#imagine if crowley tried chess

[ideas-scattered-dreams]

/ / LIAR!

Fandoms: Twisted wonderland AU: Overblot - SADNESS

ANGER - SADNESS (YOU'RE HERE)

Imagine that...

Liar, crowley is a damn big fat liar. he promised to get u back to ur world, yet made u worked countless of pointless jobs. made u do all the things that lazy crow cant do. and what does he give u in return? NOTHING. not even a home to go to.. your own home. Why did the tsumtsums get to go home quickly? weren't they in the same situation as you?

you were walking in the hallway towards crowleys office with heavy steps. fist clenched while holding a letter (the letter littered with dark ink).. the crumbled piece of paper looked like it was for crowley.. it looks like it was sent after the week u defeated overblot riddle.. lets rewind a bit.. the time where the letter was in the pile of all the stacked up paperwork that crowley dumped onto you..

you were curious on what the message was written.. the letter was burnt and looked like the one who received this letter tried to burn it, rip it, or in general just get rid of it.. though, looks like it failed. you began to read it.. your expressions morphed into shock, happy, and then anger. this letter.. this was the one.. the key to getting back home.. you looked at the date it was sent of.. it was.. after riddles overblot.

Your eyes tremble from looking at the number.. huh? that.. long ago? why.. why didn't he.. you teeth began to clack and brows furrowed.. a few dark ink dripped from your fingernails and legs..

now you were Infront of crowleys door. a dark look in your eyes. this wasn't fair.. not fair.. not FAIR! you spent your days working away with work waiting oh so patiently for crowley to find u a way back home.. yet he didn't! why?! was it because he found u useful? were u just a toy for him to use to go out and play?! disgusting.

dark ink began to continuously drip from u are u slowly open the door startling Crowley who was reading a manga? well that didn't matter.

u slammed the letter onto his desk while looking straight at those glowing eyes behind his mask. "headmage.. please tell me.. what is the meaning of this letter.." u asked voice filled with visible anger and betrayal as u dipped your head down. crowley took the letter that was placed onto his desk and read it. he read over the contents as his expression morphed into shock.

"prefect.. how did you get this letter.." he spoke with caution as he crumbled that letter and placed it over the candle making it turn into ashes. your eyes narrowed and looked at the ashes that fell.. the only letter of your key has been destroyed. "i do not know where u got that letter from but it is rude to snoop and read of someones elses privacy. didn't your parents teach you such manners?" he sighed and sat down.

you eye twitched as u tremble on your spot. "how could my parents teach me when i cant even go back home because of you." you spat out making crowley frown. "your disrespect is going off limits prefect. i suggest u apologize and leave, maybe i will let u off the hook as i am -" you slammed your foot down making shockwaves sending crowley to hold onto the desk as the ground crack.

"SHUT UP!" the blot began to grow larger in size and u grip your hair in frustration. "i have learned the truth crowley. how much more are u gonna lie and gaslight me?! i have waited and waited and waited for the time, i get to finally go home! to get embrace by my parents and friends! i have a future ahead and your ruining for me!!" you started to let out angry tears and u fell to the ground and cried. "ITS NOT FAIR! LOOK AT THE TSUMMIES! THE GET TO GO HOME EARLY WHILE I HAVE BEEN HERE LONG ENOUGH!!"

The shockwave of your voice made the walls crack as crowley called for backup, he was shaking and looking at your form. your body started to get covered with blot as u cried tears of dark ink. "WAS IT BECAUSE I COULD FIX THE OVERBLOTS?! WAS I JUST A SINGLE CHESS PIECE FOR U?!!!" you continued to cry and cry as the blot spread even faster, it was also covering the walls and floor.

"prefect!" the first years and grim entered the door to figure out what the commotion was about. but they never expect this scene..

"its unfair unfairunfairunfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair unfairunfair....." you kept repeating the word as the time abruptly stopped. the air was filled with toxin of gas much like vils overblot.. yet stronger with the emotion.

.....

it was dark. your tears wont stop coming. u felt.. dissapointed in yourself. the solution was there all along.. the happiness and freedom u have been waiting for.. yet.. it was just swatted away with no remorse. with no other objections but to decline it. was it punishment? you have been a good child... why.. why did this happen to me.. "mama? i am scared.. please.. i need you.."

"mama.. mommy.. wahhh.!!!!!" you screamed making the building/office collapse, the people in the near area were thrown as u finally get consumed by blot.

.......

was this a dream..? please.. let this be a dream.. i didn't mean to let my emotions go.. i didn't.. u understand me right..? overblot me?

'YOU' smiled as 'YOU' embraced you. you hugged them tightly. as u sniffle and let your tears come out. "it wasn't fair.. it wasn't but i'm glad u understand me.. you were always here for me.. you wont leave me right?" you frowned and held them close. 'YOU' looked at you and grinned. "of course.. i will never leave... ever. so lets stay in our world together.. forever.." you looked at them and nodded.

ignoring the bloody scene that was infront and back.. and a single feathered hat lying ontop of the piles of bodies.. it was just a dream (name) so dont ever leave.

#➥🌙dreamer.ideas #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x male reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonerland x female reader #twisted wonderland x gender neautral reader #twisted wonderland x gn reader #twst #twst overblot #twst overblot yuu #twst overblot reader #dire crowley #male reader #female reader #gender neutral reader #gn reader #reader #yeah

[yandere-romanticaa]

Request are open for the 10k, and like it's a big event, I'm like "I need to request something in particular for that" but I have too much idea and I need to choose only one 😶 So while I'm in conflict with my internal council, I will just ask new about Ons reverse isekai (love how this name became canon 🤣👌). Not date or something like this, I can wait x) but some random fact like is it difficult to write ? How the idea came up in your mind ? The result of the quotev quiz ?

Goodness me, I didn't think anyone would being this up again, legit thought people had already lost interest!

It is a quite difficult for me to write because I don't have much energy these days but this is something that I really want to bring to life.... Who knows when though. I'm kept up with the manga and I also want it to make sense, if you get what I'm saying. I sorta want it to be connected to the main story while also being its own identity. This is also an excuse to see the characters in a modern setting and seeing them act all cute and happy, that's a big wish of mine ✨😩 This idea has been swimming in my head for years actually, I always imagined what would it be like if they all just sprung to life and tried to be normal again (it's also an excuse for me to go on cute dates with Mika 🤡😭🤭)

As for the poll, here are the screenshots

I knew Mika was going to get the most love but damn, he has more than half than anyone else 🤣 Also, making only a few characters yandere does make everything easier for me because for some I just wanna write fluff 😔 These results might not be the final product, I just wanted to see the people's preferences. The ones I want to make yandere at the moment are Lest Karr, Ferid Bathory, Yoichi Saotome MAYBE Mika and Yuu's a whole beast that I'm not sure how to tackle. If I do make him a yandere it's going to be platonic though.

Also, I'd like to make Shinoa a TikTok girl 🤣🤣 I can see her being a popular influencer like that, she's so cute and smol, the idea was so random but I can see it! She gets very creative and people like her snark, that's what caused her to blow up. Mitsuba wants to join her but is a little shy, but maybe I'll make her a model? Who knows. Crowley would repair cars, Ferid would be an university professor because he's an asshole, Chess and Horn would be nurses mainly so that they can steal blood, Urd will probably be something boring like an accountant or bookkeeper, it pays well though. Lacus and Renee are college students and you hang out with them often. Since Lest and Krul look like kids they get sent away to elementary school but everyone is in awe of them there, like, how are they so smart? 😲 Some kid in the back is eating glue, the rest are trying to do the test and not fail while these two just want to die. End their misery. This concept might be scrapped though, I'm here for any suggestions.

That's all I can think of for now! If you have more questions, ask away!

#owari no seraph isekai au #ons isekai au #anon asks #ana rambles

[hugh-lauries-bald-spot]

i think james mcavoy and michael sheen would get along

#supporting (or obsessing in michael's case) a queer ship youre in #kings #michael sheen #james mcavoy #x men #good omens #cherik #innefable husbands #charles and azi having chaos husbands #imagine if crowley tried chess #hot take

[on-stardust-wings]

I like to imagine Aziraphale and Crowley play board games together. Like, chess.

Aziraphale likes chess because it's sophisticated and it's been around a long time and he got fairly good at it. Of course he owns a very old, handcrafted set.

Crowley likes chess because it needs strategic planning. It's something where he can put his scheming mind to good use. He plans out his strategies dozens of steps ahead, he has these complicated master plans (and sometimes he overlooks a small side effect and ruins his own game, because that's what Crowley is).

He also tries to cheat, not because he thinks he needs to cheat to win, but because it's demonic, and it's fun to mess with Aziraphale. If Aziraphale catches him cheating, he'll make a big show out of complaining how much he hates being thwarted. If Aziraphale misses on a cheat and Crowley wins because of that, he'll be gloating for day, and Aziraphale refuses to talk to him through it. He has to make peace by inviting him out for crêpes.

#no excuse for this one #thought of it and it seemed fun to share #good omens headcanon #aziraphale #crowley #board games #hobbies #p+a

[patricianandclerk]

I just noticed that when the 'bad angels' confront Aziraphale, before they get rough with him, like... there's this moment Sandalphon actually looks SAD. And he'd not seemed particularly close to Aziraphale earlier, but it just goes to show, they've got emotional responses to the whole situation with him, they aren't happy to be proven right to have been suspicious. And I just love that.

It’s interesting because like, I completely understand the instinct to cut off all empathy with the angels because of their like, more violent tendencies in places, and particularly when it comes to the actual trial thing, later, but like.

The thing I find super engaging about the forces of Hell and Heaven, as presented in the television series, is that they’re so plainly individuals with their own unique personalities, loyalties, and motivations. Unlike the book, where Heaven is mostly presented as an uncaring Host, a sort of vague embodiment of cold uncaring, and where Hell is mostly the same, with Hastur and Ligur kind of serving as like, a vague pair of henchmen to further Hell’s desires, like...

We see more of them. We watch them. We see their little quirks.

Ligur saying, “Nice sofa,” on the Daytime couch. The four of Hell’s main denizen boredly watching Crowley giving a too-enthused presentation, and Hastur actually being invested enough to ask a question. Hastur overreacts, he screams, he yelps; Hastur doesn’t understand most humour, and gets frustrated when faced with it; he hurts himself when it all gets too much. Ligur’s chameleon, matched to his eyes, is constantly changing colour; Ligur doesn’t get sarcasm but tries anyway; Ligur enjoys violence and says demons can’t trust one another, but shares his cigarettes with Hastur. 

Dagon stands around with legs spread, hands on hips; leans into Beelzebub to whisper in their ear, moves slowly and deliberately; has an exact knowledge of What’s On File. And Beelzebub! Beelzebub is cold, and quiet, and severe, and they buzz when they talk, but we see other things, too - we see the netting on their vest and on their feet, their fucking WWII medal in pride of place, we see them let Gabriel do the talking, only jumping in to add to what he’s saying, and then Gabriel defers to them. Like? This is one of the big things about the two of them being two parts of the same organisation to me - they don’t act like the leaders of two armies. They seem like bosses of rival departments who both just really don’t get their own jobs sometimes, and wish it were a bit fucking simpler. 

Beelzebub and Gabriel seem to have some kind of rapport with one another, which we know can’t have happened through backchannels, and so must have been conducted through some sort of above board thing - Gabriel and Beelzebub are open with one another about their frustrations, their feelings, about the pressures of their job. They tell one another, Christ, this is gonna be hard! They team up to shout at an eleven-year-old like the two most infuriating PTA parents you can imagine. 

Gabriel loves suits, but doesn’t remember to undo the fucking stitches on the vents; he goes jogging in the park for no reason other than, presumably, he enjoys it; he claps after an angel has finished giving a report; he quotes the Sound of Music in conversation because God said She liked it; when Crowley says that God plays mindgames, he doesn’t look angry that Crowley rebelling, he looks betrayed and distressed, because he’s worried it might be true. Sandalphon is meant to be some vague thug as the “muscle” to Gabriel, but instead we see him hovering at Gabriel’s side, offering him helpful hints in conversation, affirming what he says; we see Gabriel and Sandalphon beam at one another when they exchange the unfunniest joke I’ve ever heard; we see Sandalphon’s little bow, the way he grins to show his grill; we see Sandalphon and Gabriel hold hands when Aziraphale/Crowley lets out that streak of flame.

We see Uriel, severe and cold, falter. We see Uriel get visibly frustrated when Aziraphale chooses not to keep up with everybody else; we see Uriel’s feint in the script, as if she’s going to stab Aziraphale, and then doesn’t; we see the way Uriel scrambles back from the flames, and touches the arms Gabriel throws out, as if to protect Sandalphon and Uriel both. 

We see Michael, who studies conversations as if she’s looking at a chess board, who is quiet and contemplative when everyone else is talking, and only adds something when she has a question that nobody else is asking; who - compared to Uriel and Sandalphon, who are more blunt and severe, and to Gabriel, who is more blunt and stupid - is subtle, and almost gentle, when reminding Aziraphale of his duty to Heaven. We see her endless patience with the demons - with Ligur, who doesn’t understand sarcasm, and with Hastur, calling her “wank-wings” for no reason at all - and the fact that she’s so obviously used to them being like this, but not enough to actually complain. 

Even the Metatron comes across less as the obviously biased but supposedly Unbiased Voice of God, and more as a doddering old fool that nobody talks to anymore. They are just. Out-of-touch, confused, impatient. And the same for the little demon, and the avocado demons, the background angels on their hoverboards - you get the impression that all these people have their own lives to be getting on with, that they have rich existences outside of the mischief of the main plot. 

They all have their own unique costumes and looks and ways of holding themselves, but they all have their own personalities. And that means they have their own feelings.

What does each of them want? Power? Peace? Solidarity? Time to jog? Brackish water to swim in?

Like. Sure, they want to win the war. They want to win it for different reasons - Hell consider themselves revolutionaries who want to overthrow their oppressors; Heaven consider themselves the Good Guys, and think they need to win because it’s Good.

But as individuals, what do they want?

Because Michael doesn’t come across as wanting to cut Hell off at the knees. Michael comes across as wanting this over as quickly and efficiently as possible, and I don’t think she cares about victory - she comes across like she’s planning for a compromise. Gabriel says he’s uncompromising, but look at him with Beelzebub, look at their ease together. He says they need to fight, but when they do, will he be able to do it? Could he actually kill Beelzebub, if they were face-to-face? It’s one thing to kill Aziraphale, he betrayed them, but killing Beelzebub... They get on.

I’m not saying they wouldn’t still fight the war, I’m not saying one or the other side would win, but--

Would they be SATISFIED, if they won? Would they be happy, after? How would the losses feel on both sides? Because this wouldn’t be a matter of no feelings of loss. This doesn’t come across as two soulless armies that want to fight because They Fight - this comes across as 10 million angels and 10 million demons, who know that they HAVE to fight...

But do they want to?

Would they want to, if they knew it wasn’t an option? Some of them would... But how many? What percentage? How many would want to run away? How many angels, for that matter, actually hate the demons? How many demons actually  hate the angels?

Who would these people - and they are people, we’ve watched them be people, no matter what else they’re supposed to be - be, if God hadn’t set them up like this, to watch them destroy each other?

#mir don't look #heaven #hell #gabriel #sandalphon #beelzebub #dagon #michael #hastur #ligur #uriel #metatron #Anomymous #as defined by dictionary #answered

[elven-child]

It's fascinating though, how differently people perceive the same work of art sometimes - which is to say, I wanted to talk about Crowley. More specifically, I wanted to talk about the only time I saw an opinion of not only the actor who plays the role, but also the co-author of the book, and went "nah, this doesn't sound right". And of course I'm not making this post to criticise what they said, not at all; I'm just writing down my thoughts on the topic before they slip from my mind.

That being said, the thing they said was, "Crowley is pretty much the same character at the beginning of the story as he is at the end".

I know Aziraphale goes through a much longer journey, and he has more drastic realisations than Crowley. But in my view Crowley changes too, quite significantly.

We're talking about a demon who compared the war between Heaven and Hell to chess but at the end of the story posed a theory that there's more to it than just a conflict of two sides, and it might all be a really complicated solitaire. We're talking about a demon who cracks under pressure, who would have stood up to Satan neither in the book, nor in the show. Who's not brave when he's alone (we all know that Hell would have treated him very differently if he had ever tried bravery), but manages to be brave together with Aziraphale. Who likes humans but still makes their lives miserable so well that "they love him down there", and is satisfied with effective results of his actions - but at the end of the book he stands up to Hell, Heaven and Satan to defend humanity. Because humans didn't deserve to be pulled by turns towards Heaven and Hell like pieces in a game.

He is really good at presenting issues from different angles - "what is right depends on how you look at the problem" is how he convinces Aziraphale to raise the Antichrist together. And while it's true that many human issues are too complex to classify a certain action as right or wrong, at the end of the book the choice which Crowley and Aziraphale face is very simple. But they still have to complete the hard part and make this choice.

He is shown to be bitter about his fall (even though he knows Heaven is no better than Hell) but after all he realises that he doesn't have to be defined by the word demon. He doesn't have to deny being nice or kind. He has free will just like humans do, and he not only acknowledges it, he takes his responsibility for it. He acts on what he had always known and what he helped Aziraphale realise.

He justifies himself by saying "we were only doing our jobs", he thinks you have to keep testing people, and interferes with humanity, but at the end he knows better than that - just like Aziraphale - and realises good and evil don't balance each other out. There is "right" which does not need a counterbalance of "wrong" to exist. This way of thinking belongs to Heaven and Hell and their nonsensical war.

He did bad things on behalf of Hell - not as bad as the Spanish Inquisition or World War II, but still bad. And none of that changed his potential for being good. After all, he is kind, and he cares about Aziraphale and humans and the world. He is capable of love. He doesn't agree with the way Heaven and Hell see humans. But he spends most of the story unable to openly reject Hell. He has his little rebellions - his creativity, his imagination, the Arrangement. But he still does his job. He designs the M25 knowing how many people will end up pissed. Maybe not angry enough to beat someone up, but angry enough to yell at someone.

For most of the story, Aziraphale is clearly not free, but Crowley isn't free either, just in a different way. Aziraphale needs to have his horizons expanded. Crowley needs to act on what he already knows and draw a couple of new conclusions.

And that's how he changes.

#please keep in mind that I'm an aziraphale so @ people who relate to crowley I'd love to hear your opinions on this #good omens #elven-child rambles into the void #gomens essay #a j crowley

[xoxoemynn]

goodnight sweet prince (and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest)

You like emotional hurt/comfort? I’m giving you emotional hurt/comfort. Featuring emo angst king Crowley, gentle protective Aziraphale, and an author who loves to roast her favorite disaster demon. Many thanks to @lizardkingeliot for the encouragement and assistance. Also on AO3.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land…

* * *

It was not a faraway land. It was a very right here land, the same right here land that Crowley had lived in for the last several centuries. And he knew every bloody of inch of it. The thirty-four steps it took to cross from the front door to his desk. How the light streamed in from his office windows at each hour of the day. That one irritating spot on the floor where Ligur had dissolved and that Crowley couldn’t magic away, no matter how hard he tried.

With an irritated hiss, Crowley slammed his bottle of whiskey down on his desk. It knocked over the small philodendron he’d purchased that morning in a half-hearted attempt to bring about some peace and normalcy to his routine. The ceramic pot it was in shattered upon impact; Crowley deliberately bore down on the terracotta shards as he crossed the room to the toilet, gaining a modicum of satisfaction at the crunch beneath his snakeskin boot.  

* * *

There lived a… well, let’s call him a young prince. Yes, a handsome young prince.

* * *

Crowley turned the faucet on full blast and splashed the ice cold water on his face. He hadn’t truly expected it would help, and it most certainly did not. But it did twist his hair into soggy ringlets that fell across his face like half-dead snakes making one last feeble attempt at vitality.

He rubbed his face with the back of his hand. He looked old. Not six thousand years old. Human old. Like what a six thousand year old human would look like.

With slightly better hair.

Snake corpses notwithstanding.  

* * *

And he lived all alone, in his own private kingdom. Far away from prying eyes. He liked it that way. He felt safe. Comfortable. He could be himself, without yielding to the expectations of others.

* * *

It was too quiet. That was obviously the problem. How was he supposed to sleep when it was silent as a tomb in here?

He flipped on the telly.

“Is it the end of the world as we know it?”

“I should bloody well say not,” Crowley muttered, and waved his hand to change the channel.

“SO YOU THINK YOU CAN STONE ME AND SPIT IN MY EYEEEEEE.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” With another hand wave, this one with far more snap to the wrist, Crowley flicked the telly off and sprawled across his chair.

It was pathetic, really. There was no need for… this. For any of this.

He didn’t need anyone. He was fine. He just needed to get out of his head for a minute, and all would be well.

“Crowley? Are you there?”

* * *  

This prince did not let anybody into his palace.

* * *

Crowley threw his hand in the air.  

* * *

Not willingly, anyway.

* * *

“Come in,” Crowley said, as the door swung open.

* * *

Except for one. Another prince, from another kingdom, even farther away. A rival kingdom, of sorts. Well, they really shouldn’t have been rivals, but that’s a story for another night.

* * *

Aziraphale entered the room, and it became a little easier to breathe.

Crowley tried not to notice.

“My dear, you haven’t answered your phone in three days,” Aziraphale said. “I was worried.”

“I’ve been very busy,” Crowley said. “Temptations and whatnot. Sin. Schemes. Murder.”

“Hmm, yes, I can see that.” Aziraphale crouched down over the fallen plant and with an elaborate flick of his fingers, it was back in its pot. He set it gently down on Crowley’s desk and gave one of its leaves a friendly pat. “Very menacing."

* * *

My point is, they were friends.

* * *

They were silent for an uncomfortably long moment. Crowley could feel a muscle twitch in his brow. He wondered if it would be too obvious if he suddenly miracled up a grandfather clock to sit in the corner, so at least the steady tick tock would fill this utter void of noise.

He decided against it. Grandfather clocks did not suit the aesthetic.

They’d never been like this. Not even once. From the very beginning, when Crowley had been Crawly, when he was just a snake in the desert slithering up to an angel he felt drawn to in a way he couldn’t quite explain… they’d always had something to say to each other.

Crowley ignored the irritating voice in his head pointing out it was because he didn’t want to talk right now so much as use another one of his earthly senses.

“Crowley, are you… are you certain you’re all right?”

* * *

More than friends, if they were being truthful.

* * *

“Never better,” Crowley lied. “We thwarted the apocalypse, after all. No more annoying paperwork. Wahoo.”

Aziraphale nodded slowly. “That we did. But, Crowley… have you gotten any rest?”

Crowley swung his legs over the arm of the chair and stood up. “I don’t need rest. I’m still a bloody demon. I’ve gone nearly a century without so much as a snooze before.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Yes, but you also once slept for nearly a century because I--”

Crowley arched an eyebrow.

“Never mind,” Aziraphale said quickly. “But the point is, you held your burning Bentley together by the sheer power of your mind all the way to Tadfield. That had to deplete your energy source to dangerously low levels. I'm amazed you haven't spontaneously discorporated yet.”

Crowley shrugged. “Never better, angel.”

Aziraphale stared at him, and Crowley fought the urge to shrink back. He was suddenly very aware he hadn’t put on his sunglasses before allowing Aziraphale in, and he felt horrifically exposed. It didn’t help matters that Aziraphale was so still. Crowley was used to him bouncing around, revealing the barest flicker of an emotion with the subtlety of a foghorn. But the way he looked at Crowley now…

It was one of the few times in six thousand years Crowley had been deeply reminded of Aziraphale’s power.

And how effortlessly he could utterly crush him.

* * *

But they could never share how they truly felt about each other. Because if their kingdoms found out… they would make sure the princes did not survive.

* * *

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Aziraphale said. “What is it?”

“Oh, suddenly we’re telling each other everything?” Crowley snapped, not meaning it at all but willing to use all the weapons in his arsenal. “You think because you inhabited my body for a few hours you have the right to know all that’s going on inside my mind?”

“Of course not. It’s only… you don’t look like yourself, my dear. I want to help.”

Crowley shook his head. “There’s nothing to be done, angel.”

* * *

It was far too dangerous.

* * *

“We’re safe now, Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “You said so yourself. They’ll leave us alone for a while. I’d say we have at least a few centuries. Why not get some rest?”

Crowley bit the insides of his cheeks. How was he supposed to convey that it was no longer the forces of Heaven or Hell that concerned him, but rather the forces of his own heart?

How was he supposed to share that, when the threat of Armageddon was upon them, he wasn’t roaring at the chance for battle like a good little demon, or attempting to thwart it like a traitorous but still more-or-less low-grade evil-causing demon, but rather reeling from the raw emptiness of the thought of never seeing Aziraphale again?

Entirely human emotions, compounded by thousands upon thousands of years together. That was a phenomenon that wasn’t meant to exist.

Angels and demons view humans on earth as parts of a whole, a collection of chess pieces to be captured one by one, until enough are amassed so victory can be proclaimed.

In a way, Crowley was the same. He’d spent six millennia on earth, soaking up the best and worst of humanity. Only it wasn’t victory he sought; it was completion. And among the madness and messiness of earth, he’d found an environment that felt more like a home to him than Heaven or Hell ever had.

But it was only Aziraphale who filled up the whole of him.

* * *

It wasn’t just that the princes wanted to save their own skins. They couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to the other.

* * *

“Exactly,” Crowley said. “We’re safe now. No one’s going to come for either of us.”

His voice caught oddly in his throat on the last word. He tried to disguise it with a cough, but given how demons generally don’t need to cough, especially not in a room that is set to be the optimal temperature at all times and contains no possible irritants, other than the ones in Crowley’s mind causing him to have this heaven-forsaken conversation, he knew Aziraphale saw right through it. But it did afford him a modicum of dignity.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said slowly, “are you --”

* * *

And so they hid.

* * *

“If you say afraid, I’ll have this entire building blasting the be-boppiest of be-bop in two seconds,” Crowley said. Grabbing his plant mister, he stalked out of the room.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Aziraphale said, following him.

Crowley froze. Did he…

“I daresay I’ve never met anyone else as brave as you, my dear boy.”

“Ngk,” Crowley said, and began to wreak watery havoc on his plants.

“I only think if perhaps you got a bit of rest, you might --”

* * *

The first prince tried to run. Over and over. But there was no place to go.

* * *

“I can’t rest, Aziraphale,” Crowley snapped. “I can’t rest because when I close my eyes, I see your bloody bookshop on fire. And if I’m lucky, I don’t find you, and I get to imagine how you may have simply discorporated and while I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, you’re probably fine, just being tortured by some, well, it could be angels, it could be demons, or, oh, I know! It could be both! Sure, why not both?”

It was abnormally quiet again, so bloody still, that Crowley was acutely aware of his great, gaping breaths, of how his words were growing faster as his voice was growing louder, but the dam had burst, and there was no stopping it.

“But that’s the better version, because at least then I know what I’m up against, and I could still have a shot, maybe. Because then there are other times, other times, where I’m lucky enough to come across your body! Because you see, you see, Aziraphale?” He laughed, the type of laugh he expected most humans would expect to hear come from a demon’s lips, unhinged and entirely humorless. “They made you mortal. Isn’t that hilarious? So whoosh! Whole bloody shop goes up in flames, and you get taken along with it. Forever.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly.

“But then there are other times when there’s no fire,” Crowley said. “And you’d think, you’d think that would mean I might finally get some rest. But of course not! Because then I see you, and you’re right there, but you’re not really there. You’re like a ghost. And I want to… I want to touch you, to make sure you’re really there, but I can’t, I can’t.

“And I’m so tired, Aziraphale, I’m so… empty, I know if I lie down it’ll be for a thousand years, a thousand years of that, and nothing will wake me, and I can’t. I can’t.”

* * *

The second prince tried to play by the rules. He thought he could get his kingdom to see there could be peace. He hid in his loyalties and his faith. But it turns out his loyalty had been to a ghost. A ghost of a hope. And when it vanished he had nothing left. Nothing, except for his prince.

* * *

“Oh, my dear, my… Crowley.”

Crowley leaned over the table, his arms taut, his chest heaving. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his friend.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. I hadn’t realized…” He sighed. “I didn’t even know we were capable of nightmares.”

It was absurd, it was so completely fucking absurd, that Crowley barked out a harsh laugh. “Just a fun side effect of going native, eh? Isn’t humanity grand?”

Aziraphale said nothing, but Crowley could hear him moving closer. An odd ringing sound reverberated in his ears. Oh, for God’s sake, he couldn’t believe he’d actually done that, that he had said all those humiliating things out loud. He clutched the edges of the table until his knuckles turned white, wondering if there was any possible way he could back out of this.

* * *

But it was too late. The kingdoms discovered the princes’ secret.

* * *

“Crowley. Crowley, I’m here.”

“I know you’re here, you’ve been talking at me for twenty bloody minutes.”

“No,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley heard him move closer.

And then…

There was a hand on his.

* * *

Of course, their sides were both furious. All of the princes’ nightmares seemed to be coming true, in the most terrifying of fashions. And then the thing they feared the most came to pass: they were separated.

* * *

“I’m here,” Aziraphale repeated. “And you can… touch or feel or… whatever you may like.”

Crowley stared down at Aziraphale’s hand. It was barely touching his own; in fact, upon Crowley’s close inspection, he had reason to believe it was actually only hovering overtop of his fingers.

And yet Crowley was suddenly strongly reminded of creating all the stars of the universe, of how when he’d delightedly blend together those clouds of gas with that indomitable force of gravity, how the gas so desperately wanted to dissipate like smoke in the wind, but the gravity would force it together, crunching down, pulling more and more of that helpless gas cloud in, growing denser and denser, hotter and hotter, until, at last, a single perfect glittering star was born.

That’s what touching Aziraphale felt like.

It was terrifying in its power.

And it was exquisite.

* * *

But the princes were determined, and they were brave. There was simply too much at stake. So they fought back.

* * *

Crowley drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and turned his hand over and laced his fingers with Aziraphale’s.

“Are you sure?” he asked, still not looking away from their hands.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said without hesitation. “I would never offer if I didn’t mean it.”

Nodding, Crowley reluctantly released Aziraphale’s hand so he could turn to face his friend.

There he was. Aziraphale. The same cloud of white blond hair, the same kind blue eyes framed by deep laugh lines. Clad in his usual tan and tartan, looking every bit the proper gentleman. There was no one who knew Crowley better.

It was so utterly familiar.

* * *

But it felt different, once they had returned to their respective palaces. Now that they were free.

* * *

Crowley set his fingertips on Aziraphale’s temples, as lightly as Aziraphale had touched him earlier, and slowly drew them down his face. He took note of each line and crevice, each indentation of skin, the curve of his mouth, the softness of his earlobes, the bump of his chin. Were he an artist, he could have drawn Aziraphale perfectly, down to the very last detail, the very last freckle on his neck, even if he had gone a thousand years without seeing him. But now with those very features beneath his fingers, it was exploring something entirely new and magnificent.

He brushed his hands downward, down to Aziraphale’s chest, pausing where his heart was. Angels, of course, had no true need of hearts, or really any bodily organs, but when living among humans for so long, one tended to pick up these eccentricities. Crowley was exceptionally grateful for it at the moment, and took his time lingering there, feeling the steady beat beneath his hands.

There was more he wanted to explore, so much more, but these soft touches alone were threatening to undo him. He had to go slowly.

But…

He was here. As he always was. As Crowley dared to hope he always would be.

“Aziraphale,” he said. It came out a sob. This time he didn’t care.

Crowley buried his face in the curve of Aziraphale’s neck, the hot tears streaking down his cheeks staining the fabric of his coat. His touches were no longer gentle. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Aziraphale tightly, drawing him in as close as he could.

* * *

The first prince dreamed of flames.

* * *

And when Aziraphale pulled his arms around him, first dragging his hands in soothing caresses down his back, then more desperately clawing at the back of Crowley’s shirt, fingers digging in as though he was trying to grapple his way inside of him, the memory of fire slowly died away.

* * *

The second prince... dreamed of emptiness.

* * *

“Oh, my darling,” Aziraphale whispered. “Holding you feels so… complete.”

Crowley made a noise, and it may have been a word, or even the start of a rather brilliant sentence articulating just how complete it all felt, but it was lost to the waves of their quiet sobs.

* * *

Neither of them could quite say what was wrong.

* * *

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said. One of his hands was in Crowley’s hair, half stroking, half pulling at it. Whatever it was, he seemed desperate to bury himself within it. “I should have… I never… we could…”

Crowley wanted to comfort him, to offer him reassurances, that he understood, that it didn’t matter any longer, that they had survived, and they were here, and he knew it, he could feel how very alive they were, how very together. But all he could manage was to miraculously hold Aziraphale even closer.

Somehow, he rather thought that got the point across.

* * *

They were free now, but they’d been in these habits for so long… it was hard to break.

* * *

Being wrapped up in Aziraphale’s embrace felt so easy. Crowley wanted to melt into his softness. He had a suspicion that would be easy, too.

It was so hard to fathom. Millennium upon millennium of dancing around each other, avoiding any and all physical contact… it all seemed so reasonable at the time. A safety precaution. Plausible deniability.

Not to mention the matter of Aziraphale’s steadfast denial that what they shared was anything more than mere “fraternization.”

But now, all those barriers had melted it away. There was nothing standing between them any longer.

* * *

But one day the second prince decided enough was enough, and he traveled to his prince’s palace.

* * *

“There, my dear,” Aziraphale said, sniffling. “Does this ease some of your discomfort?”

Crowley nodded. Then, realizing Aziraphale couldn’t see his head, given how it was still nestled into his shoulder, he said “yes.” However, again, given how his head was still nestled into his shoulder, it came out more as “yemph.”

Aziraphale chuckled, and carded his fingers through Crowley’s hair. “I wish I had known. I would have come by earlier. I only thought you needed your space. There was no need for you to suffer like this for days.”

“I‘m sorry,” Crowley said, and, with a colossal amount of effort, raised his head. An unpleasant whiff followed him. “Urgh, I stink. And I got your jacket all wet and wrinkled. I can miracle it right up.”

* * *

His prince was a sight to behold. Tired, drawn, pale.

* * *

“You’re lovely,” Aziraphale said. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and delicately dabbed at Crowley’s cheeks. A familiar tickle swept over Crowley’s entire body as he pulled the handkerchief away; he’d been miraculously cleaned. “Don’t you fret.”

The primal need to hold Aziraphale close had passed, but Crowley was still not remotely inclined to let him go. “Thank you,” he said, and squeezed his arm. “I’m… grateful.”

Aziraphale gave him the softest of smiles. “And I, I suspect… am yours.”

* * *

He’d been awake for so long. Not just his body, but his soul. On guard. Prepared for attack.

* * *

Crowley shook his head, attempting to come to his senses. He wracked his brain for a witty reply, something to make him seem worthy of such a proclamation, but his clever retorts had all gone to rest without him. “Right,” he managed, quite proud of himself for managing to at least get that out. “Erm, same. Yours.”

Aziraphale wrapped his arm around Crowley’s waist. “Good. Now, come along. Let’s get you taken care of.”

* * *

He needed rest.

* * *

Aziraphale led Crowley to his bedroom. Crowley didn’t fight when Aziraphale gently pushed him to the bed, nor when he kneeled to remove his boots. So calming were Aziraphale’s touches that Crowley didn’t even raise an eyebrow when the angel, blushing, suggested removing Crowley’s jeans so he’d be more comfortable.

But as soon as Aziraphale sat beside him on the bed and moved to cover him with the duvet, the old panic began to worm its way into Crowley’s chest.

“Wait,” Crowley said, grabbing Aziraphale’s wrist. “I still… I still might… what if I don’t wake up?”

Aziraphale paused for the briefest of moments, then bent over to remove his own shoes.

* * *

THEY needed rest.

* * *

“I’ll stay with you,” Aziraphale said, and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “Right by your side. And I’ll wake you the very second I notice any signs of distress. I promise.”

“Even if I have to sleep for a thousand years?” Crowley asked.

“Even then,” Aziraphale said. He quickly stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, and set his clothing down on a nearby chair. Then he slid into bed next to Crowley and pulled the duvet over them.

* * *

So our second prince slipped his hand into the first’s.

* * *

Lying here in bed with Aziraphale pressed behind him, their fingers laced together... it should have been enough to set all of Crowley’s nerves on fire. And perhaps he’d wake up in a decade or two, and realize the position they were in, and immediately burst forth with a new explosion of energy and a million questions about what this was, and what they were doing, and what exactly they hoped to achieve.

But for now, he was content to just be.

* * *

They curled up around each other, safe in each other’s arms.

* * *

It was warm, and comforting, and if this was what eternity had in store for them, Crowley would finally consider himself blessed.

* * *

It was magic. The touch awakened them. So much so they couldn’t believe they hadn’t been doing this all along.

* * *

Crowley closed his eyes. “Thank you, angel,” he whispered.

* * *

But it didn’t matter now.

* * *

“My love,” Aziraphale responded, just as soft. “Shall I tell you a bedtime story? To help you sleep?”

* * *

For the first time in six millennia, they were at peace.

* * *

Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s hand to his chest. “Please,” he said, and pressed his lips to Aziraphale’s wrist.

* * *  

They were together.

* * *

Aziraphale gave his hand a squeeze, and when he spoke, his breath washed over Crowley’s face like a caress.

* * *

And they slept.

* * *

“Once upon a time,” Aziraphale said, “in a faraway land…”

* * *  

And they lived happily ever after.

#Good Omens #ineffable husbands #Aziraphale x Crowley #Anthony J. Crowley #Aziraphale #my fic #LET THEM CRY LET THEM TOUCH LET THEM HUG LET THEM SLEEP LET THEM SPOON LET THEM BE SOFT #that's it that's the fic #also I swear it took me longer to sort out half decent formatting for this fic than to actually write it so #I apologize tumblr is awful

[luckyspike]

The Trouble with Nocturnal Ambush Predators - A Good Omens Fanfiction

when I went to post this on AO3 (found here), turns out Crowley’s weird statue has its own tag

shit’s wild guys

anyway crowley and aziraphale make a bet about how shitty crowley’s vision is

nobody but also everybody wins, in a way

count the parks and rec references. also of course i had to make someone a doctor because i live at work i guess idk

-

Everyone was rather surprised when Brian announced that he would be going to school with plans to become a doctor. Brian, who reveled in dirt and grime, Brian that even at twenty would wear clothes more than once if he thought he could get away with it, Brian that ate food out of takeaway boxes and still left them in the sink. It was startling, the image of Brian, that Brian, standing in a sterile operating theater, scrubbed and gowned and as anti-septic as possible. And yet, this was also Brian that was always there for the Them, who would come the moment he was called if help was needed, who swallowed his pride and rebuked his filthy habits if only for a few minutes, to help his friends and save the world.

It was surprising but, the Them and friends reflected, not entirely shocking. It did make sense, in a sort of way. “I’d really like to study infectious diseases,” he said one night over dinner at the Pulsifer’s, while everyone was still gathered around the table for drinks. It was late, and Anathema had gone an hour or so ago to put her little daughter to bed, even over the child’s protests and desperate clinging to Crowley, who objected much less firmly than any self-respecting demon should have. Well enough then, he told Aziraphale, when the angel had pointed it out, that he was only still a demon in technicalities only.

Pepper looked amused. “You should see him in classes,” she said, for she was in the same class as Brian, with her sights set on psychiatry as a specialty once she’d graduated. “He sits right up front, a real gunner, and every time they ask about some weird bacteria, boom! He’s right there with the answer.” She rolled her eyes, but she was laughing, too. “I think it was all the dirt he always had on him when we were kids - he communed with the germs and they accepted him as one of their own.”

Brian flushed. “I don’t talk to germs. I just think they’re jolly interesting, is all.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Adam Young said, leaned back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head. “Someone ought to, right? Otherwise we’d all die of cholera or something.”

Aziraphale frowned into his wineglass. “Nasty illness, cholera. I remember the pump outbreak …” He shook his head, putting an end to that reverie, and smiled at Brian instead. “It is fortunate you have such an interest, Brian - the world needs doctors, certainly.”

“So what’s medical school like these days?” Crowley asked, a mirror of Adam, leaned back in his chair with his feet on the table, idly swirling the scotch in his glass. “Last time I tried was, oh, the sixteenth century I think. Thereabouts.” He winced. “Pretty sure it’s got on since then. Hopefully.”

“Oh, yes,” Brian nodded. “Yes, I’d imagine it is. Very structured now, and there’s labs and independent study and practicing skills and all kinds of things, not to mention all the lectures and exams.”

“So many,” Pepper agreed mournfully. “Endless exams.”

“D’you practice on mannequins then?” Crowley looked thoughtful. “I’d imagine they do a good bit with mannequins.”

“Some yeah. And then some - the safer stuff - we practice on each other. Y’know …” Brian thought, waving his hands vaguely. “Listening to lungs and hearts, eye tests, that kind of stuff.”

Aziraphale looked up at that. “Eye tests, you say?” He looked across the table to Crowley, a grin slowly spreading over his lips. “Crowley, dear, we could finally settle the debate -”

“No. No, we can’t.”

Newt, who had been washing up in the kitchen, returned, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Debate? What are we debating, then?”

“Nothing,” Crowley griped. “Angel has been insisting for the past decade or whatever - since you kids were eleven, however long ago that was -”

“A decade,” Wensley confirmed.

“Right, so that long, I’ve had to hear about how I really shouldn’t be driving because snakes don’t have good visual acuity.” Crowley spread his hands. “To which I make my point: if I really couldn’t see, you think I would’ve gone this long with the Bentley without crashing it? Armageddon notwithstanding, that was extenuating circumstances.”

Aziraphale muttered into his wine, “Only thanks to occasionally-gratuitous use of miracles.”

“Occasionally, angel! Occasionally doesn’t count. Not like it’s a daily occurrence.

“And anyway, my vision’s better than a human’s at a distance and in the dark,” Crowley said authoritatively. “Horizontal planes an’ light refraction and all that. Saw a film about it.”

“Listened to a film about it,” Aziraphale mumbled. Adam snorted.

“Wasn’t very nice,” the boy said, although he was grinning.

Pepper laughed a little too, while Crowley presumably glared at Aziraphale - the sunglasses, as ever, made it difficult to tell for sure. “It’d be easy enough to test, if you really wanted to.”

“I don’t.”

“Not even for a wager?” Crowley looked at Aziraphale at that, and a long silence stretched out. The Them and Newt watched, rapt, because they’d only ever seen the two supernatural entities bet on something once before, and that was whether or not either of them could, after two bottles of wine, climb to the top of the biggest tree in Hogback wood without using miracles, wings, or shapeshifting*. They had, if memory served, wagered an entire years’ worth of song-selection privileges. It was, perhaps, fortunate that neither had won the bet, because in retrospect Adam considered it a distinct possibility that an ultimatum like that could only have ended in some kind of argument**.

[* They couldn’t, but no one had paid attention to that, because the entire spectacle was so hilarious that the end result was fairly irrelevant, and Crowley turned into a snake when he thought no one was watching and cheated anyway. ]

[** Crowley and Aziraphale, after the Nahpocalypse, argued very seldom, but being that neither liked to do anything by halves, arguments were usually intensely dramatic, if short-lived. The last argument had resulted in Crowley living in the garden at Jasmine Cottage as a snake for a weekend, and only ended because Newt threatened to call animal control on him if the two didn’t reach some kind of agreement about whether or not Tom or John Barnaby was the better detective .]

The demon was tempted. “What are the stakes?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Something.” Aziraphale shrugged. “Let’s say … oh, alright. You win, and I turn a blind eye to whatever you want to do to your plants for a month before the flower show next year.”

The Them and Newt, like spectators at a chess match, breathed out. “Oh, that’s a good one,” Brian mumbled.

“But if I win, which I will, of course, then …” Aziraphale considered it. “Then …” He thought harder, and then beamed. “Then next time the neighbors want to take a week holiday, you have to take care of their smallholding by yourself .” There were assorted gasps from around the table.

Crowley barked a laugh. “Absolutely not.”

“Because you know you’d lose.”

“No, because I always end up taking care of the smallholding by myself anyway, bloody goats.” Crowley leaned his elbows onto the table and tapped his chin with steepled fingers. “Right, when I win, I’ll … or you …” He brightened. “I get to yell at my plants, and you have to let me move the statue into the living room for an entire year.”

Aziraphale groaned. “Not the statue. No, just the plants.”

“No, the statue is a part of this.”

“When I win,” Aziraphale soldiered on, pretending they were not arguing about Crowley’s infamous Angel Statue that served as a crucial part of every argument and poorly-concealed threat in their relationship, “you have to put the blasted statue in a storage unit somewhere, and you take the speakers off that abhorrent vacuum cleaner."

Crowley looked appalled. “You’d cut out DJ Roomba’s tongue for a bet?”

“I’m hardly -” He looked to Crowley, and then relented, with a sigh. “Alright. No speaker on DJ Roomba for three months. Then you can put the speakers back on.” He seized Crowley’s hand the moment the other extended it, and they shook on it, both with equal enthusiasm and smugness. “I look forward to my three months of peace.”

“Can’t wait to put my statue in the living room and kill those bloody fittonias at last.”

Pepper and Brian exchanged a look, while Adam, Newt, and Wensley were trying to hide their laughter behind their hands. “We should print a Snellen chart,” Pepper said solemnly.

“Definitely need a Snellen chart.”

Newt nodded and stood from the table. “The printer is has bluetooth. Wait for me to be outside before you connect to it.”

Once Newt had vacated the building briefly, it was easy enough to print the eye chart. Adam found a measuring tape in a cookie tin full of sewing supplies***, and they solemnly marked out the ascribed distance. “Never done one of these before,” Crowley said, sobered-up for the endeavor. “What, you’re just supposed to read it?” Aziraphale was standing over his shoulder, arms crossed, looking so smug he might as well have already won. Perhaps he had.

[*** “ Why do you need it?” Anathema had asked him as she rocked Millie to sleep on her shoulder. Adam had explained, and she had nodded. “Oh, definitely,” she’d said. “The sewing kit is still in the linen closet in the bathroom - there should be a tape measure in there. Wait until I put Millie down to bed. I want to be there.” ]

“Yeah, you cover one eye,” Pepper instructed. “Right, and then you read the smallest line you can see. Ready?”

“Easiest bet I’ve ever won,” Crowley said, motioning to Brian to flip the corkboard he’d pinned the chart to. “Right, go for it.” The board flipped, and Crowley blinked. “Well, there’s the big ‘E’ at the top.”

“Everyone knows the big E,” Anathema said, dismissive. “He said read the smallest line you can.”

“Right. Ah …” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Can I try the other eye?”

“I knew it,” Aziraphale hissed triumphantly.

Brian swallowed. “Uh. In a minute. Um. Which … which direction is the ‘E’ pointing, then?”

Crowley frowned. “Whatever way ‘E’s usually point. What kind of stupid question is that?”

The assembled humans and one angel looked at the ‘E’ which was, very clearly, printed backwards. Aziraphale raised his hands to his mouth. “Crowley, you drove us here.”

“So? Didn’t crash, did I?” He switched eyes. “Oh, yeah, the other one’s better.”

“You’re serious?” Brian asked, craning his neck around to stare at the chart. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, so what’s that mean, then?” Crowley stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back onto his heels.

Pepper grimaced. “You’re legally blind?”

“No, that can’t be right.” He shrugged. “I drove us here, didn’t I?”

“He drove us here at 100 miles per hour,” Aziraphale added, in a mix of astonishment and terror.

“Right, and didn’t hit anything -”

“This time,” Anathema muttered under her breath.

“And made great time, all here, safe as houses.” He smirked. “Could a legally blind guy do that?”

“Maybe Daredevil,” said Newt, unhelpfully.

“Anyway,” Crowley went on, turning away to stalk across the room, past his horrified angel, and flick off the light switch, instantly plunging the room into darkness, “you’re not looking at this the right way. Move the chart around a bit, med student,” he instructed, the last part said with some disdain.

“You’re not at the line,” Brian protested.

“Just move it.” There was a whisper in the dark as the corkboard started moving in irregular figure-of-eights, Brian waving it around. Had it been light enough to see, his confusion would have been plainly evident on his face. “Right, so you got the ‘E’, which is backwards, then F, P, ah … T, O, Z, er … right, faster, okay, L, P, E, D, and then … Hm. Yeah, not sure after that.” The lights flipped back on, and Crowley put his sunglasses on. “So there.”

All the others looked from Crowley, to the eye chart, and back. “How?” Adam demanded. “You didn’t mess around -”

“Nocturnal ambush predator,” Crowley replied, as if it were obvious. “Plus, the ink’s still a bit warm from the printer. So even easier, really - I’ve got a whole extra sense, even, unless humans can see infra-red.”

“We can’t,” Wensley assured him.

“Right, so what’s that make me, then? I win, obviously.”

Aziraphale jumped in then. “Oh, no, no you don’t. Under human standards -”

“That was never specified.” Crowley grinned, and showed his teeth. Nocturnal ambush predator indeed. “Don’t try that with me, angel, remember which one of us is the demon, here.”

“It was inferred.”

“No such thing in a bet. Has to be expressly specified.” Crowley made a fist. “The fittonias die tonight.”

Since the lights had come back on, Anathema had been frowning, her lips moving occasionally as she clearly puzzled something over. She spoke, finally, slowly, and said, “But … but when you hit me with your car … it was night. And I was moving. And you were moving.” She looked at him, frowning. “You should have seen me, then.”

Crowley shrugged. “Wasn’t paying attention. No harm done, anyway.”

“Not after Aziraphale fixed me!”

Crowley scoffed. “Right. Like I said.” He pointed to Aziraphale. “I’m making an entire pop playlist for DJ Roomba just for this, angel.” He grinned even wider. “And I’m moving the statue as soon as we get home.”

“Really, dear boy, I don’t think this is as clear-cut as you say.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” Crowley pointed to Brian and Pepper. “Med students, stop me if I’m wrong -” they wouldn’t “- but the definition of visual acuity does allow for corrective devices, yes?”

“Yes,” said Pepper, while Aziraphale groused, “A moving chart and total darkness do not count as corrective devices, you know they mean glasses -”

“So there you go.” Crowley crossed the room and tore the chart from the board. “With corrective devices I’m … 20/50. So there. Not perfect but I still win.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were narrowed. “That’s cheating.”

“Again, if it’s not specified in the terms then technically it is not cheating. I’ve got books about this somewhere^, Aziraphale.” He spread his hands. “I’ve made a few bets and bargains in my life, believe it or not.”

[^ Books that were, he would not add, written in blood and bound in human skin.]

Aziraphale scowled. “You’re not putting that statue out.”

“Oh, but I am. I won the privilege.”

“You didn’t win anything.”

“Oh, but I did.” Crowley rubbed his hands together. “I definitely did. By the laws of betting.” He clapped Brian on the shoulder. “Thanks for moving the chart, kid.”

“And not letting the ink dry all the way,” Adam added under his breath with a poorly-stifled laugh.

Aziraphale was still scowling at Crowley, arms crossed over his chest. “We’ll discuss this further in the car.”

Crowley made a noise that might have been a chuckle, if there wasn’t just so much infernal glee instilled in it. “You sure you want me to drive home?” The angel’s wine glass miraculously filled itself. “Oh, so you’re going to be like that?"

“That statue is going out over my discorporated body.”

“It’s a very expensive statue.” He wilted a little under the blue fire in Aziraphale’s eyes. “Alright, we can talk about it in the car.”

The angel swallowed the wine in one gulp. “Capital.”

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #the them #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much #crowley is a snake in a human suit #you will never change my mind

[alltheprettygirlsintheworld]

Love and its decisive pain

My entry for day seven of @ineffablehusbandsweek

Day Seven Prompt: Eternity/Destiny/Ineffable

Words: 1248

Summary: Crowley had thought he was dreaming. That first night, the night the world hadn’t ended. Aziraphale, his never-make-an-unplanned-move, quiet, slow-paced angel, had sat down next to him on a bus that would not be going to Oxford. 

On Ao3 here

---

Let me tell you about dreams.

The falling, spinning, twisting nature of them. The shifting from one place to another, from one person to another. The joy and terror that could come from a single night asleep was something that the real world hardly ever emulated. In the moment, as long as you can remind yourself not to think, everything makes sense, no matter how odd or confusing it should be. Whatever happened was just how it is.

Crowley had always dreamt, had always imagined.

He had chosen to dream of an angel. Of curled blonde hair and ethereal blue eyes, of white tartan outfits and old books. Most people didn’t remember their dreams- Crowley could never forget his. Could never forget the way that Aziraphale kissed him softly and called him “dear.” There had been other dreams too, of bare skin and lips and hands and so much more that Crowley would not think about while sober.

Sometimes though- sometimes the dreams were too close to reality. Too close to how Aziraphale’s eyes would light up when Crowley offered him the last bit of his dessert; to the slight smirk and flushed cheeks that accompanied an evening of drinking.

Crowley had thought he was dreaming. That first night, the night the world hadn’t ended. Aziraphale, his never-make-an-unplanned-move, quiet, slow-paced angel, had sat down next to him on a bus that would not be going to Oxford. Aziraphale had sat down next to him and taken his hand. Crowley hadn’t said anything, he had been tired and he didn’t want to say something that might ruin this. So, he stared straight ahead, tracing small circles on Aziraphale’s thumb as neither of them spoke, the silence heavy between them.

Let me tell you about time.

There is a story that was written in the eighteen-hundreds (Aziraphale would know the exact date, but Crowley only remembered hearing it). The story said that somewhere out there was a mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb and an hour to try and go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird flies up to the mountain and sharpens its beak on the tip. The story says that once the bird has chiseled the entire mountain away, the first second of eternity will have passed.

Crowley had been alive for an awfully long time.

He had pecked at the mountain that was Aziraphale for millennia. A bite to eat here and there, a temptation every once in a while, every peck a whisper of words that he dare not say aloud lest the angel turn from him.

How could Crowley go slow when every atom in his body had been telling from the first day they met that they belonged together?

He would say something about pulling the angel vaguely towards him, how he had temped Aziraphale into sin with lunches and late nights at the bookshop. But the reality was that he was only tempting himself. Only testing his self-control. Trying not to brush off the drop of wine on Aziraphale’s lips with a kiss.

Aziraphale was holding his hand and, while they had done that before, out of necessity and out of custom, it had never been like this. Not the I need you here with me, please don’t go away again, I don’t think I could handle it if I lost you again that Crowley tried to convey with a squeeze to the angel’s hand. Aziraphale squeezed back, a soft sigh leaving his lips as he rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

Let me tell you about eternity.

The vast, spiraling infiniteness of forever. Too grand and large for any being ethereal, occult, or otherwise to properly comprehend. What was the essence of eternity, the essence of time? What or who determined how long was forever?

Crowley couldn’t answer that. Those were questions that Aziraphale would go into at length and talk about for hours, and still not be able to provide a solid answer.

What Crowley could say was this: a small eternity passed as they sat together. As they rested, joined at the hand and hip and shoulder, letting themselves be still together for the first time in the little of eternity that Crowley had experienced. The bus pulled up in front of Crowley’s flat, and they stood up together, walking hand-in-hand into the cool night air of the city. The door of Crowley’s flat unlocked automatically as he stepped up to it, opening itself so they could walk inside. Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hand, trying not to quiver at the slightly disappointed look in the angel’s eye.

“I’ll be back soon, just give me a minute to change, clean up.” Crowley had whispered. Aziraphale nodded, understanding in his eyes. Crowley had gone to his rather large bedroom and miracled the ash and soot dirt off of his body and changed his clothes. He could have miracle himself a new set, but he needed the feeling of removing them, of removing the burned remains of bookshop and Bentley and replacing them.

Crowley returned and found Aziraphale standing in the middle of his plant room, staring up at the vibrant green leaves (they straightened up as soon as they saw Crowley at the edge of the room). Aziraphale gently stroked a leaf, an expression of wonder on his face. And to Crowley, well, Aziraphale looked every bit like an angel from a renaissance painting. Striking and beautiful in the dim light. Crowley cleared his throat, letting Aziraphale know he was there.

“Hello again my dear.” Aziraphale smiled at him, and the wall that Crowley had been holding up between them for the past fifty years crumbled. He strode into the room, took the angel’s face in his hands, and kissed Aziraphale they way he had wanted to for millennia, surprised and delighted when the angel kissed him back with a matched passion. Aziraphale reached up and removed Crowley’s glasses, letting them fall to the floor as he angled his head to deepen the kiss. It was not the first time they had kissed either, but it was the first one where both of them were free to feel and express everything that had gone unsaid.

Let me tell you about ineffability.

A plan too divine, too holy to be properly understood. A cosmic queen on a multidimensional chess board.

But love was also ineffable. A demon falling in love with an angel on the gate of Eden, an angel realizing he had fallen in love with a demon in the rubble of a church. Crowley apologizing, begging for Aziraphale to run away with him, and Aziraphale forgiving him, but refusing to leave. Crowley, heartbroken on the ground in the book shop and then racing towards his angel just to make sure that he was alive. Ineffable was a demon falling asleep with an angel in his arms, and waking up to find him still there, realizing that it wasn’t a dream. Ineffable was them tricking heaven and hell so they could stay alive, for themselves and for each other.

“To the world.” To you, to you and me and us together.

After dinner they Crowley had taken them for a walk in Berkeley Square, and when he was absolutely certain nobody was watching, had kissed Aziraphale underneath the branches of an oak tree. Why not, he had six thousand years of longing behind him.

And eternity to make up for it.

#Ineffable husbands week #ineffablehusbandsweek #ineffable husbands week 2019 #Ineffable Husbands #Aziraphale #Crowley #Day Seven Prompt: Eternity/Destiny/Ineffable #Dreams #eternity #destiny #ineffable #title from hozier #good omens fic #good omens fanfiction #also on wattpad

[fluffmugger]

I haven't read Good Omens but I just got done watching the show and I'm confused on one point: what was behind Aziraphale's decision to not tell Crowley he knew where the antichrist was? I thought it was because he didn't want Crowley to kill him but he later petitions heaven to do just that. What did I miss? Why did he keep that information to himself when before they were trying to find the antichrist together?

He does try to tell Crowley, as in the book. However, at the time Crowley’s dealing with Hastur and Ligur  (well more accurately mexican standoffing against Hastur). So:  1) he tries to be a Good Angel, then fucks that shit off and 2) calls Crowley and that phone convo goes nowhere, then 3) Aziraphale runs face first into Shadwell, tries to stop him from stepping into the communication circle, accidently does so himself, utters the best fuck in the history of mankind and discorporates. The sequence from the book: 

Aziraphale was dithering. He’ d been dithering for some twelve hours. His nerves, he would have said, were all over the place. He walked around the shop, picking up bits of paper and dropping them again, fiddling with pens. He ought to tell Crowley. No, he didn’t. He wanted to tell Crowley. He ought to tell Heaven. He was an angel, after all. You had to do the right thing. It was built-in. You see a wile, you thwart. Crowley had put his finger on it, right enough. He ought to have told Heaven right from the start. But he’d known him for thousands of years. They got along. They nearly understood one another. He sometimes suspected they had far more in common with one another than with their respective superiors. They both liked the world, for one thing, rather than viewing it simply as the board on which the cosmic game of chess was being played. Well, of course, that was it. That was the answer, staring him in the face. It’d be true to the spirit of his pact with Crowley if he tipped Heaven the wink, and then they could quietly do something about the child, although nothing too bad of course because we were all God’s creatures when you got down to it, even people like Crowley and the Antichrist, and the world would be saved and there wouldn’t have to be all that Armageddon business, which would do nobody any good anyway, because everyone knew Heaven would win in the end, and Crowley would be bound to understand. Yes. And then everything would be all right. There was a knock at the shop door, despite the CLOSED sign. He ignored it.Getting in touch with Heaven for two-way communications was far more difficult for Aziraphale than it is for humans, who don’t expect an answer and in nearly all cases would be rather surprised to get one. He pushed aside the paper-laden desk and rolled up the threadbare bookshop carpet. There was a small circle chalked on the floorboards underneath, surrounded by suitable passages from the Cabala. The angel lit seven candles, which he placed ritually at certain points around the circle. Then he lit some incense, which was not necessary but did make the place smell nice.And then he stood in the circle and said the Words. Nothing happened. He said the Words again. Eventually a bright blue shaft of light shot down from the ceiling and filled the circle. A well-educated voice said, “Well?” “It’s me, Aziraphale.” “We know,” said the voice. “I’ve got great news! I’ve located the Antichrist! I can give you his address and everything!” There was a pause. The blue light flickered. “Well?” it said again. “But, d'you see, you can ki—can stop it all happening! In the nick of time! You’ve only got a few hours! You can stop it all and there needn’t be the war and everyone will be saved!” He beamed madly into the light. “Yes?” said the voice. “Yes, he’s in a place called Lower Tadfield, and the address—” “Well done,” said the voice, in flat, dead tones. “There doesn’t have to be any of that business with one third of the seas turning to blood or anything,” said Aziraphale happily. When it came, the voice sounded slightly annoyed. “Why not?” it said. Aziraphale felt an icy pit opening under his enthusiasm, and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. He plunged on: “Well, you can simply make sure that—” “We will win, Aziraphale.” “Yes, but-” “The forces of darkness must be beaten. You seem to be under a misapprehension. The point is not to avoid the war, it is to win it. We have been waiting a long time, Aziraphale.” Aziraphale felt the coldness envelop his mind. He opened his mouth to say, “Do you think perhaps it would be a good idea not to hold the war on Earth?” and changed his mind. “I see,” he said grimly. There was a scraping near the door, and if Aziraphale had been looking in that direction he would have seen a battered felt hat trying to peer over the fanlight. “This is not to say you have not performed well,” said the voice. “You will receive a commendation. Well done.” “Thank you,” said Aziraphale. The bitterness in his voice would have soured milk. “I’d forgotten about ineffability, obviously.” “We thought you had.” “May I ask,” said the angel, “to whom have I been speaking?” The voice said, “We are the Metatron.”* “Oh, yes. Of course. Oh. Well. Thank you very much. Thank you.” Behind him the letterbox tilted open, revealing a pair of eyes. “One other thing,” said the voice. “You will of course be joining us, won’t you?” “Well, er, of course it has been simply ages since I’ve held a flaming sword—” Aziraphale began. “Yes, we recall,” said the voice. “You will have a lot of opportunity to relearn.” “Ah. Hmm. What sort of initiating event will precipitate the war?” said Aziraphale. “We thought a multi-nation nuclear exchange would be a nice start.” “Oh. Yes. Very imaginative.” Aziraphale’s voice was flat and hopeless. “Good. We will expect you directly, then,” said the voice. “Ah. Well. I’ll just clear up a few business matters, shall I?” said Aziraphale desperately. “There hardly seems to be any necessity,” said the Metatron. Aziraphale drew himself up. “I really feel that probity, not to say morality, demands that as a reputable businessman I should-” “Yes, yes,” said the Metatron, a shade testily. “Point taken. We shall await you, then.”The light faded, but did not quite vanish. They’re leaving the line open, Aziraphale thought. I’m not getting out of this one. “Hallo?” he said softly, “Anyone still there?” There was silence. Very carefully, he stepped over the circle and crept to the telephone. He opened his notebook and dialed another number. After four rings it gave a little cough, followed by a pause, and then a voice which sounded so laid back you could put a carpet on it said, “Hi. This is Anthony Crowley. Uh. I—” “Crowley!” Aziraphale tried to hiss and shout at the same time, “Listen! I haven’t got much time! The—” “—probably not in right now, or asleep, and busy, or something, but—” “Shutup! Listen! It was in Tadfield! It’s all in that book! You’ve got to stop—” “—after the tone and I’ll get right back to you. Chow.” “I want to talk to you now—” BeeeEEeeeEEeee “Stop making noises! It’s in Tadfield! That was what I was sensing! You must go there and—” He took the phone away from his mouth. “Bugger!” he said. It was the first time he’d sworn in more than four thousand years. Hold on. The demon had another line, didn’t he? He was that kind of person. Aziraphale fumbled in the book, nearly dropping it on the floor. They would be getting impatient soon. He found the other number. He dialed it. It was answered almost immediately, at the same time as the shop’s bell tingled gently. Crowley’s voice, getting louder as it neared the mouthpiece, said, “ — really mean it. Hallo?” “Crowley, it’s me!” “Ngh.” The voice was horribly noncommittal. Even in his present state, Aziraphale sensed trouble. “Are you alone?” he said cautiously. “Nuh. Got an old friend here.” “Listen-!” “Awa’ we ye, ye spawn o’ hell!” Very slowly, Aziraphale turned around.

Shadwell was trembling with excitement. He’d seen it all. He’d heard it all. He hadn’t understood any of it, but he knew what people did with circles and candlesticks and incense. He knew that all right. He’d seen The Devil Rides Out fifteen times, sixteen times if you included the time he’ d been thrown out of the cinema for shouting his unflattering opinions of amateur witchfinder Christopher Lee. The buggers were using him. They’ d been making fools out o’ the glorious traditions o’ the Army. “I’ll have ye, ye evil bastard!” he shouted, advancing like a moth-eaten avenging angel. “I ken what ye be about, comin’ up here and seducin’ wimmen to do yer evil will!” “I think perhaps you’ve got the wrong shop,” said Aziraphale. “I’ll call back later,” he told the receiver, and hung up. “I could see what yer were aboot,” snarled Shadwell. There were flecks of foam around his mouth. He was more angry than he could ever remember. “Er, things are not what they seem—” Aziraphale began, aware even as he said it that as conversational gambits went it lacked a certain polish. “I bet they ain’t!” said Shadwell triumphantly. “No, I mean-” Without taking his eyes off the angel, Shadwell shuffled backwards and grabbed the shop door, slamming it hard so that the bell jangled. “Bell,” he said. He grabbed The Nice and Accurate Prophecies and thumped it down heavily on the table. “Book” he snarled. He fumbled in his pocket and produced his trusty Ronson. “Practically candle!” he shouted, and began to advance. In his path, the circle glowed with a faint blue light. “Er,” said Aziraphale, “I think it might not be a very good idea to—” Shadwell wasn’t listening. “By the powers invested in me by virtue o’ my office o’ Witchfinder,” he intoned, “I charge ye to quit from this place—” “You see, the circle—” “—and return henceforth to the place from which ye came, pausin’ not to—” “—it would really be unwise for a human to set foot in it without—” “—and deliver us frae evil—” “Keep out of the circle, you stupid man!” “—never to come again to vex—” “Yes, yes, but please keep out of—” Aziraphale ran toward Shadwell, waving his hands urgently. “- returning NAE MORE!” Shadwell finished. He pointed a vengeful, black-nailed finger. Aziraphale looked down at his feet, and swore for the second time in five minutes. He’d stepped into the circle. “Oh, fuck,” he said.There was a melodious twang, and the blue glow vanished. So did Aziraphale.

* The Voice of God. But not the voice of God. A entity in its own right. Rather like a Presidential spokesman.

#Good Omens

[popentertainment-moviereviews]

THE DEATH OF STALIN (2017)

Starring Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Michael Palin, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Andrea Riseborough, Jeffrey Tambor, Olga Kurylenko, Adrian Mcloughlin, Paul Chahidi, Dermot Crowley, Adrian McLoughlin, Paul Whitehouse, Tom Brooke, Justin Edwards, Paul Ready, Yulya Muhrygina and Roger Ashton Griffiths.

Screenplay by Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin.

Directed by Armando Iannucci.

Distributed by IFC Films. 107 minutes. Not Rated.

I don’t know about you, but I have been looking for a hard core, smart, dark comedy for a while.

In a 2017 line up filled with socially conscious and familial dramas, there have been few quality comedies in the past year. We’ve caught our small doses of humor in superhero action films, some unexpected, uncomfortable laughs in a horror and comedy-turned-drama films that I’d hoped would be funnier, with only an occasional giggle gem like the Jumanji reboot or Girls Night.

It’s been a while since audiences have had the opportunity to watch anachronistic, slapstick humor a la Monty Python or Mel Brooks. The Death of Stalin, I am pleased to say, filled that need for me. This is a movie where you can’t blink. Humor is everywhere – in the staging, the dialogue, the set.

Christopher Willis’ soundtrack is equally funny and sharp, worthy of recognition. While some of the humor is subtle, the untrained ear will still hear variations of music you would expect played at a night at the Bolshoi. (For more information on the soundtrack: http://www.soundtrackdreams.com/2018/01/soundtrack-review-the-death-of-stalin-christopher-willis-2017/)

The underlying period of history could not be much darker. The film does not hide the soldiers, the lists of people stolen from their homes and marched to their deaths, the ring of sycophants surrounding Stalin. The film chooses instead to bulldoze through this period without any attempt to realistically recreate these controversial figures from history – there are no butchered Russian accents to be heard! The Death of Stalin is pure satire, paranoia, and slapstick physical comedy in the midst of all of the horror.

The film is set in the final hours of Stalin’s regime – his imagined final meeting with his many sycophants, watching their every word to make sure they are not the next person on the chopping block. (Really, the parallels to today’s political climate are not missed.) From the time of his apparent stroke (which isn’t confirmed by today’s medical standards, as no doctor is called until very late in the illness), to his final death (even the very bad doctors left in Russia are able to figure out when he is finally dead).  

Steve Buscemi shines as Nikita Khrushchev, as he plays out his own Cold War with Lavrenti Beria (portrayed by Simon Russell Beale) in the wake of Stalin’s initial illness and death. While Beria seems to be taking the edge, relegating Khrushchev to funeral duty, we know how history plays out, and watch their chess moves as each tries to bury the other.

Jeffery Tambor plays Acting General Secretary, Georgy Malenkov, the committee member placed “in charge” as the Russian figurehead second in command to Stalin. He has no real political power and is treated as the pretty face that he is meant to be.  

Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Friend play Stalin’s grown children, Svetlana and Vasily, with the right combination of privilege and failure that you would expect from the seed of Stalin.  Svetlana must hold her family together as Vasily drinks away his grief and insists on speaking at his father’s funeral.

Michael Palin has not lost his comedic chops and plays off the aging role of foreign minister Molotov, adding what initially appears to be out of the loop, grieving, addled behavior (his wife has been presumed dead) becomes pointedly distracting and politically important.  Palin proves again that he is always a joy to watch on the screen.

In all, The Death of Stalin, is a well-timed work, both in our need for a good laugh and a bad government to direct our laughter. I feel certain that my daughter will be quoting lines from this film for years to come.

Bonnie Paul

Copyright ©2018 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 23, 2018.

#The Death of Stalin #2018 #Movie Reviews #Armando Iannucci #Bonnie Paul

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#5

I like to imagine Aziraphale and Crowley play board games together. Like, chess.

Aziraphale likes chess because it's sophisticated and it's been around a long time and he got fairly good at it. Of course he owns a very old, handcrafted set.

Crowley likes chess because it needs strategic planning. It's something where he can put his scheming mind to good use. He plans out his strategies dozens of steps ahead, he has these complicated master plans (and sometimes he overlooks a small side effect and ruins his own game, because that's what Crowley is).

He also tries to cheat, not because he thinks he needs to cheat to win, but because it's demonic, and it's fun to mess with Aziraphale. If Aziraphale catches him cheating, he'll make a big show out of complaining how much he hates being thwarted. If Aziraphale misses on a cheat and Crowley wins because of that, he'll be gloating for day, and Aziraphale refuses to talk to him through it. He has to make peace by inviting him out for crêpes.

443 notes • Posted 2021-02-14 20:20:47 GMT

#4

I just wondered. Do we know what Aziraphale's problem with Sound of Music is? Overexposure because it's the only thing Heaven has watched since it came out? He can't really object to the anti-Nazi parts...

493 notes • Posted 2021-04-10 16:40:50 GMT

#3

We all get the occasional laugh out of Aziraphale being out-fashioned, always at least 50 years behind the times, listening to old music and wearing old clothes and stuff... but, I mean, can we blame him?

He’s 6000 years old. 50 years will probably feel like half a year ago to him.

There’s this theory that we feel our childhood and adolescence years last longer then our adult years (a summer as a kid felt endless, while a summer as a twenty or thirty or fourty year old just passes by) because the brain measures time flowing by how much New Stuff happened to you. When you’re younger, lots of things are new experiences, so your brain gets to file lots of new things, so it feels like More Stuff happened, which is encoded as “a lot of time passed/event lasted long”. As you grow older, you do a lot of things the second, third or tenth time. You see fewer new things, so your memory just sorta lumps it all together as “that time when nothing really happened”.

Now, an angel’s memory will probably be working not the same way as a human’s, but the overall principle still kinda seems like something that would make sense even for angels. New things are exciting. You remember exciting things, and one of the reasons boring things are boring is that there’s nothing memorable about them. So even to an angel, new things will probably be more memorable.

Imagine those first few hundreds of years on Earth. Newly incorporated. Rain has just been invented. Plants and animals and people have just been invented. Oh, now there is food, and you can taste that. How exciting! They have nothing like this in Heaven! The humans invent music, and tell stories! How wonderful!

The first few centuries must’ve been a ride. Humans invented new things all the time, and given how big Earth is, there was always new places to discover, maybe animals he hadn’t seen before... Lots and lots of new input.

After a while, that will naturally taper off. He’s already tasted foods in general. Yes, new dishes are still being created all the time, but they’re often variants on things he’s eaten before. Yes, new stories are being told, but they too are often spins on older stories and tropes. After a few centuries, the most of the new things are actually old things dressed differently. People stay people. They build cities, they raze them down again, a new generation of people builds new cities that are actually not all that different from the old cities. Things start to blur together with every repetition. Did this war happen in the 12th or the 14th century again? Was that one of ours or one of yours, dear boy? After a couple thousand years, human history gets a bit fuzzy here and there.

It also gets rather tiresome to keep up with. After so much time, Aziraphale will be well aware that trends don’t last, that even buildings meant for forever are nowhere close to forever on an immortal’s terms. Why keep up with all of it? And then the 19th, 20th and 21st century come around, with ever faster changing and utterly short-lived trends and inventions. Oh, look, they invented trains and cars! Finally no more horse riding, how convenient. What do you mean, the steam engine doesn’t power trains anymore? Didn’t they just invent that? The radio is nice alright, who came up with this TV thing again? What’s an internet?

Just this morning, on the radio at my workplace, there was a report on the first radio program broadcast in my country, exactly 100 years ago. That’s practically yesterday to an angel. My parents (in their late 50s) still frequently point out that when they were young, there were three TV stations here, and they say it with that sense of genuine bafflement of “where the heck did all the others come from”. It seems like growing older puts you in the paradoxical situation that you’ve already seen almost anything there is to see, but sometimes there’s something new and strange that comes out of nowhere and shakes you out of whatever sense of security you were getting out of knowing what the world is like because you’ve seen it all already.

That’s Aziraphale’s reality, isn’t it? For millenia. Lots of things about humans and life of Earth all stay pretty similar once you’ve experienced them a few times. And then sometimes something new comes up out of the blue. Most of the time it doesn’t even stay around long! It’s suddenly there (70′s haircuts!), and then it’s gone again, replaced by something else with a similar shelf-life. Doesn’t it make sense that he grew tired of keeping up with this human nonsense? Humans grow tired of it within their short lives. It’s completely accepted and normal that grandma won’t get the hang of Twitter anymore. Should we expect Aziraphale to, when it’s kinda so much worse for him? Doesn’t it make sense that instead, he picks up the things he enjoys on the way and keeps them around, takes good care of them? Sticks to his favourite books, finds a style of clothing he enjoys wearing and doesn’t change it again?

I love looking around the bookshop in the show. It’s so full of little trinkets. There are scrolls on the shelves, not just books. You can imagine how old they are, things he picked up before the printing press was invented. Texts laboriously copied down by hand, with little illustrations added along the margins. There are statues and other artwork from what seems like various centuries. Souvenirs of a time traveller, of a life lived as a walk through history. Nobody keeps everything they see on their travels. You keep what stands out to you, what will remind you of the good times. I think that’s what Aziraphale does.

Funnily, it’s also what Crowley does. Looking at Crowley, always changing his hair and his clothing and sometimes his gender presentation, Crowley seems the opposite. The constant change to Aziraphale’s stubborn permanence. In a way, that’s probably true. To a degree. Crowley likes new things. Crowley delights in new inventions. Crowley has fun changing things around.

At the same time, it seems a little over the top. Like what we’re seeing is just the other extreme of an immortal being trying to cope with life on Earth. Crowley tries to adapt. Crowley follows every new trend. He tries new haircuts, new music, he got a car when cars where still a weird novelty thing rich people did. At first glance, Crowley doesn’t keep things. His flat looks almost empty. We rarely see him wear a fashion item for more than a few years.

On second look, the flat is, for all its minimalism, full of things Crowley kept. The Mona Lisa cartoon, a gift from a friend he made hundreds of years ago. He brought home the eagle lectern from the church where he made up with Aziraphale after their argument. Also the other art pieces don’t seem like they’re randomly chosen just to be decoration. Crowley doesn’t seem the decoration type. What Crowley keeps in his flat means something, even if he doesn’t want anyone to know. He makes fun of Aziraphale and his coat (very adoringly, but he does), but when his car explodes, look at the big bad demon who doesn’t care about things. He’s devastated. The Bentley meant so much to him. I imagine maybe losing the Mona Lisa would be bad, too. Not Bentley levels of bad, but somewhere close. Crowley doesn’t keep a lot of things. He keeps the things that mean the most, the things he can’t bear giving up on, and it hurts even more to lose them then.

Just... Imagine how utterly lost they both are, living on this weird planet full of mortals that don’t understand them, that live at an entirely different pace. It has to be irritating. It has to be confusing. In a way, it’s gotta be like culture shock, constantly.

Language seems to stay the same to us, but the truth is that it changes significantly even within a human’s lifespan. To an immortal, Italian, Spanish, French and Co are probably all just weird newfangled spins on Latin, and wasn’t that a perfectly good language, whatever did the humans think getting rid of it like this.

Politics are a nightmare! There’s a new king practically every time they turn their back on a country, and then suddenly, oh, democracy! Wait, got rid of it again! No, wait, now it’s back! Oops, another war, borders are all over the place again!

Music and arts are actually a bit of a breather once the renaissance rolls around. What we now call classical music was mostly written in the 1800′s, and it’s been played ever since. A lot of modern music is based on it, too. Mozart and Bach stick around at least! Aziraphale is clearly fond of classical music, but it’s noteworthy Crowley is, too. He listens to rock (Velvet Underground, Queen), Book!Crowley keeps a collection of soul music, but he also has classical music tapes/CDs in the car.  Crowley is the one with the much more diverse taste in music, but he too likes the classics. The classics are good, and sometimes they’re comforting.

TL;DR: Time is terrible to keep up with when you’re immortal. Let Aziraphale keep his outdated tartan things. ;-)

547 notes • Posted 2021-01-10 05:00:38 GMT

#2

Nobody is Useless

Or how everything is connected in the Saving of the World

So I want to talk about something relating to how the world is saved in Good Omens that I personally find very meaningful and poignant and that for some reason nobody seems to discuss: I want to talk about how every main character contributes something vitally important to saving the world.

Yes, I also stumbled across another “haha those idiots are so useless” post, and they’re kinda like a personal pet peeve, because it’s just not true to me. Aziraphale and Crowley aren’t useless. Anathema isn’t useless. Neither is Newt. None of them saves the world by themselves, yeah, but not even Adam does that.

It’s one of my favourite things about the way the world is saved in Good Omens, how everyone contributes to it and it couldn’t have been done if you remove one of them from the equation, so after being annoyed with that notion for long enough, I’m going to elaborate on it now. (I’m going with show canon, which is slightly different from book canon of course, mostly in how the Ineffable Plan vs Great Plan argument is made by both Aziraphale and Crowley together in the book and that the whole defeating Satan thing is much less of a big deal in the book.)

All the main cast do something that’s an important cog in the machine of saving the world. Most of them are small things. Hardly any of them are the flashy actions we are used to seeing heroes perform in our media. Good Omens lacks the classical, admirable hero who’s good at everything and of course saves the day. Instead, Good Omens has an ensemble cast of Average People. They make mistakes. They misunderstand things. They fail at things, and the things they do don’t turn out as they planned, but in the end, everyone contributes elements the others couldn’t have saved the world without. To me, Good Omens is a story about how normal people can make a difference by choosing to do what they feel is right, and I think that’s beautiful.

I don’t believe in destiny or fate, and I think Good Omens as a story doesn’t believe in them either, so I am not going to argue here “all of them are meant to be there, so of course they all end up on the airfield together”. No, everyone is there because they choose to go at some point, and each one contributes something vital, though most of them are small contributions that seem insignificant on first look.

There are two main events that lead to the successful aversion of the apocalypse: the baby mix-up, and the events of the final days (culminating in the airbase showdown, which has three levels: stopping the Horsepeople's Armageddon, stopping Heaven and Hell from starting the Great War, and stopping Satan from destroying everyone when he's mad at Adam's defiance).

The baby mix-up is important because it leads to Adam growing up free of angelic and demonic influence, as a normal human child. However, the baby mix-up isn’t a conscious, purposeful action; it’s a chain reaction of lots of small mistakes and cases of negligence. Crowley didn’t stay around to see the swap happen (he might or might not have noticed the mistake if he did). Sister Mary didn’t realise the Youngs aren’t the ambassador family. The Mother Superior and the nuns in charge, like Sister Grace and Sister Theresa, also contributed to the mix-up. It’s a domino effect, where lots of small mistakes and miscommunications come together. But it’s all accidents. Nobody makes a choice, not even Crowley. Until he hands over Adam to Sister Mary, Crowley is acting according to his Hellish orders. He briefly considers disobeying and throwing the satanic baby out of the car, but he doesn’t go through with it.

After that though Crowley is the first one to make a choice, and it’s an important choice: He decides to try and stop Armageddon from happening, and to do so, he involves Aziraphale. This is important. I’ll get to that later. Without Crowley’s plan to stop Armageddon, neither Aziraphale nor Crowley would end up at the airbase.

The actual End of the World is stopped in its tracks by Adam, with support of the Them. The Them are really cool and do lots of important things, but in terms of things that directly affect the chain of causality that end at “No Armageddon”, there are two main events.

The first of them happens before anyone even makes it to the airbase, in Hogback Wood, when Adam has started being fully influenced by his Antichrist powers. The Them leave, and in doing so, teach Adam a valuable lesson about boundaries, and about loss. The Them, after having witnessed Adam’s scary powers first hand, turn around and say “if you treat us like that, we can’t be friends anymore”. This is the moment where Adam first really realises that his actions have consequences.

We talk more about how important the Them’s friendship and support of Adam is, but I think this is as important. This is a pivotal moment. Adam abused his friends, and consequently loses them, and that hurts. Adam doesn’t want to be without Dog and the Them, but he cannot be their friend if he keeps being the demonic creature he was tuning into. In choosing his friends, Adam chooses humanity. This is a choice already made when they arrive at the airbase. Adam has chosen his side, and it’s with his friends. In return, it’s Pepper, Brian and Wensleydale to defeat the Horsepeople.

A supporting role in defeating the Horsepeople goes to Anathema and Newt, who stop the Nuclear Armageddon countdown that’s already running when the Them face down the Apocalyptic Horsepeople.

Let’s look at their journey next. Anathema sets out with purpose. Anathema grows up thinking she’ll have to save the world, but in the end, she doesn’t do very much, it would seem, but what she contributes is important. Anathema is a bringer of knowledge (as funny as that sounds to say about someone who believes in the New Aquarian), or at least a bringer of information. She also brings in two other people who end up being important: Newt, and Aziraphale.

Newt’s final contribution to the stop of Armageddon is to break the computers. If Anathema had gone to the airbase without Newt, she’d gotten as far as to sit helplessly in front of them, with no way to break them. One of the things Anathema does the world couldn’t have been saved without is to bring Newt to the airbase.

But Anathema wouldn’t have been able to bring Newt there without his help figuring out the final prophecies. Newt thinks out of the box and brings in a fresh perspective. Likewise, without Anathema’s knowledge of the coming End of the World, Newt wouldn’t have had any context. He’s just have shown up in Tadfield, maybe he’d have found Adam, and then what?

The way it is, Newt and Anathema are able to combine their skills and information to arrive at the airbase in time and stop the countdown. There was nobody else to stop it; it’s quite possible that defeating the Horsepeople would not have stopped the countdowns. They were automated systems.

In addition to bringing in Newt, Anathema also brings in Aziraphale, and by extension, Crowley.

Aziraphale and Crowley have gotten involved already eleven years ago, unfortunately there was that whole mix-up situation, so they ended up wasting their well-meant efforts on the wrong child. (Probably for the better.) After realizing that, they attempt to find Adam.

They would not have found Adam if they hadn’t luckily/accidentally run into (run over) Anathema, who forgets her book in the Bentley. It ends up with Aziraphale, who deciphers the relevant prophecies and finds out Adam’s identity and the final location of Armageddon, Tadfield airbase, where he sends Crowley after finding him in the bar.

Aziraphale and Crowley are the most famous contesters for the “they didn’t do anything/are useless” argument, but both of them contribute something important.

Their presence starts to actually influence things when Death disappears. Adam has stopped Armageddon. The actual End of the World has not come to pass, but things aren’t okay yet. Heaven and Hell still want their War.

Gabriel and Beelzebub appear, to make Adam restart the apocalypse and their Great War. Now comes Aziraphale’s moment of being important: he’s the only one who realises that the Great Plan all the demons and angels are following might not be the Ineffable Plan at all, in fact, that it can’t be the same thing, because something that’s ineffable cannot be written. Crowley didn’t realise that. He’s amazed and delighted when hearing it. Gabriel and Beelzebub didn’t realise it either, and it completely throws them off.

Adam’s refusal to restart the War doesn’t swing them. They are still trying to make him do it, and Adam looks very lost as to what to do with them. He doesn’t know what they want from him, he doesn’t understand their motivations, and they don’t understand his. They’re at an impasse. Adam has no power over Heaven and Hell, not really. Heaven and Hell have no power over Adam. They’re stuck.

And then comes Aziraphale, who basically defeats them with their own doctrine. Neither the angels nor the demons know how to think outside the box. They’ve been following the Plan, that’s all they know, and he takes that away from them. It’s ineffable. You can’t know it, by definition. It cannot be written. The Great Plan was a lie.

This is what makes Beelzebub and Gabriel give up on trying to convince Adam. They are so lost and confused that they agree to return to their respective offices.

Adam and Them stop the Horsepeople.

Aziraphale stops the War.

And then comes in Crowley, who stops time on the Devil.

See the full post

584 notes • Posted 2021-11-27 19:04:41 GMT

#1

So I'm having thoughts about Alpha Centauri, and I haven't seen any of them mentioned anywhere, so here goes.

It's a common theme in fics that Crowley has some sort of personal attachment to Alpha Centauri, that maybe he made it, and that he really wanted to go there. I'm not saying it's a bad trope. I've read very cool fics about them going for a trip to Alpha Centauri after Armageddon together.

I think we're reasonably safe to assume Crowley has been to Alpha Centauri as an angel. He knows that it's always nice this time of year. Now, it is a fairly flippant statement, but we know he helped built a nebula, so maybe he happened to pass by Alpha Centauri on his way to work or something. Maybe he helped make it as well. He doesn't say, but he might have.

The other common theme about Alpha Centauri is the "it's a binary star system, two stars locked in orbit around each other, and that's a metaphor for their relationship".

Science geek me isn't quite satisfied reading that one, because it's a triple star system. Alpha Centauri A and B are more or less sun-sized stars orbiting a common center. They're pretty close together (their orbits would fit into the Sun/Pluto orbit, which really is pretty close for two stars). They're orbited by the third star of the system, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. It's called "Proxima" because it's the closest star to Earth. Out of the three components, Proxima is also the only one currently confirmed to have planets. It has two of them.

And that's an interesting thing, isn't it? It's the star closest to Earth. Crowley says, while trying to talk Aziraphale into leaving with him "lots of spare planets up there, nobody will even notice us". Lots of spare planets. The system he picks has two. By now, surveys for exoplanets have found lots of systems with planets, including systems with planets in their stars' habitable zone.

The system he picks has one potentially habitable planet. It's also, far as running away goes, a very interesting choice. Let's run away from Heaven and Hell, as far as the nearest planet we can reach! ... Because that's it! It's the nearest planet. Not one that's far away, hidden in the far and wide stretch of the cosmos where nobody can ever find them. As far as running away goes, on a cosmic scale, Alpha Centauri is like running away from the law and moving in next door instead of fleeing the county. Surely nobody will find you here? One house down the road. Yeah, seems perfectly safe. Very good running away you're doing.

It goes even further than that. Alpha Centauri A and B are visible to the naked eye from Earth. (Proxima is too dim.) If you were to live on Proxima's planet, A and B would be the brightest objects in the sky at night by far, but know what would also easily be bright enough to see? The Sun. Our Sun. As a main sequence star a measly four lightyears away, it would be one of Proxima Centauri's brightest night sky objects. You can't only see Alpha Centauri from Earth, you will also see Earth's Sun from Alpha Centauri.

My point here is, Crowley doesn't choose a far away system to run away to, as would be probably smart. If you're running away from Heaven and Hell, run away as far as you can. Instead, Crowley wants to run away just the bare minimum he has to. Just far enough to reach the next best star.

He doesn't choose a safe place to run away to. He chooses a place to run away to from where he will be able to see Earth. It'll be in his sky, every night. And if it goes up into a big puddle of burning goo, the flash of the explosion will spark on Proxima Centauri's sky like a supernova. Crowley will be able to see the end of Earth. From a distance, yes, but it will be impossible to miss. Depending how the war goes, how long it lasts, the Heavenly and Hellish fires burning up the Earth might last month, years, centuries. And all this time, the spot in Crowley's chosen sky where his former home planet was will burn bright and clear. Even without fighting, even after having run, he'll bear witness. He'd be unable not to.

I think Crowley didn't pick a star system he worked on eons ago, when he was still an angel. No, he picked the closest thing to Earth, the closest thing to the planet he loves, that he lived on for 6000 years, where he became the person he is now, where he met the only other being he wants to share his life with. He picks the closest thing to home.

To go to to watch home burn. All his plans to stop it have failed. He's lost hope. He can only run. He wants to take his most important person along, but not really to a safe place. It's a safer place, yes, by a margin, but it's also a place where they can continue to do what they've done together for 6000 years. Bear witness to Heavenly and Hellish atrocities committed on Earth. Like they bore witness to the Flood and the Crucification. They might not be able to stop it, but they'll witness it, lighting up the sky from the closest vantage point in the entire universe.

Crowley doesn't pick Alpha Centauri because it has a lot of personal meaning to him. He picks it because Earth means a lot to him, and even if he leaves, he doesn't go far.

Excuse the angst. To end not on a bleak note, I have another point to add: remember the thing about the three stars, not two? Remember the relationship metaphor? Suggestion for a new metaphor: the two main stars, A and B, are Crowley and Aziraphale, closely orbiting each other. The third star, always bound to both of them, is Earth/humanity. To say Alpha Centauri is a binary star system leaves out the constant push and pull of the third star on both of them. The system is only stable, and accurately described, if you consider the influence of the third component. Proxima Centauri is a vital component of the Alpha Centauri star system, and Crowley and Aziraphale wouldn't work the same way, maybe not at all, without the gravitational pull of Earth and its humans.

1015 notes • Posted 2021-03-13 21:00:47 GMT

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