#poverty is ineffably wonderful life is worth living

[effabledisaster]

Waste

You and I have something to hide

In this old town, the rot’s a glut

That fuzzes us. Drinks the juice that flows.

Easy to deride, to cut the nose

Shall we still stay all wrapped up?

In nonsense crap I try to map

the new old news, my future views.

Strapped or sapped, I’d tap no doubt

If I could pull my finger out.

And what’s to keep in you and me?

A rage, a right, we won’t give in without a fight

We know to squander would be easy

Squeeze my reason in this city -

Whisper it soft away from light.

When I was young I bit the lemons

Licked and drank and sucked them, down

Citron Pressé my drink of choice

And now I start to raise my voice.

The uncertain smiles with which we strain

Take miles and money to maintain.

And all the while, in piggish pearls, in dirty rain

I’ll tell you a secret I can taste

That you and I won’t go to waste.

[lenaellsi]

I've never understood what people mean when they say that Crowley is hiding the truth of Heaven and God's cruelty from Aziraphale to protect him or spare his feelings. That's like...the complete opposite of what Crowley does.

Crowley spends all 6000 years of their time on Earth together making snarky comments about Heaven and God at every opportunity. It's his opening line in Eden, and even before Eden, he meets Aziraphale and two minutes later goes on a rant about how unfair it is to end the world before it’s really started. "What's the point of making an infinite universe if you're only going to let it run for a few thousand years?" He's been forcing Aziraphale to grapple with God's plan literally since the moment they met. Those moments make up like half of the S1E3 intro, and it happens again in every single S2 minisode. "Same God that wants me to whack the kids?" "Tell her that poverty is ineffably wonderful and life is worth living. Go on!" "That's the trouble with you lot. You tend to see things in black and white." Like. Crowley's not trying to hide anything! He thinks Heaven sucks! He thinks God is playing a fucked up game! He tells Aziraphale that all the time!

Crowley sharing or not sharing the minute details of Aziraphale's failed execution is, honestly, a nonissue, and it's kind of frustrating to see it constantly brought up. We don't even know for sure that Crowley never told Aziraphale exactly what was said. Crowley says Aziraphale "doesn't remember it either," when he's talking to Jim--not that he doesn't know, just that he doesn't remember, because he wasn't physically there. But regardless of whether Aziraphale knows the exact words, he absolutely knows that Gabriel "tried very hard to cast [him] into Hellfire and destroy [him]." And he already knows Gabriel is an asshole. That's not news.

And I'm unconvinced that Crowley wouldn't have shared what he learned in Heaven about the Second Coming and Gabriel's trial over breakfast at the Ritz if things hadn't gone completely to shit. Here's my hot take: in the fifteen minutes he and Aziraphale had alone after he got back, he had other things on his mind. Would it have been helpful for Aziraphale to know? Eh, maybe. But honestly, Aziraphale is already aware that Heaven 1) is fully on board with the end of the world, and 2) has no problem punishing angels who try to stop the end of the world. Because, you know. They tried to kill him about it last time. And regardless, I don't think this is an issue of Crowley hiding things--I think he genuinely just forgot, because he was busy getting broken up with. If he'd thought about it, you bet he would have weaponized that to get Aziraphale to stay. And he kind of did! "When Heaven ends life here on Earth, it'll be just as dead as if Hell ended it."

And then there's the Fall, and yeah, fair enough. Crowley probably hasn't shared what the Fall looked like for him, and I think that's information Aziraphale could benefit from. Aziraphale clearly doesn't understand it--if he did, I can't imagine that he would have asked Crowley back to Heaven.

But that's still not Crowley trying to hide the truth about Heaven to protect Aziraphale's feelings, or whatever. He just doesn't want to talk about it! Because it fucking sucked! Crowley's communication problems stem entirely from his reluctance to grapple with his own emotions, and his reluctance to be vulnerable. Bitching about Heaven doesn't make him vulnerable; talking about his Fall really, really does.

Crowley has never once shied away from telling Aziraphale exactly what he thinks about Heaven, or the archangels, or God. He's constantly challenging him, forcing him to consider the people hurt by policy decisions like the Flood, the Crucifixion, Job's trials, or the "virtues of poverty." That's a huge part of their dynamic. Sure, he sucks at telling Aziraphale about himself--he doesn't communicate why he wants holy water, or that he's been living in his car, or anything at all about the Fall (as far as we know)--but when it comes to God? He is painfully honest. That's why Aziraphale is so unsettled by him. Crowley is generally very good to Aziraphale and conscious of his happiness, yes, but he's also not afraid to push him. It's baffling to me that people think that all he does is coddle him when we spend about half the show watching them bicker over this exact issue on screen.

[alphacentaurinebula]

I need to talk about the Edinburgh minisode, because I have SO. MANY. THOUGHTS.

It's sort of an afterthought minisode in some ways. Before the Beginning gives us so much giddy joy (despite the ominous foreshadowing). 1941 gives us all the giddy romance. Job gives us so much insight into both characters histories and how they came to be who they are and work together...

The Resurrectionists gives us a morality play, basically, but also gives us Crowley high (and HIGH) on laudanum and plenty of bright shiny bits...

...so the morality side maybe doesn't get as much focus.

Which is a shame. Because the Edinburgh episode demonstrates perfectly the flaw in Aziraphale's understanding of the world that leads to him going to heaven.

When we start out in 1827, we are introduced to grave robbing and Aziraphale immediately decides that it is Bad (a sin). He does all he can to prevent the young woman he meets and likes from doing Bad (sinning), assumably to try to pave her way into Heaven. And Crowley tries to help her with her grave robbing, much to Aziraphale's chagrin.

Grave Robbing = Bad; Crowley supports Grave Robbing; Crowley=Bad

When they meet Mr Surgeon, and Crowley starts to ask some pointed questions meant to poke holes in Aziraphale's certainty, he flips entirely the other way, without noticing any of the other moral greyness (like the fact that Mr Surgeon would never take the risks or do the dirty work himself. Which is pretty important, since we learn in Edinburgh in the present that Mr Surgeon was so convinced of his own superiority and importance later on in his life that he started murdering people (probably "unfortunates" like Elspeth) when he couldn't get corpses fast enough).

Grave Robbing = Good; Crowley supports Grave Robbing; Crowley = Good

When he is then confronted with the idea of selling Wee Morag's body, and Crowley points out it is different when it's someone you know, Aziraphale is basically frozen in indecision. He doesn't know what the good thing is anymore.

He spouts the party line about the fact that starting off poor somehow gives Elspeth an advantage when it comes to Heaven, but is unable to explain why or how, not even to himself. And when he's put on the spot as Elspeth tries to kill herself, he doesn't have any arguments to offer.

CROWLEY: Say something! That... convinces her that poverty is ineffably wonderful and that life is worth living. Go on!

But despite all the moral ambiguity present throughout the episode, Aziraphale still sees everything as black and white. First, grave robbing is bad, then it is good. First, Crowley is bad (when he has the opposite position to Aziraphale), then he is good (when he has the same position). Aziraphale never understands Crowley's constant questions are a challenge to the very idea that there IS a 'good' in this situation. He never examines or questions the complex systems of class and sexism and capitalism which force Elspeth to this desperate recourse, or the laws which prevent Mr Surgeon from accessing bodies for research via legal means.

He doesn't see the systemic injustic. He just sees individual moral actors making either good or bad choices.

(and just to deviate slightly from the Edinburgh minisode -- while he says he understands that sometimes things are not just black or white but also grey, in 1941 - I don't actually think his grey and Crowley's grey mean the same thing. The 'greyest' thing that Aziraphale does in 1941 is help a showgirls theatre and hide information from Hell - this is not the same thing as truly seeing that some situations simply don't have a Right Thing to do, or understanding that systems shape and control individuals' decisions, so the idea that humans all have the same ability to choose Right is an illusion.

AZIRAPHALE: You know, they cannot be truly holy unless they also get the opportunity to be wicked.

So it is no wonder at all that when the Metatron offers him the opportunity to run Heaven, he doesn't see a broken institution or systemic oppression/injustice, but rather a series of bad actors preventing Heaven from achieving the Goodness it is meant to represent.

[snek-eyes]

These are great additions, thank you! (I did mean to reblog them earlier but I've been traveling for the holidays and kept forgetting. You calling Edinburgh the "bring me soup" storyline in the first reblog absolutely sent me 😂)

I like what you pointed out about how he talks to Elspeth. Crowley's not the type to be overtly sympathetic in most situations, and even if he was, Elspeth is just going to find that condescending. He gets how to communicate with her.

(Ah yes, Crowley being cold to Sitis was me! I was not quite here yet.)

I've seen some posts about how Crowley only helps Elspeth for Aziraphale, which always makes me grumble a little because it robs Crowley of his agency and turns him into someone only existing for Aziraphale, while it's evident he does it because it's the right thing to do and he wants to help her while Aziraphale needs to be convinced to help.

What. Oh man you're absolutely right, I do not care for that interpretation at all. If whatever he was doing was for Aziraphale, I really don't think he would have gone as far as he did. When he says, "Say something that convinces her that poverty is ineffably wonderful and life is worth living," I think it's half dig, half that he actually wants the angel to do that! Crowley's not supposed to be sticking his neck out to save people, he needs Aziraphale to figure out how to fix this. But the angel isn't learning fast enough and Elspeth is about to make a mistake she can't recover from right now, so Crowley has to step in.

I guess I ultimately can't decide how empathetic Crowley actually is, and how much of it is just him being good at recognizing shades of his own trauma in people, sympathetic to situations he knows suck (Elspeth and Morag's entire deal, Aziraphale and the bookshop burning down), but just sort of impatient when those emotions are just getting in his way (Sitis & Job). It's sort of a subtle difference, and if that gets him close enough in most situations, then...?

Hi Vee! 🤗 I hope you had a wonderful few days! I'm back with more meta questions 🤭 I hope that's okay, if not, just ignore me pls 😅 I've seen some people say Aziraphale isn't empathetic, some say Crowley isn't empathetic, but I think both of them have a LOT of empathy. They just show it very differently, and I think the perfect example is the Edinburgh minisode. Azi is caught in his Heavenly indoctrination a lot of times, like when he thinks body snatching is bad before actually thinking about it in a more complex matter instead of just black and white and as soon as ge does, he's suddenly all in favour of it and what made him change his mind is his empathy. With Crowley, he seems very cool and suave on the surface but he always acts and helps and protects, like with Elspeth; he didn't just save her from suic*de but he actively changed her situation as much as he could (he couldn't bring Wee Morag back for her because it wasn't in his power so he chose the next best thing he could change which was her poverty) to give her a reason to live, too. Or when he talks to Job and Sitis - you wrote an amazing meta about that already but I think the gist of it was that he sees the big picture which is that he needs to find the kids in order to save them and knows he will save them and that they'll all be fine. I think they both possess a great deal of empathy but express it in different ways which I think actually mirror their love languages: Crowley acts on his empathy, he does what he can to help people but isn't vocal about it, and Azi is vocal about it but he sometimes needs a nudge from Crowley to see the big, complex picture for that. Whats's your view on the matter? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 😁🤍

- 💫

Aziraphale (and Crowley) vs Empathy

Hey there! This was really interesting to think about!

So from my understanding (and if you're someone that has a better one, please feel free to chime in!), empathy is the ability to understand someone else's emotions, whether intellectually or by sympathetically feeling them yourself. But lacking empathy doesn't necessarily mean that you can't care about people, it just means that you don't exactly understand their emotions.

I'm saying this because after thinking about it, I actually don't think Aziraphale is very empathetic. Despite the fact that he does care a whole lot! Aziraphale is a protector, from Adam & Eve to Job's kids to that one nameless child Dalrymple couldn't save to Wee Morag, etc etc, we see him acting against what he Should be doing because he cares so damn much. But it seems to be because he has a strong moral code and believes that the alternative to acting is an injustice, more than he is putting himself in anyone's shoes and thinking about how they might be feeling. It's the difference between "I care that this sad thing is happening to you" and "I care because I can tell you are sad."

Like in the Edinburgh flashback, when he realizes what happened to the child, he's devastated because it's a tragedy that a child died, horrifically, and that all that's left of them on this earth can be contained in a bottle. His previous moral rule that digging up bodies is a sin because it's just wrong is overwritten because he's been shown an actual tangible consequence.

It would explain a lot about the number of times, especially in s2, when he either does not recognize how upset Crowley is, or if he does, he doesn't get why or take it seriously.

Saying things like "Still a demon?" or "I haven't seen you since, the flood?" without realizing why Crowley might find those upsetting and not friendly banter material.

While he doesn't seem to pick up on Crowley's bad mood in Uz, by Rome it seems like he has learned to at least see it, if not understand it. Regardless, he's still making a go at cheering Crowley up.

Aziraphale doesn't get why changing the Bentley is personally upsetting to Crowley, until Crowley connects it to something equally relevant for Aziraphale: Selling his books.

This also made something click for me wrt his scene with Maggie when she suddenly starts crying about striking out with Nina. He is completely at a loss as to why all these details are upsetting her, right up until she mentions being in love. He understands love, aww! But, crucially, his initial reaction is more "Oh, being in love is wonderful!" than "Oh, I see that must be hard for you." And he responds by wanting to solve her problem, he doesn't get that she's probably just looking for advice from an older queer to help her feel better about it, more than an actual solution.

The scene that kicks off the modern day where Maggie is upset about not being able to pay her rent. Aziraphale doesn't really engage with the fact that she's breaking down in front of him, he's doing whatever he can to placate her so he can just leave with his records.

Alright, let's get to the final fifteen because this would explain something that's always caught me. During Crowley's confession, Aziraphale looks SO confused as to why Crowley is getting upset. Aziraphale is coming at this from what he sees as a logical perspective, and Crowley is making an emotional plea. Aziraphale straight up does not understand how the two halves of this argument are connected.

When Crowley says he understands better than Aziraphale, it's like he's saying he has the intellectual high ground, and that's why Aziraphale decides they've reached an impasse.

Again, this isn't a knock on Aziraphale at all, it's just how he sees the world.

Meanwhile Crowley... I'm honestly not sure how to read Crowley on this.

He'll either project his own trauma onto other people or possibly recognize shades of it in their circumstances at the drop of a hat (the goats, the plants, lonely Muriel in heaven, the scene in S1 when he's hanging off his throne and goes from lamenting about how his fall was unfair right into to calling out God because testing the humans to destruction is unfair)

He is pretty good at knowing how people are going to react when he does his demonic mischief, although that might just be a logical extrapolation from experience.

On the other hand, he seems very confused when people go against his expectations (Jane Austen, Maggie and Nina not wanting help).

He seems to have a good handle on how Aziraphale feels in most situations, although Aziraphale's need to protect people is a huge blind spot he does not understand. So maybe that's just years and years of studying him and trying to understand. "Just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing," after all.

While he understands Elspeth's circumstances, he's not exactly, comforting? to her? When Morag is like "tell me that's not what I think it is" he immediately throws her under the bus in favor of chaos ("8D oh it most certainly is"). And when Aziraphale melts the body, he doesn't even look at Elspeth who's freaking out, his eyes are entirely on Aziraphale.

What do other people think?