#love how Aziraphale and Crowley are one in the same

[vidavalor]

Thanks for reading, @simonezitrone79 💕 If, by a mask, you mean that you think Aziraphale is faking something because he has a plan, we'll have to see what happens but I am afraid that I disagree. I mean, in the long run, Aziraphale has chosen wisely because he has chosen Crowley and good people overall, but people can sometimes make the wrong choices in the moment for the right reasons and I think that's what is happening in The Final 15.

Aziraphale is lovely and smart and a good judge of character but everyone has blind spots and those blind spots are usually driven by past trauma. I think that's kind of a lot of what's happening in S2, as it also is in Crowley's story and his self-doubt causing him to trust only Beez's take on The Book of Life and to not be able to fully see the big picture with Gabriel for most of S2. I do not think that Aziraphale has a secret plan in the elevator. I think we see the ups and downs of this stuff a bit in S2-- 1941, Part 2 is a story of having a win but The Final 15 is one of a loss.

It's only a loss because both Crowley and Aziraphale are having trouble talking about their frozen peas when they are usually better at such things. As such, they both fall victim to their own blindspots and can't see or hear one enough to recognize what's really happening and help each other through the way they usually do.

Aziraphale's blind spot is that he'll sometimes trust the wrong person for the right reasons. He is only really prone to being able to be manipulated-- and to manipulating himself-- when the situation is around a part of Aziraphale's life where he feels that he's not good enough. He is good enough but he doesn't let himself believe that.

He once wound up held at gunpoint in a church by Nazis to whom he had given several of his most beloved, priceless books out of a sense that he wasn't doing enough to help the Allied Forces win the war. It's that 1941 scene that The Final 15 is mirroring in a lot of places and I think it's for similar reasons that Aziraphale goes with who he believes is The Metatron.

It's not for the world this time, the way it was with Rose/Greta in 1941-- it's for Crowley. Aziraphale was a hard pass on going to Heaven until he was tempted with the idea of eternal safety for Crowley. It's not a genuine offer-- it would collapse Heaven & Hell if even one demon were to be restored as an angel-- but it's an offer Aziraphale feels he can't refuse because to do so would be to reject something that he thinks could keep Crowley safe.

He's taken the wrong path with this because he is letting their abusers dictate the parameters of their life but it's understandable how he got to this point. It's not easy watching someone suffer for years upon years the way he has with Crowley. He wants to be able to offer Crowley the safety and peace that he doesn't think he can give him, even as Crowley is trying to tell him that the only safety and peace he knows is with Aziraphale and that's all he needs. It's Aziraphale not allowing himself to accept that he is good enough as he is and it will, quite literally, be the death of him. That's the "going to Heaven" and going into the light of the elevator to me-- it's a fall, it's a death.

Gabriel could have gone all the way down this path himself but he didn't to have a contrasting story to Aziraphale. Gabriel's issues are, at the core, the same as Aziraphale's. They are both excessively self-sacrificing and struggle with being told that they exist to serve God and others and so are not to claim any resources for themselves. They are supposed to be above all of it and they both know that's bullshit but they've been stuck trying to figure out a path forward. It's not a matter of access to resources as to which one of them survived it in S2 because they both found what they needed.

It's a matter of who shut people out and who let people in.

People can go up and down with this. Gabriel spent thousands of years too afraid to trust-- and for understandable reasons, considering the culture of Heaven. It's only when he is open with trusted friends who see him as a person that he starts to heal. Aziraphale is often open with Crowley and that has saved him for a long time. One of the loveliest moments in the series is an example of that in 1941, Part 2, when Aziraphale expresses his hesitation to go to Goldstone's-- to do the human things he loves and wants to do. Aziraphale has been doing those things for thousands of years but he still has conflict over them. Crowley recognizes that struggle in Aziraphale and he was able to help him in 1941 because Aziraphale let him. In the present of S2, though? The opposite is happening.

In the present of S2, Aziraphale ultimately shuts Crowley out. It's not just Crowley he shuts out-- Aziraphale also ignores any lessons he could be taking from Gabriel and Beez. He does so because he's blinded by his negative self-thoughts-- the darkness/demons have overrun his bookshop. It doesn't mean it's permanent but I think that's the plot more than that it is that he gets into the elevator with a plan. His smile over the closing credits is a miserable kind of madness. Is he ultimately going to help burn it all down? Oh, yeah. But, in the short term, he's completely fucked.

The angel with the huge heart that helps everyone else seems too lovely to fall but he is falling because, while he's the first person to help others in need, he goes through periods where he doesn't acknowledge that he's a person in his own right as well. He thinks he should be above being a person but he also knows he is one. Some days, he can fight it and some days, he loses the battle. It is kind of the ultimate in human stories, eh?

All of Bedford Falls is going to need to save George Bailey here.

Playing with Fire

Armageddon: The end of the world.

World: The Earth. Also: a person's own universe-- the life of an individual and the people they let into that life.

With that in mind...

Armageddon: The destruction of Earth and the deaths of all living beings inhabiting it. Also: a person's mental health crisis.

"When alle is fayed and all is done, ye must choose your faces wisely for soon enouff, ye will be playing with fyre." -Agnes Nutter's final prophecy of Armageddon and a big theme of the story in a nutshell.

Faces: The front portion of the head of a human or an animal.

Also: to confront and deal with a difficult or unpleasant task or situation.

Also: the front of a building, including its front door.

Agnes Nutter's prophecy is not just about the destruction of Earth but about the everyday Armageddon of people's lives. Soon enough, we all will eventually find ourselves playing with fire-- in dark times and in the danger zone of falling. We all wind up there at some point and we need help either staving off a fall or getting back up from one.

The only way out of that is to choose our faces wisely. It's to choose to trust the people who show us they are worthy of that trust and to let them in enough to help with safety and support.

It's to form a mutual aid association and face the world together as a group. That's the only way to move through the dark stuff to keep it from getting you-- to go as one, together.

In S2, Gabriel survives by doing exactly this to the letter, even though he doesn't know Agnes' prophecy. He is the positive example of this theme in action.

Gabriel chooses his faces wisely. He is unconcerned with how a person is labeled or judged by others and, so, trusts two demons in Crowley and Beez to help him, and enjoys joining the human world as a bookseller. He puts his fate in the hands of Aziraphale, the only angel he has seen with the good heart and moral character to be fully trustworthy.

He isn't bothered or intimidated by Beez's change of face because he can recognize them enough to know they are who they say they are and outward appearance matters little to the guy who is, ironically, also sometimes the vainest person on the show.

He picks a person in Beez to trust with all of himself who has proven with their actions that they are worthy of that trust. This is the wisest of choices as it's evident Ineffable Bureaucracy were made for each other.

Without opening up and trusting Beez, Gabriel would not have had the means to survive his fall without losing himself entirely. Trusting them is the wisest choice of a face that Gabriel has made.

He then is ready to face his issues with Heaven and its role in all definitions of Armageddon. He rejects the, well, literal face that is The Metatron...

...and goes to the face of the building where he knows he'll be safe...

...because he knows he can trust the faces of the couple who lives there to let him in and help him.

As such, Gabriel survives his personal Armageddon. He falls and he's struggling but he is saved from forms of death by Beez, Crowley and Aziraphale, finds a new way forward, and rendered literally immune to darkness as a result.

Gabriel went down in S2... both figuratively and literally... a mental health crisis and cast down from his position at the top of Heaven and down in the lift to Earth as he ran for his life... but he's saved from the fall leading all the way to death by virtue of the fact that he chose his faces wisely. Beez, Crowley and Aziraphale helped him find his way through and join The Whickber Street Shopkeepers and Traders Association and now Jim has people.

Not only does this help Gabriel but it's going to help others as well because now that Jim is on the mend, he can be there for them and others as well.

But what about the one whose story Gabriel is paralleling in S2?

What about Aziraphale? Did he remember in S2 what Agnes told him?

He did not.

In S2, for the most part, Aziraphale was pushing away the people and things he needed to survive a personal Armageddon and, as of the end of S2, is playing with some serious, serious fire.

In The Final 15, Aziraphale chose an untrustworthy being wearing the very same face that Gabriel had wisely finally rejected...

...over quite literally a lot of face of the person he trusts more than anyone else...

...he chose the elevator door face ("going to Heaven"/death) over that of his own bookshop (life)...

He was offered the chance to become the new Gabriel and that is likely more true in the S2 falling Gabriel sense of things than it is in terms of the job offer being real. In his effort to take care of everyone, Aziraphale didn't let in the people around him to help him, too. He didn't see himself as a person in his own right. He made the fatal mistake against which Agnes cautioned and which Gabriel avoided.

That said... everyone goes down. It's just gravity. Everyone wants to live and they'll eventually fall trying. No one asks for death. They all ask for coffee.

But those that manage to survive can find wings can fly and go back up together.

Insects, birds...

The flies. The nightingales...

Did you give wings to peacocks, Job? The communication metaphor of feeding the ducks frozen peas:

Or teach the ostrich to run? The ostrich who ran:

And when you feed your ducks your frozen peas and make your own history, you're living life together.

Everyday/it's a getting closer/going faster than a rollercoaster...

A rollercoaster goes in a bendy loop. It goes up, it goes down, it goes upside down and right side up again and sideways and every which way, and when, all is said and done, it drops you off back off in what looks like the same place you began... but the experience has left you a changed person. This is life.

Life is a series of loops on the rollercoaster track. You can go up and you can down and it doesn't matter because it's all the same track and your position, so long as you are alive, isn't fixed but forever in motion.

If you choose your faces wisely like Gabriel did, they can help you stay alive, get back on the rollercoaster, and take the ride with you. If you shut out those who are there, you might never get back on. If you don't, as the song suggests, love will surely never come your way.

But what if you're like Aziraphale and you have chosen your faces wisely but then, unwisely, pulled away from them? What if you push people away when you're struggling and are only going so high up because the track has run out and you're about to take a massive plunge down? Is it really all over for him?

Yes and no. Yes, because a fall is a death of sorts and there is no going back. Aspects of it will forever be a part of him... but, also, no, because while he might have chosen his faces, for very sympathetic reasons, ultra-poorly in The Final 15, he has chosen them very well before. As such, Aziraphale has people around him, like Crowley and The Lords of the Flies, that will help him back up-- as well as some people he might not yet even realize are in his corner.

To save Aziraphale from the effects of Aziraphale's own, personal armageddon, they're going to have to come together to change Heaven and, in doing so, they will stop the destruction-of-Earth kind of Armageddon in the process. In choosing the faces of one another over the floating head's face, they'll save their individual worlds and the Earth as a whole, giving everyone a chance to live their lives as they see fit.

Save the angel, save the world.

A-hey? A-hey-hey. 😇

[vpgoldenrod]

I’d like to share a short story I stumbled onto while reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman.

[sunderwight]

aziraphale's avoidance issues, though

like they're similar to but also different from crowley's. because crowley physically tries to avoid things, like let's leave the bookshop when angry, let's suggest going to alpha centauri when the world's in danger, let's drive gabriel out to dartmoor and leave him there, etc

but aziraphale mentally checks out. let's pretend like it's silly to be wary of an amnesiac archangel who has previously threatened us and could regain his memory with no warning, let's fixate on hooking up these two random humans instead of thinking about the very real threats being levied against us by heaven and hell, let's ignore a goon squad of demons right outside the door so we can have our jane austen fantasy ballroom dance, etc

aziraphale is just as prone to running away as crowley does, but like many things with them, he tends to do it internally instead of externally. like yes on the one hand he is a determined optimist, he's not naive he chooses to believe in good things and try to make them happen.

but on the other hand, his approach to a lot of bad stuff is to just sort of not think about it until it's throwing a brick through his window

[winepresswrath]

Cannot believe at this late stage of my life I'm becoming a Gabriel fucker. Local mean jock doesn't want to be evil now, he wants to be loved. I'm slightly annoyed they didn't make Beelzebub more unhinged because the "plot" should have been at least half about them fucking up shit on an absolute rampage trying to find Gabriel, a thing everyone assumes they are doing to fry him with hellfire so they can kick off the war in a way that's advantageous to hell, BUT ACTUALLY!!! true love.

[p4nishers]

crowley better wife up aziraphale and FAST bc i'm always out there, lurking around. i'm pacing myself, and can lurk for the rest of the night if necessary, with still enough sullen menace left for a final burst of lurking around dawn. watch out girlie pop.

[tenok]

.

[nastasya--filippovna]

Only Love Can Hurt Like This; Paloma Faith "Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed." Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out; Richard Siken

Aziraphale is kind. He is tender. Sensitive. Generous. Forgiving. Beautiful. Intelligent. Caring. Thoughtful. Self-less. Brave

He is loving.

But above all, he is hurt.

He's been waiting, craving, longing, pining for a love for 6000 years. And that love broke his heart.

And he broke his love's heart

His own heart broke him.

He is the most precious being in this whole universe.

dedicated to @davidtennantgenderenvy (birthday present!).

[varyathevillain]

so many thoughts on "what that offer to Aziraphale means", "did Metatron manipulate/mind control/poison Aziraphale's coffee", "what is going on with the Second Coming", not enough thinking about "what exactly did Metatron mean by 'restoring Crowley to the angel status' in his proposal". because what if. what if it would mean "deleting all of his memories as a demon". and not "restoring his powers as an angel and giving him back original memories of Heaven".

and then, you all, this adds some ~fantastic~ flavour to the proposal and manipulation, and how if Crowley, were he to accept this for the sake of his angel, would be essentially lost to Aziraphale in the worst of ways. and Aziraphale would be the one to suffer the consequences. he got what he wanted! Crowley being an angel, but without the Crowley part. house with no furniture.

because, you know. when we got Jim in the show, we got Gabriel without all that he is beforehand. blank state angel. no thoughts, no plans from above to guide you, head completely empty.

then it would also imply how being a "demon" is essentially tied to the memories of the Fall, and if you delete those and all that comes after, completely erasing the "demon" part, only then you get to become an angel again.

hypothetically, of course.

[bear-cubs-art-things]

The silly guys being silly

[edwardallenpoe]

wait. Wait. What. People are saying that??? Have they WATCHED Good Omens????

Aziraphale is SOOO intelligent. He is SO compassionate, he is so kind, hell, he can PHYSICALLY FEEL EMOTIONS (take his reaction at the nun/training facility) and yes, he is totally autistic coded and the way he processes and expresses emotions are affected by both his TRAUMA (did we forget about the SIX THOUSAND+ YEARS OF TRAUMA THAT ANGEL HAS PACKED IN HIM???) and neurodivergent traits. Not only does that affect him, but, like, up until the end of the first season, he was completely and utterly tied to Heaven and the threat of damnation and destruction loomed not only above his head but Crowley's, and even though they're technically not employed by heaven and hell, they still have that lurking fear that heaven/hell can pop up any moment, and season two's WHOLE PLOT is trying to not get destroyed by heaven/hell!! Sure, Aziraphale might not know about The Book Of Life, but he damn well knows that he could FALL, or GET BURNED BY HELLFIRE (see s1's trial where Crowley and Aziraphale stood in for each other) he may not know the specifics, but he knows enough, and he's doing his best, and what he perceives as "the best" is pushing Crowley away and sacrificing his life on earth to go to heaven to try and make a difference.

If Aziraphale is emotionally intelligent, literally everyone has no chance.

I've seen people talk about Aziraphale having 'no emotional intelligence' and being a bad person/hating on him for the final fifteen/etc. HELLO? That final scene was all of his religious trauma (or whatever the equivalent is in angel terms) being pushed to the front because of his decision. Also no emotional intelligence??? Okay. Okay. Yeah, the incredibly autistic-coded character has "no emotional intelligence"? Not cool to say that imo. Aziraphale is insanely emotionally intelligent, but also struggles with six THOUSAND years of trauma and yearning and fear. I'm so passionate about understanding Aziraphale's decision and not hating him for it because it was necessary. Sorry this is so ramble-y, but it's kinda late and I needed to talk about something Good Omens related. Also it made me angry as an autistic Good Omens fan who loves that so many people agree Aziraphale is autistic.

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[orionsangel86]

The fact that Good Omens S2 was SO QUEER.

Not Just Maggie and Nina (and Lindsey)

Not just Aziraphale and Crowley

Not even just Gabriel and Beelzebub (who is NB)

But the magician shopkeeper and his trans/NB spouse who wore a fancy early 19th century dress to the ball.

Job's son who was flirting with Aziraphale (hilariously played by Ty Tennant giving Michael Sheen heart eyes in front of his dad lmao)

Even the tough macho man in Scotland that Aziraphale borrows the phone from - using it for "Grindr".

Plus of course Michael, Uriel, Muriel, and Dagon also all being non binary/gender queer characters.

With all this, there was no homophobia, no one batted an eyelid at any characters sexualities, sexuality wasn't even brought up, characters just are who they are and like who they like. Its a non issue in the GO universe.

AKA my favourite type of queer representation. The same type found in The Sandman (show not comic).

And whilst there was plenty of drama and not everyone gets a happy queer ending (YET) there was no queer trauma to be seen. No hate crimes, no "bury your gays", no stupid discussions about how HARD it is to be out of the closet in a bigoted world, because the GO world isn't bigoted.

Its SUCH a BREATH OF FRESH AIR.

I know we have similar experiences in The Sandman, In OFMD, and even in WWDITS, but each time a new show takes this very new approach towards queer representation I feel like I'm once again sinking into a comforting hug from someone I love, who loves me back.

Its just really fucking wonderful to see. I hope we keep seeing it more and more often.

[agoodflyting]

Why Aziraphale is completely ridiculous in the Bastille scene (and I love him so much for it)

A while ago I posted a comparison of Aziraphale and Crowley's costumes in the 1793 flashback in Good Omens and I wanted to add these little tidbits. (Because they haunt me.)

I feel like most people know this but IF YOU DON'T, Paris in 1793 is right in the middle of something called La Terreur.

HISTORY LESSON If you didn't learn this in school the French Revolution was when, after years of escalating social tension, a coalition representing the working classes of France revolted against the monarchy, violently overthrew King Louis XVI, and declared France to be a republic.

The new National Convention governing France ruled that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were traitors to the people of France because of how they had spent ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries for themselves while vast numbers of the lower classes were literally starving to death. (keep the bold in mind - wealth and class disparities were one of the key causes of the whole-ass revolution)

In 1793 (year of the flashback) both the King and Queen were executed by guillotine for their crimes.

This kicks of something called The Reign of Terror (La Terreur if you want to be French about it). A multi-year-long period in which the National Convention goes on a bloody witch hunt for any and every member of the middle or upper classes who could even possibly be considered a traitor by those same standards.

If you A) had money or privilege, and B) had ever used your money or privilege to treat yourself, you were getting executed. Over 25,000 people died during the Reign of Terror, half of them by guillotine. In fact, the iconic guillotine was used because it was physically impossible to keep up with the sheer number of people they were executing in Paris every single day.

Some things that could get you killed (actually and completely seriously) during the Reign of Terror:

Implying in any way you were sympathetic to the monarchy

Having a noble title

Having expensive things

Wearing expensive, luxurious clothes (*cough* AZIRAPHALE)

helping or sympathizing with anyone who did any of the above

a working-class person saying you were mean to them once

And then there's this bitch...

I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME So we have established that Paris in 1793 is in the middle of a frenzied, state-sanctioned bloodbath in which the working classes are massacring everyone even remotely nobility-adjacent. And in the middle of this frenzy, Aziraphale proceeds to roll up in Paris in this outfit:

How will this outfit get him killed? Let me count the ways...

First off- at this point everyone with even the tiniest shred of self- preservation is hiding the fact that they are in any way associated with the monarchy. The wealthy are straight-up abandoning mansions. The middle-class are plastering over decorations to make their house look 'poor'. The only people dressed remotely decent are the guys leading the National Convention and that's just because nobody can stop them. Everyone else is in 24/7 peasant cosplay or else they are covering themselves in cockades and sashes on to show they're pro-Republic.

Aziraphale is basically a giant shiny white sign saying I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME.

First off the lace jabot and lace cuffs are both associated with the old-school wealthy in the 1790's.

His coat is also decorated in gold braid and silver buttons, which are both marks of wealth and luxury.

He basically looks like he works for Louis XIV - not just rich, but old school rich.

We know it's his natural hair color, but hair powdering (with clay and starch) had been a big trend with the rich all throughout the 18th century to get that clean white venerable look . To someone who doesn't know it's natural, it would very much look like he's wearing hair powder.

He's wearing shades of cream and white, which are very hard to keep clean and clearly states that the wearer is rich and can afford the upkeep necessary to keep an outfit like that stain-free.

He's wearing white knee-breeches and stockings, also called culottes. See above about laundry and how rich you had to be to wear white, but also working-class men wore long pants like this:

A large faction involved in the Revolution were the Sans-Culottes (no-culottes aka we wear long pants LIKE GOOD OLD WORKING MEN). Culottes are specifically associated with everything the revolution hated. That's right - Aziraphale is literally wearing The Fanciest of Fancy Pants in a city where a group called The Men Against Fancy Pants are running around murdering people.

And then there are his shoes.

Oh god his shoes

I could do a whole post about Aziraphale's blessed little white satin pumps and how ridiculous they are.

Actually I might just do that because this is getting so long and I still have to talk about the brioche.

So I can't remember if it's in the script book or if it's from Neil Gaiman's tumblr, but it's apparently canon (?) that Aziraphale was going around in that outfit asking people where he could get crepes and brioche when he was arrested.

The Affair of the Brioches

So... uh... we've all heard the line attributed to Marie Antoinette- how when she was told that her people were starving because there was no bread left in Paris, she famously said...

It's morphed into 'let them eat cake', but the line is first recorded as, "Then let them eat brioches."

While it's unlikely she ever actually said it, the important thing is that... people in 1793 would have thought she said it. It was used as political smear to show how arrogant and out of touch the monarchy was. Marie Antoinette in particular was reviled by the people of France, who thought she was the main cause of their economic problems. That's why she was executed too.

Bread and brioche and the lines between poverty and privilege were a big thing in Revolutionary France. There was a lot of political connotation to what you ate. The French Revolution came about because of decades of suffering among the lower classes of France. It wasn't something that some dudes just decided to do. The people of Paris have been through years of the absolute worst, most oppressive poverty and starvation you can imagine, all while watching the rich throw money around crazy.

So let us recap.

Aziraphale is dressed so ridiculously posh that he looks like a joke parody of a nobleman... and he is bumbling around Paris during the Reign of Terror. Asking people. For brioche. How I imagine everyone looked at him:

It is so astoundingly tone deaf and tactless. He is basically cosplaying as Marie Antoinette and then going around asking the poor for cake.

I just.... Aziraphale. babygirl. no. oh no. You're lucky they even bothered to take you to prison. I am amazed Crowley ever let him live that down.

I have no conclusion other than this. Aziraphale is ridiculous and I love him so much.

YES YOU REALLY SHOULD SIR.

[wordsinhaled]

i’m so totally normal about the fact that aziraphale’s last (known) deliberate foray into the queer community was when he learned the gavotte at the fictionalized hundred guineas club (!!!) in the 1800s and now in the 2020s he’s like “grindr? what’s that?”

many are talking about his repression which is very valid… and yet the thing to me that stands out about aziraphale is that he’s actually… incredibly stable in his identity and that identity IS incredibly queer. queer by the standards of heaven AND by human standards as well

metatron describes his “de facto partnership” with crowley as “irregular.” and in fact aziraphale in his entirety is irregular. he likes and makes it his business not only to understand but to be a connoisseur of all manner of things angels aren’t supposed to even remotely care about. food. music. books. theatre. sleight of hand. and more.

it’s the sort of behavior that would’ve gotten him othered, treated as a bit odd, in heaven even if he hadn’t chosen to consort all across the earth with a literal demon. and it IS treated that way - the fact is aziraphale even as an angel has got proclivities that set him apart from the rest of the host (even after offering him the highest position in heaven, metatron still acts deeply dismissive of him… like aziraphale’s bookshop is merely a quaint little hobby of his that can be easily transferred to another custodian, and not a literal extension of who aziraphale has become, full of his tartan and unique bibles and special vintages of wine and the books arranged in a very specific way)

so. aziraphale is a queer angel but of course he’s also queer to other humans. but in such a way that… he had his realization a LONG time ago, and put the matter very much to rest after that. aziraphale is perpetually something like several centuries behind schedule. he owns an ancient computer that probably continues to run windows 98 simply because aziraphale’s decided it should. he wears the same waistcoat and coat for generations because he simply likes them precisely the way they are and sees no reason to change them. but the idea that he doesn’t know how he comes across to others - of course he does. he knows he looks like your prim and proper grandfather and he prefers it that way

aziraphale looked around at humans in the 1880s and said: ah yes. this is where i fit. and promptly ensconced himself in that queer subculture. learned the gavotte. read his austen. loved crowley from afar. aziraphale is fiercely and vibrantly queer. just with the sort of assurance of someone who lives with his lover in a commonlaw marriage for decades and then shows up at city hall for the certificate once society decides it’s ‘allowed.’ like… he hasn’t had any need to know what grindr is because aziraphale’s ‘scene’ was a century and a half ago and it defined romance for him too.

but my favorite thing about aziraphale is how much of him is about appearances versus the truth. he can lie straight to angels’ faces and sleep at night. he knows he comes off soft but he once wielded a flaming sword. he dissembles helplessness but he’s far from it and he knows precisely how it makes others treat him. and at the core of aziraphale is rigidity, inflexibility of ideas… his sense of self is stable where crowley’s is malleable, and so on, and so on

and the fact that he’s continuously fixated on trying to misguidedly do the right thing, the fact that he seeks heavenly approval and wants to fit the world into his schema of good vs evil… in no way do i think that means he isn’t one hundred percent aware of how he feels about crowley or what it means about him by angelic or human standards. i’ve seen some folks saying that aziraphale doesn’t want to like kissing crowley and like… as much as i love me some brideshead revisited/atonement flavored angst; i put forth that it’s not internalized homophobia or queer panic but simply: “i’m trying to do the right thing for both of us and you won’t let me.” and “i wanted our first kiss to be different.” he was envisioning an entirely different flavor of romance than what he got but he emma woodhoused too close to the sun

like, y’all. aziraphale in all likelihood has a glorious collection of historical queer erotica. he just has a feathery diva coat hanging in his closet, and for what. “oh, good lord” he says at crowley’s revolutionary outfit in the bastille, while eyeing him up like an entire meal. he’s so good at affected propriety, at carefully constructed stuffiness, but between the two of them aziraphale’s got to be the one who has experience

aziraphale had been physically throwing himself at crowley the entire season. he orchestrated an entire regency ball so they could touch hand to hand. he spends the entire season (well, and season 1) looking at crowley like he’s particularly coveted. he looked at crowley before the fall like he was glorious and beautiful. aziraphale’s queer and he knows it and i think that isn’t his problem, it’s the fact that he wants to build a different sort of future for the two of them but crowley’s gone and thrown a wrench in it by reminding him of everything he can finally have. like. that’s the heartbreak. it’s how dare you make this ugly? i forgive you for our first kiss being all pain and salt. it’s my dearest, i wanted to make heaven as beautiful as you deserve. as sacred and safe for us as our bookshop. and i can do that for us, because once i held a flaming sword and i still remember how the hilt felt in my hands. and now the taste of you is in my mouth.

[hyperfixating-rn-brb]

The Good Omens Fandom has had a lot of fun recently with the knowledge of Aziraphale and Crowley holding hands on the bus at the end of season 1.

Soo here's everything that went through my head as I learned of it for the first time.

For that entire scene, Aziraphale is really far gone. He's dissociating so hard he can't even realize he's been sitting on a sword. Crowley is probably the only thing keeping him grounded.

They just narrowly stopped Armageddon after a showdown with literally Satan, and still can't let their guard down. For the first time ever, they're completely on their own side. Now they have to orchestrate a body swap to save both of them. They wouldn't just be killed, they'd be completely destroyed. Everything must go exactly according to plan, but how often does that actually happen?

And on top of that, his bookshop, his home, his safe place with the demon he has to pretend not to love is burned and gone.

Crowley is so incredibly gentle and reassuring this entire scene. He's been through so much trauma himself and has spent a lot of his existence shielding the angel from it, hoping to protect some of his innocence and naivete. Crowley is absolutely familiar with every symptom of PTSD and anxiety.

Now he has to see his sweet angel see such a small bit of the horrors of heaven and hell and start to crumble inside. He's going to do his dam best to try and help Aziraphale through it. Speaking softly, ("the bookshop burned down... remember?) slowly and carefully, gradually helping to pull the angel back to reality, reminding him that he's there and will help ground him.

They get on the bus, and sit next to each other. 11 years ago, they sat nearby but separated while Crowley begs Aziraphale to help him prevent the Apocalypse. Now they are sitting together. Both an act of reassurance and unity.

Crowley sits first, Aziraphale could so easily just sit across from him, behind or in front. But he chooses to sit right next to him. And hold his hand. Aziraphale desperately needs to be near to the *former* demon he loves, to hold him, to make sure they won't be separated.

In the book, their famous lines of "none of this would have worked out if you weren't, deep down, just a bit of a good person" and "just enough of a b*stard to be worth liking" came as Satan rose from the earth, as a goodbye in case they were destroyed.

Luckily, that didn't happen and they survived. Armaggedon was stopped. But the angel is still so anxious of losing Crowley. So he chooses to reach out, to anchor himself and reassure himself that Crowley is still there beside him and that they are okay, at least for a few minutes.

And Crowley let him. He knows how badly Aziraphale needs him, he needs the angel just as much. He knows how badly he craved an anchor and support system as he was first abused and traumatized by his Fall, then further by Hell. So he's going to continue being there for Aziraphale, doing everything he can to make his angel feel safe and comfortable.

Over the next few years, Aziraphale would become so much more comfortable reaching out and touching Crowley. Leaning into him, resting a hand on his shoulder or briefly touching his chest. Somehow both reassuring himself that the former demon was still there, and reminding Crowley that he's still there for him at the same time.

Then Crowley becomes more comfortable with the touch, leaning into the angel by himself. No longer flinching at a sudden graze of a hand or reassuring squeeze.

That one moment of the two holding hands on the bus cemented so much of their relationship. "The last few years, not really..." all started on that bus the moment Aziraphale chose to sit down next to Crowley.

edited: at first this said "new knowledge" because I just found out about this all the other day, and wrote this up at 3 AM, and didn't really fact check when this knowledge became well known. I've only really been a GO fan since maybe 2021, and only really started being active in the fandom during the last few months, so a lot of info that is fairly well known is still generally new to me. soo yeah this was edited :)

source for anyone asking for it!

[tenok]

The point (one of them) is that both Aziraphale and Crowley actually think they the smartest one in any given situation. And since I relate to Aziraphale much more today I get fixated on his brand of superiority. He starts his journey with rebellion from pretty tame "I don't get why they makes this desisions and it's look horrible on surface evel but I'm sure that they get best ineterests of everyone involved in their hearts and it's probably me the one that didn't get some oblivious detail" to "oh okay I'm sure it's some kind of misundestanding and we can all talk it out as adults because we there work on same goals" to frustrated "they won't ever listen to me and I will get in trouble for arguing and it will be better for everyone if I will make my desisions in secret and go behind their backs because I just can't let THEM make desisions that will destroy everything". It's not straightforward, I'm 30 and still circulate sometimes between "what if it's me the one that wrong aout everything" and "god HOW people can be THAT stupid", but I remember going throught this stages first as good and obedient kid with really stupid parents making stupid desisions and later with school, govermnet, activist spaces etc.

And the problem is, I was the smartest person in the room enough time to develop issues, and Aziraphale lives like his for 6000 years at least. I can only imagine how many times he thought "if only Starmaker listen to me and didn't Fall", "if only God listened to me and didn't make an Apocalypse happen", "if only Heavens listened to me and didn't did this or that that thing", "if only Crowley listen to me and understand in what kind of danger we can get", "if only that human listened to me and haven't dig the body", etc etc. It's awful, to be the one who always gets to say "I told you so", especially when there's such awful consequenses you can't even feel satisfaction, and you will be the one to clen this mess up (and Aziraphae will clean, or better try to prevent). Now, it's of course leads to issues. BIG issues.

1) It's really hard to stop being plotting and maciavellian and communicate things properly when you expect that person will at best argue with you, at worst punish you and double down on their stupid desisons and you will clean this mess up. It also really hard to stop trying to control everything because you already accepted that everything is your responsibility and everyone else would just make things worse. (as someone that relates to Aziraphale I think he did so much progress there, the levels or trust he shows Crowley are amazing for two beings that probably last time heard of psychotherapy when Freud was alive. but such trust is fragile thing, one misstep and you back on your "it will be better if I do everything alone" bullshit. I'm not saying it's good. I'm also not saying that it's bad. it's just how things work)

2) It makes you overstep other people authonomy, because, again, it would be better for everyone if they did what you think best for them. It works funny wih Aziraphale because yes he's all for free choices for humanity!! NOW GO AND DO SMART CHOICES DAMN YOU!!! WHY YOU DON'T PICK THE THING THAT WOULD BE SMART TO PICK I HATE YOU ALL. That's where me and Aziraphale difer a little because at least I somewhat good at stepping into other people shoes and understand why they do what they do. But angel there is autistic (or bad at this specific thing for other reasons), so I think when people he consider reasonable doesn't agree with him for their own reasons he ge's really baffled, like, there arE correct opinion and it's mine, WHY are you being difficult?? to spite me?? And I'm sure that half of the reason why Aziraphale's so comfortable with Crowley is that he perfectly happy to let him buly or manipulate him into doing things Aziraphale picks as right. Usually Crowley know where pick his battles and how to play long game to make Aziraphale agree for really important stuff he wants from him, but otherwise? Sure he will complain how he hates Hamlet but they will watch Hamlet, and Aziraphale will be very pleased with himself. (and than there goes final fifteen and we back at "but WHY won't ypu agree with thing I pick or us IT'S GOOD AND RESONABLE THING" and we should be happy that consent is something that imporant for our angel ok? he would be angry with Crowley for picking wrong but he won't make him do what he doesn't want. they respect each other like that.)

3) It makes you really really tired and tense. You control everything, unfortunately the longer you do it the more things starts really depedend on you, you can't let go, you don't know anyone that can share this burden with you because first they should prove that they won't blow his up and for this you should share at least something with them, but what is they would blow it up? Better be safe than sorry. And look when it's my problems it's credit cards and doctor appointmens and with Aziraphale we talk about people dying. Crowley dying. Now, as I said, he actually shows Crowley so. much. trust. for someone with such issues. Because Crowley was there for 6000 years, and he proved himself capable enough times. But still there's areas where let go and not worry would be impossible for Aziraphale, Crowley's safety being one of such things (you see, you can risk with your life when you deal with your problems because whatever you will clean shit up if needed, but if someone close to you hurt themself?? it's YOUR problem too but it will be SO MUCH HARDER to clean. I think when Aziraphale points to Crowley that hell would be harder on him than he can expect heavens to punish him, it's partially because he believes it's true and partially because he knows how to minimize harm when heavens angry with him but HOW can he do this for Crowley??). Anyway. Lol. The more I think about it the more I sure that Crowley without Aziraphale would be a miserable angry dick, and Aziraphale wihout Crowley would be dead, because it was the one person that kept him one tiny slip away from total burn out.

So yeah there's a lot of posts about how angry heartbroken etc Crowley will be with Aziraphale (I don't agree but that's for other post), less posts about how sad and heartbroken will be Aziraphale, but I hope to see Azyraphale being angry too (it they will be angry with each other at all). Not only for not picking him or leaving or making everything messy and emotional and wasting their first kiss at their fight etc, but also because Aziraphale was trusting him! Trusting that he get another resonable adult in team with him! Someone who he can trust to make resonable desisions and see his ideas as clever and him as capable and being willing to go to the end of the world with him with mild complaints and than!! When he did trust him to understand!! He was like everyone else!! Unresonable and emotional and angry with him and why he asked him at all he should've do it secretly and alone as always and it would've be as usual and it wouldn't hurt but it was Crowley that taught him to trust and to ask him for help!! Breaking his perfectly fine coping mechanisms!! It's all his faut if you think about it huh?? (but of course he's already forgiven. but also Aziraphale would do what he needs to do alone this time, as one and only capable adult in the world.)

Anyway it's not a meta it's just some late night thoughts. And it's in no way whole analizis there's so much more problems inside this angel. It's just something in particular that resonated with me today. Also it's not in any way critisizm of him, mind you, because a) he does really the smartest person in the room most of the time and b) I LOVE how fucked up in the head he is!!! I think he needs to become even more fucked up actually!!! and Crowley should love him for that and I will cheer for him from sidelines!!!