#it’s not even just that job asked questions but that Crowley is amazed that he was ‘able to’ like they’re just astonished job could

[lesbianballofgender]

During the time of Job when Crowley is ✨Bildad The Shuhite✨ they watch Job talk to God and say ‘But just to be able to ask the question’ which, looking back, is such a huge thing for him to say considering that asking questions is implied to be THE REASON they had their fall…

Brb gonna go cry for him

[calcifiedunderland]

Shrimply Yours~

In which you invoke your shrimp privileges to cheer Floyd up.

Floyd x GN Reader! Enjoy, shrimpies!!~

—————

“Y’know Floyd, I’d say you’re the shrimp, not me.”

Maybe you really did have a death-by-squeezing wish. Or maybe your plot-armor protection had finally worn off. The eel in question lifted his head slowly at your words and side-eyed you, his golden eye glinting ominously in the Mostro Lounge kitchen’s light.

You’d been washing the dishes after asking Azul for a job in exchange for a little extra madol on the side. For the most part, your day had been as peaceful as it could’ve (the life of a magicless prefect was always maniacal), until you heard arguing from outside the kitchen. You all but jumped when Floyd slammed the door open and wordlessly stalked to the stove, and you spotted Azul walking off shaking his head to himself. Floyd shoved pan on the heat and began frying something, completely ignoring your presence. Was it even possible to fry chicken so aggressively?

In any case, Floyd seemed a little more volatile than usual at the moment, even considering it was him. The other students who’d been in the kitchen with you before had scuttled out before Floyd could snap at them too. But in any case, you knew that Floyd’s mood flipped faster than Crowley leaving all his work to you. So, you thought you’d try to lighten the mood.

At your words, Floyd slowly brought his head up from his deep-frying, golden-and-olive colored eyes zeroing in on you, baring his sharp, shiny teeth at you in a scowl. And in that split second, you suddenly remembered that Floyd was, in fact, a mer-eel. Moray, specifically. A predator. A predator that probably ate shrimpies like you. Who was now looking at you predatorily.

“What did ya just say, shrimpy?” His pupils were practically pin-pricks, and for a moment you swore you could hear the Jaws theme song in your head. You could remember, time and time again, your friends and upperclassmen telling you not to engage Floyd when he was in one of his moods. Even up until now, you’d never been on the awful end of his anger, especially alone. But you weren’t called beast-tamer for nothing, damn it, and maybe that title could extend to taming angry Floyd’s too. An angry Floyd that was still your friend.

“I said, you’re the shrimp, not me.” You maintained eye-contact with him, almost challenging him, ‘come at me, bro.’ You tried to keep a straight face, although you were deflating rapidly by the second because by Sevens this was so stupid but-

“Because you’re shrimply amazing.”

One second passed. Two. Three.

Then Floyd broke into a wide, sharp-toothed grin. He surged towards you, completely forgetting the frying food. “D’awww, SHRIMPY!!!”

He swooped behind you, wrapping his arms around you and picking you up. Your legs flailed around and now your arms were locked in as Floyd spun around the kitchen haphazardly with you in his arms. “Shrimpy knows just how to cheer me up! I knew this is why I kept you around!” He laughed cheerily, bobbing you up and down.

“FLOYD!” You cried, “PUT ME DOWN-“ the kitchen swirled crazily around you, as Floyd babbled some song or other cheerfully. Thankfully he’d stopped spinning, but began shaking you side to side while humming, “Shrimpy’s so brave n’ nice, all the other guppies left when they saw me but only Shrimpy stayed!”

He started pouting, and squished his cheek into yours. “Azul was bein’ mean to me, making me work now. Just ‘cause I roughed up a few customers doesn’t mean it was my fault! They shoulda been nice to me~”

Even though you were basically suspended in the air by him, you smiled at Floyd’s words. “Glad I could help Floyd, that was so mean of Azul,” you consoled him, hoping he’d put you down. He bent over until your feet were safely on the sweet, sweet ground, but didn’t let you go from his arms. The two of you swayed together, basking in each other’s company in the subpar lighting of the kitchen, until you frowned.

“…Hey, is something burning?”

“Ah shit, I burned the chicken.”

———

[inuiiwonderland]

Twisted captivity

Chapter 5

Twst third years x fem reader

Words: 850

A/n: I am SO not back on my grind….very sorry for a LATE and SHORT chapter😖😖

-

Curse Crowley and curse your parents for encouraging you to get this job.

You were up ALL night reading and going through the stacks of papers Crowley so graciously gave you the other day.

Only getting a good 2 hours worth of sleep before hearing your alarm going off.

Damn you crowley

You forcefully slammed open the heavy doors of the Octavinelle enclosure. Bucket of fish in your right hand while your left held your bag that had all your books, journals and your own food.

Your jaw drops at the sight of octavinelle. The whole area had a beautiful blue glow as waterfalls and caves came into view.

“How the hell is he able to afford all of this??” You say to no one in particular. You continue to look around in awe as you put down the bucket and your bag. Unaware of the mismatched eyes watching you, you quickly grab your journal and pen.

“I say Crowley did an amazing job designing this whole thing…or maybe crewel!” You continue to mumble to yourself. The sudden sound of water Splashing and the feeling of cold water hitting your back brought you back as you gasp and quickly turn around.

“What the-“ Your eyes go wide as you see the one responsible for throwing water at you. He cackles as he points at you. You frown as you watch the mer- or eel?? Continue to laugh at you.

“Not very funny” The eel stops and tilts his head before opening his mouth.

“Funny. Very”

Ah so he knows how to speak

“You must beeee” You try to remember the name of the eel in front of you. After all, you were up all night studying everyone's files.

“Floyd!” The eel smiles in delight. Showing off rows of razor sharp teeth as he nods.

“Ah and if I remember correctly, you have a twin?” He smiles even wider at the mention of his twin brother.

“Jade!”

“Right” before you can ask any more questions, he quickly dives back underwater.

“Wait! I still have one more question…” You sulk at the amount of times you've been ignored by the mers in this facility.

And father said this was supposed to be a fun job

Another splash of water caught your attention. You look up to see Floyd but this time he wasn’t alone.

“Jade!” He points. The other eel that looks almost identical to his brother eyed you in curiosity. He then smiles as he waves. You awkwardly wave back as Floyd just looks excited.

“Anyways…I brought food!” And just like that, almost all of the mers that were hiding came up at the mention of food. You gasp as everyone comes out of their hiding spots.

“Sevens you guys must be hungry” you mumble out as you grab the bucket and start feeding them.

After you made sure everyone had their fair share of food, you look down at the bucket to see you still had some extra.

“Hey floyd” he perks up at the mention of his name. He turns to you and tilts his head. Curious.

“Is there anyone else who needs to be fed? I still have some extra” He thinks for a moment before quickly diving back down. Seconds later he comes back up with someone squirming against his hold.

“Azul! He’s hungry!” The octo mer that was just struggling moments ago stops before his whole face turns blue.

He must feel embarrassed

“There’s no need to be embarrassed. If I’m being honest I’m hungry too but I have a few more hours until my lunch break” You say with a sigh. He slowly turns to look at you as you hand him his food. He looks at your hands and then you before quickly grabbing it and swimming back down.

“Is he a shy one?” You ask.

“Very” You giggle before looking at the watch on your wrist.

“Well it was nice meeting you guys. But unfortunately it’s time for me to go” As you stand up, you feel a webbed hand clasp on your wrist. You turn to see that it was Floyd. He wore a frown as he tried to pull you back down.

“Uhh can you let me go? Please?” The eel mer just stared at you and you tried to pull his hand away but it was no use. He was strong.

“Floyd” He quickly lets go when he hears jades voice. The two seem to talk in their language before Floyd rolls his eyes and dives back down underwater. Jade gives you an apologetic smile before doing the same.

You stood there for a good minute before remembering an important piece of information that you read in Floyd’s file.

Name: Floyd leech

Eel mer

Background Information - Him and Jade have been separated from their parents since they were young. Floyd gets very attached to female keepers as he sometimes views them as his mother.

Poor boy

You let out a heavy sigh as you gather your things.

Next stop, Pomefiore

-

Taglist!!! -

@ruisann

@roseapov

@0ffth3rec0rd

@anunholyabomination

@owodi

@mochi-lover26

@coffee-or-hot-cocoa

@Floevi

@thatpersonuouknow

@h0rr0r-10ver-69

[vidavalor]

Why do you think Crowley didn't just get another apartment?

Hi! Thanks for the ask. I have French buttercream chocolate cake tonight. I know, right? It's amazing. *cuts you a slice*

To answer your question, I think we have to look at the whole thing with where Crowley parks The Bentley and when (in both seasons) and, also, the scenes that emphasize Crowley and Aziraphale avoiding being seen together anywhere in the mornings and what all this has to do with what he says is his living situation in S2.

Meta on Crowley "living in his car" in S2 under the cut.

For Crowley and Aziraphale, what has always been what *absolutely cannot happen* is Heaven/Hell figuring out that Crowley will stay in the bookshop until very, very late into the evening, as that is the one thing they'd have trouble justifying. If Crowley parked The Bentley in front of the bookshop in the afternoon/evening and it was still there at 7am the next morning, it would send a message to anyone watching that their relationship isn't just intelligence business, it's not just friendship...and it's not even really just sex. If Heaven/Hell saw The Bentley outside the bookshop all night often enough, they would assume that Crowley and Aziraphale are in a romantic relationship and this is the one thing that Crowley and Aziraphale do not want them to figure out. They can hatch a wild plan if they get caught to justify any of the rest of it and maybe get away with it but there's no way out if they get caught out being in love when they're supposed to be sworn enemies... so, if they want to spend time alone together in the privacy of the bookshop, how do they work around the problem of potentially being noticed? The show actually showed us subtly in S1 before a little more overtly in S2.

When Crowley is going to come over for awhile-- and especially when it's going to mean that he's there into the evening-- he doesn't park The Bentley in front of the bookshop. He parks it in the vicinity but not too close-- around where it was when Aziraphale called him in 2.01. Two or so minutes' drive out, on a side street. (A two minute drive is a 15 or so minute walk so not that far but a bit away.) If he's coming to the shop alone, he'll probably use the side entrance to the bookshop but if he's been out with Aziraphale-- like he was in their 'fuck everything, the world is ending' lunch at The Ritz in 2008-- they'll walk back to the bookshop. If anyone notices Crowley entering it, it'll be during the day, right? While not ideal, it's innocuous enough. Aziraphale's bookshop is theoretically a business and is also an angelic embassy and Aziraphale could say that he's trying to turn Crowley to the light and make him into an informant if they were caught. Conversely, it couldn't hurt Crowley-- whose job, like Aziraphale's, is to spy on his counterpart-- to seem like he's gaming the corruptible angel and getting intel to further the demonic goals of Hell so he could say he's luring the angel to trusting him. Being in the bookshop during the day, during what are (for normal businesses lol) business hours, when the business is also an embassy, is one thing. It's the evening that's the problem for them. At that time of day, the bookshop is nothing but Aziraphale's residence and Crowley's presence during those hours becomes much riskier. So, how to get around that?

Here's them walking back to the bookshop from wherever Crowley's parked The Bentley on a side street after lunch in 2008/Eleven Years Ago in S1:

During lunch in 2008, they already planned for Crowley to come back to the bookshop with Aziraphale and since there's no plan for him to leave in any hurry, Crowley is already not parked in front of the bookshop so no one can recognize his car there late at night. This is practiced between them; they've been doing it for awhile by this point. They still are in S2, when we have several scenes of Crowley in The Bentley parked on a side street near the bookshop.

Since Crowley can't be seen then leaving the bookshop once the sun is up or it'd defeat the purpose of the car not being parked in front of it, whenever he comes over, he leaves the bookshop through the side door at some ungodly pre-dawn hour, walks to his car a few streets over (apparating into it would be suspicious to anyone who might have found it so he usually walks, looking like he was just out late causing demonic trouble), and then, in the past, would drive back to his apartment in Mayfair. That way, when the sun came up, anyone who might be watching his place would see The Bentley parked in front of it. Didn't see Crowley leave the bookshop from the afternoon? You must have missed him in a crowd on the sidewalk somewhere because there's his gorgeous, old, very recognizable car, parked in front of his place in Mayfair, gleaming in that early morning sun.

No one was ever the wiser to the fact that on some of these nights, Crowley was not home in his apartment or out raising hell all night but was actually in the bookshop nearly until dawn.

Is it kind of miserable for Crowley to have to leave every time in the middle of the night and for him and Aziraphale to never really know what it's like to wake up together? To never get to have breakfast and mornings together? Of course. But it keeps them safe so they deal with it. As a result, though, they have a thing about mornings.

In 1.01, when Crowley calls Aziraphale in the middle of the night and they both have separately learned of Armageddon, he tells Aziraphale that they "need to talk" and then they both, without further discussion, are at their bench in St. James' Park the next day. During their talk, they decide to go to lunch and go directly there, which means that they met up sometime around 11am-12pm. So even Crowley calling in the middle of the night and setting up the meeting in the park with their code phrase means that the time of the meeting is always predetermined to be at least 11am, no matter what they need to discuss. Even after learning of Armageddon beginning, they waited until almost lunch the next day to meet up and talk about it because they never want to be seen in public together in the earlier mornings. They're afraid of someone seeing them going for a walk or getting a coffee together before midday and thinking they spent the previous night together. Crowley is always gone from the bookshop before the sun starts to come up and they never meet before 11am in an effort to keep anyone from figuring out that they are often in the bookshop-- and Aziraphale's bed-- together through the early morning hours.

Which tends to make this, their first time getting breakfast even if Crowley knew it wasn't really that because Aziraphale's "problem voice" was on, even more hilarious...

Crowley's like I left you blissed out and half-asleep in your bed *four hours ago*, angel... how on Earth is there a 'naked man friend' in your bookshop right now? He knows that Shax told him there's something going on and that Aziraphale called with a problem but this is the only time of day they usually spend apart and they always do so if Aziraphale is going to cheat on him-- which he's not lol-- this is when he would and based on the fact that Aziraphale panics at Crowley thinking there's another guy in the bookshop and based on Crowley's wtf? face at hearing there is, these two aren't sleeping with anyone else anymore and have a monogamous thing, even if they probably sort of forgot to have a discussion about it. Crowley can tell from Aziraphale's reaction that there's some misunderstanding here and then just gets bemused about it but also about ready to kill whatever guy, naked or not, is causing Aziraphale problems, only to find out that it's, well, the guy who tried to kill them.

In 2.01, when Gabriel makes his rather noticeable arrival on Aziraphale's doorstep, it is the mid-part of the morning-- probably somewhere around 9am as Maggie was just getting ready to open her store for the day, Nina was still busy but her more immediate pre-work coffee rush seemed to be winding down, and Aziraphale was having his breakfast tea on yet another day that his shop was not opening lol. The most major character to miss Gabriel's arrival is, of course, Crowley. Crowley's meeting with Shax is just before/happening in tandem with Aziraphale at Maggie's shop and then Gabriel's arrival and actually opens the storyline in the present in S2. The point is that Crowley misses Gabriel's arrival because he is not in the bookshop in the early mornings, which is then something that is heavily emphasized through Crowley and Aziraphale's first scene of the season via Nina to not just be about this particular early morning but all mornings.

When Aziraphale calls Crowley and has him meet him in Give Me Coffee, Nina has never met Crowley before. Give Me Coffee is fifteen steps across the street from the bookshop and sells coffee, tea and baked goods and Nina doesn't know Crowley. Nina has been there running it since post-S1. She knows Aziraphale though and, until the morning of 2.01, she thought the old bookseller a confirmed bachelor. In the span of 20 minutes, he gets a naked man possible deliveroo strippergram on his doorstep in front of the whole neighborhood and then then this other hot-- and surprisingly clothed-- Ginger Goth guy shows up to meet him for coffee. Nina's best guess for why the bookseller and his Crowley have never come across the street to her shop before and seem like they've literally never gotten breakfast together while they also "go way back" and have chemistry and affection for one another for days is that they're having an affair. Nina correctly guesses that their relationship is a secret and applies the most logical presumption that a human without knowledge of Heaven/Hell could-- that it's infidelity, not that they could be murdered if they were found out-- because these two live in London Soho in the year 2023 but are still afraid of being found out.

So, all of this shows how there's no Crowley in the bookshop in the morning. Neither of them have ever slipped across the street to bring back coffee and croissants for two at 7am or gone over to Nina's together. Aziraphale has been to Give Me Coffee alone before. Crowley and The Bentley are always nowhere to be found near the bookshop at this hour, which is how Crowley missed Gabriel's arrival.

So what does this all have to do with why Crowley doesn't just get a new apartment ahead of S2?

When Hell showed up in the form of Shax to reclaim the place in Mayfair in which Crowley was living, it really left Crowley with two choices. He wasn't about to tell Aziraphale because Aziraphale would feel like he had to ask him to move in with him for real and it was too dangerous. They can't have that so why bring it up and hurt them more? The two choices Crowley felt he had were to either get a new apartment or to just keep on as he's been living because the truth is... he hadn't been home to Mayfair that much lately anyway.

Before, Crowley and Aziraphale would try to go some amount of time between seeing each other but after S1, maybe with some exceptions around the Covid lockdowns but definitely not since they were lifted, they just stopped bothering that much. They were already together on borrowed time with no idea how much time they had until Armageddon: Round Two would start and they just wanted to be together so they kept up their whole routine of Crowley out before dawn and no mornings but Crowley had been more or less living in the bookshop for awhile ahead of S2.

As Aziraphale says here:

Meaning: they live together. Crowley's there all the time. Aziraphale does not mind. It's been months of Crowley in the bookshop every night. Aziraphale loves it. He hates him having to leave in the middle of the night as he always does but they've settled into a little domestic thing the best they can with the situation they have. The line is also laden with innuendo, suggesting they're not always just up talking and listening to old records until 4am but are regularly, ya know, setting off some alarm bells in Heaven together. (Couple Aziraphale's innuendo in the "plenty of use" scene with why Crowley says Muriel needs to leave the bookshop when he says he wants to take Aziraphale to breakfast at The Ritz. "We need a little 'us time'" meant all amnesiac angels and assorted representatives of Heaven and Hell need to get the Someplace out of this bookshop right now so I can finally watch that angel eat some pancakes and then take him to bed in our bed without worrying about someone needing a hot chocolate in the middle of the night.)

Their level of domesticity is actually shown to be pretty cute with this bit:

This is the most living together thing ever because it's saying that Crowley is just frequently in the bookshop while Aziraphale is out now. He's not even just there to see him but he spends time there alone while Aziraphale goes to the bank for change for the four books he sells a month and to his appointment with his barber and all his other little errands. You know Crowley likes waiting inside because he likes having a little time alone in a place where he's safe and won't be disturbed but also really the whole little domestic bliss of Aziraphale coming back and being all "Crowley? There you are" and showing him what he got at the shops and such. It's the most normal married thing imaginable and feels like they really live together and Crowley loves every minute of it.

So Hell taking his place in Mayfair back leaves Crowley with two options because it's still too risky for him and Aziraphale to just full on live together entirely: he can get a new apartment or he can basically just keep living with Aziraphale for most of the day and then spend the mornings in The Bentley/out.

If he gets a new apartment, he'd have to actually go there sometimes. He'd have to be seen moving his stuff into it and he'd have to get a new bed and he'd have to spend nights there sometimes to prove he's living there. It couldn't be suspiciously close to Aziraphale's place, so now he's got to drive more in the early morning hours. He's been spending so much time with Aziraphale, the thought of sleeping alone and spending the evenings alone again, even for a few nights now and then, is depressing. It was miserable before and now he can't to back to it again and he doesn't think Aziraphale would want to, either. He also doesn't exactly know how to tell him he'd have to be away some nights again without hurting him. They've both been alone more often than not for most of their existences and Crowley can't do it anymore. There's also, though, that getting another apartment also doesn't do much to help keep Heaven & Hell from thinking he and Aziraphale are involved... but pretending he's living in his car just might.

The only being of Heaven or Hell still talking to either him or Aziraphale is Shax and Crowley has to keep meeting up with her to get information on what's going on there and try to get a sense of how much time he and Aziraphale might have before Round Two. If he tells Shax that he's living in his car, then it makes him look less close to Aziraphale. Everyone knows Aziraphale has a private residence upstairs in the bookshop and that, if he and Crowley were really close, he'd have offered for Crowley to stay with him if he lost his apartment... so what if Crowley can make Heaven & Hell think they aren't that close, they just teamed up to stop Armageddon? He's even homeless now and the angel won't give him a place to stay. He tells Shax to tell Hell's Finance Office to send his bills to his car and Shax actually bought it and said she tried. Shax has been reporting back to Hell that Crowley is living in his car, which is what Crowley wanted her to think was the case.

Let Hell think they've won over him and taken his place and left him living in his car on a side street, let Shax keep meeting him in the early morning hours in his car on that side street... so that none of them figure out that he's actually living in the bookshop with Aziraphale.

In the meantime, no new apartment means no more nights away from Aziraphale. No commute back to it after picking up The Bentley on the side street means more time he can be with Aziraphale before he has to slip away in the early morning. He can just keep going from the bookshop to his car a few streets away each morning like he has been and that's the funniest part of it to him. Hell thinks they left him homeless and abandoned him and, really, they just made it easier for him to hide from them the fact that he's living with the angel he loves. All he has to do is bullshit them and he's good at that.

Crowley talking about living in his car is basically this in attitude, on steroids:

His pre-S2 conversations with Shax were like... Fuck, Shax, the crick in my neck from *sleeping in my car*... if Hell's Finance Office wants to find me, they can send the bills *to my car*... Bastard angel owns half of Soho, probably why I can't find a place... tell Lord Beezlebub if they're looking for me, they can go fuck themselves but if they absolutely have to contact me, they can find me *in my car*...

...and three hours or so earlier from every one of those conversations, Crowley was actually curled up in bed with Aziraphale in the bookshop.

[the-ineffable-dance]

A Companion to Owls is my favorite of the minisodes. Possibly my favorite story in the whole show. But more than it being just good fun and visually amazing, (plus, it gives us Bildad the Shuhite, I mean, come on..)

Job's story, really, is the beginning of "our side."

Before the Job story, Aziraphale and Crowley of course know each other, but I think it's still been a bit of feeling each other out. No one has really put themselves out where they could get into trouble. There's the chat on the walls of Eden, and then again at the Flood. In both of those, Crowley does a little pushing of Aziraphale's boundaries, but Aziraphale, regardless of his internal struggle, outwardly toes the party line... Heaven's plans, no matter how they might look, are in fact ineffable.

In Job, we see for the first time that they are beginning to really see each other. Aziraphale knows that Crowley doesn't want to kill off Job's goats or his children.

Though, of course, he's got to be a little smug about it.

And even when Crowley puts that to the test when he's setting the house on fire, Aziraphale remains confident in Crowley's innate goodness. And is again proven right when Crowley miracles them all into the cellar.

Crowley, for his part, knows that Aziraphale is starting to question the ineffable plan. God and Satan making bets, letting Job be tormented by demons, killing children... he sees the questions that Aziraphale is starting to have, and eases the path for him by being receptive to those questions.

Here we also have the start of Aziraphale's hedonism and love of human things. He's not quite ready to take the step of drinking alcohol, but he does accept Crowley's temptation to eating... and realizes that he's starving. It's his first bite in his entire existence, and he eats an entire ox! It's a small step from there to other things that we see him loving in the present... wine, music, books, clothes (I'm looking at you, 1793), all the things the other angels look down on him for, and Crowley probably introduced him to.

In 1941, they have the exchange, "You told me to trust you." "And you did." But I think that we have that here, too... for the very first time. When Sitis and Job are told that their children are dead, Aziraphale and Crowley put on quite the show with their cobbler/midwife and angel straight man performance. It's actually quite impressive... every time one of them leans on the other to keep up the charade, the other obliges...

It's important to remember just how dangerous this dance is for both of them. First of all, Crowley could not be in a worse place. Not only is there a host of angels here, Gabriel the Supreme Archangel is in the lead. To find a demon here, interfering in the ineffable plan, would certainly end in a smiting. His cleverness and the trust of Aziraphale are the only things that keep him one step ahead.

Secondly, Aziraphale himself is in great danger. Not only has he been collaborating with a demon, tempted into eating, and so on, but he is lying to Gabriel's face. We've seen him lie before. Most memorably to God when she asked where his sword went. But those were little white lies, with few ramifications. "These are his new children" is a direct contradiction to what the Plan is. He is for the first time, turning from the Heavenly Plan, and instead throwing in his lot with Crowley.

Which brings me to my final point...

Aziraphale is terrified of falling. But he was willing to do it to save the children. And that is something that means a lot to Crowley. When he realizes that Aziraphale thinks he's already fallen, he does tease him a little bit, but more importantly, he is soft and kind, talking him through this huge change in worldview.

The most touching moment is when Crowley admits that this path he is walking and Aziraphale now finds himself on is lonely. Crowley has been feeling it since the Garden... but now, it will be less lonely. Aziraphale doesn't have to face it alone, because Crowley will be there, too. Now, they have "us."

[ineffable-baker-street]

i have several things to say about the whole body swap situation:

1. crowley's icecream of choice is vanilla with a flake in it, and that might be my favourite thing ever, because it's such a stereotypical aziraphale thing to like

2. i really enjoyed watching it the second time, and watching how michael and david changed their mannerisms ever so slightly, so much so that it was hardly even noticeable the first time watching, and when I did notice the first time I immediately dismissed the thought

3. i love how when gabriel says "shut your stupid mouth and die already," we see just a flash of crowley's anger that someone would speak to aziraphale like that, but he quickly gets it under control. that was pure rage though, and very well done by michael

4. the flames shooting out of "aziraphale's" mouth. just very fun, and i like that crowley was very slightly more relaxed about how he portrayed aziraphale

5. david's performance of aziraphale being crowley is spot on. the subtleties are PERFECT and he did such an amazing job of it

6. the way they're sitting on the bench afterwards. such a good small detail, and extremely noticeable as soon as the change happens, but you don't even really register it at first

7. just the script in general. they gave "crowley" all the questions aziraphale would normally ask, again only a tiny bit noticeable, and most people would've dismissed it immediately in the first watch

anyway, overall, probably my favourite part of the show, because it's so ingenious

[kleenexwoman]

Aziraphale is Lucifer, Sauntering Back Upward

There's an amazing meta post about Crowley being Lucifer, and it got me thinking about the nature of their own rebellions. I love the idea that Crowley is Lucifer, and I totally think it fits, but he's a a version of the Adversary seen through a very Jewish lens, possibly even placed there deliberately by God herself as a sleeper agent. (I'm not placing Good Omens God as the good guy here; the whole point of the show is that neither side is good or bad, they're just sides to be on.)

In Judaism, Ha-Satan is an Adversary in a way that translates to "The Opposing Advocate" or "The Prosecuting Attorney" (Hebrew is Really Old and only has so many words to convey concepts), and his actual job, as appointed by G-d, is Asking Questions. He's appointed to do that. He's one of the mazikim, an angel who does G-d's dirty work of testing, tempting, judging, and destroying (I know Neil knows what this is, he named a character that!). And why was Crowley placed as the Tempter of Man? Well, he's really good at asking questions. He was turned into a demon because he had a lot of questions.

The assumption is that this is a punishment.

Job also thought he was being punished, but he wasn't. He was being used as a test because he was such a great example. Crucially, the Jewish interpretation of this story is not about trusting G-d and being rewarded or whatever, it's "Being very good doesn't mean that you'll be rewarded on Earth, it means that you'll probably have an even harder time here because G-d is using you to prove something." The double livestock and children are not meant to be a reward, they are due compensation for damages. (The Mishnah says equal cost, but I think Pain and Suffering counts for an awful lot in this case, so it's only right that he gets twice the livestock.)

Whereas Aziraphale, actually? Is not only a Christian angel, but a Christian Lucifer who is sauntering very slowly downward. A Lucifer whose job is not to ask questions, but who actually tests the angels themselves and leads them to rebellion.

(Additionally, I think it's really funny that Aziraphale and Crowley are having the exact same argument as G-d and Satan in the Book of Job, which is that it's very easy to do the right thing if you're rich but hard if you're poor, but they pick a very poor person instead of a rich one and end up taking everything away from her, and she's tempted to suicide. Great job, Aziraphale. Proves my point.)

Let's look Before the Beginning.

The first line in Genesis is about G-d creating the heavens and the Earth. So this is obviously even before "Let there be light," Market Version. The Miltonian War in Heaven takes place before that, so obviously this is before the Earth even happens. So what's Crowley doing, speaking the Divine Command when the Earth isn't around yet?

Well, without God looking over his shoulder, he's setting the stage for things like matter and energy to even be able to exist before the Earth even has the conditions to form. He's disbursing the Divine Light that's contained in the now-shattered vessels of the Sfirot.

Rav Wikipedia sums it up thusly: 'Because the sephirot are pure and unrelated to each other at this stage, each attribute alone is unable to contain the enormity of the Divine light as it descends into them, and the "vessels" (Keilim) of the sephirot undergo a "shattering" (Shevirah), creating the World of "Chaos" (tohu). Their Divine light is released and reascends, while the broken vessel fragments descend, still animated by "sparks" (Nitzotz) of light."

So, Crowley summons that Divine Light, it Big Bangs out and shatters existence into being, and Divine Light shoots out all over the place. Now, in medieval Kabbalah, this separation was considered to be a result of humans sinning, but in Lurianic Kabbalah, which is a reaction to the very beginnings of the Spanish Inquisition (the thing that got Crowley so upset with humanity), it's a necessary part of Creation. Divine Sparks being trapped inside the shards of the vessels it was stored in and forgetting what they were is necessary for consciousness that's not just a part of G-d to exist.

That's Crowley's job. It's necessary. We used to believe this was a mistake, but turns out it's not! This cosmic separation is actually really important, otherwise the Divine Sparks cannot forget their origin and experience individual consciousness and thus free will.

"In the Lurianic scheme, Creation is initiated by a primordial radical Divine "self-withdrawal" (Tzimtzum), forming a figurative "empty space/vacuum" (Khalal) in which only an "imprint" (Reshimu) remains of the withdrawn Ein Sof."

Compare this to Crowley and Gabriel's discussion of their lack of memory feeling like a house where furniture used to be. But also, consider how out of touch Crowley is with the whole Divine Bureaucracy at this point. He's clearly been left alone to do his own thing and hasn't heard what's going on in the scheme of things.

So what's Aziraphale doing there? He's just blithely winging his way across empty space, a little spark of light, when Crowley calls out to him. He doesn't appear to be doing anything more urgent or important. He comes over, asks what's up, and Crowley gives him a task -- holding the blueprint while he activates it into existence by turning a crank. Crucially, Crowley needs somebody to help him bring existence, as imperfect and chaotic as it is, into a place where it can even start to think about being. Trapping the Divine Spark in matter.

This is real fuckin sexual. It suggests Hesiod's placement of Eros as an act of attractive, sexual love as the beginning of existence, but also it's a pretty obvious sexual pun.

(The Gnostics would identify Crowley as the Demiurge for this, but we're not talking about them. I don't think Neil is trying to do anything with Gnostic mythos here; it would be a lot more obvious if he was.)

What is Aziraphale's response to this? He's disappointed that Crowley is praising Creation instead of praising his own personal beauty. It's only a second, but wow, how petty can you be? Someone has just unleashed the full beauty of the first moments of existence before you and you're like, "Wait, I'm pretty, too!" I mean, you did just metaphorically cum existence into being and I guess you're stuck in the wet spot, you could use some aftercare.

That sounds a lot like Milton's Satan. He's the prettiest boy in Heaven, and his whole thing is that he's not impressed by humanity and they should be worshipping him instead of him having to serve them. Aziraphale is a little jelly of Creation from the very start. So jelly, in fact, that he starts talking shit about it. Oh, this? Yeah, it's not that important. It's just a backdrop for humanity. Yeah, some little apes on an unregarded little blue-green planet far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy. That's what this is all about. Yeah, uh-huh, sucks to be you. Well, I wouldn't do anything stupid like raising a fuss about it. Oh, you're gonna? Ooh, don't, it's pretty dangerous. Little old angel like me could never. I don't even know what gravity is.

And yeah, maybe he was sent there to give Crowley the news in the first place, but still.

(@mischief-and-tea-by-the-sea , who suggested I tag @neil-gaiman , also points out that many interpretations suggest that Milton portrays the Fall as a Felix culpa or necessary fault, a planned thing like the shattering of the Divine Vessels in Lurianic Kabbalah -- both are necessary for independent consciousness to exist.)

God could have totally sent him to check up on Crowley, not just inform him of the new developments in the plan. Oh yeah, that one nerdy angel who got all geeked about nebulae. He's gonna flip his shit when he realizes this isn't going to run long enough for any new stars to form. Let's send my insecure little gay gossip over to see how he takes it. Ooh, he came right the fuck up to my office with a serious attitude. I mean, I don't wanna deal with that on a daily basis, but he's making some good points. I need to put him where I can use that attitude and also not have to deal with that attitude...

Not only that, but Aziraphale gives fire and the first weapon of war to Adam. These are traits identified with Prometheus and with Azazel, another name for Satan, in two different traditions.

One common interpretation of Milton is that his sympathetic Satan shares traits with Prometheus, acting as a bringer of enlightenment and a heroic figure to humanity, risking his angelic status for actions that will ultimately free humanity from the yoke of the gods. Prometheus risked the wrath of Zeus to give fire to the humans and was punished endlessly for it, and is prophesied to someday rise and do battle with the forces of Order at the end of time. Prometheus is also associated with the human brain and toolmaking (because of the fire), as well as being ultimately responsible for Pandora, the First Woman, who likewise doomed humanity because of her curiosity and disobedience of the gods.

According to the Book of Enoch, the angel Azazel, another name for Lucifer or Satan (I think by now it's pretty clear that Satan is just gonna be whichever angel is being an Adversary at the time, but w/e) was the leader of the Grigori, the angels who lusted after humans so much they decided to fuck them. Azazel personally taught them smithing and how to make weapons of war (and makeup; Aziraphale does love disguises and sleight of hand). Very Promethean. Aziraphale didn't Fall then, true, but he's also Human Gay. Possibly because his first individual experience was being attracted to (and, uh, Used for Cranking It until Creation exploded into being by) Crowley. Regardless of how much agency he had in his Gayness, he probably brought humanity the gift of Gay Sex and thus avoided having any Nefil babies that had to be drowned like half-tabby Siamese kittens in the Sandman, so he didn't Fall then either, but gee it was a narrow miss. He must have been worried about what else God could do to angels, which is why he was so terrified about his child-saving lie with Job.

(Of note is that literally the only remotely Biblical book that refers to an archangel rebelling directly against G-d for the Throne of Heaven is the Book of Enoch. Yep! Just there! It's not a Jewish belief at all, along with the idea of Original Sin or the snake being Satan--that is your Animal Urge, and it's necessary to live but you should not let it control your behavior, in Jewish thought.)

And the thing is that he does Fall a little after lying to God. She never speaks to him again, so he's left in constant doubt and has to be forced to make his own decisions, just like a demon. He obviously never tells any of the other angels, just Crowley. But you can see his anxiety about this constantly, and I bet there's a little part of him that wonders if he's actually Fallen and somehow nobody has noticed yet, but worries that the moment they do he'll be officially kicked out of Heaven. That's gotta be so, so bad for you.

But there he sits, acting as an angel, irritating the other angels to the point of extreme measures simply by being himself, the way that Crowley does to humans and other demons with lots of thought and cleverness.

He even offers Crowley the temptation to defy God's decision and take control in Heaven. Yeah, Crowley is horrified by the idea, but he's gotta stop and think about it for at least a moment, right? Crowley just didn't take it because he sees beyond the system. He already knows that the sides are bullshit in the same way I told my Christian classmates that they didn't need to worry about devils because they were really still just all angels and Hell was obviously a lie to keep them under control. (Mazikim!) Crowley wasn't tempted to take power because questioning the System is literally his job right now.

He obviously corrupted Gabriel by being so clearly in love and enjoying himself on Earth. Gabriel has his clothing tailored special and wants to save it, just like Aziraphale, even though he doesn't give a shit before. He wants to stop the Apocalypse and keep things status quo, even though he didn't before -- that's Aziraphale rubbing off on him. He wanted to meet his Hellish counterpart in a place where humans eat and drink, just like Aziraphale. And he decided that he was going to fall in love with his counterpart and even start enjoying music, just like Aziraphale, and face exile with graciousness just like Aziraphale.

Aziraphale literally tempted Gabriel to Fall. He didn't do it by asking questions, just by being himself. Enjoying things. Enjoying clothing and music and love and Earth and peace and the status quo. Indulging himself and his desires above serving God or, frankly, the humans. (Yeah, I know, he tries when he bothers, but he's still a lazy, petty bitch who prefers his personal drama and own sense of comfort to nearly everything else, and he barely tries to hide it. That's why we love him.)

And now?

Baby is Supreme Archangel. And he's gonna defy God about it. This is everything the Miltonian Lucifer ever wanted.

[aceofwhump]

(Go2 spoilers)

THE LAST EPISODE? opinions about the episode?

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!! Mildly incoherent keyboard smashing below

OH MY GOD!!!

I AM HEARTBROKEN!!! I was crying during the entire end scene!!!! Legitimately sobbing sitting on the edge of my, mouth hanging open in shock!

But it's like a good heartbroken? Okay so first of all I fucking love angst. I think that's pretty obvious here lol. So watching all the angst between the two of them in last few minutes was a delicious kind of heartbreaking! And I fully plan on making gifs especially of Aziraphale's angsty face. Cause god its beautiful.

And David Tennant and Michael Sheen are just so so amazing at their jobs and their acting during that scene was PHENOMENAL. They had me on the edge of my seat, crying like a heartbroken teenager. It takes a lot to get me to react like that to a show especially lately but David and Michael destroyed me.

And I personally think this is AMAZING writing/plotting. Of course this will on depend on Amazon giving us season 3 so everyone better watch the crap out of this season okay! Because season 2 focused a lot on Crowley and his realizations of feelings so I'm expecting season 3 will see Aziraphale let go of this picture of Heaven = Good and Hell = Bad thing and realize he loves Crowley and wants to be with him forever and the teo of them will talk and apologize and work things out and end up in the cottage in South Downs. That's the ending I'm sure we'll get. But we need to get there and there was bound to be angst on the way. This kind of angst feels so in character to me and feels right. Not all things are happy all the time and sometimes angst is good for plot development. This is GOOD ANGST! This will further the plot, create a viable route for character development that will inevitably give us our happy ending!

I know a lot of people are upset by it in like an angry why kind of way but I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT A LOT!

And a few random thoughts:

I never pictured Crowley being the first to make a move and I was so proud of him for putting himself out there and asking Aziraphale to stay with him and they can just be an us and then going further and showing his feelings by kissing him! It was beautiful and deep and scary and wonderful and I DIED! And his face and body language after Aziraphale did the thing was SO HEARTBREAKING! DAVID AND MICHAEL ARE SO GOOD AT THEIR JOBS!

And Aziraphale! Oh my god this angel is killing me! All he wants is to be with Crowley! He didn't give a shit about the Metatrons offer until he said Aziraphale could make Crowley an angel again and they could be together. Look at his smile in that scene! That made him so happy! He could be with Crowley and they could go home and be good angels again! In his head thats the perfect ending! They would be home together, doing good work and Crowley could make things again and ask his questions without fear of retaliation. Aziraphale remembers how happy Crowley was at the beginning, making his stars and galaxies, and believes Crowley wants that again. He also always believed in Crowley's goodness AND Aziraphale is still stuck in the belief of Heaven and angels being inherently good and the good guys while Hell and Demons are inherently evil and the bad guys. So he still believes that they should both be up in Heaven.

But Crowley knows the truth! Crowley sees that both sides are toxic and that for the two of them to be happy they need to be just the two of them like they have been these past few years. And they were happy! So he tries to get that through Aziraphale but Aziraphale isn't ready to hear that.

THEN THE KISS HAPPENS AND AZIRAPHALE ISN'T READY FOR IT AND HE ENDS UP BREAKING CROWLEYS HEART EVEN THOUGH AZIRAPHALE DOES LOVE HIM AND YOU CAN SEE HIS HEARTBROKEN CONFUSED AND IN LOVE FACE AFTER CROWLEY LEAVES AND AZIRAPHALE TOUCHES HIS OWN LIPS!!!

I AM FUCKING DYING NONNY!!! I'M DYING!!! IM LOSOMG MY MIND AND I KNOW THERE ARE OTHERS THINGS I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT. IT I CANNOT THINK STRAIGHT!!!

[sighed-the-snake]

I'm working on my fic and had fun writing this bit. It's just the shape of the scene and needs filling out, but here, have a ficlet.

“I got to help childhood sweethearts get married,” said Aziraphale tenderly. She watched the newlyweds dance with soft eyes. “I’m in my last hours of this assignment. After tonight, they’ll be married beyond contestation, and I’ll be on my way.”

Crowley turned to a young man approaching her with a hopeful smile and snapped, “No.”

The man frowned, offended, and turned away.

“Played the role of divine matchmaker, did you?” asked the demon with casual interest, as though nothing had happened. Aziraphale smiled privately but did not comment.

“Not quite. My job was to play interference so no one could stop the wedding. The lady was the more vulnerable of the two, so I’ve mostly been staying close to her.”

“Exactly how did you play interference, angel? Did you lock someone in a linen closet?”

“In fact, I did,” confided Aziraphale proudly.

They exchanged delighted smiles.

“Tell me everything,” hissed Crowley.

“Later,” said the angel. “I’m still working. Everything should go smoothly from here, but you never know when someone might try to be clever. Like poisoning the couple’s wine so they’re too sick to consummate their marriage, for example.”

“They didn’t.”

“They did. Everything is fine now, but I wish I knew who it was.”

“Mm.” Crowley’s eyes scanned the crowd, and using her lips, she pointed to a young woman. “I’d place my bets on that one. She’s broadcasting resentment and envy so loudly it’s leaving a funny taste in my mouth.”

Aziraphale blinked, glanced at the demon’s red mouth, then quickly glanced away again. “Ah. That sounds unpleasant.”

“It’s like licking a wet rat.”

“How do—? No, wait, I don’t want to know.”

Crowley grinned and rested her eyes upon the crowd once more. “At what part of the evening does your assignment end? Are you going to lurk behind a curtain while they—”

“Hah,” interrupted Aziraphale wildly. “You know, I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss the details of official business with a demon. You’re here to cause trouble, aren’t you? If you ask any more questions, I’m quite afraid I’ll have to end this conversation.”

Crowley stared in amazement. “You are!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I never would have pegged you as one for voyeurism, angel.”

“I – no – it’s – oh, do shut up,” said Aziraphale, embarrassed. “I just have to make sure all the boxes are checked off on their human cultural practices so the marriage can’t be contested, and I have one final blessing to do. That’s all it is, checking off a box, and then I can leave.”

“If he’s a good husband he’ll check her box off first.”

“Crowley!” said Aziraphale, aghast.

The demon chuckled wickedly and sipped her wine. Crowley did not look at Aziraphale as the angel went through the struggle of controlling her breath and smoothing the redness from her cheeks. They watched the wedding party as the people danced, strolled, sipped, and practiced their social games.

[prosperousduckscommuteviawaffle]

Crowley being so amazed Job gets to ask god questions hurts. Not just because he was cast out for asking questions but the implication here that Crowley never even asked those questions directly to god.

Metatron was probably his suggestion box.

Metatron was probably integral to Crowley’s fall.

Metatron who made a point of addressing Crowley as demon and asking if he knew who they were.

And then proceeded to take away what he loves most.

[theravenmuse]

S1E1 meta post 2 - the second half of the opening scene

Aziraphale is the reason for (at least some of) Crowley’s pesky questions

Crowley is gushing about his nebula, explaining what it does and how amazing it will be. Creating stars. (Just like he does.) 

Possibly mirroring the drunk scene from S1E1, Crowley explains, with elaborate arm movements: “Boom! Stars everywhere!”

Aziraphale starts to look uncomfortable here and breaks the news that it’s all going to end in 6000 years and Crowley isn’t going to get the millions it needs to do its work. Here, Crowley’s joy, which has been so vibrant, falls to not only disappointment, but also to confusion and doubt. “But that’s nothing!” he says. The pain in his voice is heartbreaking. “Oooh. What's the point in creating an infinite universe with trillions of star systems if you’re only gonna let it run for a few thousand years? The engine won’t have properly warmed up by then.”

Aziraphale, relieved to have an answer but also, I think, doubting that it’s the right one, explains about Earth and the people and how all of creation is for them. Crowley remains unconvinced. “But that’s idiocy! It’s the universe, it’s not just some fancy wallpaper! Millions of galaxies, trillions of stars, oodles of… everything! It’s not just put here to twinkle!”

Crowley also makes another very good point that I think could use a meta post of its own, but that’s for later after quite a bit of theorizing. “Most of it won’t even be visible from Earth. Why don’t you put Earth in the middle of the universe so the view’s better?” For this post, I’ll just say that he’s absolutely right, and I suspect that the reason for that is because it isn’t actually all meant to end in 6000 years and it isn’t just for the people of Earth.

Now Aziraphale is getting truly uncomfortable. “It’s not our job to advise The Almighty on the details of creation.” He means it as a gentle dissuasion. Crowley is not dissuaded. He fires back with, “Well then whose job is it? I mean, someone has to say, “Look boss, this is a really, really terrible idea.””

Now Aziraphale is getting even more upset. He calls Crowley’s suggestion inappropriate. Crowley is still not dissuaded and suggests further that The Almighty should consider a suggestion box. Aziraphale is very, very upset. His upset, I think, is not actually that Crowley would suggest these things, but that he (Aziraphale) cannot logically find fault with them, putting himself at odds with what he’s been told is right and his own rationalizations. In his very, very upset voice, Aziraphale continues: “I don’t believe The Almighty has actually created a suggestion box. And furthermore, I don’t think it’s our place to start suggesting that there should be a suggestion box.”

Here, Crowley takes it the whole mile. “Well, y’know, if I was the one running it all, I’d like it if someone asked questions,” he says. He says a few other things, but I don’t think Aziraphale is listening past this. He’s even looking over both shoulders as if to check that nobody else is around to hear this. In a desperate bid to hold on to his sanity, Aziraphale points out the nebula again. He doesn’t actually care about the nebula. Well, he does, but not in this moment. Luckily, it works. Crowley goes back to smiling, though it isn’t the broad, unrestrained joyful smile from before and doesn’t ask anymore of those difficult questions.

Still shaken, but on somewhat firmer ground now that Crowley’s onslaught of suggestions has stopped, Aziraphale adds: “Um, but look, word to the wise, I’d hate to see you getting into any trouble.” Crowley tells Aziraphale not to worry. “How much trouble can I get into just for asking a few questions?” Oh poor innocent angel.

Then there’s the meteor shower. Crowley covers Aziraphale with his wing, mirroring the scene in Eden from season 1. Note that Crowley is still on the left throughout this scene despite the fact that he’s not a demon yet.

[nimbusalba]

Hiya! For the Good Omens Ask Game - questions 2, 10, 15 and 22!

Hiya! How are you, honey? I’m so glad you asked! Sit down and take a cold drink, iced tea? Juice? Smoothie? Let’s answer those questions, shall we?

2. What was it that drew you to Good Omens, and what was it that sucked you into the fandom?

What drew me to the book about 20 years ago was that it was written by Terry Pratchett. I didn't know Neil Gaiman yet. I loved the book and that drew me to the show. Last year I remembered they had made the series. I watched the first season and loved it even more than the book, because, come on, that series is a work of art. The story is amazing but what Michael Sheen and David Tennant have done with Aziraphale and Crowley is just beyond words. I learned there was a second season. And that sealed my future. Somewhere between s2e2 and s2e3 I was so hooked I couldn't stop watching. But I think what sucked me into the fandom’s downwards spiral and the never ending brainrot was the final fifteen. That scene changed my brain chemistry for good and after that moment I haven't been able to think of anything other than these two idiots and the good omens universe.

10. What traits do you share with Crowley?

Just like Crowley I’m a nervous wreck trying to hide it from the rest of the world, so anxiety is one of our shared traits. Also curiosity, critical thinking, dislike of hierarchy and questioning orders and authority. You’ll be happy to know I don’t kill kids either, so that’s another trait Crowley and I share. I also love Aziraphale, but I reeeeally love them both, so idk if it counts as a shared trait. Unfortunately I’m not an optimist deep down.

15. If you could be besties with anyone from the Good Omens universe, who would it be?

That’s a difficult one. I’d give an arm to be besties with Aziraphale or Crowley, just like anyone would do. Aziraphale is so tender and caring and, deep down, such a bitchy bastard. On the other hand, Crowley is a captivating demon and if I were besties with him I’d probably get to meet Hozier, which would also be amazing.

But other than the ineffables, I’d love to be besties with Tracy, as I find she is a fascinating, strong woman and she seems to be so fun. I'm sure there wouldn't be any dull moments with her.

22. Bildad The Shuhite: hot or not?

Short answer: hot! I find Crowley/Crawley hot as hell in any circumstance whatsoever.

Long answer: Well, it depends on the POV. In the scenes at Job's house (at the patio, the cellar), which I take as Aziraphale's POV, Bildad is hot, hot, hot! With that long, curly hair he's really Bildaddy, you know what I mean.

In the rest of the scenes (which I take as Crowley's POV) with the shorter, frizzy hair he's hot but in a funny way.

[chlorine-and-daisies]

GO ask and touch on religion classes for you and me in need of takes for a fic I'm working on: Is "The Bible" in the GO universe "The Word of God?" Or is it just human dude's documenting, interpreting, and guessing?

Amazing question!

From my understanding (and take this with a grain of salt as I'm just a now-agnostic biochem student who took a couple religion classes) the Bible we know was complied and edited by multiple scholars over centuries, each with their own taste, agenda, and access to different information. Many of them were writing about events that they did not actually witness, or writing allegories instead of straight historical records. There are some Biblical figures that we can assume existed in real life because they show up in non-Biblical sources too, but there are also lots of contradictions and events such as the flood that, to the best of our scientific knowledge, never happened.

In *my opinion* the Bible in Good Omens is just as much "the word of God" as our Bible is. That is- it was written down by men, through the ages, about their own interpretation of God and history.

It's just that in their world, the angels that show up in the Bible are just as real as, say, Ahab, King of Israel, Augustus Caesar, or Jesus. Doesn't mean that everything that's said about them im the Bible is true- Agnes Nutter is still the only writer of true prophecies- but they did show up in history and get remembered to the point where things were written down about them.

Furthermore, Good Omens makes it clear that in the world of the story, Heaven and Hell and God are not responsible for or even aware of the more bigoted human interpretations of the Bible- I can't see the Archangels for example having any idea that humans used the curse of Ham as justification for slavery and Leviticus as a reason to look down on homosexuality, or that women were ever forbidden from speaking in church.

I forget if this showed up in the show, but in the book, Aziraphale collects misprinted Bibles, and in one of them, he had actually inserted a scene of himself telling God that he misplaced the flaming sword during the book's proofreading stage. When he's trying to find a body during Armageddon, he unwittingly possesses a televangelist, and he promptly corrects some of his ideas about the Rapture before leaving. If the Bible was supposed to be the perfect word of God in this world, I doubt that he would have changed it in this way.

(Tangent, but collecting misprinted Bibles is a hobby that he shares with Adah from The Poisonwood Bible, a book that I think would make him and Crowley very emotional. The first line by the way is "Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened." It REALLY belongs on Jim's shelf of I books.)

As for Crowley- well. I think he interfered with Bible-writers too. Bildad the Shuhite first insists that God is just and will restore everything to Job if he repents (Job 8), then says that Job must have done something to bring about his own destruction (Job 19), then questions whether it is even possible for a human to be pure in the eyes of God (Job 25).

Finally Bildad apologizes to Job after God tells Eliphaz the Temanite to take his friends (which includes Bildad) and make a sacrifice to Job. (Job 42)

I want to draw attention to Bildad's words about God in Job 25:5-6 - "If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less a mortal, who is but a maggot- a human being, who is only a worm!"

*In the Good Omens universe, where Bildad is Crowley,* these lines could show Crowley's true feelings and disillusionment with God. It's a sentiment that feels in character for him- if God thinks my stars are impure, then he probably thinks that I, and humans, will never be able to be pure. Very reminiscent of his thoughts when he's sitting in his room with space photos floating around him.

Obviously Crowley was never cruel to Job the way Bildad was- I wonder if he had these lines inserted after the fact to create a record and show Hell that he was obviously doing his job and up to no good during the Job incident.

But yeah! Thank you for the amazing question!!!!! I believe that the Bible in both the real world and in Good Omens comes from multiple human authors, contains varying degrees of truth, and changes its meaning as it is constantly reinterpreted- so it is the "Word of God" in that God and His relationship with humanity are the main focus, but that does not mean that every event literally happened as it says. Really interesting.

[theonevoice]

Rumination n. 2 - About Fallen Angel

One aspect of Good Omens that I don’t see as much praised as the amazing writing of Neil Gaiman and the unbelievable performances of Michael Sheen and David Tennant, but I find crucial to the gut-wrenching beauty of this second season in particular, is the wonderful soundtrack by David Arnold.

The music of this show is just brilliant, to a point where it feels almost arrogant for me to point it out, like it would sound weird if someone came out of the blue saying “You know, that Beethoven guy is actually rather nice”. So I will just pick one single track that, to me, summarizes how much the soundtrack helps carry the weight of the story, packing layers over layers on each scene and adding to the writing and the acting an extra expressive space that can be filled with even more facets of the main themes.

I’m thinking in particular of the scene at the end of ep. 2, with the pivotal dialogue that, for the first time, really cement the alliance between Crowley and Aziraphale as two individuals who are not entirely conforming to the expectations of their respective sides. By the time this dialogue rolls in, something massive has just happened: each of them has been caught red-handed by the other, doing and feeling things that negate their respective “company policies”. Crowley has been found out not wanting to destroy Job’s goats, let alone kill his children, and Aziraphale has been found out unable to endorse the dire implications of the Bet. Lucky them, this all happened between the two of them, nobody else is involved or informed, and this reciprocity allows them to pause for a moment and start reflecting on their situation. We know, of course, that this moment was waiting to happen since the conversation on the wall of Eden, when Aziraphale is visibly touched by the slightest sliver of doubt (his expression tells us that what Crowley is saying about God putting the Tree in such a prominent spot, as if to induce temptation on purpose, does make a point, despite him not wanting to speculate, possibly because he remembers all too well how dangerous it is to ask questions in Heaven), and since their meeting before the flood, when Crowley realizes that he doesn’t like the perspective of having innocent people killed, which is not a strictly demon-like thing to feel (and he knows it because his comment about the indiscriminate extermination of everyone via the flood is “this is more the kind of thing that you would expect my lot to do”, which, transitive property applied, means that he is upset about at least some of the things that Hell throws at the earth). But the Job encounter is the first time that all of this has actually been said (more or less) out loud by both of them.

So what about the music?

The track playing with the final dialogue is titled Fallen Angel, and I find that there is something heartbreaking in it. Yes, of course, it is a quote from Aziraphale’s line, when he desperately refers to himself as “a fallen angel”, but “fallen angel” is also what Crowley is, despite what he himself would like to think.

We talk a lot about how much Aziraphale is the one in constant denial – denial of Heaven’s dark sides, denial of his own sometimes shaky moral stance (let’s not forget that, between the Arthurian period and the meeting at the Globe, he has agreed to go around tempting people on behalf of Crowley, which means quite literally doing Hell’s work), most of all denial of his own feelings – and this is certainly true. But I feel that we should also recognize how much Crowley is in denial in his own way, specifically denial of the traces that his original angelic nature has left behind. Or rather, of those parts of angelic nature that he held on to even after being cast to Hell. Now, as much as I love the interpretation of their last exchange in ep. 6 as Aziraphale offering to “change Heaven for him” rather than asking him to change for Heaven, I still think that Aziraphale has been forcing on Crowley a distorted still-an-angel portrait because in doing so he is blocking out at least some of his internal struggle (and this “weakness”, in my opinion, makes his character even more vivid and lifelike). But I also think that Crowley’s angry reactions to having his chosen identity denied by the only person in the universe that is dear to him are tinted by the trauma of the Fall.

And the music in that scene, I believe, is telling us just that. Of all the tracks in season 2, I find Fallen Angel to be the most melancholy one together with The End?, and possibly even sadder: because The End? starts playing when both us viewers and the protagonists are in a literal, I would say almost medical state of shock, unable to master the emotional resources needed to process what just happened. Fallen Angel on the contrary is a desperately calm moment of reflection on what their situation in the universe is, on how their respective cages are hurting them, and how painfully hard it is to summon the courage to escape them, to even think of escaping them. It seems to me that even the set choice confirms this mood: after an entire episode spent almost exclusively in closed, sometimes claustrophobic spaces, they are finally “outside”, on the top of a cliff (like when they briefly met at the beginning of the episode, but now the dry canyon is a beautiful gulf), watching a calm blue sea under a calm blue sky: everything is wide open, vast, unobstructed, with no living thing around as if they are alone in the universe, their thoughts and fears can flow freely and unrestricted. And in this moment of honesty, when they for the first time open up to each other, we have Fallen Angel, which is not just sad, is also nostalgic. But how and why can it be nostalgic? If the title only refers to Aziraphale, nostalgia makes no sense, because his feelings in those moments are feelings of desperation and angst. But if the title refers to both of them, then it does make sense, because nostalgia is the pain of something that has been lost, and while Aziraphale has not lost anything yet, sitting next to him there is someone who has lost something that cannot entirely be forgotten. Surely, one could say that by now Aziraphale has lost his original “innocence”, but I would argue that, on the wall of Eden, having just given away the flaming sword, he was already letting that sliver of doubt creep in, and he was definitely not comfortable with discussing the flood. Furthermore, telling his first lie counts as a loss (of innocence and peace of mind) no more than it counts as a gain (of awareness, freedom, and self-actualization). On the other side, Crowley was denied the chance to work his situation out in such a safe space. He just lost his original status over asking questions.

If Aziraphale is in denial of the traits of his personality that make him not entirely angelic, Crowley is equally – if not more – in denial of the traits of his personality that still link him to an ideal of good that is, or at least should be angelical. And it is a quite visible denial. He is annoyed by the smallest allusion to his good qualities, but as soon as he lets his guard down he goes back to remembering that he “didn’t mean to fall”, just “hung around the wrong people”, that he “didn’t really fall”, just “sauntered vaguely downwards”. That’s why Fallen Angel can be nostalgic. It’s not just about Aziraphale contemplating for a moment that he could be (or deserve to become) a fallen angel, but it’s also about the actual fallen angel sitting next to him, who, as much as he wants to paint himself as tranquil and satisfied with his situation, is still aching from the absolute pain and terror that he felt when he was cast out of Heaven. He used to be, after all, the angel that we see before the Beginning: he was so sure that just asking questions could not get him into trouble, he had no intention of rebelling or leaving. This – obviously – does not mean that Crowley is still an angel or wants by any means to go back to being an angel: he could never go back to that, exactly because he has experienced too much grief to be ever able to fit in the narrow mould of an angel again, to be able to just bask in the joyous light of God’s will in the unshaken certainty that it is entirely Good and Just and Forgiving. He has first-hand experienced that it can be cruel and unjust and unforgiving. He has forged and conquered an identity of his own, but it is an identity born out of the pain of not having a place to belong. He had to carve out a new path for himself, he didn’t mean to, he barely realized that it was about to fall (“didn’t have anything on the rest of the afternoon… next thing I was doing a million light year freestyle dive into a pull of boiling sulfur”).

So let’s look at what is happening from Crowley’s point of view. There you have an angel that has just violated the Heavenly code of conduct, and he is so pure of heart that he is just going to turn himself in to a blind and vindictive authority. If he let him go ahead, there is a chance that this could give him a fellow “demon who goes along with Hell as far as he can”, but at what cost? If Aziraphale’s conflict is a conflict between living by his own independent judgment (which includes choosing Crowley over obedience to Heaven) and staying true to the side “of good, of truth, of light”, Crowley’s conflict is a conflict between the need to escape solitude by pulling Aziraphale to his side and saving Aziraphale from the trauma that the Fall gave him and that being fallen still gives him.

A couple of millennia later he will joke about how being damned “is not so bad when you get used to it”, but Fallen Angel playing under this dialogue in ep. 2 tells us that he would never put Aziraphale through what being damned really means. He is a demon who is actually saving an angel from the risk of becoming a demon himself, because he knows how deeply and irreparably that can wound your soul, to the point that you would rather lie than admit it. “I’m a demon, I lied”: I know what it means to be in this place, don’t drag yourself here, it’s a realm of exile and loneliness, let’s agree that an angel can still be an angel even if he steps out of line from time to time, let’s create a margin of maneuver that did not exist when all this happened to me. Now it’s too late for me, but not for you.

So, to wrap up, thank you David Arnold for your invaluable work.

[narrynukezankielover]

Finally finished season 2 (I was putting it off because I really didn’t want to cry since I knew what happened). I LOVED l the season. It’s so romantic with all the touches and looks. It’s amazing. I tried to get my thoughts together so I’m sorry if it’s hard to understand.

Ep 4 is my favourite. It’s what I call the trust ep. It’s easy to trust one another when you both have powers but to literally put your life into another persons hand when neither of you have powers and the person shooting the gun has never shot a gun before takes a LOT of trust and considering it happens on the same day that Aziraphale realizes he loves Crowley I’d say it takes a lot of trust and love. I think the amount of love and trust between them is going to come back big in season 3 (plus Crowley said the miracle that him and Aziraphale did on Gabriel worked a bit too well yet it was just a small miracle. I think they will realize how powerful they are together and that is what will stop the big war. I think they are so powerful because of that love, trust and maybe demon power with angel power.

As for ep 6 it made me think more than any other ep. It also left me with some questions. The Metratron (I don’t know how to spell it) said “one prince falling makes a good news story” so is Crowley the only higher up angel that’s ever went to hell? What happened in the first world war that made Aziraphale use his halo? When Crowley met Furfur and the angel in the wheelchair (I can’t spell her name so I’m not going to try) he said he didn’t know who they were. Whether he’s lying or not it doesn’t make sense that he didn’t pretend to not know the Metratron when he asked him if he knew who he was and when he talked about the last time he seen him Aziraphale knew who he was right away. We also know that they do wipe angels memories if they are being punished. I wonder if when Crowley went to ask god his questions Aziraphale went with him to try and convince him not to ask the questions but he didn’t get to ask her the questions he met the Metratron instead (Crowley did seem a bit jealous that Job got to ask god questions. Plus the Metratron did say something to Aziraphale about Crowley always asking questions) then he was the one that sent Crowley to hell and tried to wipe his memories but maybe Aziraphale stopped it before he lost all his memories because he didn’t want Crowley to forget him. It would explain why he remembers some people but not all people. Maybe I’m over thinking that part.

The last 15 minutes made me bawl even though I knew what was comeing and I’ve seen parts of it online I still bawled. You can tell after the kiss Aziraphale was struggling with his decision (I’m also thinking that kiss was a protection). He wanted to stay with Crowley but he also wants to go to heaven to change things the way him and Crowley think heaven should be ran. Even outside before he gets in the elevator he’s still trying to decide and by the looks of it he was going to go with Crowley until the Metratron said something about the second comeing. All of a sudden Aziraphale knew if he went with Crowley now the universe was screwed. He knew he had to stop all of that from happening. Crowley usually protects him now he had to protect Crowley. When he’s in the elevator you can see him comeing up with a plan. I don’t like some of the hate Aziraphale gets for his decision to go to heaven but if you think about it he has to go to save everything and everyone including Crowley.

[phantasmicfish]

Okay so I want to get all my good omens s2 thoughts out there in one big swoop and try to sound coherent… and ofc I’ll later post exclusively what I loved because there is A Lot to love about this show!

I largely loved the first four episodes. I thought they were amazing, there was fantastic chemistry and humor between Aziraphale and Crowley. The back in time sequences were brilliant and slightly darker than they were in season 1! I felt they portrayed Heaven in a more critical light than we’ve seen before… ex: Heaven condoning the murder of children, messing Job’s life over a silly bet, kicking Crowley out for asking several questions.

I think the back in time sequences really showed Aziraphale’s struggle with his desire to follow Heaven/God because they're the Good Guys verses what Heaven/God is actually telling him to do being straight up bonkers. We see the first time he lies to other angels to save Job’s children, but this deed ends up in direct violation of God’s orders, so there’s this internal moral conflict here…

It was amazing to see angels and demons try to understand humanity and fail, versus Aziraphale and Crowley who are well-versed in humanity and their traditions and have the upper hand in this regard.

I love love LOVE Jim. I mean, Gabriel. I mean, James! The dynamic between him, Crowley, and Aziraphale was amazing! You have this horrible, completely awful boss who’s narcissistic and self-centered and completely detached from any form of human emotion… and you wipe his slate clean and stick him with two characters who think he’s a mega level asshole and watch their interactions unfold. I think Aziraphale promising to protect Gabriel and then upholding that promise despite Gabriel being a douche is so sweet, so in character… and Crowley going along with it even though he hates Gabriel with all his heart. And the way Crowley struggles to reconcile and accept this version of Gabriel with the one he’s seen in the past was very interesting to watch. Gabriel learning the alphabet, dusting the bookshop because he wants to be helpful, Gabriel jumping out the window because Crowley tells him this is how he can help Aziraphale really sold it for me— now, without his memory, Gabriel is kind and nice and just wholesomely curious. I think I would have liked to see more Gabriel-as-Jim scenes before he got his memory back, which brings me to what I don’t like about the show, namely, the last episode.

(HRHSHSHSBSZHSH)

So, the ultimate episode has the big resolution— it’s revealed Gabriel decided against a second Armageddon after his blossoming romance with Beelzebub, then he gets his memory back and the two of them go off together to live a life of romance and love and all that on Proxima Centauri, presumably.

And.

Just.

It’s too neat. It’s too tidy. Crowley and Aziraphale had all of creation to alleviate their prejudices and fall in love *cough they just don’t know it yet cough*. It’s not believable to me that Gabriel and Beelzebub would fall in love in such a short period of time based on such minimal interactions, I feel like love (a very human thing) is something pre-Jim Gabriel would look down on altogether. I wish we had more of Jim. I would, frankly, be fine without seeing the return of Gabriel altogether… or at least some scenes that show Gabriel as being grateful to Aziraphale and Crowley for hiding him out and risking destruction just for him…

I don’t know. I think that end was wrapped up too neatly and too tightly. I’d be happy if Gabriel never got his memory back this season, and we see the continuation of Jim in season 3. Why build a character up only to have him disappear just when we start to like him?

I didn’t care for Nina and Maggie. I thought they were superfluous in every sense of the word. I feel like their characters had a lot of potential in the beginning and then the plot just sort of ended up… not doing anything with their characters? Nina is in a maybe emotionally toxic relationship with Lindsay, but then that ends and we don’t even get to meet Lindsay. Maggie’s character has no development except for her love of Nina and her owning a record shop. And the two of them giving advice to Crowley at the end to just talk to Aziraphale just didn’t do it for me.

I was crushed when Aziraphale was asked to rejoin heaven and did so immediately and with open arms— it’s like that scene at the bandstand all over again, when Aziraphale said, there is no our side. He still believes in and wants to follow Heaven, whereas Crowley made his peace with being on his own side (not Heaven or Hell’s) many years ago.

So, essentially: I loved the show, but I’m not satisfied with the conclusion to Gabriel’s story or Maggie/Nina’s involvement, which sorta soured it for me. I do love the show! Especially every back in time featurette with Crowley and Aziraphale, any and all Crowley and Aziraphale interactions in the present today together and with Gabriel, the major ship vibes this season was pumping out! It was funny and lovely and aside from the imo lackluster Gabriel resolution, all around great!