's clipboard may indeed be Give Me Coffee I think we all have wondered how the GO Soho looks like and where it would be in real London. So using all the screenshots, BTS pictures and videos I could find I did my best to map out where things are. It is not to scale but everything I could see is there. I originally had all the pictures and explanations in this post but soon it became obvious it was going to be too long and impractical so I had to split it in different posts and I hope I got it right. The map has five reference points (circle with two diverging lines); imagine the circle is you, standing in the set, and the lines are your viewpoint if you were taking a picture from there. The left side of Whickber Street (#1 and #2) is in Part 2, the intersecting street (#3 and #4) is in Part 3 and the right half of Whickber Street (#5) is in Part 4.

As to where the bookshop would be in real London. We know that Whickber Street is supposed to be Berwick Street so let's start there. The intersecting street is not obvious from the show. In this post Neil said he imagines the bookshop to be where Gosh! Comics is (Peter Street) while Michael Ralph and Douglas McKinnon probably put it at The Week (on Broadwick Street). Because it is ambiguous and really you can do whatever you want, I just left it as "intersecting street". We know from the book that Crowley takes Wardour Street after the bookshop fire. Wardour is behind Berwick so in our map it would be where the Chinese Buffet Restaurant is, considering they run more or less parallel. On the other side, we have the Windmill Theatre located on Great Windmill Street. From Berwick St. and Peter St. it takes three minutes to walk to the theatre, it is that close! (yes, I know, Crowley was conducting business two blocks from the bookshop while not talking to Aziraphale for 80 years). I have never been in that part of London so I used Google Maps streetview and based only on that, I like the corner of Berwick St. and Broadwick St. better. It has the crooked intersection but the proximity of the theatre matches Peter St. better, so whatever works better for you!

There is one place missing from the set map though: Brown's World of Carpets! It is nowhere to be found, we simply don't know where it is My very personal headcanon is that it is nothing but a desk inside the furniture store. I find that idea of the guy most worried about storefront looks being the one without a storefront very amusing, but don't mind me, it is just my very silly hc XD Now, we know Aziraphale has a list for the shops he needs to visit. And we know he wrote it in alphabetical order which begs the question: Where is the Dirty Donkey?! Are they not invited? And what about the fabric shop? And Bilton Scaggs? Battye and Palm? The News Agency? Is "Mo Coffee? No Coffee?" supposed to be Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death? Or is there another coffee shop somewhere? @crow-bee23 suggested it could be "Me Coffee" which it is entirely possible, the full name is kind of long. So many questions to ask Mr. Brown.

Anyway, I put pictures and details on the shops in parts 2, 3 and 4. Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

[heyimdove]

More on why Persuasion is the real Jane Austen parallel to Aziracrow, and why Pride and Prejudice is not, because I can’t stop dwelling.

There’s a lot here so I’ll try to structure this in a way that makes sense. Wish me luck.

I’ve seen so many people equate Aziraphale to Lizzie and Crowley to Darcy, but these comparisons don’t make sense. Character-wise, they are far more like Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth, respectively.

We’ll start with Elizabeth Bennet, who I love with all my heart and is one of those characters I feel like I know (I’m delusional, it’s fine). Elizabeth is wonderfully intelligent, but she isn’t “accomplished” and isn’t a perfect specimen of Regency womanhood. Instead she’s sharp and headstrong. She wants to live how she wants and with someone she loves for a partner. She rejects a match that is, on paper, perfect and would solve all her family’s problems, because she won’t settle for unhappiness. You know who that doesn’t sound like?

Aziraphale, were he a Regency Era woman, would be considered very accomplished for the time; well-read, polite, even a music tutor. But he’s more unlike Elizabeth because he desires to “do what’s best for the family”. In other words, if Elizabeth Bennet was more like Aziraphale, she’d be married to Mr. Collins. She would’ve considered it her duty to marry him because it would protect her loved ones (see Aziraphale accepting the Metatron). For Aziraphale, his duty to protect trumps his personal desire.

So does that make Crowley our Lizzie? No, that doesn’t fit either, and not only because Aziraphale makes a terrible Darcy. Sure, Aziraphale’s status as an angel might be considered comparable to Darcy’s elevated status as a rich person, but Crowley has never hated Aziraphale, never even considered it, and wouldn’t hate him even after the rejection. Lizzie’s hatred is what spurs Darcy to grow. Darcy needed to be completely despised by her to decide to put in the work to be worthy of her.

Okay, so then is Crowley Darcy? Perhaps we could shoehorn that in somewhere because Darcy doesn’t seem good but actually is, or is considered grouchy, but it’s such a loose connection, it barely works-

-Especially when you consider how much better the two fit as the protagonists of Persuasion.

(And yes, shut up, I liked the Dakota Johnson one and I will be using the gifs.)

Where Pride and Prejudice is about two different people gradually seeing the value in the other, Persuasion is the story of two different people seeing the value in the other right from the start, but who then repeatedly make mistakes that keep them separate and in agony.

Aziraphale is *so* much like Anne. First, Anne is the only reasonable (read: likable) member of her high-born family, who believe people in other societal castes to not only be inferior, but disgusting.

Anne sees this is not true, and falls madly in love with the low-born Wentworth- only to be persuaded by outside input not to marry him. Station and familial duty play a part in this decision, and she regrets it for years. She is completely unable to move on.

Like Aziraphale, Anne is certainly more accomplished, for one thing, and she plays by the rules of women of her time and status. BUT her sense of mortality breaks often from that of her family. When she tries to impart her good morals upon them, they are dismissive and insulting, reacting as if Anne is the one who “doesn’t get it”.

She spends eight years with a family she barely belongs to, wondering why she ever thought the company of people like this was worth the loss of Wentworth.

For all of Anne’s kindness, she is a pushover. She’s rarely confident in herself. When she needs to speak up, or just have a direct conversation with Wentworth, she doesn’t. She can’t. She repeatedly makes Wentworth come to her.

Wentworth, meanwhile, is a far better match for Crowley than Darcy is. Wentworth will never be an aristocrat like the Elliots, but he carves out a life he considers valuable using new rules. Sound familiar?

Are Wentworth’s and Crowley’s morals obviously a bit different? Yes, of course. Crowley is a DEMON, after all. But Crowley conducts himself in such a way that he’s literally cast out of Heaven and removed from Hell- in other words, he’s twice been given “the rules” for how to act and has twice decided, nah, that’s not for me. Wentworth was given the rules for what he could have as a low-born man and became a wealthy, high-ranking naval officer. And Wentworth didn’t do that for love, either. He found the consideration of one’s wealth in determining whether they should be loved abhorrent. Wentworth did it for himself initially (bitterly too, maybe), just like Crowley saves the goats and the kids for himself.

And, of course, Crowley’s confession parallels Wentworth’s position in relation to Anne far more than Darcy’s position to Lizzie. Crowley says “if they (two apparent opposites) can do it, so can we,” because he knows he and Aziraphale love each other. At the start of Persuasion, Wentworth asks Anne to be his wife despite their differing societal rank because he knows they love each other. At the end of Persuasion, he asks again because he knows they have both been in agony, that they both love each other as much as they ever did.

Darcy, meanwhile, does not know if Lizzie loves him, but arrogantly believes she will accept on the basis that what he can offer her monetarily is better than what anyone else can, not knowing what she actually values. She demolishes him.

On that note, that’s really the only parallel between Aziracrow and Darcy/Lizzie, only Aziraphale is Darcy. Aziraphale believed Crowley would accept his offer because he believed Crowley would want to be an angel again. Crowley believed Aziraphale would accept his offer because he knew they loved each other.

These are all very different characters, but ultimately, I think we were gunning for Pride and Prejudice and wound up with Persuasion; the slowest, most agonizing burn with the most beautiful reunion. So we didn’t get “you have bewitched me, body and soul,” in S2. We got the events leading up to Persuasion, and will have S3 to watch them play out. Neil knows that Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship is the most compelling part of the story, so I doubt they’ll be separated for long. But everything is so messy, isn’t it? So it makes sense to keep them, like Anne and Wentworth, in close proximity, in mutual, bitter, unspoken pining, but still not together. It will be absolutely delicious to watch. Isn’t that what we loved the most from S1?

Because we know they love each other. And whatever catalyzing event forces them to say it out loud will be all the better if every moment they don’t say it hurts. I don’t want a “you have bewitched me” moment, I want “I’m half agony, half hope.”

[vidavalor]

Hello lovely! I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about Maggie in Final1 5? Isn't it weird that she wants to go back to talk to Az and Crowley while Nina's working? Something about it feels off to me.

Hello right back. 💕 There's chamomile mint tea and shortbread since we're on a Maggie theme, if you'd like some. Maggie's behavior from that scene on is super fucking weird, I agree.

Before the milk run-- when Maggie becomes the only involved character whom we lose track of a bit during The Final 15-- versus how she behaves when she returns is so strange as to be something that I consider maybe additional proof that things are not at all what they seem to be in The Final 15.

On Maggie and Crowley's weird Final 15 behavior, a possible meaning to all the allusions to robbery in S2, and what Maggie and Nina might be able to tell us about what happened at the end of S2.

TW: brief mentions of show's non-consensual possession/rape analogy.

Think for a moment about how truly weird Maggie's request for her and Nina to go back to the bookshop in that moment actually is...

It's only been a matter of minutes since Maggie and Nina were basically hostages in the bookshop who were almost killed by Michael and Saraqael. Crowley saved their lives in getting them out of the shop maybe, what? It's been a minute since I rewatched that bit of it but it couldn't have been more than 15 minutes prior?

The beings in the shop but for Maggie and Nina are supernatural and so left magically without using the door but while we the audience know that these people are no longer in the shop because we were watching it, Maggie and Nina do not know that. When Maggie suggests to Nina that they go talk to Crowley and Aziraphale, they have no way of knowing if the beings that just tried to kill them are still in the shop. They didn't even see Aziraphale leave with Whoever Derek Jacobi Is Playing yet because Nina was all "where's the other one?" to Crowley when they arrived back in the shop.

Maggie is literally like: Nina, I know you opened the business you own late and are the only one working right now and have a line of 20 people waiting for their morning, pre-work coffee but what if-- just hear me out-- we just made them wait an indefinite amount of time to voluntarily go back into the place where we nearly died a matter of minutes ago that could still be full of the people who wanted us dead and we did this for no other purpose than just to tell off my beloved adopted godfather and his partner, who just risked harm to save both our lives? And to maybe then also stick our noses into their love lives in return or something?

I mean... WHAT?!?! lol

Consider, even, how even more weird that is when Maggie, just *prior* to having gone to the mini-mart, had never been more on the same page with Nina and never more understanding?

She sacrificed her own want to go sleep behind the counter of her shop to offer to help Nina. It's a big moment of change in their relationship and shows a lot of growth for Maggie. She's gone from someone who is caring but has a tendency to only think about how things make her feel to seeing things from Nina's perspective. She's matured through the season into being someone more ready to be a partner to Nina. Maggie offering to help Nina with her morning rush-- and Nina accepting the help-- is the sweet, romantic moment showing that these two are heading in a positive direction, both individually and together.

When Maggie gets back with the milk, though? After she's been out of our sight for a few minutes? She's behaving very differently.

During S2, Maggie is shown to be a pretty guileless character. She might have the occasional judgemental moment but she's not deceptive or tricky and she really wouldn't hurt a fly. When Maggie comes back from the milk run, though, her insistence on Nina dropping everything and going with her in that moment is not just weird behavior but manipulative in a way that could not be more out of character for Maggie.

Nina has been in an abusive relationship where she was afraid of displeasing Lindsay. Maggie is aware of this, as it's been the subject of multiple conversations between them throughout the season. So, when Maggie gets so bizarrely insistent on Nina dropping her work-- her livelihood, her purpose, her job-- to meet Maggie's demands in that moment? When this isn't an emergency of any kind and isn't at all time-sensitive and there is no objective reason why Nina should be halting her job to do what Maggie wants in this moment? Maggie is being controlling in a Lindsay-like way. She keeps at it, knowing that Nina will give in and agree to go with her because Nina is used to doing that with her partner.

Nina hesitates and isn't sure whether or not to go with Maggie for a moment and I don't really blame her? This is the complete opposite behavior to Maggie before she left for the mini-mart. Maggie is suddenly acting quite a lot like her polar opposite-- the Lucifer-and-Heaven-paralleling Lindsay.

Maggie is also literally on Nina's shoulder like a devil the whole time in the scene in which she's convincing her to step away from the shop and go across the street with her to the other shop for a chat and...

...listen to what we just said there...

...it's a parallel to the thing that Whoever Derek Jacobi Is Playing is doing with Aziraphale, is it not?

So, what happened on the milk run?

Who did Maggie run into at the mini-mart that we couldn't see in the ending of S2 without it giving the game away? I wouldn't be surprised if, on this mirror-happy show, on the other side of learning in S3 that it was The Devil with the coffee in the bookshop in The Final 15, we also had a scene that showed that, while on her milk run, Maggie had a run-in with Sister Teresa's killer.

Did Hastur possess Maggie as part of Satan's plan? Was the idea to use Maggie and Nina to further trip Crowley and Aziraphale towards disaster to get Aziraphale? If so, it kind of half-worked. I'm not convinced that anything Maggie and Nina said to Crowley really mattered-- I think they weren't telling him anything he didn't already know or feel and that it's largely misdirection for the audience. What was effective, though, was the impression Aziraphale got upon seeing them leave as he was coming in.

Maggie and Nina being back in there at this weird time and then rushing out with smiles and comments like that they were "just leaving" and they were sure Crowley and Aziraphale had "a lot to discuss" seem to have led Aziraphale to assume that Crowley had asked them to come back and to the conclusion that he must have done so to tell them of his intent to ask Aziraphale to marry him. It's Maggie and Nina leaving the shop that reinforce to Aziraphale the idea that, when Crowley stands up afterwards, takes off his glasses, and says he supposes he has "something to say", that Crowley is only trying to communicate a proposal and not a plan.

It's what helps-- big time-- to lead Aziraphale to not listen for a shred of coded language for the entire scene. Neither he nor Crowley are listening for that with one another, which is why neither of them can truly understand what the other is saying, but Aziraphale's part of that is really fucked to Hell by the presence of Maggie and Nina in the shop when he came back. That's all pretty suspicious since Maggie was out of our sight for a few moments and came back fixated on the idea that she and Nina needed to go to the bookshop right that very moment and that it couldn't wait.

The Final 15 is a dark parallel to The Baby Swap plot and Maggie and Nina are full of shadows of Sisters Mary and Teresa to a point that the final shots of both of them in the series are mirror images of the final shots of their S1 characters. Nina looking through glass at Crowley departing is the last shot of Sister Mary both in 2008 and 2019, while Maggie's last shot?

To me, it's one of the most eerie moments in the entire series because of how much it visually resembles Sister Teresa's death.

Basically two minutes after we hear about The Second Coming... in the same season where Maggie and Nina's partial-vavoom gives way to a (possessed?) Gabriel saying: the dead will leave their graves and walk the Earth once more... we are shown Crowley and Aziraphale's apparent adopted goddaughter unresponsive on the counter of her shop.

Is Maggie dead?

Is Maggie asleep, like we were led to believe she wanted to do earlier in the episode? Maybe. Is she comatose/unconscious? Maybe. It's just that, best I can tell, she does not take a breath during the shot which I feel had to be intentional on the part of Maggie Service, and she's in the same position as we last saw Sister Teresa in S1...

Then, there's the robbery theme and how Maggie and Nina foreshadow so much of the end of S2 back in this scene here:

In Good Omens, the shop is the character. Maggie is, symbolically, the records she sells. The show also explains that Maggie's shop used to be a part of the bookshop. Now, there are three characters, not two, who are A.Z. Fell & Co.: Aziraphale, Crowley and Maggie. At the same time, Aziraphale is also The Small Back Room. The shops are intertwined as the characters are, essentially, family in the story. The fate of one is the fate of the other, which makes what Maggie and Nina foreshadow when talking about Maggie's shop while trapped together in Nina's not just the fate of Maggie's shop in S2 but also of the bookshop.

Maggie says that if she can't close the door to her shop, someone could walk in and take records. Maggie is the records she sells so, symbolically, this means someone could take Maggie. We got a bit of a preview of that when Shax appeared to get into her mind during the attack on the bookshop and Maggie also became the one who unintentionally "let the robbers in."

These robbers, Maggie frets... they could empty her till-- take all her money on a literal level... take her mind, or maybe even her life, on another. (Not to mention the now chill-inducing use of money-related words and coins with regards to the paralleling Crowley...) These robbers could take forcible ownership of Maggie's shop-- so, of Maggie. Maggie's shop was born of the bookshop... so, they could take forcible ownership of the bookshop, too.

Not just the physical bookshop, though that, too. The symbolic bookshop. Which is not only Aziraphale but Crowley and Aziraphale.

But, if The Small Back Room was originally part of the bookshop, then the bookshop really isn't just Crowley and Aziraphale-- it's Crowley, Aziraphale and Maggie.

If the robbers come for the bookshop, they've also come for The Small Back Room because it is all born of the same, symbolic shop.

Is that what they did?

Is that why Maggie is last shown to us non-responsive in her shop?

Now, Nina's even more foreshadowing reply:

Nina said that, if she owned a record shop, she'd be more concerned about "someone breaking in and leaving more records behind."

What are records? They're the literal records in the musical and old film sense that Maggie sells, yes, and also Maggie herself. They're also books, like what Aziraphale sells, and Aziraphale himself. But they're also a third thing that's very much of note in S2.

They're also the life's work of a scrivener, like what Muriel does.

Nina foreshadows someone breaking in and leaving "more records behind"... which is exactly what happens in The Final 15.

Elspeth's graverobbing. Bildad stealing Job and Sitis' wine and food. The 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. Aziraphale having the missing Shakespeare Robin Hood play in the box in 2.06. The robbery-based fantasy Aziraphale was telling Crowley in Lockdown: ...the other night, when a couple of young lads broke into the back and tried to steal the cash(cache)box!

The Final 15 is a robbery.

The last two episodes see the shop attacked during The Meeting Ball and into the next morning. Aziraphale is robbed blind of his entire life. Characters are taken hostage. Signals for help are tried and fail. The cop, it turns out, was a stooge for the robbers. Whoever Derek Jacobi Is Playing broke in through the open door and robbed the place blind, as Maggie foreshadowed. As Nina foreshadowed he would, what did the robber leave behind?

More records. Muriel.

To rob, as we know, is to steal. It's to plunder or strip a place from someone through force and/or violence. That is why it was once, in addition to being descriptive of physical goods stolen from a person, also a word that was used for rape, for which non-consensual possession has been analogous since the show's first episode. That is why some of us think that the music goes insane on the look to Crowley in the scene below. Satan is robbing Crowley-- forcing him to identify him as The Metatron to Aziraphale and the angels and to let Aziraphale go alone with him.

Satan attacked Crowley in front of Aziraphale and, while Aziraphale pretended he didn't see it, he did, which is why he led "The Metatron" straight out the door in an effort to get him away from Crowley. Because, speaking of characters behaving very weirdly... anyone have a better explanation for why guard dog Crowley sat in that chair like he couldn't get out of it and encouraged Aziraphale to go alone with a guy who once tried to kill them? It just doesn't make any sense unless his words are not really his own and there's only one character we've seen do that to him.

And if Crowley's not the only one behaving out of character, then what else happened to Maggie at the mini-mart but something similar?

What happened in The Final 15? Satan robbed the bookshop.

He and The Metatron don't give a toss about the shop itself and plan to destroy it alongside everything else once Armageddon gets rocking. They're there to get Crowley and Aziraphale out of the way for Armageddon by dividing and conquering. Just because we've yet to see blood doesn't mean this wasn't robbery by force.

Satan took hostages at the start-- letting the ones go he didn't care about go and keeping the ones most likely to influence the shop's owner: Crowley and Muriel.

Satan and The Metatron sacrificed Muriel to their plan, not caring if Muriel explodes along with the shop when they kick off Armageddon a matter of *checks watch* basically any minute now after S2. We think Muriel is better off in the shop at the end of S2 but I'm not totally sure they are. I think it actually might be one of the most dangerous places to be in right now. The bookshop didn't burn down this time-- it was burned as safe space in every possible way. It's a crime scene.

The Metatron and Satan are here for revenge. The Metatron is letting Satan have Aziraphale to get Crowley and Aziraphale out of the way for Armageddon. There is no real job offer-- it's all Satan tempting Aziraphale into falling. Satan's revenge on Crowley and Aziraphale is to force Crowley to help him take Aziraphale right out from under his nose. That's the start of it, anyway.

Besides Armageddon and daring to have a relationship and a sense of self outside of the demonic collective of Hell what is Satan really pissed at Crowley and Aziraphale about?

His kid. Adam. Crowley and Aziraphale helping Adam against him.

If Satan has been lying in wait, still very, very angry at Crowley and Aziraphale for turning his son against him and if he's now here for revenge, then who else besides Aziraphale is then most in peril here?

Yes, my Job-and-Sitis-paralleling poppet... your big, cross duck and your kids are most imperiled here and S2 showed us that your kids are not just humanity writ large but, specifically, Maggie. The Small Back Room is of the bookshop that is you and Crowley. Maggie is your Adam. Will Satan come after your daughter? It's a concept posed in your paralleling/foreshadowing story earlier in the season... actually, it was also the entire plot of that paralleling story earlier in the season as well...

I feel like not going with Ennon and Keziah's theories on Satan's behavior is probably the best way to form a Good Omens theory 😂 so I'll stick with the idea that Satan very much would dare leave a revenge body count of Crowley and Aziraphale's adopted kids, as the Job minisode proved he'd do even with the spawn of "God's favorite human", let alone anybody else.

As, speaking of foreshadowing lines, this is really even more S2 than it was about S1:

Satan will even have a whole pseudo-philosophical chat about it with you first, amused that he's standing in a place called Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death and ordering a coffee while the plan is likely for this place, the women making him the coffee, and everyone on this street and on most of the planet to be dead by tomorrow.

Maggie is the only character who actually asked for coffee using that exact word in S2.

[catsteinbooks]

The Thin Dark Duke of Hell

Haven't actually written a meta before, but I've been mulling this around in my head, so here's my take on why I think Crowley is likely to be a Duke of Hell in season 3.

Reason 1: it makes narrative sense

From a story-telling perspective, it's the logical starting place for season 3. Especially if we consider how the original idea was developed as a sequel to the book.

There's no body-swap in the book. Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley has heard from "their sides" at the end, so technically they're still connected to Heaven and Hell. They haven't been punished or kicked out. They even speculate that maybe everyone will just pretend it didn't happen.

And now we're approaching the Second Coming. The Big One. "All of us against all of them." Where are our heroes? Well, time has passed, things have happened. It's reasonable to think that maybe they've both been promoted. (Crowley, in particular, is often getting promotions, usually for things he didn't do.) And story-wise, they're set up as opposite numbers, so it makes sense that their positions as the sequel story begins will be of similar status.

Applying this concept to the screen version, we know Aziraphale has been offered the Supreme Archangel position. Therefore, if Crowley is to be his counterpart, he has to have a high rank in Hell. And there's a Duke of Hell opening to be filled. (Sorry, Shax, I think Crowley's going to snatch it out from under you.)

Reason 2: it fits Crowley's character

"What?!" you shout. "Crowley hates Hell! He turned them down! He doesn't want to go back!"

Correct. He doesn't. But he will if he thinks he needs to. Because he and Aziraphale have a huge, defining commonality: they love Earth and Humanity and don't want it to be destroyed.

Yeah, Crowley will probably wallow for a while. He deserves some time to get insanely drunk and cry. Sort of like he did when he thought Aziraphale was dead in season 1. But the thing is, Crowley always comes back. He's always ready to run. He always threatens to run. He hops in his car and drives somewhere. But he never actually leaves. Because there's no point in going away somewhere without Aziraphale. And that hasn't changed. If Crowley ran away now, he'd still be miserable, but without any music or whisky or his Bentley. It would be... pointless.

So what's a heartbroken, grieving, furious demon to do? Vent his pain in the best possible way: thwarting everyone and everything who hurt him and took away the angel he adores. He knows what Heaven is planning, because he saw it in Gabriel's file. He doesn't want Earth destroyed, he doesn't want Heaven or Hell to win. And he has an opportunity to sabotage the whole thing from the inside.

Which leads us to...

Reason 3: Crowley has a way into Hell already

There is a great meta here about Crowley's conversation with Beelzebub in Hell and its potential season 3 impact. The TL;DR version is: Crowley DID technically find Gabriel, and Beelzebub promised him anything he wanted (including being a Duke of Hell) in return.

Is it a somewhat dubious contract? Sure. Would that stop Crowley? *snort laugh* The demon who makes up legal clauses on the spot to save humans is well-equipped to argue his way into Hell's highest position in order to save the entire world. It's probably much easier than driving a flaming Bentley all the way to Tadfield.

So where does this leave us?

Aziraphale is up in Heaven, ready to burn it to the ground. You saw him when the Metatron mentioned the Second Coming. That was not a happy angel ready to do what he's told. And, frankly, Aziraphale is not actually capable of doing what he's told IMO. No matter how much he tries to follow the good/evil dynamic, he ultimately ends up choosing what is Right over what is Good.

Crowley in Hell would be doing the same kind of thing, albeit in a more subtle, sneaky way. After all, he spent 6000 years thwarting Hell all over the place and getting away with it the vast majority of the time. He knows how to mess with them. (And can you just imagine what would happen when demons like Eric asked him questions and he answered them?! He could gather his own little army with one Suggestion Box.)

So when shit hits the fan, as it inevitably will, we'll be left with both our ineffable heroes (gn) poised to do the exact same thing: destroy the machine from the inside.

Even if some of the other fan speculations prove true (memory wipes, for instance), I think it still makes narrative sense to have them both in equal-but-opposite positions. Because no matter how much the enemies are trying to mess with them, if you take a certain angel with an opportunity to fuck up Heaven and a certain demon with an opportunity to fuck up Hell and you bring them together (which, let's be honest, has to happen no matter what the storyline is), it's going to be pretty darn epic.

[im-this-kind-of-girl]

Aziraphale and Crowley's unhinged character analyzis (pt2. Crowley)

Controversial opinion:

Aziraphale and Crowley at the end of Season2 managed to accomplish the main goal they each had since the beginning of time. Only to realize that what they wanted no longer made them happy.

Disclaimer: I have no idea about what is going to happen in Good Omens. This analysis could clearly be considered a theory since I'm not Neil Gaiman, but as someone who knows about narrative and character structure, I'm going to elaborate. Also, English is not my first language, so sorry in advance.

I've already talked about Aziraphale's possible transformation arc in the Good Omens story. In here I've also written important definitions such as what's a transformation arc. I highly recommend it to read it first.

Now it's time to talk about Crowley.

Crowley, the co-protagonist and love interest.

In our role as audience, Crowley is the character with whom one tends to empathize the quickest. By the end of the second season, most would be tempted to think Crowley was right. However, this is a lie. Not only is Crowley not right, but he rejected Aziraphale just the same, choosing his principles over love.

Now, why in the first instance do we not see it that way? Well, because we have Aziraphale's point of view. We always get the angel's reaction first, we always see the way Crowley shows up again and again and again to rescue him unconditionally.

Very rarely do we have a moment where Crowley is alone in crisis because his beliefs are challenged. No, everything he does is in function of Aziraphale and we see the story from his perspective, that is, from the perspective of someone who is in love with Crowley. Because of this, Crowley is equally liked and attractive to everyone equally: we are inside Aziraphale's in love POV.

By the time Crowley proposes Aziraphale to run away together, we as the audience are seeing a proposal that is incredibly tempting to us: we want Aziraphale to accept it because it's what Aziraphale really wants. That's why the fight hurts so much, because we know internally that the two of them had the chance to be together but didn't because they're not ready yet.

Crowley's Objective

Crowley, unlike Aziraphale, was happy in Season 2 with his current situation. Having cut ties with both Heaven and Hell pleased him, because Crowley always sought only one goal throughout his entire life: freedom.

The one thing Crowley has always desired is to be himself with no excuses and no strings attached.

Since before the beginning of time, Crowley came to the conclusion that he didn't fit in Heaven. He thought he would fit in Hell, but soon realized that it was like a deteriorated version of Heaven, so he didn't fit in there either. On Earth he doesn't quite fit in either. Sure, he likes humans, has a certain admiration and curiosity for them, but he still considers them a species far different from his own. He is not human and never will be, so he can't really identify with them at all. He enjoys the advantages of humanity, but he is not one of them.

The Job episode is an indicator of this, he himself says so "I am a demon who goes along with Hell as far as I can".

In this same episode, however, the major problem he has with this is also expressed. Azira tells him "that sounds lonely". The counterpart of freedom is loneliness. To be truly free, you need to have nothing and nothing to bind you. That's why Crowley is someone who is unsympathetic and even disinterested in dealing with third parties. He does not remember faces or names, he does not get significantly close to anyone because that would compromise his desire for genuine independence.

This characteristic is the only one that is present in absolutely all versions of Crowley: the book, radio drama and even in the cursed script of the movie that never was. That's why whenever he sees danger, his first reaction is to run away.

Being free he has nothing to lose… or does he?

Crowley's dilemma

Well, Crowley never fit in by being different and so he always felt somewhat an outcast. However, it wasn't long before he noticed that Aziraphale was also different.

Clearly the angel was not like the other angels in Heaven: he enjoyed Earth, he fell into temptations, he lied to other angels. Also, it is obvious that he would not fit in Hell, and while he is more empathetic to humans, he is still innocently aloof. Aziraphale has a pure goodness that Crowley admires, the goodness that made him be kind to the demon in the first place.

Moreover, no matter the time, no matter how little they knew each other, Aziraphale could always see through Crowley's evil masquerade. The demon could burn goats and murder people, and yet Aziraphale has always held a blind faith towards him. Crowley, the Serpent of Eden, who had been his entire existence told that he's doomed to be a crawling tempter, finds in the angel an unexpected possible friend who's never been afraid or bothered by him.

Crowley eventually feels they are both the same: two supernatural entities left on Earth who learned to enjoy life on their own terms. Crowley sees in Aziraphale the companionship he never thought he'd find, the friend he thought at the moment he fell he'd never have. And that feeling of companionship and admiration slowly morphed into something more until it became love.

The season finale isn't the first time Crowley has considered leaving Earth. Probably not even his fight in Season 1 was the first time he considered it. Yet he never did. He never could because, without Aziraphale, running away would doom him to a life of solitude. Free, sure, but completely alone since no one except his angelic friend could understand him.

However, I think Crowley is not aware of what he feels. Or at least, he hasn't been for a long time. I'm sure his moment of introspection about his feelings was when Nina confronted him about it. Up to this point, Crowley considered Aziraphale his best and only friend, obviously. Crowley is loyal to a fault and always thought his relationship with Aziraphale was perfect just the way it was, but suddenly someone put it into words and he realized that yes, that's what he really wants with Aziraphale.

Crowley's decision

Crowley wants his freedom. That's why he never asked Aziraphale for explanations (because at the end of the day they were just friends), that's why he never told him that he was living in his car (because he would end up depending on him), that's why he never talked about his fall (because that would be opening up too much).

The most ironic thing about the whole ending, is that just like Crowley did with Aziraphale… Aziraphale proposed to Crowley the one thing he wants more than anything: to be together, for good, but sacrificing his freedom.

Crowley is capable of doing anything for his angel, even without acknowledging that what they had was love. He's capable of driving on fire, capable of killing Gabriel, capable of walking inside a church. Of everything except one thing.

It's the one step Crowley didn't dare take. He is not a martyr like the angel, no, he is not willing to sacrifice himself to be together. So, the obvious happened: Crowley chose his freedom over Aziraphale just as Aziraphale chose Heaven over Crowley.

The end of his arc and Aziraphale.

As I said before, I don't think Crowley will have a significant change comparable to Aziraphale's. His personality and beliefs will not be changed in a momentous way, as Crowley no longer has ties to Heaven or Hell by pulling the tab on both sides.

His side is already picked: Humanity.

His biggest change is likely to be one of purpose. Crowley is no longer going to be satisfied with his freedom. And the latter is a fact: Crowley is officially free. Without Aziraphale in the equation, he no longer has anything or anyone tying him to do anything or be any other than who he truly is. Crowley can go to Alpha Centauri and never come back; he can sleep for 3,000 years; he can go around the world in the Bentley. He can do whatever he wants. This might seem ideal to the Crowley of 300 years ago, but today's Crowley is completely consumed by loneliness.

Crowley never cared about building a home or having material things because he never wanted to be tied to anything earthly for the sake of doubt. He was always aware of the destruction of the Earth.

Love is not something that can be prevented though, and in the absence of having a home, he found it in Aziraphale.

Aziraphale: trustworthy, sweet, warm, funny, a bit of bastard but always irrevocably good. Everything Crowley lost when he fell he almost automatically found back.

To this day I wonder what Crowley is going to do now that his angel is gone and the possibility of him fleeing to the stars is becoming more and more possible. It's going to depend a lot on how much time passes between seasons, but I don't think it will be much. For not only he was his anchor, no, without Aziraphale, he doesn't have someone to cause him to want to do better, he doesn't have someone to be vulnerable with, he doesn't have a goal anymore, nobody else to impress.

He isn't evil. He isn't good. And now, he is alone.

First Crowley lost the love of God and now the love of Aziraphale. And it is then that Crowley will realize that what he really wants is not to be free, but to be loved. And this desire can only be fulfilled by the love of his life, Aziraphale.

The thing is... Crowley has always wondered why.

Why falling? Why becoming the cursed Serpent? Why could he never be truly free?

At the end of his arc, he must come to the conclusion that the answer was always in front of him:

Love is the only answer he needs.

[paperclipninja]

An angel, the Metatron and a choice he never had

I know it's been analysed and poured over by many before me, but I am incapable of sitting in the many thoughts and feelings without throwing them out into the ether. And with the entire Aziraphale leaving situation, the thoughts and feelings have been swirling around and recently, upon my completely-normal-teenth re-watch of the final 15 minutes, I feel very certain of one thing: Aziraphale had no choice.

From the moment the Metatron walks into the bookshop and Crowley recognises him (I'll put a pin in that whole thing for another time), Aziraphale is reduced to something between terrified and starstruck, unsure what this unexpected visit signifies. And from the get-go, the Metatron establishes the illusion of choice.

We know that thanks to Crowley, freewill and choice are a part of being human, require the influence of heaven and hell to create the shades of grey and that Aziraphale has grown accustomed to being able to make his own choices, even if they do still subscribe to a set of rules he feels bound by. The Metatron also knows this.

The Metatron knows that the influence of being on Earth and with Crowley has corrupted the subservience expected of an angel, however he also knows that Aziraphale has only ever wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing, be considered a loyal and righteous angel of God.

When offering Aziraphale the coffee, he asks, 'are you going to take it?'', as though Aziraphale has a choice in the matter, yet the Metatron's tone here is rhetorical and it is clear that 'no' is not an option. Aziraphale also defaults to seeking permission and direction, 'shall I...?', and so the Metatron's charade to get this angel back in line begins.

The conversation that we see opens with the Metatron asking Aziraphale who should take over from Gabriel, with our favourite angel extremely surprised to learn that he is the no. 1 pick. 'You're a leader, you're honest, you don't just tell people what they want to hear...', the Metatron fills Aziraphale with praise in order to entice him to the role, talks about all the projects, 'and I will need you to run them'. Now here's the thing, usually one would expect (and the Metatron would DEFINITELY expect) this would've been enough. If the Metatron, whose power likely includes casting angels out of Heaven and God knows what else (literally), says I need you, that's it.

But Aziraphale is used to choice and up to that point, the Metatron is engaging with Aziraphale as though this is a discussion, until the angel declares, 'I don't want to go back to Heaven'. And that is when the Metatron shows his hand, the illusion of choice the Metatron has carefully crafted is ended the moment he says, 'I've been looking back over a number of your previous exploits...'

It is then that Aziraphale begins to realise that this is not a conversation, his discomfort growing as the Metatron continues with, '...and I see in quite a few of them you've formed a de-facto partnership with the demon Crowley...', at which point we see panic flash across Aziraphale's face as he understands it's all a ruse. The Metatron made a point of telling Aziraphale he's honest before calmly letting him know that he's looked back over his previous exploits carried out alongside Crowley. Friends, that right there is blackmail. Aziraphale panics in that moment because he realises that the Metatron is basically saying, 'I know all the things you've done and as long as you come back and do my dirty work, you will remain an angel'. The coffee, the 'offer'. It's not an offer, it's a command. He has enough to cast Aziraphale out of Heaven or burn him in a hell-fire tornado, but most importantly, he has enough to force Aziraphale to do as he says and for him to stay in line (spoiler alert: he won't).

So the Metatron tells Aziraphale that he can reappoint Crowley because he knows that Crowley would never go for it, it's a false offer. And whether it's because our beloved Aziraphale is eternally optimistic and thinks that perhaps Crowley will go for it (in which case maybe returning to Heaven would be ok) or he is trying to convince himself that this is what he wants because he is still torn between his duty to God and desire to be with Crowley, I am not sure.

Perhaps he is hoping Crowley will believe it's what he wants and come so he'll be safe, because he knows Crowley likes to give him what he wants. Or if he acts happy about it Crowley will want him to be happy and support it somehow. Perhaps it's none of those or all of those. If Aziraphale can't convince Crowley to come with him he can't protect him, so he pushes him away. It's self preservation as well as trying to keep Crowley out of harms way, because he never wanted to go and he certainly didn't want to go without Crowley. But he has no choice.

The absurdity of it all is that right until the very end, the Metatron is still behaving as though Aziraphale has the option of opting out:

"You don't have to answer immediately, take all the time you need"

"I don't know what to say' 

"Well, then go and tell your friend the good news".

There was no need for him to answer immediately because, as confirmed by the very next sentence out of the Metatron's stupid celestial mouth - 'go and tell your friend'- the decision has already been made. Because THERE IS NO CHOICE.

And viewing it through this lens makes Aziraphale's, 'I think I...' split second reconsideration, as Metatron leaves the bookshop after asking Aziraphale if he needs to bring anything, even more heart-wrenching. Because if you consider that he has no choice but to go, in that second he was willing to risk everything to stay.

I don't doubt that the system of Heaven and the impact of his time there still has a hold on Aziraphale and some of his excitement about being in charge and making a difference is genuine, but it is the product of a system in which he had no choice. Choice has shown Aziraphale what's possible in a way the binary thinking of Heaven is incapable of and while he may be forced back to Heaven through no choice of his own, I believe his ability to choose, to operate in the shades of grey, will ultimately grant him his freedom.

[sighed-the-snake]

So, about Furfur's angel book. Remember the part about Baraqiel?

Image text: BARAQIEL. Dominion. Angel of the Sky. Appearance: Hair an eye-burning jinnjer. Eyebrows with the appearance of a grisly slug. Often draped in red. Occashunly damp, most likely singed.

I recently got my hands on a copy of A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels, by Gustav Davidson.

And here is the entry for Baraqiel!

Image Text: Barakiel (Barachiel, Barbiel, Barchiel, Barkiel, Baraqiel, etc. -- "lightning of God") -- one of the 7 archangels, one of the 4 ruling seraphim, angel of the month of February, and prince of the 2nd Heaven as well as of the order of confessors. Barakiel has dominion over lightning and is also one of the chief angels of the 1st and 4th altitudes or chora in the Almadel of Solomon. In addition, he is a ruler of the planet Jupiter and the zodiacal sign of Scorpio (as cited by Camfield in A Theological Discourse of Angels) and Pisces. With the angels Uriel and Rubiel, Barakiel is invoked to bring success in games of chance, according to De Plancy, Dictionaire Infernal.[Rf. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews I, 140.]

Lightning of God We see Crowley let off some lightning while too angry to control himself, and an angel of lightning could easily be considered an angel of the sky.

Archangel Baraqiel We assume Metatron was referring to Satan when he spoke of the Prince of Heaven they lost. Could he have been referring to Crowley? There was a lot of hatred in the look Metatron gave Crowley in the bookshop.

Crowley also told Beelzebub that the whole erasure from the Book of Life thing was something they said just to scare the Cherubs and that it wasn't actually a thing. We think of fat little cupids when Cherubs are mentioned, but Cherub is just the singular of Cherubim, and those guys are just one step below the Seraphim.

And he was teasing them.

Crowley says he understands what Aziraphale is offering him better than his angel does. If he was a Seraphim, then I believe it.

I know Furfur's book places him as a Dominion, but Neil can be an unreliable narrator, and who knows how accurate a demon's book might be. Neil could have also just decided to make Crowley a Dominion instead. Afterall, the angel guarding the Eastern gate in the bible was a Cherubim, but Neil and Terry changed that to Principality when they made Aziraphale.

Also, if Crowley was hanging out with "Lucifer and the guys," that suggests he was a high ranking angel. You're friends with the people you see every day. They were probably his office buddies.

Crowley said in the beginning of S2 that he worked "very closely with upstairs" on his nebula project. Anyone who has worked for a hierarchical business knows that lower order employees aren't even allowed to talk to the higher-ups directly. They would have to submit their issues to their direct supervisor, and that request would go up the chain until it's taken care of, probably never reaching the highest levels of the company. If Crowley was working directly with "upstairs," and his crossed fingers suggest a close collaboration, then he must have been a very high rank to be allowed to talk to them directly.

It is also worth noting that the use of the singular seraph, in the Book of Isaiah, is translated as "flying fiery serpent."

Ruler of the signs Scorpio and Pisces Crowley is hissy and wrathful and WILL CUT YOU, but he also loves children, and turns goats into birds so he doesn't have to kill them, and breathes life back into smooshed doves, so this makes perfect sense to me. Who's our moody little snek, you're our moody little snek.

Invoked to bring success in games of chance We have already seen him outsmart Heaven and Hell with Armageddon. He is uncommonly sharp-witted and capable for a demon, or even an angel. Look at the way he invented regulations for the Rules of Engagement so convincingly that Shax backed down, and how he got Muriel to sneak him into Heaven. I would definitely want an occult force like Crowley-Baraqiel on my side if I was doing something risky.

[onedappercat]

Why Does the Ortolan Sing?

A human AU Good Omens fanfic

(View uncensored art on AO3)

Chapter 20: So Much For Stardust

Rating: Explicit

Summary:

Following his mother’s death, Azira sets out to prepare his family’s bookshop for reopening. While appreciating the shop’s new sign, he hears the beckon of a siren’s song sounding from the coffee shop over the road. He succumbs to temptation to find the source of the hypnotic voice is an auburn-haired songbird. Intrigued by the singer’s beauty and haunted by his apparent loneliness, Azira is determined to introduce himself. There’s only one problem: the musician’s menacing, jealous, and possessive partner.

CW: Domestic abuse, loss of a loved one, adultery, toxic relationship, murder, blood, organized crime

Excerpt from chapter 20:

“Space is incredible, you know?” Crowley’s smile broadened as he stared up at God’s canvas. “It’s true eternity. So vast and limitless, we’re constantly finding something new. Even when Earth is long gone, the space we used to occupy will receive the light from star systems we’ve never known, never named, and the light from Earth will do the same. We’re fleeting, but space isn’t.”

“That’s beautiful…” Azira sighed. “And slightly tragic. Nothing lasts forever, I suppose.”

“Some things do.” Crowley took a deep breath of the fresh, country air. “Humans give names and stories to the stars, and I wonder who else out there, seeing the same stars from a different angle, have done the same. Like over there,” Crowley motioned to a cluster of stars Azira couldn’t differentiate from any others. “Coma Berenices. Humans looked at those stars and saw the hair of an Egyptian queen, sacrificed to Aphrodite to ensure her husband’s return from battle. Something so human. Or the Andromeda Galaxy… one of our neighbors. Named for a beauty whose parents angered the Gods, causing her to be sacrificed to a monster. The stories we assign them won’t last for eternity, but their light always reaches somewhere, even once they’re gone. And there’s an infinite number of them to do just that.”

“When you put it like that, eternity is… a hard concept to grasp.” Azira pondered for a moment. He’d had philosophical conversations with his parents, but eternity was never a topic they touched on. “I admit, my mind usually stays grounded in the stories in books; I don’t tend to consider just how insignificant that all is.”

Crowley eyed Azira at askance, then rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand and smiling. “Eternity is a mountain made of diamonds.”

“A what?” Azira grinned.

“There’s a mountain made of diamonds, a hundred miles wide and a hundred miles high, and every thousand years a bird comes and sharpens its beak on the mountain.”

“The same bird?”

Crowley waved his hand dismissively. “We’re talking diamond mountains; you want to harp on the age of the bird?”

“Right,” Azira chuckled. “Carry on.”

“So this bird sharpens its beak on the mountain, scraping away a tiny piece every time. Once that mountain has completely worn away, one second of eternity has passed.”

Azira stared up at Crowley, his face framed in the falling stars and glittering diamonds of eternity, sending their light to Earth. His lips parted, a soft gasp leaving him as he took in the eternal beauty, incomparable in his mind to the fleeting beauty that was Crowley. Crowley’s soft smile and gentle eyes were gazing at him with the kind of love actors attempt to portray in movies. It was so believable, as he watched the old black-and-whites with his mother, until he witnessed it himself.

“Make love to me under the stars,” Azira whispered. “Eternally.”

Continue from chapter 20 here.

Thank you so much to everyone at @goodomensafterdark for your help and putting up with my millions of questions! 🥰

[addledmongoose]

Good Omens Fanfic Friday (30 Aug 2024)

10 Easy Ways To Seduce Your Demon (15K; Rated T) by @waitingtobebroken

Oblivious Crowley is oblivious. After the Notpocalypse, Aziraphale becomes more touchy-feely, uses more endearments, and wants to spend more time with Crowley. What could it possibly mean? By the same author of the marvelous Kidnapping A Supreme Archangel For Fun And Profit series.

***

what a way to make a living (5K; Rated T) by @areyougonnabe

Aziraphale convinces Crowley he needs something to do, so the demon starts driving for Uber. This is partly told from an outsider POV, and it's really sweet and cute. From the author of the hilarious, dearly departed and it's a new craze.

***

Our World Will Change (Part 2 of One life, One love) (14K; Rated T) by @thinkinginscripts

Human AU. The sequel to One life, One love, where Aziraphale and Crowley are slaves who fall in love and plan their escape to freedom. I can't really give a plot for this one without spoiling the first story, but if you've read that one, you'll know what the story is about.

***

And my addiction that started last week, a story I actually considered re-reading immediately after finishing both because of and in spite of the word count.

If He’s Your Cleric, Why Is He Putting Me In His Bag of Holding? (300K; Rated E) by @noodlefrog-omens

Human AU (sorta). That word count could've been twice as long, and I still wouldn't think this book had overstayed its welcome, because I absolutely loved every moment of this D&D-inspired story. Don't worry if you've never played a D&D game in your life; you don't need to know anything about it to follow along. Aziraphale is a cleric for an adventuring party that's been given the quest to go into a dungeon and collect a dragon egg from the deepest level. His party (Gabriel, Uriel, Michael, and Sandalphon) abandons him in the dungeon, leaving him at the mercy of the dungeon's denizens. (By the way, the absolute dumbest thing an adventuring group could ever do is abandon their healer, so you know the level of competence Aziraphale is working with here).

Unknown to Aziraphale, he's being stalked by a hungry mimic named Crowley. When he finds a gorgeous book on a shelf in the dungeon (mimics shapeshift into inanimate objects like treasure to ambush prey), he puts it in his magical bag of holding, unaware the book is a living creature. Aziraphale saves Crowley from suffocation in the nick of time, and the two quickly form a friendship as they go to look for Aziraphale's adventuring group, despite Crowley informing him that they deliberately abandoned him.

Both of these characters are wonderfully realized, and the parts of the story from Crowley's POV as he tries to figure out what he's feeling with Aziraphale are really well done and feel realistic. Crowley doesn't have the words to understand what is actually going on with his feelings toward the humanoid he adores but he knows he feels something, and Aziraphale doesn't think a being like Crowley would ever find a humanoid interesting romantically or sexually.

There are puzzles to solve, traps and monsters to avoid, and enemy adventurers to thwart, and there are two (well, really more than) particular standout side characters: Sister Mary, a nun for a Draconic Order that worships the dragon at the bottom of the dungeon, and a kobold clan that works for the dragon and keeps the dungeon properly stocked in deadly traps. All the kobolds are named Eric.

If you don't want to read any of the monsterfucking/tentacle porn, you can read the entire main plot without encountering anything more salacious than a few cheek kisses. Just stop reading after they leave the dungeon and know they'll go on to live happily ever after. Everything after that is them getting to know each other better without the constant fear of death, showing Crowley the surface world, and figuring out how their relationship is going to work. The porn loosely starts in chapter 31 (of 40) and truly starts in chapter 33.

I don't know if the author has any plans for future adventures with these two, but if he does, I know I'll be there to read them.

[mimisempai]

A blessing in disguise

Summary

Crowley has a surprise for Aziraphale and takes him to dinner at the Ritz. The evening is incredibly romantic, but the angel can't quite give in to the romance. Did Crowley forget what day it was?

Notes

Where "a blessing in disguise" takes on its full meaning

On Ao3

Rating G -  1191 words

Aziraphale felt completely lost when he should have been ecstatic.

Crowley had surprised him with a romantic evening.

That night, just after Muriel had gone home, he'd told the angel to get ready because he was taking him to the Ritz.

The evening had been truly delightful, almost like a dream, with Crowley not even hesitating to show affection, not shying away from holding his hand or even kissing him lightly several times.

It had been almost perfect, and now the sweet, romantic atmosphere continued as they lay entwined on the sofa.

He should have been overjoyed, but Aziraphale pulled away to look at Crowley. He met his warm eyes, which looked at him gently as he brought Aziraphale's hand to his lips and planted a light kiss on his wrist.

Aziraphale was lost.

This was not a day for celebration.

Today was exactly one year since Aziraphale had almost left with Metatron.

A year since the demon had been deeply wounded by the angel.

Crowley, oblivious to the turmoil of his thoughts, leaned forward and pressed another kiss to his forehead.

"Angel," Crowley said softly, bringing his hand to the angel's cheek, "I can feel you're somewhere else. What's wrong with you?"

Aziraphale shook his head and said in a confused voice, "I don't understand the reason for this celebration, considering..."

The angel paused, too overcome with emotion to continue.

His voice shaking, he asked the demon, "Crowley, do you not know what day it is?" 

Crowley still had his hand on the angel's cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb, and replied in a calm voice, "Angel, I'm perfectly aware of what day it is."

"Then why?"

Crowley continued to smile and asked quietly, "Why celebrate it?"

Aziraphale exclaimed, "Why celebrate the day when... when..."

The angel couldn't go on, the words caught in his throat, clenched with emotion.

Crowley finished the sentence for him, "The day we truly became an 'us'?"

Aziraphale gasped slightly because those were not the words he had expected to hear.

Crowley, seeing his surprise, said softly, "Oh, Angel, did you think the only thing I would remember today would be the memory of my trampled declaration, your almost leaving with Metatron, the way we parted, our kiss, your words?"

The angel nodded vehemently, because that was exactly what he had thought, and he would have found it right, "I thought you'd be upset!"

The demon shook his head and continued, his voice as soft as ever, "But Angel, our reconciliation and us finally becoming who we are to each other today is a memory so much more beautiful and so much more important to celebrate. "

Crowley's hand left his cheek and rested on the angel's heart as he murmured in a slightly harsher voice, "I curse the heavens that imprinted this feeling of guilt in you. Was I hurt that day? Yes, I won't deny it. But Angel, how could I not celebrate the first day of what is probably the best year of my entire angelic and demonic existence? I've never been happier than this year with you, and it was only because of that day."

To say that Aziraphale was speechless would have been an understatement.

After a few seconds of silence, he sighed and whispered, "I'm an idiot."

He dropped his forehead onto Crowley's shoulder and wrapped his arms around his waist before continuing, "I'm sorry I ruined your sur--"

He didn't have time to finish before the demon grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back, looking him in the eye and saying in a firm voice, "This is exactly what I mean when I say I curse the heavens. Stop apologizing for everything and for nothing. You didn't ruin anything, and I should have realized that what you'll remember from that day is the damage you think you did to me, not the good that came out of it. You don't have to apologize for that, Angel."

Aziraphale replied with a small smile, "Well, I did spoil the mood of the evening a bit."

Crowley replied with a raised eyebrow, "Who says the evening's over, Angel?"

The angel chuckled softly as the demon pulled him closer while he said, "We just took a little break to clear the air and there's nothing stopping us from picking up where we left off."

Aziraphale nodded against Crowley's shoulder and hummed before replying, "I'd like that very much."

Crowley retorted, his mouth in the angel's hair, "There's just one problem, Angel..."

"What's that?"

The demon replied playfully, "I can't remember where we left off."

Aziraphale straightened up and replied in an equally playful voice, "I think I can show you, my dear."

Imitating the demon earlier in the evening, he grabbed his hand and pressed a light kiss to his wrist, then a more lingering one to the demon's palm. As he released the hand, he looked up at the demon, and seeing the adoration with which Crowley gazed at him, Aziraphale couldn't hold back the confession that fell from his lips.

His voice was soft and firm as he said, "I love you."

Crowley's smile widened as he replied, "See, that alone makes this a day worth celebrating. So forget everything that isn't us, just us, and kiss me, Angel."

Aziraphale brought his face close to the demon and cheekily replied, "How could I refuse such a sweet request?"

"Angel, stop teasing and just do it."

The angel lingered for a few moments, his face barely inches from the demon's, and suddenly the memory of another kiss a few feet away came back to him.

"You idiot. We could have been... us."

What?

Crowley was walking away.

Not wanting to see him go, not wanting to face reality, Aziraphale turned away, but he didn't have time to move when he was suddenly pulled back by two hands that had grabbed the lapel of his jacket.

He didn't have time to realize what was happening before Crowley's lips pressed against his and suddenly Aziraphale knew nothing.

He didn't know what was happening.

He didn't know where he was.

He didn't know how to react. 

He wanted to push the demon away and hold him tighter at the same time.

Finally, for a split second, he gave in and pressed his hand against his back, holding him tighter to himself.

And then he felt nothing but emptiness between them as the demon backed away. 

As Aziraphale tried to catch his breath, Crowley fixed him with a blank expression.

"Think only of us, only of what we are now, Angel. Let bygones be bygones."

Crowley's soft voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and instead of the sad face of his memory, all he saw was his smile reflected in the demon's warm eyes as he repeated, "just us."

So the angel smiled back, and closed the distance between them before pressing his lips to the demon's smile.

As their lips touched, as their breaths mingled, he let the fragments of his memories vanish in this kiss filled only with them and the love they shared.

A kiss that celebrated their "us".

_________

Still not beta'd

Still not my native language

Still hoping you'll enjoy this story  🥰

Still thanking you for bearing with me 😝

Ineffable Growing Love series : (After season 2) 

Part 1 Story 1-99

Part 2 Story 100-?

Ineffable Husbands masterlist : here (Before season 2)

[sabine-smitten-obviously]

And now i want to find myself a haunted cottage ... to find the love of my life ❤️

I just started this wonderfull gem yesterday and finished this morning. And i am so reluctant to part with it that i even consider to reread it immediately.

So if you are into Good Omens, like Human AU and searching for a kind of different plot - here are my thoughts on a wonderful fanfic from @commodorecliche !

😃 Whats it about?

Aziraphale buys a little cottage and finds some books in it, written by A.J. Crowley. Oh - and there is a ghost in the house! You will never guess who that might be ... But what might sound cheesy really is not. I so loved the authors notes that i will throw them in here:

This is a ghost story. This is a story about the remnants of ourselves we leave behind. This is a story about life and about all the things that cannot be hidden, even after we die. This is a story about finding comfort in another creature, despite the dimensional divide that might stand between us. This is a ghost story. This is a love story.

And that it is. The notes say it all!

{There are minor spoilers ahead - i tried to collect my thoughts without giving too much away, but pls only go on if you are ok with that! }

What i absolutely adore in this wunderful piece:

🤍It is a tale of love told from Aziraphale´s point of view only. Being a ghost story i had goose bumps several times during the first chapters. Nothing too scary, but quite exciting! It also has a bit of angst in it, but mostly it is deeply loving and what hurts is the fact that - well - Crowley is a ghost and Aziraphale is human. There is a natural limit to their connection. I dont want to tell more because i dont want to spoil the story. You should definitely mind the tags before you start reading!

❤️ It is a human AU but takes on a very different plot with Crowley being a ghost. So somehow this is so far unique to me in the GO-universe, where most human AU tend to put them both in the same place - be it rockstars, book sellers, teachers and parents and so on.

🤍Having a ghost and a human falling in love with each other - oh it is so sweet but also ... tragic? Having someone to love without being ever able to touch him? To barely feel him? Crowley is so well written, he is merely an essence - there and at the same time not.

🩶What i really enjoyed is that you will know every character but most of the stereotypes are left out. Anathema is not psychic (or at least it isnt mentionned) for example. There is no bickering between Aziraphale and Crowley. No sentences or dialogues from GO thrown back to the reader. Still everything blends together so well.

🖤 Oh and i loved this fact: Crowley is a writer! Crowley is the one with the words !!! and for once there is no stumbling, no "ngk", no "fuck" no nothing. Most of human AU leave Crowley with "clever hands" but words not so fluently ... (A fact that kind of surprises me often because i am not so sure every Shakespearean Text is really Shakespeare ... right? ;-))

❤️Aziraphale is happy with his body - this is something i deeply appreciate. I have read roundabout 60 fanfics so far and in most human AU his thoughts about himself can be rather derogatory.

🖤Crowley is not the one begging Aziraphale to stay or be together with him - also a quite common theme in GO-fanfics. I absolutely love that!!

I kind of realise now that me writing reviews is my way of parting with a story that particularly got to my heart. This one is truly beautiful for several reasons and i had everything from goosebumps to laughter to angst to heartache to relief to sadness. It ends well, if it is happy is really only your choice. ❤️

This story made me finally set up a "re-read-list" and i absolutely recommend it, if you´re in for a bit of heartache, a different plot and a different version of a "and they life happy ever after". It is a quiet, lovable and aching book, well balanced and still easy to read.

ps: I thought a lot about it, could i do it? Could i fall in love with a ghost? I would like to think of myself as having stayed in the house but probably i would have run. If i had come past this first angst and built a connection - would i have been able to? Would it have been enough to simply love? To have an ethereal connection and know you are not alone but ... no friends to share with, to be grounded to the house, no picnics, no touch? What are your thoughts on this?

pps: if you have read this one, pls come here and scream and cry with me in the comments!!! I dont want to tell too much here but there are scenes in the book that i would love to romp on in the comments!!

[tylered-up-in-blue]

Response to “The Magic Trick You Didn’t See” / The Coffee Theory

I, like many people in the Good Omens fandom, have already read the big essay “The Magic Trick You Didn’t see” –which blows up the coffee theory that’s been circulating on my twitter page to greater heights and big claims. I have some thoughts.

First of all: I think that the original essay has a few details wrong, essentially because it falls into a kind of utilitarian perspective with the whole magic show metaphor. The thing is –sometimes details which are left hanging, or themes which are shown to be important, don’t always tie up somewhere. Sometimes they’re there because they’re interesting, or poking at intrigue –trying to get you to notice and note down for later, rather than evidence of one ultimate solution that’ll be revealed as a holistic great plot. Also “I didn’t think the writing was good in this moment” isn’t very convincing to me, I’m sorry.

But –I do think that they were onto something. I hesitate to make any grand claims, like “Maggie isn’t real,” or “The Metatron is editing the book of life,” because -to be honest- I don’t trust myself to put my name to something as big as that, and I don’t want to erase my favourite thing about Good Omens: its whimsicality. But I will say that there are themes and notable elements which I think will be important later and hint at some larger fuckery (if you’ll excuse the OFMD reference) going on, so consider this a kind of rejigging of the theory to be a more thematic approach that lays out things I just thought were interesting under an more open-ended (or flip-floppy, depending on how you take it) idea:

Something was going on this season which will be revealed as a Heavenly plot to split Aziraphale and Crowley up by the end. It worked. And the person to reveal the greater plot will be Muriel.

I’ll write down first of all a list of things that have been introduced to the world of Good Omens which I think are important, and highlight why one of them sticks out to me. Then I’ll work on a thematic basis of what things are shown to be worth narrative focus/presuppose S3. The first two themes are very much commentary drawing on the essay I’m responding to, and the second two are more my own ideas –certainly the fourth.

Okay, so: there are introductions to the Good Omens-verse which are clearly there to expand our world for later use. I don’t know if all of these things will come up again, but by the end of this season we know:

There are Nazi (and possibly more) zombies running around London.

There is a gun in Aziraphale’s bookshop -in case it’s needed. 

Heaven is interested in keeping things quiet, and they will fiddle with memories to do so. Erased memories can be “stored” in things/creatures.

There is a thing called “The Book of Life” that if you’re written out of, you NEVER EXISTED. (It can be edited, too, presumably.)

Crowley is possibly the most powerful being in the show. “Half a tiny miracle” ends up being enough to resurrect someone 25 times over, and his attempt to stay calm after a little tiff with aziraphale results in draining the street of electricity. Also he created the entire universe. (coming back to amend this with the fact Neil said he got going just "that tiny corner of space" -but I still feel there is significant evidence to say he is very powerful:) )

I lay these out because they’re just good to have noted down, really, and because they’re definitely GOING to be important. ALSO because the last one makes sense for the greater aim to be breaking up the ineffable husbands. Emphasis on Crowley’s power –and for their shared power– sets up a REAL threat for what we KNOW will be the basis of s2: The Second Coming. If you’re Heaven, and you want the second attempt at an apocalypse to be successful, you’d be stupid to let the two celestial beings who were meddling in the whole averted-apocalypse ordeal last time to just be AROUND for it. Especially when one has the ability to stop time!!! You’ve GOT to break them up. 

Theme 1: Investigation (Muriel!)

Investigation is a fun little theme in s2: Aziraphale goes full detective mode. He loves the clues, he’s in his little trilby investigating. All the marketing was very investigative and invites the audience to pay close attention. And there are SO many little easter eggs. From The Colour of Magic appearing to Gabriel reading the first lines of Good Omens –even as small as a Terry Prattchet impersonator speaking over the tannoy in Hell, or the film in The Resurrectionist being chosen specifically to play because there’s a scene where Jimmy Stewart talks to a fly. 

So! Investigation is fun! It’s important. And my favourite part of the essay I’m responding to is definitely that about Muriel. I think that all this build up to the detective-vibe is going to cumulate in their s3 role. Essentially: I entirely agree that they are coded as the one to blow open this whole case in S3. The police costume and giving them The Crow Road are certainly suggestive–but more than anything, leaving them in charge of the bookshop (full of Aziraphale’s diaries and books and everything) props them up perfectly to earn the promo they got for s2. Because I’m not sure about you, but my mutuals and I were shocked that the NYCC scene (“hello hello hello, I’m a human police officer!”) didn’t happen until episode three. From the way the promo was going (character profiles, trailer etc.) I thought Muriel would be in s2 WAY more.

They also make a HUGE point of how Muriel is considered “nobody.” They say it themselves, they’re called “the dull one” by Metatron.

They set them up perfectly to solve this later.

Theme 2: Memories and Stories:

Memory! Another theme! –memory that can be tampered with, contained, erased and returned.

Heaven is willing to meddle with and erase memories if necessary. They are, then, SUBTLE.

There is no God narrator.

There is a statue immortalising a very real Gabriel (somehow/for some reason –Gabriel was also involved in its making?) 

My favourite part of season 2 was definitely the minisodes. The costumes, the settings –I was so surprised to find the horses and carts in ep 3 were CGI in the X-Ray! They look so good! I loved how every single flashback was incredibly vital and interesting to expand on Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship –that convo on the rock in ep 2? WOW. Stunned. Anyway, not to go on.

I completely disagree with the conviction that these were edited. I think that, to the contrary, these memories are (IF there’s something going on with temptation/persuasion (more on that later) and The Book of Life) are ENTIRELY real. And the reason for that is highlighted in the very essay: each memory is tied to a physical record of it happening. The Book of Job; the Polaroid in ‘41, and Aziraphale’s diaries. This is not to say that there aren’t still gaps: where was the “I’m sorry” dance of ‘41? If Aziraphale wasn’t drinking in 2500 BC then when did he start? Just little things like this.

This is the thing: stories, words, are vital. The challenge that they gave the guy who did Sherlock (I can’t remember his name I’m sorry!) –it’s talked about in the X-Ray– was to have words pop out in 4 different ways across S2. This a fun stylistic choice, but it also gives words narrative attention, so ties in with all this. Without God to narrate, narratives and accounts are left to the characters within the world. It’s fun and important both. So is the spelling stuff. Maggie can’t spell, neither can the demons. (She may be a demon herself –I’m not entirely convinced it’s this simple, tbh, but Aziraphale’s miracle not working on her in ep5 is definitely a red flag.) Anyway – it’s also interesting.

With all this, my idea that Heaven/Metatron had been planning the aziracrow divorce from the beginning might mean they’re tampering with The Book of Life –it also could mean that they’re ABOUT to do something weird with Aziraphale’s memories, or all these pieces are going to become very very helpful for Muriel’s investigation.

I really do wonder what this role of records, memories and narratives will come to, but I have a feeling it’ll bleed into s3.

Theme 3: Food

Crowley was the reason Aziraphale tried food in the first place. I just wanted to put that down because of course he was, but also it is deeply INSANE that he INTRODUCED AZIRAPHALE TO THE CONCEPT OF EATING. God, David was right. They really don't exist without each other.

This is kind of the point I make with food here: it’s a HUGE theme in s2, largely just to emphasise the fact that it’s powerful.

For some reason (jokey or otherwise) eccles cakes can “calm you down.”

Aziraphale becomes significantly bonded to Crowley by eating the Ox in ep2. Later, Crowley is “as strong as an Ox." –fun little echo.)

They drink the same wine as always in ‘41 –they share no wine in s2, just the sherry and whiskey respectively. They also don’t share a meal, which seems interesting. I personally think that it’s to do with consumption being a metaphor for queer desire, and the absence of it being a sign of C/A being on “their own side” in s2. Crowley abandons temptation as Aziraphale abandons attempts to “save” Crowley. –-Or it may mean something else!

Crowley drinks laudanum and it makes him go lala. It ALSO makes him turn tiny, then giant, and he does something kind –kind enough to get him dragged off to hell and tortured so badly that he’s asking for holy water as “insurance” 40 years later.

That fucking oatmilk almond coffee. Okay. So if food is powerful, this has weight. From the colour of it being weird against the background to the fact (to quote my dear friend Jey) “nobody fucking drinks almond syrup!!” –I’m sure you’ve see all this going around. Almonds are obviously very poison-coded, and considering the above point I smell something strange. (I don’t believe it was quite a case of drugging per say, but more metaphor: Aziraphale is being tempted. He’s being manipulated, and drawn back into the culty office world of heaven.)

So what we know here is that food is powerful. An important metaphor and force (especially for aziracrow.)

Theme 4: Resurrection

OKAY: so, this is the most original of my listing in these themes. I am so interested in this resurrection thing they’ve got going.

The Resurrectionist pub: where Gabriel and Beez come to their plan. We see that The Dirty Donkey is a lift to heaven (which NOT enough people are talking about) –so what about The Resurrectionist? What power does it hold as a space? Why is the legacy of Mr Dalrymple important?

Why did (wee) Morag’s eyes glow briefly? Is she a zombie now?

Zombies exist. We know this. They’re also tied to the concept of consumption, which is cool.

Heaven measures miracles by Lazarii.

Gabriel, in one of his flashes of prophecy, says: “there will come a tempest (...) the dead will rise from their graves and wander the earth once more.”

These are all cool. Thematically, it seems that being raised from the dead is going to be something big. I’m interested in this, considering that after Gabriel said the above mentioned prophecy my good friend Jey said “hold on, is this going to be about The Rapture?”

Now: we know that “668: Neighbour of the Beast” was supposed to be set in America. Whether it actually is or not, I don’t know, but I think that if it is about a second coming on American soil, The Rapture feels VERY pertinent. The dead are the first to rise and be with God in The Rapture, but all believers join them: and they join them permanently. In some versions, there is a period in which Christ rules the earth. All very fun and interesting prospects for s3!

Where this leaves us:

S2 is the “bridge” between 1 and 3, in Neil’s words. It’s the “romantic filling” of the sandwich.

I would argue that some seriously tough bread started with “oh Crowley, nothing lasts forever,” but hey ho, that’s the very ending of the season. I just want to talk about coded language/draw on what I’ve just said to talk about how we’re set up for the structures of s3:

Heaven is a CULT. A serious cult. From the (temptation) manipulation of the coffee, to the man at the pub calling Gabriel a “mason” –which I’m assuming he means freemason– to the frankly INSANE smile on Michael Sheen’s face as the credits roll (also sickening lighting there)– they are a big threatening cult, and that is going to be important. I think it’ll just get increasingly so.

FurFur and Shax have it OUT for the ineffable husbands. Like they are NOT fans. And they seem to also be buddies now so… not great news.

In The Scene </3 Crowley stops himself short of saying he’d like to spend eternity with Aziraphale, and instead asks him to “go off together,” just like s1 –I think their language is going to develop hugely in s3. It’ll go back to being the space they “carved out for themselves,” only further.

And finally: a bet. The last time we see Crowley, he’s in a car full of plants because he’s carrying “their side” away with him. I am willing to bet –not that this is a hottake or anything– that it’ll end, as it began: in a garden. S3 will end in the garden of their South Downs Cottage !!!

[vidavalor]

I don’t see the alleged handholding on the bus. I don’t. I’m sorry. I’ve watched it so many times. I want to see it. I see Aziraphale’s hand going towards Crowley, but I don’t see any motion from Crowley that suggests he’s holding Aziraphale’s hand.

Are we really, really, REALLY sure they’re holding hands?

Hi there. 💕 Yep. Well, I am, anyway, and I'm happy to share why. I have watermelon salad to share tonight. Ahhh, summer... 🍉

I don't want to assume anything but I've seen the "Crowley doesn't react so they aren't holding hands" comment places before and what I think keeps people from seeing it is the idea that they think that Crowley should have some kind of big reaction because they think this is new. It's not. We aren't watching the very first time that they ever hold hands; we're watching a long-time couple familiar with doing so.

If this were the very first time Aziraphale had ever taken Crowley's hand then I could see why you're saying there should be some kind of reaction. We'd expect him to glance over or for his arm to be seen moving a bit from what of it we could see. On the other hand, if you look at the scene with a different perspective-- one assuming that they're already in a place where holding hands is not unfamiliar territory-- then the whole moment is really set up to reinforce that through showing how comfortable Crowley is with what's happening.

Crowley doesn't have to turn to Aziraphale right away in surprise and we don't need to see his head or arm move because all that's really likely happening is that Crowley is letting Aziraphale hold his hand right where it is resting on his thigh. Maybe he's turned his hand a little to thread their fingers together. Maybe he's just rubbing a thumb over Aziraphale's. We wouldn't see that from our angle because it would just be movement from his wrist down... and that seems to me to be the point of how the scene was shot. The outside view of the bus at this moment exactly? An angle designed to intimate to us that hands are being held and that it is not a rare or new event.

Think about it this way: if they never had held hands before, is Aziraphale just going to take his hand on this bus out of nowhere? Probably not. Is Crowley just going to sit there if Aziraphale did? Probably not. We get two or so seconds after Aziraphale takes his hand before the bus finishes moving out of the frame wherein we could have been shown Crowley having a more surprised reaction if that was what the scene was trying to say but we didn't see one because it seems like that is not what is being said with the scene.

Aziraphale's movements are familiar; he already knows he's permitted to take Crowley's hand whenever he likes and that they both find it comforting. Not only have they just been through all sorts of exhausting craziness over the last few days but Aziraphale was discorporated. He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get his body back or how and this is basically the first moment they are alone enough to touch since Adam gave Aziraphale back his body. The hand holding then is a way of showing that Aziraphale needs to both feel grounded in his own body and to touch Crowley (not totally separate things, really...). That speaks to long-time coupledom to me more than it does to something new. If you look at the scene from the perspective that they're already together (just as if you look at most of the series from that perspective), you'll see a lot of subtle things just like this scene that reinforce the idea.

I wrote some stuff awhile back that you can find here about the connections between this scene and the flashback one on the bus earlier in S1 that also might help show how that they're sitting together and holding hands in this scene is set up by the earlier scene, should you be interested in that. Also: the "magic hands" massage joke would also suggest that holding hands in S1's present wouldn't be considered unusual. I think that if they've been making love since ancient Rome, as I wrote about the show suggesting here, liking to hold hands isn't too surprising but I understand from where your doubts are coming. Hope this helps. 💕