#(see: richard curtis)

[jelly-of-many-ships]

okay so I got curious and finally decided to find the richard curtis film with a romantic scene in the rain, and oh my god the guy literally says he realized he loved the girl while he was in a church like wtf

the movie’s called four weddings and a funeral and I’m gonna go watch the entire thing now

There are a few other similarities as well but like the fact that Crowley watched this entire movie and was probably thinking of Azi...

#also I have literally never heard of this film or richard curtis before sry lol #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens speculation #good omens theory #crowley #aziraphale #neil gaiman #Youtube #what if we get to see him watching it in s3??

[muu-kun]

Muu, progressively losing his ability to feel his emotions in great strength as he heads in the direction of abandoning them in a similar fashion to those around him. They may not be his friends; however, they are his peer group, and are thus add to the impression that he would have greater worth silent than he ever would sad:

me, who probably shouldn't be using this as an almost experiment in psychology: oo what the boy gonna do next.

#; ♡ ; ooc #quite honestly the reason one will not see my weigh my opinion on how muses such as Curtis for example make him feel #is because I would arguably apply the notion that my opinion would be as pointless of offer as muus is to the majority of people #that I really could not be bothered to place myself in a situation where I would be inclined to just be disregarded anyways #muu cares to try but I do not opps #mainly because I'm meaner than him and know that where one would face heartache in reaction #they'd endure being told to gargle in a satchel of richards for provoking me with their disinterest #I would say I operate under the pretense that as long as I'm silent everyone is safe lmao

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Mr Gaiman,

I have to ask – did Crowley truly see the whole 'fall in love under an awning during a rainstorm' thing in a Richard Curtis film, or did he just think about how him and Aziraphale fell in love/their history and thought that was how everyone fell in love?

Are there any Richard Curtis films in which that happened?

[vidavalor]

Good Omens has shown us, among other things...

-Crowley pointing the paintball gun at Aziraphale and giving the office workers miraculous escapes from death *before* it showed us The Blitz, Part 2's Bullet Catch that shows us what he was referencing to Aziraphale by doing so

-Aziraphale's love of human magic and his vanishing coins act and Crowley grumbling about all of it *before* it showed us "the farthing has vanished!" and The Marvelous Mr. Fell and his "volunteer assistant" on stage in 1941

-The 1862 breakup *before* the 1827 scene that gives context for their traumas that led to the breakup

-The sexy lunch in 2008 *before* the ox rib date that started it-- all the way back in 2500 B.C..

-Crowley telling Aziraphale about his night dealing with the antichrist baby: "Well, not, delivered-delivered, just... handed it over" *before* professional midwife/cobbler Bildad the Shuite "birthing" Job and Sitis some "new" kids

-Crowley, alone, forced into the start of Armageddon by delivering the antichrist in a picnic basket *before* 1967, in which Aziraphale dreams of a world they could get to before they run out of time in which they could go on a picnic together

-Aziraphale looking to the side Crowley always comes up on when he hears the miracle sound in the sushi restaurant in 1.01 *before* we even know that Crowley always comes up in the same way from various scenes teaching us this

-Aziraphale's tartan obsession *before* its origin story, which is the date in Edinburgh in 1827 wherein he became spirituality Scottish and thought he lost Crowley and after which he adopted the tartan as a thing related to the two of them and never stopped wearing it. See also: showed us 1967 and the tartan thermos *before* explaining to us that the tartan isn't just something Aziraphale likes but is something with meaning to the two of them together as a pair

-Crowley rambling drunkenly about bananas, fish and gorillas in the bookshop *before* his and Aziraphale's 'banana fish gorilla shoelace with a dash of nutmeg' conversation over wine in 1941, showing us that he was drunkenly remembering in a scene in S1 a romantic scene in their history that we didn't know then and wouldn't know until S2

-Crowley & Aziraphale dining at The Ritz in 2008 in 1.01 *before* we even know that was The Ritz or why it matters that it was, which they don't tell us until the final, romantic moments of S1

-Crowley obsessively growing a large, lush, overhanging canopy of plants in his apartment *before* telling us he's got a thing for vavoom-y erotic gazing and kissing under the shelter of canopies the likes of which have never been seen in a Richard Curtis film

So, my dear, dear loves... explain to me why I'm not going to be adding to this list next season:

-that heartbreaking 2.06 kiss *before* the first one they had a bazillion years ago?

#ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #aziracrow #crowley #aziraphale

[rwrbmovie]

BTS of #RWRBMovie: interview room

Neil Floyd via Big Gay Energy:

That's the weird part, no one got that in all of the Twitter that I've seen for the entire film about every detail in the film. I guess because we just kinda made it up, it wasn't part of the book, but we decided the interview room could be an homage to Richard Curtis who wrote all the romantic comedies, you know for the past 20 years. That was our nod to 'Notting Hill', because in 'Notting Hill', Julia Roberts was the American and Hugh Grant was the Brit, and they sort of do the whole interview thing with Horse & Hound. So we actually rented the exact same furniture. The sofa is different, because the one that Julia Roberts was on was a bit smaller, and for the two boys' size, we couldn't fit them on that sofa, so we had a different sofa. But the coffee table, everything – the flower arrangements, they were done by our florist who knew the original florist who did 'Notting Hill'. So we did this whole thing, so that was kinda our fun, cheeky little set because we wanted to see "oh, would anyone get it?" But it was our homage to you know, classic romcoms from our days and now we're doing a gay version so it was great.

#bts posts are back baby #rwrb bts #rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #rwrbsource #bts #neil floyd #* #rwrbbts #damage control #me giffing notting hill in 2024 #didnt see that coming but love it #one of my faves how did i not notice this

[ineffable-sideburns]

rewatching GO season 2 yet again and I’m at the part in episode two where Crowley and Aziraphale are at the pub discussing how to make Maggie and Nina fall in love. so we know there isn’t really a Richard Curtis film that fits Crowley’s idea of the two humans falling in love in a rainstorm (edit: with the awning and taking shelter). i know the current consensus is that Crowley is misremembering and attributing the idea to a Richard Curtis film. however, on this rewatch, the tone and the fact that he seems to trail off and bring the drink to his face and mumble the bit about seeing it in a RC film into it makes me feel like he knows full well that he’s pulling it from personal experience, and he was covering by referencing movies Aziraphale wouldn’t know about. especially when you consider how emphatically Aziraphale talks about Jane Austen’s balls in comparison. idk maybe I’ve finally driven myself to insanity but that’s how the tone is making me feel this time around

#good omens #good omens speculation #good omens 3 #good omens sequel #good omens season 3 #good omens theory #crowley #aziraphale #good omens analysis #good omens clues #good omens 2 #good omens season 2

[treeroutes]

what's up ! non-exhaustive list of stories featuring weird plants :

The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham

The Night of the Triffids, Simon Clark

In the Tall Grass, Stephen King and Joe Hill

The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', William Hope Hodgson

The Man Whom the Trees Loved, Algernon Blackwood

The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

The Willows, Algernon Blackwood

The Nature of Balance, Tim Lebbon

'Bloom', John Langan

The Ruins, Scott Smith

The Wise Friend, Ramsey Campbell

'The Green Man of Freetown', The Envious Nothing : A Collection of Literary Ruins, Curtis M. Lawson

The Beauty, Aliya Whiteley

The Ash-Tree, M.R. James

Canavan's Backyard, J.P. Brennan

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jack Finney

The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher

'Reaching for Ruins', Crow Shine, Alan Baxter

'Vortex of Horror', Gaylord Sabatini

Hothouse, Brian W. Aldiss

Vaster than Empires and More Slow, Ursula K. Le Guin

Odd Attachment, Ian M. Banks

Deathworld #1, Harry Harrison

The Bridge, John Skipp and Craig Spector

'The Garden of Paris', Eric Williams

Apartment Building E, Malachi King

The Seed from the Sepulchre, Clark Ashton Smith

Rappaccini's Daughter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Nursery, Lewis Mallory

The Other Side of the Mountain, Michel Bernanos

The Vegetarian, Han Kang

Sisyphean, Dempow Torishima

The Root Witch, Debra Castaneda

Semiosis, Sue Burke

The Wolf in Winter, Charlie Parker #12, John Connolly

Perennials, Bryce Gibson

Relic, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Gwen, in Green, Hugh Zachary

The Voice in the Night, William Hope Hodgson

Ordinary Horror, David Searcy

The Family Tree, Sheri S. Tepper

The Book of Koli, Rampart Trilogy #1, M.R. Carey

Seeders, A.J. Colucci

Concrete Jungle, Brett McBean

The Plant, Stephen King

Anthologies/collections :

The Roots of Evil: Weird Stories of Supernatural Plants, edited by Michel Parry

Chlorophobia: An Eco-Horror Anthology, edited by A.R. Ward

Roots of Evil: Beyond the Secret Life of Plants, edited by Carlos Cassaba

The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness, Richard Gavin

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic, edited by Daisy Butcher

Weird Woods: Tales From the Haunted Forests of Britain, edited by John Miller

'But fungi aren't plants' :

The Fungus, Harry Adam Knight

Growing Things and Other Stories, Paul Tremblay

The Girl with All the Gifts, M.R. Carey

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Fruiting Bodies, and Other Fungi, Brian Lumley

'The Black Mould', The Age of Decayed Futurity, Mark Samuels

What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher

The House Without a Summer, DeAnna Knippling

Mungwort, James Noll

Fungi, edited by Orrin Grey and Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Trouble with Lichen, John Wyndham

Notes :

all links lead to the goodreads page of the book, mostly because i like to look at book cover art ;

list features authors/books that i love (T. Kingfisher, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ursula K. Le Guin, the collections from the British Library Tales of the Weird, etc.), but also a few that i don't like and some that i have not yet read ;

if upon seeing that list the first novel you check out is by Stephen King's you have not understood the assignment ;

not all of those are strictly horror stories, some are 100% science fiction (Brian W. Aldiss' Hothouse for instance).

#text #ramblings #plant tag #botanical horror #last time i posted a list of non-fiction books on the topic. time for some variety

[invisibleicewands]

[...] The Way was devised and directed by the actor Michael Sheen. He recruited Sherwood author James Graham to write the script and convinced the documentary film-maker Adam Curtis to step in as an executive producer. But he also cast his home town as the drama’s chief location, the molten core of his tale. “The thing about Port Talbot is that it’s haunted by the ghosts of uprisings past,” he explains, of the bullish 20th-century steel town turned scrappy, post-industrial survivor. “It’s got that dormant rebel spirit in its DNA. The whole town feels like a dragon slumbering in a cave.”

Sheen, like Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins before him, graduated from Port Talbot to pursue a lucrative acting career in London and Los Angeles. Unlike them, though, he has since circled back and now lives locally. He thinks that the catalyst was the acclaimed 72-hour production of The Passion that he staged in the town back in 2011. It reconnected him with his roots, helped him understand the place in the round.

“So that feeling of coming back to my home town and it also being a set is something I’d experienced before,” he says. “The difference was that this production took longer. This involved me shutting down the high street for a week. Obviously, people aren’t going to be so nice about that. But I knew I had a bit of trust left over from The Passion that I could still use up.” [...]

[...] “Yeah, there’s a strange tone to it,” Sheen agrees. “You don’t know whether you’re in a horror film or a sitcom or a farce. We wanted it to be constantly surprising, to reflect what we’ve all been going through these last 10 years. The absurdity of reality. The situation that we’re in.” [...]

[...] One thing about home: we never truly escape it. It haunts us if we stay and it haunts us if we leave. That’s been Sheen’s experience. It’s what makes The Way feel so personal. “I mean, it’s a big political story,” he says. “But it’s also my story. It taps into all of my feelings about home.” [...]

[...] “I remember reading about how HG Wells set The War of the Worlds in his home town of Woking,” Sheen says. “I think Edgar Wright did the same thing, setting Hot Fuzz in Wells. So there’s a small tradition that I’m now a part of, where people set stories in their home town and then blow it up.” He grins at the thought. “There’s something satisfying about turning the place where you grew up into an apocalyptic bombsite. Destroying your home town. But destroying it with love.”

#Michael Sheen #The Way #Movie #Interview

[luwathegreat]

"She Had Balls!" "Well-"

So we all know the part of Episode two where Crowley and Aziraphale are discussing fictitious ways to try and get Nina and Maggie to fall in love. Aziraphale brings up Jane Austen and says the following: "People would gather..and do some formal dancing. And then realized they had misunderstood eachother and were actually, deeply in love!" Then after Crowley states that sounds unlikely, Aziraphale says "Works everytime apparently"

Then later when the actual ball he plans is happening, we see him gearing up and getting all excited to ask Crowley to dance- and then him quickly swooping him away with a giggle.

Now...maybe I'm overthinking things as per usual... But was our dear Mr. Fell under the hopes that dancing with Crowley would get the demon to recognize Aziraphales feelings for him? He had promised it would be a night to remember after all. I mean, Crowley basically described him and Aziraphales meeting in Eden when he was describing his idea of falling in love (that he ""saw in a Richard Curtis film"") Would it be too out of the blue to wonder if Aziraphale would try and use the lovey dovey ball fantasy he was reenacting to his advantage? Constantly insisting that they're safe, nothing could possibly go wrong, and that Crowley was exaggerating? Maybe he just wanted a night of dancing with his crush without anything going wrong so the Jane Austen magic would work.

Look at the little smiiilee! I dunno- random shower thought!

#my ineffable chattering #good omens s2 #She had balls #Good omens #crowley #Aziraphale #crowley and aziraphale #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #whickber street #“We're having a ball!” #The dancing scene was very cute #I loved the lighting as well

[pockykierra]

Aziraphale and Jane Austen

I saw a post recently talking about how Jane Austen didn't have any balls in her books and so Aziraphale was likely thinking about something else, and its a great post! BUT I have a different theory:

I think Aziraphale mentions Jane Austen for the same reason Crowley mentions seeing the "looking into each others eyes during a rain storm" in a Richard Curtis film despite (as pointing out by Gaiman himself) such a scene never happening in any of his films. And the reason is that it's something they both want for themselves, but they don't want to admit it out loud. So hiding behind fiction is the best they can do.

It's very clear that Crowley is pulling inspiration from their previous times shielding each other with their wings. And it's very, VERY clear that Aziraphale only did the ball for himself and Crowley. Maggie and Nina are also going to be helped, sure, but Aziraphale wants to close the gap between himself and Crowley, and this is the only way he feels confident in doing so.

So they both did the exact same thing - talked about something they wanted for themselves, but being too afraid/nervous/apprehensive/etc decided the give themselves an out. A scapegoat of sorts.

#good omens #good omens headcanons #good omens theory #good omens speculation #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #but that's just a theory A GAME- #good omens 2 #crowley #good omens season 2 #aziraphale

[noneorother]

Share your GOS2 bibliography with me

How crazy is it that season 2 has basically forced me to go back to university. I’ve done more reading and critical analysis and historical research than I have in years. I bite my thumb at you, Neil (affectionate).

And as I’m sure I’m not alone in this, I’d love to see your bibliography of all of the references or reading/watch lists. I’m sure to pick up a few good ones! I’ll go first.

Movies + TV Arrival - Denis Villeneuve Clue - Jonathan Lynn I Know Where I'm Going - Powell & Pressburger The Ball - Magnus Dennison and Katja Roberts Every Day - Michael Sucsy About Time - Richard Curtis The Red Shoes - Powell & Pressburger The Small Back Room - Powell & Pressburger The Tales of Hoffmann - Powell & Pressburger Stairway to Heaven - Powell & Pressburger Ill Met By Moonlight - Powell & Pressburger The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse - Steve Bendelack Monty Python's Life of Brian - Terry Jones Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones The Twilight zone (The Arrival) Boris Sagal The Twilight zone (The Hitch-Hiker) - Alvin Ganzer Staged (Seasons 1 and 2) - Simon Evans & Phin Glynn Books The Crow Road - Iain Banks The Bridge - Iain Banks The Scholars of Night - John M. Ford Symbols of Sacred Science - René Guénon Catch-22 - Joseph Heller A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett Night Watch (Discworld) - Terry Pratchett Parlement of Foules - Geoffrey Chaucer The language of the birds - Farid ud-Din Attar Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen Midnight Days - Neil Gaiman Negative Burn #11 - Neil Gaiman Chivalry - Neil Gaiman Other Les contes d'Hoffamann - opera, Jacques Offenbach Don Giovanni - opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Line, the Cross and the Curve - musical, Kate Bush The book of Enoch - Ethiopian Apocryphal trs. Rev. George Schodde, PhD

I'm sure there will be more... sigh. Spoiler alert: there are more! Donnie Darko - 2001, Richard Kelly Nothing Lasts Forever - 1984, Tom Schiller The Ghosts of Berkley Square - 1947, Vernon Sewell Brazil! - 1985, Terry Gilliam No Bed for Bacon - 1941, Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon Don't, Mr Disraeli! - 1949, Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon Murder Mysteries - Neil Gaiman The Man Who Was Thursday - 1908, GK Chesterton Small Gods - 1992, Terry Pratchett Ipomadon - Medieval - Trs. Richard Scott-Robinson

#go season 2 #good omens 2 #art director talks good omens #go2 #good omens season 2 #good omens #good omens analysis #good omens s2 #good omens season two #neil gaiman #good omens meta #good omens prime

[billboard-hotties-tourney]

Clarence Clemons (1942-2011) The E Street Band - saxophone Songs: "Jungleland," "Badlands" Defeated Opponents: Keith Richards, Bob Marley, Cab Calloway Propaganda: see visual

Russell Mael (1948-) Sparks - lead vocals Songs: "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us," "Beaver O'Lindy" Defeated Opponents: Jobriath, Keith Moon, Curtis Mayfield Propaganda: "the lead singer of sparks and the younger brother of ron mael, the main thing about russell besides him looking too damn pretty all of the time is his large vocal range, his range is like that of a soprano and to this day he can still hit high notes even in his 70s! he’s also known for his hyperactive onstage persona and is funny both on and off stage."

Visual Propaganda for Clarence Clemons:

Visual Propaganda for Russell Mael:

#clarence clemons #russell mael #billboard hotties tourney #round four

[mimisempai]

Ineffable Growing Love series - Part 1

I want it to be an "us"

At their own pace

The words you deserve to hear

Learning together

When your happiness and mine collide

Spread your wings, Angel

Reaching

That’s what we are

The end of loneliness

That’s our reality

Addicted to your softness

Vulnerability

What you mean to me

The proof of their love is everywhere

My brave angel

You're what my dreams are made of

Finding a new purpose

The road to happiness

What our hearts desire

All this time you were cherished

The weight of guilt

To see the smile on your face

It feels like home

Never ending dance

Fragments of happiness

You're beautiful, it's true

Jane Austen or Richard Curtis, in the end it is all love

I don't want to be late anymore

Smitten

It has always been real

Being the reason for your happiness

It's my turn to rescue you

Yellow is the color

Keep Reaching

We always wanted the same thing

I know your kindness

Tell me all your fears

It's ours now

I know who I love

Story of a trust

Show me all of you

The smile that belongs only to me

To protect

A happiness that's real

You've always been someone

You were always on my mind

Your wings are precious to me

I can't bear the thought of losing you

Just a touch of love

Just surrender to the music

A group of the two of us

It has always been there

Unscathed

Just be yourself

Missing you comes in waves and tonight i'm drowning

Making new memories

You no longer need to hide who you really are

Dear Crowley…

Losing Control

A new step

You just have to be

Under a sky full of stars

Let your heart speak

A joy greater than all others

Take a chance and learn to fly

Without restraint

I love the angel you chose to be

Your light illuminates my shadows

The music of my name on your lips

My sweet demon

Precious moment

A token of gratitude

Our joy

Sheltered

Even in my dream, I’ll follow you

Say it with flowers

Because it comes from your heart

Sweet dreams 'til sunbeams find you

Who cares?

Quiet place

Not every cloud foretells a storm

The angel who never ceases to baffle me

Little notes of happiness

I'll always give you what you are craving for 

Sweet drunkenness

No wish upon a star

Masterpiece

Just a little hesitation

Together

You're my favorite serendipity

Simple but yet precious

My dear love

What your words mean to me

You just have to tell me

The guardian angels of Whickber Street

What you mean to me

I'll never tire of you

Ask and you shall receive

You're the only one I see

Next Part : here

#good omens #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable boyfriends #aziraphale #crowley #good omens fanfiction #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #GoodOmensSeason2Spoilers #GOS2Spoilers #GoodOmens2Spoilers

[vidavalor]

The Vavoom: Or, when the show's hinting Crowley & Aziraphale first kissed

It was not in 2.06, if that makes you feel any better?

Meta/theory hybrid stuffity stuff below the cut. As always, all interpretations are valid. This isn't meant to offend anyone who sees things differently. Post contains spoilers for the films 'Kiss Me Deadly' (1955), 'About Time' (2013), 'Love Actually' (2003), and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (1994). Apologies that this took a few days. Life's been wild this week. Let's dive in...

Right. So. The Vavoom...

I feel like most of us, by this point, are probably in agreement that Crowley is not talking about something he saw in a Richard Curtis film when he talks about his plan to help The Shop Lesbians to fall in love... and that, if he's not talking about something he saw in a movie, then he's talking about something he experienced... and yes, sure, absolutely Crowley has been on Earth for 6,000 years and could have vavoomed with basically anyone who has ever lived at this point as well as one semi-sentient car and even the world's once only-remaining unicorn but... we all know he's talking about Aziraphale. So this is about unraveling what the show presents as Clues to this end and using those Clues to solve for x and see if we can prove that Crowley is talking about Aziraphale and then figure out when this Vavoom happened with the information the show has given us so far... and the good news is that we can do all of those things so here we go...

The first thing to do is to eliminate the Richard Curtis films. Let's just start with Crowley saying that he saw his whole vavoom moment in "a Richard Curtis film." As someone who has seen a frankly embarrassing number of Richard Curtis films, I can tell you that this is a very amusing misdirect from a writing standpoint. It is amusing because it's a wink of sorts towards the same problem that comes up when you try to find The Vavoom on the GO timeline based on what the show's presented so far. What is that problem? It's that-- at first, cursory glance-- no one GO scene or Curtis film seems to have everything Crowley describes. Don't worry, though, because we actually do have enough information to find the lone caraway seed beneath these three cowrie shells here. You'll be Aziraphale-voicing an "a-HA!" very soon. :)

There are only two Richard Curtis films that feature elements Crowley lists as having occurred during The Vavoom: 'About Time' and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.' The Awning of a New Age scene in GO actually winds up an homage of sorts to 'About Time', as it is referencing it pretty heavily. However, there is no vavooming in 'About Time'; meaning, there is not this gaze-to-kiss moment that Crowley is talking about. A wedding reception tent collapses under heavy rain and soaks several supporting characters in the film, much like how our supporting characters Nina and Maggie get soaked by too much rain causing the awning to collapse. There is no gaze or almost-kiss or kiss before it. There are other canopies-- umbrellas-- but no one gazes or kisses under one. So, Crowley did not see The Vavoom in 'About Time'-- but that particular Richard Curtis film might have been the one in Crowley's mind when he quickly latched onto Richard Curtis films while speaking with Aziraphale in the pub.

As a result, thinking about his conversation with Aziraphale while trying to craft his Shop Lesbians Vavoom might have actually caused him to over-weather and cause the awning to drench Maggie & Nina. So the joke there is more that The Original Vavoom of which Crowley is speaking in the pub scene is something that really happened and had an element or two in common with a scene in the Richard Curtis film, 'About Time', which also features Bill Nighy (see: 'Love Actually' stuff below), whose mannerisms Crowley seems to like to emulate at times. As a result of seeing the film and thinking about how it *wasn't* like The Vavoom-- the canopy collapsing, the lack of an actual Vavoom in motion prior to this, all of that disappointing Crowley greatly when he saw this film lol-- Crowley ironically then says he got the whole idea of The Vavoom from a Richard Curtis film... when, in fact, *the distinct lack of Vavoom* in the film was what Crowley remembered from it... and then, upon thinking of the pub discussion when trying to start an Awning of a New Age for Maggie & Nina, it accidentally became part of his miracle, causing him to over-Weather and, kind of hilariously, substituted the kiss Crowley was trying to incite with the collapsing awning scene from 'About Time'... the film then disappointing him all over again lol.

The other Richard Curtis film that is relevant is 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.' You might be familiar with the scene-- its ending scene-- just from cultural osmosis as this point, even if you haven't seen the film. Hugh Grant proposes to Andie MacDowell in the pouring rain. So, the big problem with this scene is that there is no canopy. None. Whatsoever. They're soaked through. We never see them go inside. They look into each other's eyes and they kiss but it's raining on them the whole time and Crowley is really specific about his canopy requirements for Vavooming. This scene is also wrong because it's a proposal between characters who have known one another on and off for years and have a more extensive history, whereas Nina and Maggie are much earlier in a potential relationship and The Vavoom Crowley talks about is an intense gaze into a first kiss. That said... just as how 'About Time' ties to Nina & Maggie's story, there are some 'Four Weddings'-y elements to Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship, in that their story also covers them meeting up through different points in time and such. 'Four Weddings' was also the first mainstream, hit rom com to openly feature queer characters in supporting roles so it's a strong one for GO to be referencing... but, ultimately, no Crowley-described Vavoom scene in sight.

Finally, there's 'Love Actually', which doesn't actually have a single element in it that pertains to The Vavoom but I'm throwing it in here because I'm just looking at all GO ties to Richard Curtis films at this point. 'Love Actually' features Nina Sosanya (GO's Nina, of course) as a queer-coded character and, in GO, David Tennant has a few scenes where he seems to be channeling Bill Nighy's Billy Mack from 'Love Actually' in S1. (Tell me Crowley's not doing Billy Mack's walk when they cross the street to the bookshop in Eleven Years Ago in S1 lol.) For those of you who have somehow avoided seeing this movie lol, Billy Mack is an aging rock star who is the best character in the film and heavily queer-coded. In S2, there's also some Big Bill Nighy Energy in the "we'll just to have to make it worthwhile then" bit with Muriel in Heaven and also in the way he chuckles in the "I *was* there, you see" moment with Gabriel. Also probably worth mentioning that, in 'About Time', Bill Nighy plays the dad of one half of the main couple in the movie and his role is to teach him how to live life and this involves pursuing the woman he is trying to marry throughout his ability to fall through time. So, Bill Nighy is basically playing the S2 Crowley of 'About Time' while the main couple of that film parallels Maggie & Nina, in that he's setting up the scenario for the couple involved to get together. Nothing in the film, though, is as overt or contains elements that match The Vavoom, other than the collapsed awning, as we got into above.

So mah point is dolphins that while there are a couple of Richard Curtis films that contain bits and pieces of what Crowley is talking about, there isn't a single one that has anything really remotely close to the, uh, extremely specific scenario he was detailing... so now we have to look at just what the hell Crowley's on about, exactly... and for this, we are, surprisingly, going to wind up looking at a very different film from any by Richard Curtis-- 1955's classic film noir, 'Kiss Me Deadly'. Why this random film, you say? Because it's actually not at all random to GO S2. It's the origins of the phrase "vavoom"... and S2 of GO contains a multi-episode homage to the film.

'Kiss Me Deadly' is, tonally, very different from GO as it's pretty dark film noir but it has a plot you might find a little familiar. One night, driving down a dark road, the main character picks up a hitchhiker who has lost her memory. After she's murdered, the film revolves around the main character-- a private investigator-- and his lover/partner investigating the case to try to solve the mystery. GO's episode "The Hitchhiker" opens with a plot and visual homage to this film when Aziraphale picks up Shax in The Bentley and obviously S2 contains a plot surrounding a mystery related to a character who has lost their memory in Gabriel. I'm going to do a separate thing that is a deeper dive into this with particular emphasis on how the lead characters relate to Crowley and Aziraphale at another point in time because it crosses into too many other things to fit it into this one at the moment but the reason why I bring the film up now is because of its ties to the phrase "vavoom."

"Vavoom", alternatively spoken as "va va voom" and containing the same meaning, is thought to have originated in a cartoon in the late 1940s but its use in "Kiss Me Deadly" in 1955 is what pushed it into popular, cultural use and knowledge. In the film, there's a character named Nick, who is friends with the two leads (the Crowley & Aziraphale-paralleling Hammer and Velda). They have nicknamed him "Va Va Voom" because he says it so often. Nick is an auto mechanic who works on the leads' car-- yes, there's a Bentley parallel lol-- and it is his use of the phrase that made it one we are familiar with today. But what does it really mean exactly in terms of this scene in the pub?

Without going too far down the road that we wind up in another meta about wordplay and symbolism in S2 here, the show is doing things related around the word 'passion' and all of its various meanings. It begins with Aziraphale referring to Maggie's feelings for Nina as "a pash"-- which is British English slang for "a crush" or "an infatuation". It comes from the word "passion"... but the word "passion" actually means something much different. "Passion" is very specifically romantic, erotic love when used to describe a relationship. It means enthusiasm when about a hobby or the like-- Aziraphale will get the neighbors to come to the meeting/ball by negotiating their commitment based on things they're passionate about-- Mr. Arnold and Doctor Who, Mutt and the history of magic. Finally, S2 is tying a lot of this passion-related plot to *The* Passion-- as in, The Passion of the Christ, or the Christian phrase for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why is it called 'The Passion' anyway? Because the Latin root of 'passion' is 'pati', which actually means 'to suffer.' Looking at all of this and how the show pairs up scenes with different types of passion is a whole other meta. I'm bringing it up here because of the relationship between 'passion' and 'vavoom'...

"Vavoom" means voluptuously sexy. It means passionate. Something having a sense of "vavoom" or "vavavoom" means it is either suggestive of or is sensually pleasing. In GO S2, Maggie & Nina represent the pash use of passion-- the new love, the crush-- while Crowley & Aziraphale are the show's example of passion in its fuller, richer meaning of romantic, erotic love. So now that we eliminated the idea that Crowley is talking about having seen an example of this vavoom he's talking about in a movie-- I mean, 'Kiss Me Deadly' is totally a movie Crowley saw once so he might have first heard the phrase in it, like many people did but there's no vavoom itself the way Crowley describes it in the film, just the phrase-- but yeah, now that we've eliminated the idea that Crowley got his idea from a film, we can say with relative ease that he's talking about something he personally experienced. I think we can all agree that if he did, it was with Aziraphale and the purpose of him bringing it up in the scene is not just as a suggestion to solve the issue of needing to matchmake The Shop Lesbians but as a way of being seductive towards Aziraphale.

This is also part of 'Kiss Me Deadly' in that Crowley here is the Velda to Aziraphale's Hammer. Hammer is preoccupied with the mystery. Velda tries to help him solve it but is also seeking his romantic attention the whole time and being rebuffed in favor of the mystery. It's darker in the film, as you'd probably expect, since it's film noir, and Aziraphale is actually subtly playing back in GO S2. In GO, it's mostly played off as Crowley, kicked out of bed since the religious family are in the guest room lol, continuously making overtures towards Aziraphale to torment him a little for the whole Gabriel situation but also mainly just because he likes to and he misses him. (It has been, like, maybe 18 whole hours lol.) He continues it into later in the day when Muriel is in the bookshop and Aziraphale is a little more overtly playful then but he is in the pub scene as well. All of this also ties into the fact that Aziraphale wants to drive The Bentley but again, that's a whole other meta. Going to stay focused on the kiss here...

So what we're saying is that, in the scene in The Dirty Donkey, Crowley does that whole lean and the sexy hands and that super posh voice he does from time to time to seduce Aziraphale, and describes their first kiss back to Aziraphale when asked to come up with a romantic solution to help their neighbors realize they are in love. Specifically, Crowley says this:

Whew. *fans self* Jesus, Crowley... No wonder why Aziraphale thought you could help The Shop Lesbians. That? Was romantic...

The key thing I love about this is that while everything he says lends itself to the idea of a kiss, he doesn't actually explicitly say that until the later scene in the back room when Muriel is in the bookshop-- the "one fabulous kiss" part. It's evident later on when he explains the plan to Jimbriel and when he puts it into action that his intent is to trigger a scenario that might prompt Maggie and Nina into kissing and when the awning collapses, he feels like he failed at the overall Vavoom. He did, however, see it working from across the street, such were the fireworks, when they looked into each other's eyes and what's sweet and also very hot about this scene in the pub is that the looking into each other's eyes is the key bit of The Vavoom to Crowley. The kiss is what happened as a result of looking into each other's eyes. The romance of the gaze and the passion of the kiss = The Vavoom but the latter without the former isn't the whole rapturous, perfect moment and Crowley is into this moment. He's still weak in the knees over the thought of it.

And what he says happened in it? They looked into each other's eyes and realized they were made for each other? Crowley thinks that. He says that, flat out, to Aziraphale. Crowley. Who was abandoned by the God who was supposed to love him believes that same God created he and Aziraphale for each other. That they're fated, destined soulmates. And that they both knew it, in that moment when they were taking shelter from a sudden rainstorm together, under a canopy, and they gazed into each other's eyes and then

Yes, I am aware that he says "humans" in that bit in the pub scene. He's referring to Nina & Maggie but also he and Aziraphale have a tendency to refer to their love for one another in human terms in different scenes throughout the series, which is probably a whole other meta and *refocuses on finding this damn kiss here*...

So Crowley-- while heavily emphasizing the words "together" and "canopy", both for maximum sexiness and to lead us in the correct direction lol-- tells us what's needed in this scene, right? We need a sudden rainstorm, a canopy, them wet from the rain and taking shelter, Crowley's glasses to be off or he's in a situation to be able to take them off (ironically, unlike he was when he was in the pub while he's talking about all this erotic gazing), and then we have all this gazing into a very vavoom-y, very passionate first kiss.

So, what scenes seem at all remotely tied to things Crowley describes for The Vavoom? There are three scenes that jump out immediately-- and it's none of them lol. They *are not kidding* about quite literally 'three cowrie shells and a lone caraway seed'. There are three scenes that they want you to think could be connected to this and be distracted by to complete their sleight of hand trick. They want you to look towards Aziraphale's hand and not up his sleeve, so to speak.

So the three cowrie shells scenes here are Before the Beginning, Eden, and the Job minisode. Why? They are the scenes that involve Crowley and Aziraphale and some form of a canopy, which is one of the two words in Crowley's whole Vavoom moment that he heavily emphasizes. So it's not Before the Beginning and it's not Eden and why? Because we're missing the other word Crowley heavily emphasizes-- *together.* Crowley and Aziraphale took shelter from a sudden rainstorm *together* under a canopy. That's the set up. But Before the Beginning and Eden-- the first scenes our minds run to-- are not this because they are sheltering *one another* but not sheltering *together*. One of them is exposed to the rain each time.

There's an additional possibility that is thrown into the mix that is tied to these two scenes, which is the S2 announcement poster-- the one that features Crowley and Aziraphale on Whickber Street in the rain. That one is also out because Crowley is being sheltered from the rain by Aziraphale with a tartan umbrella (ridiculously adorable, I agree lol)-- but they're not both sheltering together. That one feels like it was designed just to fuck with us, especially because Crowley's hair in it is, for some reason, at Eleven Years Ago length in it. It's almost like it exists to both be cute and to, after the season is over, make us go wait... was it then? (It was not then.) More distractions. Ok, so, then what about the Job minisode?

Is it ox rib night? This seems to have some elements at play-- there's a roof and a storm and them together and all-around kiss vibes-- but it's actually not this, either. That said? Job is connected to it in a big way and helps prove my theory here so we're going to come back to it. I'll eliminate it here by pointing out that when Crowley defends The Vavoom as a possibility for Maggie & Nina to Aziraphale, he says "get humans wet and staring into each other's eyes" and "humans" in that bit is them, even if they are not fully. This eliminates the Job minisode as The Vavoom because it confirms that Crowley & Aziraphale did get wet as they went to shelter from the storm. In the Job minisode, they never go out in it. So, Job is out, too.

Ok, so then how do we find the one scene that unlocks this and points us towards the answer hidden in plain sight in front of us?

What is the one scene that really should tell us more about The Vavoom? How about the one wherein Crowley partially recreates it?

The Awning of a New Age is the lone carraway seed. Maggie & Nina paralleling Crowley & Aziraphale. What can we learn about what happened with Crowley & Aziraphale from what happened in this Maggie & Nina scene?

We already know that Crowley feels like he partially failed at recreating The Vavoom for them. It was meant to lead into a kiss and then the awning collapsed. That is what is different from Crowley & Aziraphale's first kiss but Crowley was delighted by the gazing, which we already know to be the very important bit of this here. Off of this, we can conclude that there's obviously a parallel of this bit for Crowley & Aziraphale and this is where the parallels in the scene stop. That means that what happens *before* the gazing moment in The Awning of a New Age scene is important because that's the parallel. So, what's happening while Crowley spots them together outside and starts up the rain? They're talking, right? And what are they talking about?

They're talking about one of them-- Nina-- having a partner who is unreasonably upset. Nina is anxious about it. She doesn't blame Maggie for it, as it's not Maggie's fault. It's also not Nina's own fault and what Lindsay wants from Nina is confining and abusive. Lindsay, we learn, is cruel. We decide in this scene really how much we don't like Nina with this woman and that we want her to be with nice Maggie who is sweet and supportive and is over the moon for her.

On the surface, this would seem to be absolutely nothing like any Crowley & Aziraphale scene we've ever seen, right? Fooled by what is on the surface-- modern lesbians in London Soho, one of whom has a romantic partner-- this seems to be a plot Crowley & Aziraphale have never had. Except, that it's not. It's a parallel to one you'll remember.

One, paralleling sentence here for you...

God's a bit tetchy...

Awning of a New Age unlocks that Lindsay being unreasonably angry and dolling out insane punishment for no actual misdeeds is a parallel to God during The Flood. God was Aziraphale's Lindsay-- the unseen, abusive partners, sending down their words and marching orders and causing distress. Crowley approached Aziraphale like how Maggie approaches Nina. Aziraphale half-heartedly tries to defend God the way that Nina half-heartedly tries to defend Lindsay but both pretty much give up in the face of Crowley's and Maggie's sane responses and support. The agreement that the present situation-- Lindsay about to abandon Nina, God about to abandon her creations in The Flood-- is horrible and unjust. They connect over the lack of justice. The Flood scene we saw ends as the rain begins, with Crowley and Aziraphale both looking up as it starts to fall.

Maggie and Nina get further-- they get to the first half of The Vavoom, in parallel. We haven't seen that yet with Crowley & Aziraphale. (Maggie & Nina also didn't have to go stop and save a bunch of people first lol.)

So how do we know that The Flood was the first kiss?

How do we know that Crowley and Aziraphale first kissed in Ancient Mesopotamia in fucking 3004 B.C. and have been vavoom sorted gone on each other ever since?

Because it happening in the aftermath of saving lives in The Flood would then mean it meets every one of the elements Crowley describes. They get wet from the storm. They will work to save everyone, which is evident from Aziraphale being dead fucking certain in the Job minisode that Crowley was a sweetheart who wasn't going to kill any goats or kids. How would he know this for sure? Saying that what God was doing was terrible in The Flood scene isn't enough for Aziraphale's surety by Job. That means that Mesopotamia and The Flood is the first time they teamed up. It means that Crowley saved people and animals during it. It more than likely means that he did so in a way similar to what he does during the Job minisode-- he transformed them into something that could survive the storm, probably rocks or something. (Big Medusa vibes lol.) But what would happen then? Crowley and Aziraphale would have to *stay through the storm to turn the people back*, right?

So, they'd need to seek shelter from the rainstorm. Under a canopy that could survive the storm. One they can both step back under and bump into one another beneath. Most likely, it's an actual canopy in original meaning of the word-- the shelter of trees. I think one of them (Crowley) bolted afterwards, based on the Job minisode, which we'll get to again in a second, and from under a canopy would be the easiest way to just be able to leave during a storm. (They did not spend the Biblical 40 days and 40 nights under that canopy or they almost certainly would have wound up having sex, which the show is suggesting in other scenes didn't happen for awhile after this which is also another meta lol.) But there's also another reason for trees that kind of cracks me up.

Remember when Aziraphale comes back from Edinburgh in S2 and, before he left, they had their whole Our Car/Our Bookshop thing and Crowley's been peeved for a day now over how Aziraphale got to go adventure in The Bentley and he got to wear a cardigan and babysit their former attempted murderer? And about how what he's really playfully irritated over is that he keeps trying to use Operation Shop Lesbians to turn Aziraphale on by mentioning their Vavoomy first kiss and Aziraphale is, kind of hilariously in retrospect, just totally tormenting him by barely indulging him on it? What happens when Aziraphale comes back from his trip?

Crowley-- genuinely-- says "there you are-- I was worried something had happened to you" and he's off-camera for a moment as he does so and the camera is on Aziraphale, who kind of seems like he would like one of Crowley's kisses about now. But what does Aziraphale get in place of where a kiss could have gone?

A face full of plants lol.

In their box, so that when he handed them to Aziraphale, they hung over his head like a canopy.

Don't wanna talk about The Vavoom, angel? Fine. You're just getting the trees. Mwah. *goes to his car and is all did you misssssss me kissy face*

Aziraphale, in old married bitch mode:

Finally, there's that Ancient Mesopotamia is, chronologically, the last scene so far in which Crowley is not seen wearing glasses, which is essential because Crowley-- while wearing his glasses in the pub lol-- describes the key bit of The Vavoom as involving staring into one another's eyes, which Crowley & Aziraphale can't do if Crowley has his glasses on. Since Crowley wears his glasses in approximately 87% of Good Omens, it means that the answer is in a scene where he's either not wearing them at all or could be seen as able to take them off. Mesopotamia meets that criteria. But there's still one more thing that can really hammer home the idea of this The Flood, Part 2 being their first kiss and that's going to be how we end up back at the Job minisode again.

Go back and think of the Job minisode again but now with the idea that the last time they saw one another-- ages before it-- they shared this moment of wildly passionate vavoom and look at how it recontextualizes the entire minisode.

Start with when they first see each other again. Where did *that* Aziraphale come from? He's teasing him.

The Aziraphale in Before the Beginning and in Eden and in the first bit of The Flood that we've seen is more anxious. He's not afraid of Crowley and he's definitely attracted to him but he's distracted by the dangers of what is happening while they're talking. Suddenly, he jumps from the Aziraphale of The Flood to the Aziraphale of the Job minisode. This one is flirtier. This one is literally like all so you never called-ing Bildad the Shuite lol. He's all "last time I saw you was... The Flood?" like he doesn't know and Crowley is all tight nod ohfuckit'shim and also ohfuckit'shimhavemissedhimsomuch and hiding behind his sunglasses-- Bildad is the first appearance of the sunglasses, chronologically, so we go from the Vavoomy gaze to Crowley hiding his eyes... this then all moves into the courtyard scene after a few moments...

Oh, what's this now? The only scene in the whole series in which Aziraphale asks Crowley to take his glasses off? And he does? So quickly-- intentionally-- that his expression from before is still on his face and it's just nothing but naked want like he's saying oh you wondered how I was looking at you from behind these this whole time? yeah, it was like this... Aziraphale is straight up asking for more vavoom. Take the glasses off. Look me in the eye and tell me you want this and yeah, sure, they're talking *on the surface* on *one level* of their conversation about whether or not Crowley is exhibiting serial killer tendencies and wanting to kill small animals and kids but, really, this scene is also the formation of their coded way of speaking to one another. Crowley's "I want to. I long (pause) to kill the blameless kids of Job the way I killed his blameless goats" and then lifting just enough of the magic to let Aziraphale see that he had actually not killed the goats at all but had actually faked their deaths, indicating that that was his plan for saving the kids as well... Well, it also means that *all* of what Crowley just said to him was coded. That's the weird pause after "I long" that breaks it into two sentences. It makes the second level of their conversation that Crowley whipped off his glasses, gazed into Aziraphale's eyes, and said I want to, I long... meaning, I want you, I want to kiss you again, I long for you...

But the bit of the Job episode that sells me on The Flood being The Vavoom is actually the bit just after Crowley miracles himself, Aziraphale, the kids, Jemimah's pot (because he's so not a serial killer, he saved the damn pot lol), the wine (because fuck that little Influencer Brat of Job-- Crowley's not about to kill a kid but he absolutely will drink the last of his wine for treating Aziraphale like a whore lol), and the food down to the cellar and started iguana-ing the kids. Why this bit? Because Aziraphale is fucking giddy and is just tormenting the living fuck out of Crowley.

He's all "I knew it!" and when you first watch the scene, right, you could think he means he knew that Crowley would save the kids. Yet, he already knows that by this point-- that's what the courtyard scene was. That's why he's yelling that he's "QUITE SURE" when Crowley asks him if he is (and calls him "angel" for the first time when doing so) while he's setting everything on fire just a moment before. Obviously, Aziraphale is happy that Crowley didn't kill the kids but what he's all I knew it *smug smile, actually fucking wiggling with flirty joy* about is that Crowley wanted to be alone with him again and would find a way to make it happen because what's the plan? The one that Aziraphale is totally teasing him about?

Aziraphale is going on about how oh, this is *Satan's* big plan, huh? A *big storm*? He loves every minute of it and he also really loves Crowley getting very close to him-- kissable close-- and being all "ooh aren't you brilliant?" when Aziraphale was acting smug. When did Crowley get that comfortable getting that close to him?

But yeah, Aziraphale loving every second of Crowley saving the kids, turning them into sightless/soundless iguanas, and sending a storm over the land for the night while keeping the two of them dry in a little cellar canopy so they can be alone together again-- essentially, repeating a version of The Vavoom scenario, as he'll still be trying to do millennia later... Aziraphale thought that very romantic and had no problem flirtily teasing the hell out of Crowley for it. Crowley's game is as ancient as Bildad the Shuite lol.

So yeah, what we're saying here is that there's a The Flood, Part 2 and that it's likely in S3. I actually wouldn't be surprised if it opened S3, since the first two seasons are opened with the other canopy-themed firsts-- the two first times they met, really, in Before the Beginning and Eden, both with the wing canopy-ing of one another-- so S3 could be the tree canopy and their first kiss. The Flood also seems likely to return because of how it ties thematically to the whole end of the world of S3's Second Coming plot.

One aspect of this theory that I really like is also that it means that Crowley was more female-presenting during their first kiss (which also goes along with the feminine energy sometimes associated with the phrase "vavoom"/"vavavoom") but also that when they next see one another in the Job minisode, Crowley is the more male-presenting Bildad the Shuite... and Aziraphale is really just into all of it. He's just into Crowley, full stop. We already know he is but I like the idea of it tied to their early days and showing it unfold a bit and how it's just all fine by Aziraphale, who just loves this being and is happy to see them and get to be alone with them again. It's very sweet and romantic.

I guess the last thing to say is that if this is true, we're all going to have a field day redoing the psychoanalysis of this bit below, aren't we?

#ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #aziracrow #crowley #aziraphale #good omens theory #vavoom

[giantmushyfriend]

Another GO headcanon/speculation to warm your heart this January

Since the announcement of Series 3 for our beloved Good Omens, the gears in this ol' brain have been turning. Because here's the deal: I love the idea that Aziraphale will have to give us a top-tier performance of the Apology dance, but I also like the idea that Crowley will request a favor he can call in at any time just for funsies. Aziraphale is inherently a little weary of this notion, but he ultimately agrees because, in the end, he loves Crowley and wants to show him that he is willing to do anything for him. And for a while, things just go back to normal. They handle the apocalypse, again, get their cottage in the South Downs, etc. Our ineffable husbands go about their days bickering and enjoying domestic bliss, and Aziraphale almost forgets about the favor his beloved demon has yet to call in. That is until they're back in the bookshop because, let's face it, Aziraphale won't be able to stay away from it for long, and Crowley is lounging on the couch while Aziraphale works (they sent Muriel to go hang out with Nina and Maggie). And like he's done in the past, Crowley decides it's about high time for a nap and decides it's time to call in that favor, resulting in something like;

"Angle," Crowley calls, tipping his head back to glance at the angel, where he's perched in his large, worn chair by his desk, looking over one of his newest bible misprints.

Aziraphale slides his reading glasses off of his nose and into the breast pocket of his button with an affectionate sigh, "Yes, my dear?"

"C'mere."

"Crowley, I'm working," the protest is half-hearted at best, and Crowley's mouths twitch up into a small smirk as Aziraphale carefully closes the book before twisting in his chair to look at the demon.

"Oi, none of that. You promised me a favor, angel, and I'm calling it in."

Aziraphale smiled fondly before rolling his eyes, and Crowley could swear he felt his heart melt a little.

I only ever want to see him smile like that, Crowley thought absently.

"Out of everything in the world- the universe, that an angel could offer you, you're using it for a cuddle?"

"Not JUST a cuddle, angel, I want a nap too." Crowley smiled, tipping his head back to summon Aziraphale closer.

"And you want me to hold you while you nap, I suppose?"

Crowley hummed in the affirmative, "Mmhmm, and I want you to read to me."

"Anything in particular, my love?"

"'Gimme something of Jane's, I wanna see if she can write as good as she can heist."

"How about a nice romance? Something to pair with your Richard Curtis pictures," Aziraphale stands before soothing out his trousers and beginning to search for where Muriel placed his Austen novels in their small reorganizing spree they took while he and Crowley were away getting settled in their cottage.

"No one calls them pictures anymore, Aziraphale, call 'em a movie for Gods-for Satan's- for somebody's sake," Crowley grumbled.

"Very well, is that a yes or a no for the romance?" Aziraphale asked as he located his newfound Austen section, his fingers grazing over the spine of his well-loved copy of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility before pulling both off the shelf.

"Sure, a romance, sounds lovely. Just grab one and get over here, 'm cold."

"Dearest, you're always cold."

"'M a serpent, angel, I have no temperature control!" Crowley groused, wiggling down onto the sofa to make room for the angel. He levels a small glare at the edge of the narrow sofa before nodding in approval when it expands under his harsh gaze. "It's the middle of winter, 's why I keep a nice warm angel around."

Aziraphale felt his face flush, an odd aspect of the corporation that he'd never get used to. He strolled over to the now slightly larger couch before cupping Crowley's cheek, his heart stuttering when the demon nuzzled into the touch, "Would you like the heated blanket, love?"

Crowley nodded before Aziraphale grabbed it from the end of the couch. He didn't move to plug it in; he just hit the remote, and the blanket spurred into action. The angel then wiggled next to his demon, bringing the tartan blanket, much to Crowley's chagrin, up around the two of them. Crowley is quick to nuzzle his way into the angel's grasp, resting his head on the plush planes of his chest.

"Comfortable?" Aziraphale asks, one arm coming up to wrap around Crowley's shoulders before opening his older editions of Pride and Prejudice. Crowley hums, smiling softly when he feels a soft kiss pressed into his hairline. "Very well, my dear."

---

Listen, I'm just a sucker for Aziraphale reading to Crowley as he naps (but so is half of the entire fandom, and Crowley, hence this post). Is this a way for me to write it? A little. It's just so soft and domestic, and I really want to see it in series 3. I understand that the ineffable husband's romance won't be the main storyline in s3, but I am frothing at the mouth for some domestic, fluffy, moments between the two of them before we have to say goodbye for good.

#good omens #michael sheen #david tennant #aziraphale #crowley #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #aziraphale and crowley #domestic fluff #Aziraphale reading to Crowley #some soft headcannons #go headcanons #No angst here #only fluff #fulfilling my duty of making Michael proud #I am foaming at the mouth for some soft content #good omens series 3

[mercurygray]

Apologies Owing

Well, they're finally here - the pilots, that is. The base's WACs have some opinions they'd like to share.

A follow up to this piece - and an announcement! I'll be trying to post all of Cord's drabbles on AO3 at Pavilioned In the Fields.

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The talk over dinner was about nothing but the officers.

There was no consensus yet, it seemed, over who was the handsomest. Netta was stumping for Brady, the one who'd ridden his fort straight into a rut in the middle of the airfield and had walked away without a scratch, but Anita and Mary Dacre both wanted to speak of no one but DeMarco - or rather, the dog he'd brought with him, who had kindly consented to pets and treats and much crooning while his owner stood by and beamed at himself for the genius idea of getting the husky to find his Friday night dates for him. (Mae, too, seemed taken by the idea of the dog, though she was a little too world-wise to let the pup's gorgeous blue eyes win her over to his owner.)

"I liked the one that blew us a kiss," Nina said, almost loyally, still mooning into her soup about it nearly three hours later, elbow firmly planted on the table while she started wistfully into space. "What'd you say his name was, Phoebe?"

"Biddick," Phoebe said, wisely taking the middle road and saying nothing about anything apart from name, rank and serial number, reaching around Nina's elbow for the salt. "Curtis Biddick. Flies with Richard Snyder."

"The one who looks like Leslie Howard?" Becky looked like that was more her speed. "Now there's a man I'd let do a few close maneuvers."

"Curtis Biddick," Nina smiled dreamily, staring off into space obviously having heard nothing Becky had said. "It was so romantic."

"You gotta watch out for boys like that, Nina, they're usually more trouble than they're worth," Mae said, locking eyes with Phoebe across the table and exchanging abbreviated smiles.

"You all can have fun with the squaddies, but I feel like aiming a little higher," Ethel said with a cutthroat grin, inspecting the arch of her brow in the convex of her soup spoon. "That blonde who drove in with Major Egan looks like he really could be in pictures."

"Cleven," Phoebe supplied, before anyone could ask. "Major Gale Cleven. He's Egan's best friend, apparently. He came up to tower, didn't he, Cord? With Major Egan and Demarco?"

"He did," Cord said, non-committal while she wiped some sauce off the corner of her mouth and considered whether she wanted to try chasing down the last of her peas. "Seemed nice enough."

"Hmmm." Ethel looked unimpressed, and perhaps a little put out that Cord, of all people, had gotten an eye in to the main chance that she clearly couldn't appreciate properly. "Nice enough to have a girl at home?"

But no one ventured an answer for her - the half of the table that was facing the doorway all clammed up at same time as the man himself approached the table, uniform immaculate and blond hair swept just so over his very handsome face. The table stood up as one, Nina accidentally flinging her spoon into her bowl with a clatter.

"Ladies. Was wondering if I might have a word alone with Lieutenant Callaway." His voice was all gravitas and gravel, and Ethel looked like she'd die of envy the way she was glaring across the table at her lieutenant.

Mae's eyes, on the other hand, flashed with delight, and Cord looked around the table to see that nearly everyone else was smiling the way girls smiled when they thought you had something to keep a secret about. She felt hot with betrayal. Now just what do you all think - "I think we're all finished, Major, we can leave," Mae offered, gesturing to the rest of the table to get going. "We'll catch you up, Cord." Mae promised, beaming back at her friend, following the rest of the group out the door and back to barracks.

Cord took a breath and studied her shoes for a moment, hoping that none of that heat had made it to her face, and Cleven hadn't seen any of their hinting smiles - or heard what Ethel had just said. She waited until the crowd cleared the door to speak. "Sir?"

"Seems I owe you an apology, Lieutenant."

Whatever she'd been expecting him to say ...wasn't that. "…What for, sir?"

Cleven's gaze was patient, though it looked like that patience was being tested a little at the moment. "Whatever John's done here for the last month."

It took Cord more than a moment to realize he was talking about Bucky Egan. She'd plumb forgotten his first name was John, if she'd ever known it at all. He introduced himself to everyone as Bucky. "…that's very kind of you, Major Cleven, but I'm not sure that's your apology to make, sir."

"Well, a fellow can try." He smiled - a brief thing - and Cord realized why Ethel thought he'd do well in movies. Underneath those baby blue eyes ran some very, very still waters. Well, they'd have to be, to have Egan for a friend. "He - he means well, usually. He's just not…real good at thinking things through sometimes."

You can say that again. "That's…not a quality one looks for in an executive officer, if you don't mind me saying, sir."

Cleven chuckled - a sound Cord was getting the impression most people didn't hear very often. "No, it most certainly is not. But he has others - a damn fine flyer, a good man to have with you in a fight, and a - a good friend."

The quiet fortitude was growing on her - a strong contrast to Egan's boisterous take-all-comers antics. And he'd come here, when he didn't have to, when nothing said he even needed to, to apologize, on the sole basis of one meeting this morning where she'd stood her ground and been short with his friend. He noticed things, Major Cleven did - and that counted for something. "He must be, to have you making apologies for him on your first day here."

Again, the smallest of smiles. "He'd do the same, if it had been me that had stepped wrong. I'm just trying to…pay the favor forward." He took a breath, and looked at his shoes. "He, ah - he mentioned you were from Ohio."

"Dayton," Cord supplied, wondering when this had turned from an apology into an interview.

"Pretty prime flying country out there at Wright-Patterson," Cleven said quietly, glancing at her with softly curious eyes.

"Yes, sir, it is. I practically grew up there - my dad worked on the base, as an engineer. Worked pretty close with the test pilots."

"Is that how you got into the tower?"

"More or less, sir."

"Heard Brady say you were the calmest voice alive, talking him in today."

The 'for a woman' that had doubtless followed the original comment went unsaid, and Cord measured out her own smile. "Well, there's two types of pilots, sir - those who've had a belly landing, and -"

"-those who will." Cleven finished the old chestnut with a smile. "They teach you a lot about belly landings in Dayton, Lieutenant?"

Cord took a deep breath, remembering the rumbling, skating feeling of the plane underneath her, the nameless terror that the brakes no longer worked and her steering was in God's hands, waiting endlessly while the machine skidded heavily to a halt and she planned her exits, preparing to make a run for it. "A fair bit, sir."

"Hopefully we won't give you any more." He caught her gaze and held it. "Let me know, if he gives you any more trouble? We can't have our controller off her game."

She looked him in the eye and knew, instinctively, that he meant that, and if she said something, he would take her at her word - something not too many men on this base would do. That counted for something, too. "You'll be the first person I tell, Major."

He nodded, glad to be heard and understood, and turned to leave, before thinking of one last thing. "And maybe you'll let your friend know the girl at home is named Marge?" His smile was nearly imperceptible, and Cord almost laughed to see it. So he had heard. That's a very dry sense of humor you have there, sir. "Wouldn't want anyone …getting the wrong idea."

She nodded, happy that there was something here she could do for him. Oh, we're going to get along so well. "Of course, sir." Well, Ethel, serves you right. She could just see the other woman's face when she told her that Cleven was definitely off the market.

The understanding, it seemed, was mutual - Cleven gave a little nod and put his hand in his pocket. "Enjoy your evening, Lieutenant."

"And you, Major."

He went back outside, and Cord's eye followed him through the windows to the group of pilots joking and laughing in the road outside, probably getting ready to go into town. What reason could he have given for stopping in the mess hall? Or maybe he didn't need one. Egan hooked his arm around his friend's shoulders, and Cord caught a glimpse, again, of Cleven's fleeting smile - wider now, laughing with his friends as they set off for the village and the pub. And they're best friends? Well, they do say opposites attract.

Cord tidied her seat and exited the mess, surprised to see Mae was sitting on the bench outside the mess, apparently waiting. She got up as Cord stepped outside, grinning from ear to ear. "A word alone with Lieutenant Callaway, huh? You got something you want to share with the class, Cord?"

"Oh, buzz off, Mae. He just wanted to -" She paused, feeling, suddenly, that the apology was not for public consumption. "To thank me, for helping Brady land."

Mae nodded, a little impressed with the new Major. "The way she's going, I think Netta's gonna thank you too."

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You can read more of Cord here on tumblr at her tag.

#i have written a thing #mercurygraypresents #tds cinematic universe #cordelia callaway #masters of the air x oc #masters of the air fanfic #john egan x oc #stop the presses everyone i have written gale cleven