#personally i love it when its something aziraphale does that crowley determines he's an absolute angel of a person

[viperinz]

treating good omens human aus like a bingo card because im always wondering what the reason for crowley calling aziraphale "angel" will be. like will it be because aziraphale's hair looks like a halo in the sun? will it be aziraphale protecting crowley and crowley crowning aziraphale his guardian angel status? will it be aziraphale acting like an absolute sweetheart and prompting crowley to call him an angel? or is it just be that aziraphale's name sounds like it'd belong to an angel/does belong to an angel in the au? who knows!!!

#personally i love it when its something aziraphale does that crowley determines he's an absolute angel of a person #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens human au #aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale good omens #good omens aziraphale #crowley good omens #good omens crowley #aziraphale x crowley #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #ineffable wives #aziracrow #aziracrow good omens #good omens aziracrow #vee rambles

[marvelwifesupernaturalmistress]

So I just finished Good Omens recently and I have a couple things to say and my family and friends are so done with my rants about different movies and TV shows.

1: Holy shit that was a good show! I honestly didn't expect much from the show but holy shit it blew me away with how good it was. It was comedic and I found myself laughing so much and it was so beautifully written the characters are just top tier amazing and wow what I'd give to just continuously rewatch it as if it's my first time watching it.

2: I watched supernatural and I thought wow never gonna find another show like this. One that brings me joy and sadness then I found this fucking wonderful amazing show! AND it made me even more sad like what the fuck how do I keep coming across shows that cause me so much fucking pain. Also can we talk about the parallels between the two shows. Oh look two characters working together to stop the end of the world one a demon and one's an angel, counting Dean a demon solely for this post plus demon Dean did exist, both are oh so obviously in love with each other but neither will admit it, most of the angels are dicks and we all hate metatron, there's a demon named Crowley and many more. I mean look at the similarities between Dean and Crowley. Both are in love with their angel best friend, both are absolutely in love with their car, love classic rock, both are some sassy bitches, both don't want to show their emotions but are big softies, and are both the better looking person in the couple (in my opinion). Then look at the similarities between Aziraphale and Crowley. Both are angels in trench coats who are in love with their best friend, they are manipulated, complicated, traumatized, beautiful angels, both have trouble understanding (some) human expressions, and both struggle with their loyalty to heaven. Also, is it just me or does the first like 10 seconds of End Titles- the one that got left in the car from Good Omens kinda sound like it could be a beginning to a Supernatural opening credits or is it just me?

3: My God David Tennant is FINE like I've seen his face sometimes haven't really seen him in much and was like ok yeah he's attractive and moved on. But then I saw him in this and I'm like wow now I get what everyone's talking about. Like just ahhh this man is fucking attractive! I'm honestly ashamed of myself for taking so long to realize.

4: So TikTok in all its wonderfulness blessed/cursed me with a bunch of Good Omens content the day after I finished watching good Omens. Including a looooooooot of people cosplaying as Crowley. And may I just say the people who cosplay him are fine as fuck! I mean it's really hard to dress up as Crowley and not look attractive I mean Crowley is a style icon. But holy shit the people are so fucking good looking like I just can't. My sexuality does a nose dive off the empire state building when looking at them. I was talking to a friend about it and she said it's a case of wanting to be with them or be them and I disagree. I want to be with them all. Just holy shit you want to look good dress like Crowley you'll look fantastic.

5: The effect this show has had on my life is insane. I have been obsessed with listening to Queen since I finished the show. Which I'm not complaining about at all they were my favorite and still are my favorite band before I even watched the show. I have barely listened to something that wasn't Queen or songs from the show since I binge watched the show. I'm listening to another one bites the dust while typing this. Once again not complaining. Also, did anyone else want to dye their hair like Crowley's when they finished the show? Cause I do. I have been blonde my whole life and never wanted to change it and now I want it red. And I need to know if I'm alone in this or not to determine how alarmed I should be.

6: They had no right making the relationship of Crowley and Aziraphale they way they did. First they made them friends who obviously were in love with each other but hid it then they give us them acting basically as a married couple being so fucking adorable and me just wanting the type of love they have for them to give us that ending of season two! I'm not gonna lie if my dad wasn't up and calmed me down I either would've spontaneously combusted from my literally shaking anger or went on a spree. Not sure what type of spree but a spree of some kind.

7: How all of you wonderful people didn't riot or harm Neil Gaiman is beyond me. First when season 1 ended y'all had to wait 2 years to even get a green light that there was gonna be a season 2 and then another 2 for it to finally come out. And then for the season final of season 2 to happen where then you had to wait even longer for season 3 to be greenlight is just you all have a greater will power than me. I'm coming into this with two seasons and a third confirmed so a round of applause to y'all. And now I completely understand why I kept hearing people say they hated Neil Gaiman and stuff like that.

And finally on a somewhat unrelated note I'm planning to watch Doctor who since I'm about to finish another show where can I find it and what order do I watch it in? I've heard many different answers on the order.

Thanks everyone for coming to my rant y'all are wonderful and everyone have a wonderful day!<3

#good omens #david tennant #dean winchester #castiel #aziraphale #aziracrow #crowley #crowley x aziraphale #doctor who #queen #neil gaiman #supernatural #michael sheen

[violinsolos]

Good Omens is Hays Coding you & you can recognize this and still like or relate to it

It's probably not worth it to make this post but it absolutely lights me on fire as an asexual person to see people using asexuality to justify the fact that Aziraphale and Crowley are not canonly romantic. As though it does something novel--as though it is somehow a more complex Queer narrative because it has coded romantic subtext (as though we have not already had to cling to vagueness, symbolism, and coding for decades as Queer people desperately sought mirrors to their experience). As though ace people are inherently coded, indefinable, or invisible to begin with, so the fact that GO uses subtext and does not make the A&C Queerness text is somehow to be lauded as MORE progressive than unapologetically open romance would be.

In 1930, Hollywood established The Hays Code to determine what could and could not be depicted in films. This code banned the portrayal of Queer people entirely, so filmmakers who wanted to express Queerness had to do so through codes--visual cues and vague references that could slip the censors but still express some small window into Queer experience.

Good Omens is a Hays Code kind of show. It has subtext and codes but the average viewer will likely not read it as romantic. The average person is not trained to read subtext, let alone Queer subtext. They've never had to reach into small windows and subtext to find themselves before.

I am also willing to bet Good Omens didn't have to change a thing to sell in countries where Queerness is illegal. And that should be the bar for Queer media imo: a complete homophobe from a country where it is ILLEGAL TO BE QUEER and has NEVER MET A QUEER PERSON needs to be able to recognize the romantic elements WITHOUT CONFUSION. This doesn't mean stories can't be subtle or nuanced--but the bar is just HIGHER for Queer stories than straight stories due to long histories of Queer invisibility in media thanks to things like the Hays code.

And no, it doesn't matter what Neil said on Twitter or whatever--what's in the text? That's the only thing that gets presented to the larger public! When he confirms it "off screen" that only means that he had to do that because it wasn't on-screen! He wouldn't have to do that if it was obvious to the average viewer and I think deep down you know it! Nobody has to ask if Ed and Stede are romantic by the end of season one and there's virtually nothing sexual about their relationship (yet? who knows lol). You could cut the kiss and it would still be clear.

We can still enjoy the subtext and even recognize ourselves in it! But that feeling you have of relating to and seeing yourself in A&C? An average audience member does not have access to those feelings.

So please for the love of god stop trying to deflate IMPORTANT critiques about vague or coded Queerness being insufficient in 2022 by using people like me. Ace relationships can be unique and complex and also clear even to a reader not already predisposed to interpret Queer subtext.

I absolutely HATE hearing how much I "deserve" the same coded, vague, could-play-as-straight-to-a-straight-audience-so-it's-not-risking-the-international-market crumbs that Queer people have fought so long to overcome. Oh, they don't kiss? Well that's for people like ME--an asexual person who can somehow only appreciate romance if it is as spectral as mist and I remember to bring my 3D decoder goggles to manifest the clues.

But mostly I feel sad--sad that we are so trained by the Hays Code to treat subtext as equal to text, because it's what we think we can get or deserve. That's why we absolutely cannot use spectres of acephobia to police and disengage from the important and historical disappointment that we feel as Queer people when we realize we have to find ourselves in subtexts rather than texts.

TL;DR: Good Omens is not an explicitly Queer text, it is a text with Queer subtext in the same tradition as the Hollywood Hays Code. It's not acephobic to critique this element of its storytelling and you can still enjoy it and ship them and even relate to them without insisting that this is the rep we "deserve." Signed, an ace person who loves romance.

#good omens #i'm not going to reply to any of the tags i swg #especially not if you use neil's tweets to make your point #his tweets are external to the text and not admissable #not all ace folks are a monolith obvs i'm not ace lorax speaking for the aces here #i am just tired of seeing posts about how I deserve this #a show no non-fandom straight person in my entire life has ever identified as Queer #so I don't want to debate this any further I just want to express how angry these posts make me as an asexual person

[c-is-for-circinate]

Something that’s been very interesting to me, in this new wave of post-miniseries Good Omens fandom, is the apparent fannish consensus that Crowley is, in fact, bad at his job.  That he’s actually quite nice.  That he’s been skating by hiding his general goodness from hell by taking credit for human evil and doling out a smattering of tiny benign inconveniences that he calls bad.

I get the urge towards that headcanon, and I do think the Crowley in the miniseries comes off as nicer than the one in the book.  (I think miniseries Crowley and Aziraphale are both a little nicer, a little more toothless, than the versions of themselves in the book.)  But maybe it’s because I was a book fan first, or maybe it’s because I just find him infinitely more interesting this way--I think Crowley, even show!Crowley, has the capacity to be very good at his job of sowing evil.  And I think that matters to the story as a whole.

A demon’s job on Earth, and specifically Crowley’s job on Earth, isn’t to make people suffer.  It’s to make people sin.  And the handful of ‘evil’ things we see Crowley do over the course of the series are effective at that, even if the show itself doesn’t explore them a lot.

Take the cell phone network thing, for instance.  This gets a paragraph in the book that’s largely brushed off in the conversation with Hastur and Ligur, and I think it’s really telling: 

What could he tell them?  That twenty thousand people got bloody furious?  That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city?  And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people?  In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves.  For the rest of the day.  The pass-along effects were incalculable.  Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.

In essence, without any great expenditure of effort (look, I’d never say Crowley isn’t slothful, but that just makes him efficient), he’s managed to put half of London in a mental and emotional state that Crowley knows will make them more inclined to sin.  He’s given twenty thousand or a hundred thousand or half a million people a Bad Day.  Which, okay, it’s just a bad day--but bad days are exhausting.  Bad days make you snap, make you fail at things, make you feel guiltier and more stressed out in the aftermath when you wake up the next day, makes everything a little worse.  Bad days matter.

Maybe it’s because I’m a believer in the ripple effect of small kindnesses, and that means I have to believe in its opposite.  Maybe it’s just that I, personally, have had enough days that were bad enough that a downed cell network (or an angry coworker because of a downed cell network) would honestly have mattered.  But somebody who deliberately moves through the world doing their best to make everyone’s lives harder, with the aim of encouraging everybody around them to be just a little crueler, just a little angrier, just a little less empathetic--you know what, yes.  I do call that successful evil.

It’s subtle, is the thing.  That’s why Hastur and Ligur don’t get it, don’t approve of it.  Not because Crowley isn’t good at his job, but because we’ve seen from the beginning that Hastur and Ligur are extremely out of touch with humanity and the modern world and just plain aren’t smart enough to get it.  It’s a strategy that relies on understanding how humans work, what our buttons are and how to press them.  It’s also a strategy that’s remarkably advanced in terms of free will.  Hastur and Ligur deliberately tempt and coerce and entrap individuals into sinning, but Crowley never even gets close.  We never see him say to a single person, ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for you, why don’t you go do this bad thing?’  He sets up conditions to encourage humans to actually do the bad things they’re already thinking of themselves.  He creates a situation and opens it up to the results of free choice.  Every single thing a person does after Crowley’s messed with them is their own decision, without any demonic coercion to blame for any of it.

You see it again in the paintball match.  "They wanted real guns, I gave them what they wanted.”  In this case, Crowley didn’t need to irritate anybody into wanting to do evil--the desire to shoot and hurt and maybe even kill their own coworkers was already present in every combatant on that paintball field.  Crowley just so happened to be there at exactly the right time to give them the opportunity to turn that fleeting, kind-of-bad-but-never-acted-upon desire into real, concrete, attempted murder.  Sure, nobody died--where would be the fun in a pile of corpses?  But now forty-odd people who may never have committed a real act of violence in their entire lives, caught in a moment of weakness with real live weapons in their hands, will get to spend the rest of their lives knowing that given the opportunity and the tiniest smidgen of plausible deniability, they are absolutely the sort of people who could and would kill another human being they see every single day over a string of petty annoyances.

Crowley understands the path between bad thought and evil action.  He knows it gets shorter when somebody is upset or irritated, and that it gets shorter when people practice turning one into the other.  He understands that sometimes, removing a couple of practical obstacles is the only nudge a person needs--no demonic pressure or circumvention of free will required.

I love this interpretation, because I love the idea that Crowley, who’s been living on Earth for six thousand years, actually gets people in a way no other demon can.  I love the idea that Crowley, the very first tempter, who was there when free will was invented, understands how it works and how to use it better than maybe anyone else.  And I really love the idea that Crowley our hero, who loves Aziraphale and saves the world, isn’t necessarily a good guy.

There’s a narrative fandom’s been telling that, at its core, is centered around the idea that Crowley is good, and loves and cares and is nice, and always has been.  Heaven and its rigid ideas of Right and Wrong is itself the bad thing.  Crowley is too good for Heaven, and was punished for it, but under all the angst and pain and feelings of hurt and betrayal, he’s the best of all of them after all.

That’s a compelling story.  There’s a reason we keep telling it.  The conflict between kindness and Moral Authority, the idea that maybe the people in charge are the ones who’re wrong and the people they’ve rejected are both victim and hero all at once--yeah.  There’s a lot there to connect with, and I wouldn’t want to take it away from anyone.  But the compelling story I want, for me, is different.

I look at Crowley and I want a story about someone who absolutely has the capacity for cruelty and disseminating evil into the world.  Somebody who’s actually really skilled at it, even if all he does is create opportunities, and humans themselves just keep living down to and even surpassing his expectations.  Somebody who enjoys it, even.  Maybe he was unfairly labeled and tossed out of heaven to begin with, but he’s embraced what he was given.  He’s thrived.  He is, legitimately, a bad person.

And he tries to save the world anyway.

He loves Aziraphale.  He helps save the entire world.  Scared and desperate and determined and devoted, he drives through a wall of fire for the sake of something other than himself.  He likes humans, their cleverness, their complexities, the talent they have for doing the same sort of evil he does himself, the talent they have for doing the exact opposite.  He cares.

It’s not a story about someone who was always secretly good even though they tried to convince the whole world and themself that they weren’t.  It’s a story about someone who, despite being legitimately bad in so many ways, still has the capacity to be good anyway.  It’s not about redemption, or about what Heaven thinks or judges or wants.  It’s about free will.  However terrible you are or were or have the ability to be, you can still choose to do a good thing.  You can still love.  You can still be loved in return.

And I think that matters.

#good omens #driveby meta attack #I have been writing in circles around and around Crowley since I watched the show a month ago #but I think this might be the thing at the middle #or close to it anyway #free will doesn't just mean that 'good people' can choose to do bad things #it means that 'bad people' can choose to do good ones #and it's complicated #but it's a lot

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

You wrote the original novel with the late Terry Pratchett. What did you love about Terry as a writer?

He was the most wonderful writer. He was a craftsman who regarded art in the same way that a really good medieval craftsman regarded his craft. If you build it right, it will be beautiful. You don’t set out saying: “I’m an artiste and I’m going to make something beautiful.” You set out saying: “If I craft it right, it’s going to be beautiful.” It’s like a 12th century cathedral or a piece of Chippendale furniture. It will inspire awe and beauty because it’s so well built.

Why is Michael Sheen so well suited to the role of Aziraphale?

He is a massive fan of the book. He read it as a 20-something at drama school and loved it. When this production was being discussed, he was the first person I went to. He said: “Ah, yes, you want me to play Crowley.” “No,” I replied, “I want you to play Aziraphale.” Crowley is the sexy dude in the sunglasses, but Aziraphale is the heart of this story. He is also the one that changes. That’s very important to the story - who changes? The Crowley at the end is the same as the Crowley at the beginning. But the Aziraphale at the end is not quite the same as the one we went in with. He’s grown and changed. I needed someone who could show that progress.

Why does David fit the role of Crowley so well?

In my head, David was the dream casting for Crowley, but I felt sure it wouldn’t happen. That’s the best way to avoid disappointment. So when David said he’d love to do it, I was just delighted. He brings an insouciance and a slouchiness which I love. He’s not playing it as Doctor Who or any other previous characters. His Crowley is so much loucher than that. He’s a slightly cynical, wonderful demon.

How did other castings happen?

We got a lot of people because they were big fans of the book. For instance, Jon Hamm read it and loved it, although he confided in me that he thought it was unfilmable! I wrote him an email saying: “I’ve written the new part of Gabriel. He is the leader of the angels. I need someone to play the coolest, smoothest, best-looking angel. Will you do it?” I quickly got reply saying: “Oh my God, I thought it was unfilmable, but I love these scenes!”

What did Douglas McKinnon give to the show?

What he brought to the production was even more than we were expecting. He and his director of photography have made something stunning. But the most amazing thing is Douglas’s eye for detail and just how unexpectedly beautiful he has made this world. It absolutely gives me a kick to see it brought to life. It’s magical.

So Douglas has endowed Good Omens with an amazing look?

Definitely. This world has its own visual language. It’s gorgeous and glorious. I showed an early version to Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon. His reaction was: “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.” What a lovely thing to say.

For many years Good Omens was going to be a movie. Why does it work better as a TV series than a feature film?

Because when you have got six hours, you throw away less of the original book. You can even add stuff. When I broke down episode three, I realised there was not much of Aziraphale and Crowley in it. So I wrote a whole new 20-minute, mini-movie of Aziraphale and Crowley through the ages - in Roman times, with medieval knights, during the Second World War. How much fun was that! I got to indulge my inner fantasy. I was writing my own fan fiction!

Everyone is really committed to this production, aren’t they?

Yes. It’s a hugely loved book. A lot of the cast are huge fans of the book, which means that they’re very passionate about the project. For instance, Josie Lawrence, who is the only original cast member from the radio version of Good Omens, was desperate to reprise her role as Agnes Nutter, but at first it was impossible. She was opening that week in Mother Courage. But we really wanted her, so her director very kindly stood in for Josie at the technical rehearsal for Mother Courage - which never happens - so Josie could do Good Omens. People are willing to go the extra mile to be in this, which is wonderful.

Why is the book of Good Omens so popular?

People love the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. When I was writing the script, I was determined never to lose sight of the fact that on some weird level it’s a love story between Aziraphale and Crowley. People might grab the wrong end of the stick, but it’s a relationship that develops over 6,000 years. It’s a rather strange and glorious friendship between two incredibly different characters.

While Aziraphale means well, he’s wrong an enormous amount of the time. Meanwhile, Crowley is a demon who sees the worst in human nature and yet is right a lot of the time. There is a line from the book, where Aziraphale says: “Imagine how terrible it would have been if we were at all competent!” They are gloriously incompetent, and the fact that they’re more human than they care to admit drives the plot and is one of the things that people love about Good Omens.

What do you hope that viewers will take away from Good Omens?

I hope people will fall in love with the characters. I want to make something that bears rewatching and gives you something more every time you rewatch it. I know moments in Good Omens pay off with repeated viewing. When you rewatch it, you think: “Oh my God, that’s why they set that up.” Mostly, I want audiences to walk away in love with Michael and David and want to spend time with these characters. The best thing about good TV is that you’re spending time with characters who become part of your family. I hope the characters in Good Omens will become part of your family.

#good omens #neil gaiman #interview #aziraphale #crowley #bts

[coffee-stained-brain]

crowley + family tension

I’m re-watching Good Omens for the umpteenth time and I noticed something about the scene when Crowley and Aziraphale go to the former convent to try to find out what happened to the real anti-christ. 

As far as Crowley is concerned, this place is still run by satanic nuns, which means it is still very much a place that Hell is in contact with, and it probably wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to expect another demon or two to be lurking around somewhere on the premises. 

So Crowley puts on a show. 

His usual manner of tempting is so much more subtle than what we see when he visits the convent with Aziraphale. Kicking down doors for no reason? Unnecessary force isn’t really Crowley’s style...but it is very much Hell’s style. Replacing paint guns with real guns? That’s the sort of thing Hell would expect to see from a demon, but not the sort of thing Crowley normally does. And Aziraphale is shocked! I think if those were the sorts of stunts Crowley normally pulled, Aziraphale wouldn’t be quite so caught off guard. 

After a few minutes, Crowley relents and reassures Aziraphale that no humans are actually getting hurt: “Oh, all right, no one’s actually going to get killed. They’re all having miraculous escapes. It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.” You can practically hear the annoyance in his voice. Since Crowley has been pretty clear on many occasions that he doesn’t really like harming humans, I don’t think he’s annoyed that Aziraphale won’t “let” him actually kill people. I think he’s annoyed that Aziraphale is making him admit his softness out loud. And, like most of the the communication in this story, I think the actual message is not so much in the words that are spoken, but in the ones which aren’t: Aziraphale, I am putting on a show. I haven’t changed. I’m still the same person underneath, but Hell expects me to act a certain way and so I am putting on a show. 

But Aziraphale clearly doesn’t get that message, because he says (out loud! for any old demon to hear!) that Crowley is nice. Nice. 

And, sure, we can talk about how physically close they are, we can talk about where Aziraphale points his eyes, we can talk about the familiar trust between the two, we can talk about the intimacy all we want, but none of that erases the urgency in Crowley’s voice. 

It isn’t an objection--it’s a reminder. Crowley needs Aziraphale to catch on to what’s happening, and he needs him to do it now. He is usually lenient and indulgent towards Aziraphale, and clearly Aziraphale is used to the only real consequence being an eye roll, but Crowley can’t be lenient and indulgent now, because if Aziraphale doesn’t get with the program, the consequences will be far worse than an eye roll. 

It’s sort of brilliant, though, in a heartbreaking way, that Crowley is so adept at pretending in this particular way that he is able to deliver this message to Aziraphale without making Aziraphale feel threatened or unsafe in any way, while still managing to give the appearance (for anyone from Hell that may happen to be looking) that he is appropriately roughing up this angel, that they are not friends, that he is a very wily demon, indeed. 

(And the fluffy part of me likes to think that Crowley takes this moment to send a second message to any potentially lurking demons: Nobody needs to pay any attention to this angel. I’m already dealing with him. No need to touch him. No need to come near him.)

I love that when Sister Mary Loquacious comes along and calls the moment out as what it is, Aziraphale’s eyes linger on Crowley for a moment before turning to see the newcomer. The desire seems so close to the surface in that moment. But I also wonder if this is proof that Aziraphale finally got the message. He realizes that he was acting in a way that made Crowley uncomfortable, and he is determined not to do that anymore. He observes Crowley’s reaction carefully so that he can follow Crowley’s lead and act accordingly. 

Because the thing is, Aziraphale does understand the importance of keeping up appearances. He puts on the very same show for Heaven. Maybe he didn’t recognize that’s what was going on right away (after all, he said the place felt loved, and he is thoroughly convinced that demons can’t love, so it probably doesn’t even cross his mind to think that this place could still be associated with Hell), but he understands it now, and that’s what matters.

But then, can you imagine this instant from Crowley’s point of view? imagine the absolute terror he must have felt when someone saw through his carefully-donned charade and called him out for being intimate with an angel. And then to see her, and realize that this is not just a random human-- this is a human who is connected to Hell-- who very much had the power to ensure that unspeakable things happened to Crowley, happened to Aziraphale, if she so much as said a word to the right (wrong?) people. I think its telling that his first instinct in his moment of panic is to prevent her from talking. 

And, yeah, Aziraphale says it was unnecessary to put her in such a trance, that they could have just asked her to help them, but it is also Aziraphale who suggests that she will awake having dreamt of whatever she likes best, which is very angelic-sounding on the surface, of course, but what’s left unspoken is what she won’t remember: an angel and a demon caught in an unacceptably intimate moment. It’s almost like Aziraphale is covering his tracks, or at least like he’s trying to show Crowley that he’s on the same page now...except that suddenly, Crowley doesn’t seem phased anymore. In hearing that the order dissolved and the records burned, Crowley also heard the unspoken implication: this is no longer Hell’s turf. And Crowley visibly relaxes. He walks and talks with Aziraphale just like normal. He ignores the humans completely. He no longer has to pretend to be something he is not. 

#good omens #good omens meta #gomens #crowley #Aziraphale #aziraphale and crowley #hell #sister mary loquacious #flash bastard #good omens wall slam #anxious demon #oblivious angel

[brightwanderer]

Untitled Stardew Omens Fic (3)

(Index)

Spring 12

It's Friday, and somehow two weeks have passed, and Crowley's still here in the valley that high-speed broadband forgot. The house is at least more comfortable now, with its pleasant smell of new wood; the plumbing's been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era, and he has taken delivery of an enormous and extremely comfortable double bed. The old one has been turned into kindling as a warning to the other furniture.

It's worth the investment, he tells himself. If he wants to sell the place he'll need to get it looking like it at least could be someone's dream getaway to the country. One day. If you squint.

He glances at the kitten currently asleep on his pillow. There are at least four other places the kitten could be sleeping, but with unerring determination he's chosen the one place Crowley would rather he didn't. This is, Crowley is given to understand from the large amount of cat research he's been doing, entirely normal.

(Crowley has never owned a pet, unless you count his houseplants, which he doesn't, personally, because if he did he'd have to feel guilty about the way he treats them.)

It's Friday, and somehow two weeks have passed, and Crowley is, to his own surprise, rather in the mood for some company. He hasn't ventured out to the village pub yet, but he supposes it's a good night to try it out. He checks the kitten's food and water, pauses to pet the adorable soft little ears, then heads into town.

The pub is surprisingly full, for a given value of full. Everyone looks at him when he opens the door; Crowley is reminded of old Westerns, half-expects somebody to pull a pistol on him, but all that happens is that Gus calls a hello, and a couple of other people nod, and then everyone carries on like he isn't even there.

Which is... fine. Absolutely fine. It's not like he wanted to be deluged with small talk. But at the same time, if he wanted to sit alone he'd have stayed at home. He heads for the bar, and that's when he spots Aziraphale perched further along it on a stool, eating olives and chatting to the blue-haired woman with the interesting wardrobe choices. He catches Crowley's eye, smiles, and waves, and Crowley decides that will do as an invitation. He saunters over to that end of the bar, and to his relief, Aziraphale looks quite pleased about it.

"How's your kitten getting along?" asks the blue-haired woman as Crowley fetches up leaning against the bar. What was her name? Adelie? Amy? "I heard from Marnie you decided to keep him."

Gossip travels faster in this town than it does in the Joja Co Legal Division, and that's saying something.

"Yeah, might as well," Crowley mumbles, wondering if they have any decent wine this place. "Keep the... the mice and so on out of my barn."

"I didn't know you had a barn out there," says Possibly-Amy with some interest. "Thought it was just the house and all those weeds—"

"Well. I mean. I don't. Yet. But I might, one day. Uh." Crowley glances desperately between her and Aziraphale. "Anything good to drink here?"

"I was just about to order a glass of Chateauneuf du Pape myself," Aziraphale replies obligingly. "Gus has some lovely bottles in—"

"Sounds good to me."

Aziraphale beams like Crowley has paid him a compliment.

"Make it a bottle, then, would you, Emily dear?"

Emily, right, Crowley thinks, determined not to be caught out again. He's always been careful about remembering names, but then, he's always had them written down somewhere, on court documents or name badges or internal memos. It turns out it's harder to keep track when someone shouts a hello at you from halfway across a field.

"So, what did you name him?" Aziraphale asks as Emily moves off to search among the bottles. Crowley blinks. "The kitten," Aziraphale elaborates in the face of his obvious confusion.

"Er." Crowley suddenly deeply regrets his choice of name. It seemed like a fun little joke at the time, but the prospect of repeating it to someone else makes him cringe slightly. He tells a half-truth instead. "It's, uh, Freddie."

"Oh, that's nice!" Aziraphale says, without a trace of sarcasm. "Do you know, I once knew someone who had a cat called Mouse, and I never did manage to get to the bottom of why."

Crowley laughs before he can stop himself, delighted by Aziraphale's expression of deep bewilderment and regret, like this is the greatest failure of his life. Aziraphale smiles back at him, and Crowley feels a sudden and unexpected desire to get to know him better.

Well, he has to start somewhere with this whole getting to know the locals thing, right? Even if he doesn't stay past the end of the season, it'll help with sorting things out down the line...

Emily brings a bottle of deep red wine and two glasses. Crowley pours for both of them with practiced ease, and settles in for a half hour or so of conversation before he can make his excuses and leave.

(They end up getting hustled out by Gus at closing time, Crowley gets lost three times on the way back to the farm, and Freddie the kitten is still asleep on his pillow when he finally gets home, which he discovers when he flops into bed and gets his nose bitten in protest. It's still the most fun Crowley's had since he got here.

... since a long time before, too, if he's honest.)

#untitled stardew omens fic #stardew omens #good omens #I'm going to need to do an index aren't I #sigh #reminder that this is based on the amazing mod by thunderheadfred #fanfic #my fic

[tiredandineffable]

Kinda Warm, Very Nice

Summary: Aziraphale reads out loud and Crowley can't help it if the warmth of his voice and his touch make him drift off. Established relationship fluff. 

…………………….

Crowley, despite coming straight from Hell, has never felt warmer in his life. In fact, he’d argue that Hell has never been warm so much as it has been excruciatingly hot. Hell is like being at your grandma’s house during the summer, having to deal with an air conditioner that hasn’t seen maintenance since 1963. It’s sweaty and humid and gross like an overcrowded swamp filled with your least favourite people. Crowley spends as little time down there as he can.

No, right now, Crowley is pleasantly warm. It’s like wearing a hand knit sweater in front of a lit fireplace, knowing everything outside is cold as shit but you’re inside, safe and comfortable. It’s like falling asleep on Aziraphale’s upstairs window seat with the warmth of the sun on your face. It’s the exact same feeling he gets when he sees Aziraphale excited about some book or other. A sort of...reassured nice feeling.

Exactly the sort of thing he would have scoffed at even just a few weeks ago.

He can’t help it though. Aziraphale’s fingers are so soft as they run through his hair, carding gently and scratching lightly at his scalp. His words almost feel the same way his touch does: cozy, like they’re physically daring him to close his eyes and forget about everything. He likes this, this little thing they’ve started. It gives Aziraphale a chance to share his favourite books with Crowley without Crowley getting ridiculously distracted by every minor detail (as was usually the case when he tried to read books himself). It gives Crowley a chance to listen to books without having to bother with audiobooks (which he hates, because somehow they all circle back to him having to use a computer and he absolutely refuses to do so. He knows they don’t work. That was one of his jobs). Plus there’s the fact that its a shared activity, sort of intimate in a way, and completely theirs. Crowley doesn’t acknowledge that last part yet. Baby steps.

“Well...may I propose to you now?” Aziraphale reads in one voice. And then it shifts, something lighter, a little vapid. “I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you.”

Crowley especially likes the voices. So many of these books and plays and pieces of prose are dear to Aziraphale’s heart. He’d known their creators, inspired them and spoke with them and loved them so it was only right that the characters themselves were nearly individuals in Aziraphale’s mind, each with mannerisms Aziraphale somehow brought into the readings. At first Crowley had worried that he’d never be enough for Aziraphale, never be quite like the poets who’d written him love letters or the authors who had dedicated characters or entire novels to him. Aziraphale had picked up on that insecurity so quickly and banished it just as fast, kissing Crowley until he nearly forgot his own name before breaking it to rest his forehead against his and inform him that none of them could ever know him quite the way Crowley does.

“Gwendolen!”

His lips twitch a bit, both at the memory and at the exaggerated way Aziraphale reads the lines. The angel never lets the animation of his reading translate to his touch, and his fingers remain soft, moving about Crowley’s hair in their usually, steady way. Between Aziraphale’s voice and his ghostly touch, Crowley lets himself shut down a bit. They’ve saved the world, scared off Heaven and Hell. No one left to fight. He feels his eyelids droop, lets his guard down.

“Yes, Mr. Worthing, what have you got to say to me?”

It’s an animated scene, one of the defining ones in this comedy, but Crowley is warm and Aziraphale is essentially petting him like some sort of lap dog and the demon wonders how he didn’t notice for almost six thousand years that Aziraphale pronounces his vowels in the most melodic way possible.

Maybe that’s why they called angelic orders “Choirs”. He’s about to make a mental note to ask Aziraphale about that when the thought slips away just as the aforementioned angel rubs the tense spot in Crowley’s neck with his thumb. Heaven has nothing on this. Heaven wishes it were as good as Crowley feels right now.

He doesn’t even notice that he’s drifted off until Aziraphale gives him the tiniest little squeeze on the shoulder.

“Dear?” he asks in a murmur. Crowley has to blink a few times to fully take in his surroundings but he notices the book set aside along with Aziraphale’s forgotten mug of tea. He must have been asleep for a good while because the sound of cars from the street has died down almost completely.

“Hmm?”

“I-If you don’t like the play, or if you don’t like my reading, you can just tell me,” the angel says, brows knit with a sort of self conscious worry that Crowley is still determined to help get rid of for good. In his sleepy state he wonders if he could just kiss it better. Maybe he should try. “It's just...you always fall asleep and I don’t really see the point in us continuing the reading if this is how it’ll be.”

Crowley sits up and he’s a mess of Aziraphale-induced bedhead and warm knit blankets but he feels like this is a sitting up conversation no matter what the cost of movement. He’s still up for kissing the angel until he feels better, but he should definitely address this first.

“S’not that. I like the reading.”

He’s less coherent than he’d like to be, but he’d been fully asleep less than two minutes ago, so he can’t be blamed.

“You always do though. Fall asleep, I mean,” Aziraphale explains. Oh no he’s fidgeting. This is serious. You’ve fucked up, Crowley.  

“It’s just...nice,” he says and he knows it sounds stupid and the words are woefully insufficient to explain how he actually feels, that warmth from before. He really can’t explain it any other way but nice. “You fiddle with my hair and your voice is soft and it’s always sort of late when we start reading.”

He’s just sleepy enough to be painfully honest, even if everything he’d just said would make a common demon shrivel. He’s definitely picked up too many habits from humans. He wraps the blanket a little tighter around him to keep out the evening chill.

“You’re certain then?” Aziraphale asks and unmistakably obvious that this is something Aziraphale struggles with, worrying his interests bore other people. Crowley, in his sleep addled state, makes a mental note to punch every single angel in Heaven next time he’s there. Regardless, he’s not going to let himself go back to sleep without Aziraphale feeling completely assured that Crowley wants this, looks forward to it, even.

“Yeah,” Crowley insists, leaning a bit against Aziraphale’s side. “Completely. The little thing you do with my scalp and the way you read, like you know the characters personally? Nice. The fact that this blanket smells like you even though I’m the only one who uses it? Nice. S’just a lot. Kinda warm. Like when you eat that melty chocolate cake you like from the bakery. Nice enough it blocks everything else out and I can stop worrying ‘bout the powers that be and can just...sleep.”

His words are a drowsy mishmash of different thoughts and feelings and sensations, all desperately trying to be defined within the limited syllables of the English language.

“It’s stupid, I know. It’s just the only time I’m okay enough to sleep,” he goes on, and he’s drooping against Aziraphale’s shoulder, knowing for a fact he can’t keep this conversation up much longer. But he’s nothing if not stubborn.

He’s about to attempt to explain again when he feels Aziraphale’s lips press to his forehead. The angel sighs before nuzzling his hair. “You should have told me, dear.”

The kiss to his forehead, the nose against his hair, he light hand on his back. It’s all so ridiculously tender that, had Crowley not been bonelessly melting back into Aziraphale’s lap, he would have thought to kiss him back. Instead, he decides, he’ll just enjoy the warmth and drift off.

#Ineffable Husbands #ineffable husbands fanfiction #ineffable husbands fic #ineffable idiots #Aziraphale #aziraphale/crowley #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #crowley #fluff #i write such fluff these days #absolute fluff #good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #good omens fic

[obaewankenope]

loved the absconding with harry update!!!! hc question: in CoS we saw harry *almost* get hurt by the basilisk and gets saved at the last minute - how would crowley and aziraphale respond if harry did get seriously hurt by something - on the one hand they can heal him without much trouble, but on the other hand that's gotta be terrifying, especially w how fragile humans are

Oh thank you nonnie! I'm glad you liked it!

That's actually a really good question! As I mentioned earlier in the series, some of their miracles might not work on Harry because of his magic. As a growing child with unharnessed magical ability (even as a student learning to harness it), the effect a miracle used to make Harry not notice them arguing could backfire in any number of ways if Harry's own magic dislikes the miracle. Although their miracles affect reality, magic is an aspect that isn't like the base plane that non-magicals live on. So whilst a regular person wouldn't really think much on it if they were miracled to not notice Aziraphale and Crowley bellowing in the street at each other, a magical person would know something isn't right and not be sure as to what.

Harry is magical so he definitely would know but wouldn't know how to handle it. Which is where the unharnessed magical ability comes in and could see him lashing out or something else.

Now considering that Crowley and Aziraphale don't much give any fucks for any of the adults in the magical world since they're all fucking moronic, they use miracles left and right on people like Fudge and Dumbledore etc. They're also in control of their magic so there's very little risk involved in miracling them to a rock in the middle of the Irish Sea (funny as fuck though) and Dumbledore ending up in space instead (oh but I wish). There's always a risk, of course, but since the miracles Aziraphale and Crowley use are close enough to magic proper... It doesn't really ping as a big enough risk for either of them to avoid miracles.

They perform miracles on the other kids too but those miracles are also very clear and direct. We don't see the way they envision the miracles, only the result, but like Crowley in second year when he wishes wrong for a split second, they use their imagination and can imagine the outcome if they so wish.

Because Harry is a trauma kid, he's much more prone to reacting to even the most slight miracle if his magic perceives it as a threat. But with Crowley and Aziraphale, he trusts them, so again the risk is less than if he didn't trust them.

And all of this affects how Harry would handle being injured by the basilisk and Crowley and Aziraphale treating him. Now, because Crowley was Raphael and a healer before he Fell, his miracles are... Not more suited to healing, but certainly it's easier for him to perform healing miracles without as many side effects as, say, Aziraphale.

So. Consider:

Harry gets, shall we say, bitten by the basilisk? It's not quite so severe a bite in terms of where it is, just the arm. But there's the venom and the anti-coagulation factor of the venom means he's bleeding fast and the venom is quickly affecting him.

Crowley is busy with the basilisk, absolutely fucking slamming it into the ground for daring to attack His Son! That leaves Aziraphale to handle Harry and that's not exactly... Ideal.

Now, Aziraphale isn't Weak by anyone's standards except Gabriel's, but Gabriel is a dick so we ignore him. But Aziraphale isn't a healer. That wasn't his speciality, it wasn't why he was made. He's got a nice flaming sword and no, that's not a euphemism, and can kill demons if so requested. But healing? Well. Takes a bit more nuance and skill with imagination than Aziraphale has, though it's still far more than almost any other angel and demon except Crowley. Obviously.

So Harry has Aziraphale to help him. Aziraphale who has very little idea of how healing is supposed to work but knows without a shadow-of-a-doubt that Harry needs to be healed Now. Or else there won't be anymore Harry. Can't have that now, can we?

The noise of Crowley beating the absolute shit out of a rather crazy basilisk is, naturally, distracting, but not so much as to really take Aziraphale away from the Important Healing Thing Right Here.

"Yo-you should get the o-others out," Harry gasps, looking at Aziraphale with wide, frightened eyes that do nothing to persuade Aziraphale to do that at all. "G-get them safe."

"And leave you here? Heavens no, never!" Aziraphale says and he's firm about it because, no, he's not leaving Harry behind. Not even if the basilisk was bearing down on them and Aziraphale was powerless. He won't leave this child, his child.

Magic and miracles are intertwined, obviously a decision by Her that Aziraphale greatly appreciates at the moment when he reaches out with his essence and probes the wound on Harry's arm.

It's... Not great.

It's rather awful, actually.

"T-that bad?" Harry laughs breathlessly and Aziraphale schools his face to an expression of determined control that few have seem him portray. Harry is the sixth human to see it and by far the most important.

"It—I won't lie, Harry," Aziraphale says, "I'm not the best at healing but you are not going to die here. I promise."

"Believe you," Harry says weakly, head lolling to the side as he grows weaker from the bloodloss and venom killing him. Aziraphale's heart swells at the trust Harry has in him, the faith, and it bolsters the angel's miracle as he presses his hands to the wound and wills the poisonous venom from it.

It resists, the venom, determined to do its nature to the fullest extent but, to Aziraphale, nature is optional, not necessary. Power wrestles with power but they're in different leagues entirely and Aziraphale refuses, refuses to let a bloody snake venom do what it's meant to do to Harry James Potter, the boy who lives in his bookshop. The boy who smiles in unguarded delight when Aziraphale shows him a new book. The child who hugs Aziraphale with honest affection when the angel praises him.

No.

Nothing in this world will take that child from him.

Nothing in heaven, either, he thinks privately, and perhaps it's that thought that finally, finally, pushes the venom into compliance. Maybe.

Harry shakes violently as the venom streams out of the wound on his arm, dispelling into the air with the sort of sickly smell something particularly disgusting has. Like tar from a cigarette. Or fifty of them.

The moment the venom is out of Harry's body, Aziraphale immediately focuses on healing the wound but this is where he encounters problems. The venom was interfering with Harry's magic, making it possible for Aziraphale to perform a miracle with no absolute picture of the end result beyond Venom Be Gone. Now it's out of his system, Aziraphale finds Harry's magic is reacting to his attempts to heal him.

A sharp sting of electricity runs through Aziraphale's body at such an intensity it would probably kill a mortal. As it is, it makes the angel hiss out a pained sound before he chooses to ignore it.

"You're gonna hurt yourself more, angel."

Aziraphale doesn't shriek in surprise at Crowley's voice right next to him but only because he's focused on Harry. He does look up at the demon with a wide-eyed look of surprise that Crowley takes in with burning gold eyes, nods, and pulls Aziraphale's hands away from Harry's arm before replacing them with his own.

"Check the others, I'll fix this, angel," Crowley says and Aziraphale believes him.

He believes Crowley would turn the sun off if it would save Harry no matter how impossible that ought to be either.

Faith is a strong tool indeed but so too is trust.

The strongest of them all is, of course, love, but what demon would ever admit he runs on love to an angel born of it?

Not for a good decade or so at least.

#Good Omens #GOmens #Harry Potter #Absconding with Harry verse #Prompts #Thank you nonnie! #Nonnie talk

[lady-divine-writes]

Truth (Part 2 of 2)

Summary:

Anxiety causes Crowley to change into his demonic form. But when he can't remember how to change back, Aziraphale helps, fighting truth with truth.

(AO3)

“What time is our reservation again, my dear?” Aziraphale asks from outside Crowley’s locked office door. Aziraphale knows what time their reservation is. It’s 8:30. Crowley has reminded him numerous times, going so far as to leave a plethora of messages around his shop written in midnight black ink on red Post-It paper that not a single soul with working eyes could ignore. They’re stuck to his teapot, his chair, his curio cabinet; they’ve even made their way inside his books so that the few customers he’s had this past week have actually taken it upon themselves to remind him, too, as they paid for their purchases.

All very unnecessary seeing as demon and angel have started living together now.

One would be hard pressed to tell that seeing as Aziraphale’s presence in Crowley’s flat has been limited so far in its representation. But it’s there in subtle ways – a rare book here, a miniature oil painting there, a few tartan items on Crowley’s dresser in the bedroom, a bottle of his favorite spirits in the fridge, a box of biscuits in the cupboard, those sorts of things. The time they don’t spend in Crowley’s flat they spend together in Aziraphale’s bookshop, absolutely surrounded by those crimson Post-Its. So there’s no way Aziraphale could have forgotten.

But it seems Crowley has, making a beeline for his office the second they’d gotten in and locking the door. Aziraphale assumed he wanted to give his plants a decent misting before they went out, though that doesn’t explain his locking the door. But he’s been inside for hours, and Aziraphale can’t seem to get him out.

“Uh … 8:30,” Crowley replies, his voice muffled by the thick door between them. “Why?”

“Well, it’s 7:45 now, so I figure we should get a wiggle on? You know, to wherever it is you’re taking us? Though considering the way you drive, it will likely take us only three-and-a-half seconds to get there. But I would like to, just this once, go to dinner without putting the fear of God into anyone.”

That last comment is bait. Any other time it would succeed in luring his demon out of hiding so Crowley can inform him that he doesn’t put the fear of God into anyone, and that that saying is a side-effect of societal conditioning. Besides, if a life-or-death situation puts the fear of God into someone over the fear of Satan, then that should say a thing or two about God, shouldn’t it?

But Crowley doesn’t rise to the challenge, not even with so much as a huff.

“I’ll just be another moment,” Crowley says. “I’m wrapping up a few things.”

“Okay.” Aziraphale sighs and backs away from the door. “I’ll be in the kitchen having a brandy when you’re ready. Please, don’t take too long.”

Too long? It’s only been 6000 years! That’s not too long, is it? “I won’t, angel.”

Crowley stands by the door, listening to Aziraphale’s footsteps pad off down the hallway. He waits till he can no longer hear them, then sneaks out of his office and heads to the bedroom. He’s not dressed for dinner. Not an inch, but that’s not a concern. He doesn’t own a single outfit he can’t toss on in less than a second.

He’d gone to his office to prepare for tonight, to grab something important – no, something essential. But when he found it, it triggered a minor anxiety attack, which steadily became a major anxiety attack the longer he looked at it.

Now he’s trapped in the midst of a full blown existential crisis on what should be one of the most important nights of their lives.

He hurries through the bedroom and into the bathroom where his ensemble for the evening hangs on the back of the door, waiting for him to put it on. It took him over a week to pick it out - ludicrous since he doesn’t have much in the way of variety in his wardrobe. Black on black with a few articles of dark grey, some trimmed in red - that’s all he owns.

Shocking.

And for a demon about to propose to an angel, a creature of love and kindness and light, that’s pretty pathetic.

Aziraphale deserves beauty, Crowley thinks as he puts on his somber clothes. He deserves rainbows and sunshine and starlight.

Starlight.

Crowley could give him starlight at least … couldn’t he? He gave starlight to the world. He should be able to give it to Aziraphale.

He looks down at his hands, but he can’t bring himself to snap his fingers.

He can’t bring himself to try and fail.

No. He can’t give Aziraphale starlight. Not now. Not as a demon.

As an angel, he could, but as a demon, what can he do?

He can show him affection in the shallow way humans do, by showering him with lavish gifts. That would be easy for him, take no effort whatsoever. But Aziraphale isn’t impressed by those things. $18,000 watches, expensive cars and clothes don’t impress him. Everything Crowley owns has a designer label attached and Aziraphale has never once batted an eye.

He’s been wearing the exact same coat for over a hundred-and-eighty years, for Satan’s sake! His glasses might actually be older!

Even the restaurant Crowley is taking them to tonight – the finest new French restaurant he could find in London, with an exclusive guest list and lines around the corner – won’t likely impress him.

And if the crepes are crap, he’ll write it off completely, even if the flatware is gold-plated.

Aziraphale relishes the things that show Crowley cares, that he listens when he talks, that he pays attention to his tastes: old books, classical music, trips to the museum, food. He’s filled his bookshop with quaint personal touches – cherubs and teacups and snuff boxes collected throughout the centuries. He didn’t hunt them down and buy them in the present, shelling out hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for them. He bought them from the original artists and kept them safe. Some of the keepsakes in his shop are worth thousands; some are worth nothing. But they’re there because he loves them, and that makes them priceless.

Crowley’s flat is cold and impersonal in comparison, the few things he owns priceless in dollar value, but honestly, most of it means nothing to him.

It’s there for show.

He flips the collar of his shirt, changing it from red to tartan in Aziraphale’s own personal pattern. It’s a little thing, but Aziraphale would appreciate that … wouldn’t he?

Is it enough?

Crowley looks at himself in the mirror and grimaces. Yup. There he is, looking exactly the way he always fucking does - like a Goddamned serial killer, except now he has a plucky tartan collar.

“What the bloody fuck am I doing?” he growls at his reflection. “Aziraphale’s an angel! He’s handsome and smart and witty and fun! He inspires humanity to be better! Who am I compared to that? I’ll tell you who I am - I’m a bitter old snake who drives too fast and yells at plants! He deserves better than me!” Crowley shakes his head, sinking further and further with every turn of his cheek into the mire of his own self-hatred. “He doesn’t know what I am. Not really.”

But if Aziraphale did, he wouldn’t turn away. He wouldn’t leave. Crowley knows this. That’s not who Aziraphale is. He would stand beside Crowley to his own destruction. Marriage to Crowley could most definitely destroy him, if for no other reason that it would put a big, red bullseye on his back for every supernatural entity to see, good or evil.

They’ve managed to keep Heaven and Hell off their backs, but how long can that last?

Aziraphale would say forever, but Crowley doesn’t have much in the way of faith.

Crowley has been lying to everyone. He’s been lying to Hell about what he’s been doing, lying to himself that he’s worthy of his angel.

Lying to Aziraphale, which is the biggest sin of them all.

It’s not so much a lie, he assures himself, but an omission. It never came up, so he never told. Is that really the same thing?

He snarls at his face in the mirror.

Fuck! Is he really trying to loophole his way out of this one? To himself?

He chuckles humorlessly. Of course I am. I’m a demon. That’s what I do.

And because he’s so good at it, Aziraphale is lying, too.

Corruption. It’s contagious.

And regardless of the money he’s accumulated, the status he holds, the power he has, that’s all he can give his angel.

Corruption.

“He thinksss that, deep down, I’m a good perssson,” he hisses. “Becaussse he’sss never ssseen true Evil!” A flashback of Satan rising through the asphalt pops into his head as if in response to that remark. He shakes his head. “Not wearing the face of sssomeone he lovesss! He trusssts me too much! He’sss making a missstake! He doesssn’t believe I can be all that bad!” Crowley swallows hard, swallows down the power swelling within him, that’s called to the surface whenever he gets angry. “Well, if he refussses to believe, I’ll ssshow him! He’ll sssee!”

With a snap of his fingers, he transforms. Wings tear his shirt, ripping through it like paper. His skin goes grey, falls from his frame in chunks revealing maggots underneath. His fingernails grow and curve unto themselves, tips piercing his flesh. Muscles bulge unsightly, joints crack. Feathers fall from his wings till they’re skeletal, the graceful arches bending like wire. His face elongates, hollows at the cheeks, his eyes going black and sinking into their sockets.

The next time he dares look at his face, he’s unrecognizable.

He doesn’t change into this form often. He’s too fond of the human façade he’s created for himself. Every time he changes, he fears he won’t be able to go back. But this is him. And if Aziraphale is dead set and determined to convince himself that he’s in love with a demon, then he needs to see Crowley for who he is.

Crowley stares at himself in the mirror, takes a good long look so that he’ll stop forgetting, stop convincing himself he’s something he’s not.

He can only stand it for a second, then he turns away.

Yes, this demon is him, but it’s also not him. Not entirely. Not anymore. And not for a long time. He might hate that this is the real form of the demon Crowley, but he has to give himself credit for the good that he’s done, intentionally or otherwise. The good that he is.

The parts of him that Aziraphale loves, which seems to be all of him, good or bad.

He sighs, ragged breaths issuing from holes in his lungs and filling up his entire chest cavity, ringing through it like the wind howling through a dead wood log. He knows he has to tell Aziraphale, but not now. He can’t do it now. He doesn’t have the strength. He’s already tapping every inch of his energy to get through this proposal.

He doesn’t know how he could land two weights of equal mass on Aziraphale’s shoulders in one night and expect him to stick around.

Of course, he should probably drop this one on him first, but the demon in him consistently convinces him that’s a bad idea.

And the cowardice in his subconscious tends to agree.

“All right,” he says, his voice an octave lower, grinding in his throat as if drug over nails and rocks. “We’re done pitying ourselves for now. Let’s be done with this, and propose to our angel.”

He snaps his fingers again, picturing, as best he can, his human face in his head.

But nothing happens.

That’s not entirely true. He swears he sees a bright white light. It actually stops his heart for a second since he assumes Aziraphale has miracled his way in, but it’s not his angel. A glance around the room proves that he’s still alone.

And he’s still a mess.

He tries again. He snaps his fingers. No white light this time, so that must have been an illusion, but nothing else changes. Only now, the image of his face in his head has begun to fade.

He snaps and snaps until the skin on his fingers starts to peel away, but not a bit of him goes back to normal.

But what is normal? He’s having a difficult time remembering.

“Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!” he mumbles, going about this a different way and attacking himself instead. He tugs at his wings, digs his nails into his arms, his face, trying to tear through the rotting flesh to the human skin he prays lies underneath.

But it doesn’t.

There’s not an inch of good or healthy or wholesome within him. It’s an illusion. All an illusion. An armor he uses to blend in, deceive. An armor he’s grown to rely on as much as he relies on Aziraphale.

And he doesn’t know how to get it back.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #Frankie writes

[primrose-path-of-dalliance]

let’s talk about aziraphale’s self-delusion!

so, i originally wrote the following analysis in response to this post’s reblog. but as notes rarely seem to get looked at, i’ve decided to post it on its own (with some additions/minor edits and relevant screenshots).

(to thesis the op: i enjoyed a lot how the good omens tv show characterized aziraphale as someone trying to maintain the best of two worlds—loyalty to heaven and the archangels, and his relationship with crowley—while in denial about the contradictions and dilemmas inherent in trying to maintain it. it’s the good omens tv show that has the figure of “good” unable to accept his desire for love and companionship, and the figure of “evil” comfortable with freely offering those to him.

@jacquez45 specifically brought up the idea that aziraphale’s reluctance to be close to crowley had a lot more to do with his fear of punishment from heaven (namely Falling) than a sense of identity as an angel. i disagreed.)

part of my perspective on aziraphale’s “blind loyalty” is that, well, it’s a blindfold that he has tied on himself. i didn’t quite elaborate on it in the original post, but i view aziraphale throughout the show as continually operating on multiple levels of awareness. he knows that the potential consequences for disobeying (Falling, the cruelty of heaven) are severe. and that in itself does raise doubts in him. but doubt is bad, and so he ties on the blindfold and smothers his doubts, pretending that his increasing laxness isn’t exactly that.

i don’t quite agree that it’s fear of the punishment motivating him. if it was, i think aziraphale would display a much stronger strictness of self-regulation and an openness about that fear. despite his numerous interactions with crowley on-screen, we almost never see aziraphale allude to the possibility of Falling so much as his sense of identity as “the angel.”

considering how he still brings up crowley’s risking destruction, it wouldn’t be out of bounds for aziraphale—who is and has always been, since he gave away his sword and worried over whether it was right to a demon, rather self-preoccupied and vocal about it—to bring up a Fall as a deterrent to crowley once he realized their relationship was more meaningful than a long con.

as for the archangels, he definitely tip-toes around them, but outside of them? he collaborates with a demon, indulges in vices, and has (in his heart of hearts) become a bit static in his role as an angel. although we see crowley doing an assortment of hellish deeds (the M25, the london mobile phone lines, the paintball guns), the most we see from aziraphale in terms of heavenly duties in the relative present is “thwarting” the antichrist, an act in stretching logic and bounds so aziraphale can feel secure in acting in his self-interest.

it’s not the archangels that decide whether an angel Falls. otherwise, he would have by the end of the show. the determiner is god, who is all-knowing and all-powerful and absolutely would be aware of aziraphale’s every doings and thoughts. if Falling were such an important concern to him, self-vigilance would have to be a constant presence in his behavior.

yet aziraphale lounges in his bookshop whiling away the days, trying to discourage encounters with the very people he was put on the planet to inspire, drinking wine and indulging in human foods.

and being best friends with a demon.

essentially: the huge conflict in aziraphale’s arc isn’t fear of Falling, which could come anywhere at any time if he slipped far enough (and thus overcoming that fear), it’s his numerous self-delusions in pursuit of sameness and stability.

his costume design is always decades or centuries out of date with articles of clothing he’s kept for even longer. the ways he is persuaded to deviate from the ideal angelic path are to preserve the human indulgences he enjoys, both big (the apocalypse to preserve his earthly life) and small (using his arrangement with crowley to stay at the globe to help shakespeare instead of performing his assigned duty, indirectly lying about the purpose of his “bookshop” to preserve his collection). in the rejections and reasons he puts to voice, part of what blocks him from a close relationship with crowley is this slowness (“you go too fast for me”) in a show written deliberately as a love story.

most importantly, he continually puts to voice what is expected of him as an angel while falling short of it in reality. this suggests that his concerns are not actually with reality, and the possible consequences of such, but with his internal sense of self and comfort.

(addition: i didn’t elaborate on the above images in the op, but i will here. it’s a clear example of a characterizing moment where aziraphale asserts a boundary based on his ideal sense of self—his angelic status and thus unfriendliness to a demon—while then contradicting it in practice by smiling and offering politely for crowley to enter first, notably instead of being literally “behind” aziraphale. as early as it is in the show, this exchange also functions as an establishing moment for his character and their relationship, and the ironic juxtaposition makes clear how aziraphale’s more direct statements of identity don’t often align with his behavior.

(importantly as well, the turning point of aziraphale’s arc, in which he finally decides to reject heaven’s orders in favor of saving earth, has nothing to do with Falling. rather, it is his acceptance of two things:

(how he fails to live up to being the ideal angel...

(... and how he is ultimately of the same stock as the demons, and thus crowley, which would allow him to possess a human. a rather demonic action for an angel to do.

(what allows aziraphale to overcome the obstacle to his happy ending is his acceptance that there is, in fact, little difference between angels and demons.)

further points in aziraphale’s character design that allude to his preoccupations with the “unsaid” and “unthought” is his tendency to avoid directly acknowledging what discomforts him and to communicate through subtext.

in the globe theatre flashback, early in the creation of the arrangement, he takes offense to what crowley is “implying” and insists that he not refer to it as the arrangement it is. and when he manipulates crowley into taking the trip to edenburgh, he doesn’t actually say anything.

he merely takes the opportunity to look at him significantly...

... and then pretends to accept crowley’s favor as a generous and unforeseen offer instead of a deliberate result of his asking.

this happens again in a similar manner in the present, when they’re hit by paintballs in the ex-nunnery courtyard and crowley miracles the paint from his jacket for him. again, aziraphale doesn’t acknowledge crowley’s affection by making a direct request; only plies the gesture from him through suggestion and a look.

in the st james’s park meeting over holy water, too, aziraphale refers to their relationship as “fraternising,” even though the resulting spat makes it clear that their relationship is (whether acknowledged or not) rather more than that. and the conversation in the car in the 1960s is (rather famously in fandom) all about the subtext.

this is where aziraphale directly does something for crowley, giving him holy water, that very clearly makes him uncomfortable.

crowley asks him if he should say “thank you,” an acknowledgment of the favor and how significant it is.

aziraphale says, “better not,” a rejection of the thanks even as the choice of words softens the rejection itself.

not only because heaven would dislike the act happening here. but because aziraphale dislikes it out of fear that crowley will kill himself with the holy water. and that means he cares for crowley. the conflict over the holy water is the closest that aziraphale comes in the past we see to voicing how much he values their relationship.

and in the end, he couches it in crowley’s offers to give him a lift.

this avoidance is particularly on display in the bandstand scene, the climactic moment of their relationship in which crowley directly addresses the strength of their relationship. he asks aziraphale to run away with him. he states outright that they’ve been friends for 6000 years.

and aziraphale freaks out.

(addition: see again that re-assertion of their angel and demon identities!)

he not only dives headfirst into blatant denial, he deliberately pushes crowley away in a similar manner to the “fraternising” line by revealing that he’s known where the antichrist is for a while and has avoided telling him so because they’re on opposite sides—when for the longest time, as crowley says, they have both acted far more as if they’re on their own side.

i do agree that aziraphale is frightfully aware of the possibility of Falling. but i don’t think it’s a main motivator for his behavior, so much as one out of many truths that he puts so much effort into ignoring.

aziraphale’s primary conflict throughout the show is not fear of Falling. it’s that he has a deeply-held image of what kind of person he is and the kinds of things he does that are dissonant with reality. and his efforts to maintain and ignore that dissonance create problems once the stress of the impending apocalypse causes that precarious balance to collapse.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #good omens meta #good omens analysis #good omens spoilers #prim post #prim says some things #long post #readmore #bc this post is even longer than the op :') #it's been bothering me for so long that hardly anyone read this shjdfgdkgfh so here it is as a somewhat-standalone

[obaewankenope]

Uhm. Have you considered: Crowley keeps shooting himself in the foot with his evil deeds bc he's bad at being evil and the only evil deeds he can come up with are things he can brainstorm a la: '... so what would ruin MY day'

You see, this is where I Really Relate to Crowley because I too always do things that end up fucking me over and not anyone else *looks at hand wrapped up and bruised foot*. When I was like 7 or sth I tried to get my oldest brother to stand on a long ass screw that I’d strategically placed on the stairs but then my mother called for me and I forgot where said screw was and stood on it instead. It was a milimetre from the bone in my foot lmao and they had to literally unscrew it from my foot so like, yeah, Crowley and I are definitely relateable. That said:

[AO3]

.

“Listen, angel, I’ve figured it out!” Crowley says and Aziraphale looks at him with a mild ‘yes dear, that’s great dear’ expression that is not at all out of place on a married spouse dealing with their eccentric partner. It has been a common expression worn by the pair of them over the past six thousand years of their acquaintance, for obvious reasons.

“Figured what out?”

“How to be better at being evil!” Crowley grins widely at Aziraphale who, by this point, is now mildly intrigued and a little bit horrified at Crowley’s thought process. Whatever that process happens to be. 

“I’m oddly curious about this now but also—I do feel a little apprehensive about your… solution, whatever that may be,” Aziraphale says and Crowley gives him a haughty look not unlike a bird that’s just been dunked in a bath because it’s covered in dirt and liked being covered in dirt but is not allowed to be covered in dirt.

“It’s a brilliant solution and you’ll find it’s going to work brilliantly!”

Aziraphale hums. “But my dear Crowley,” he says, “evil always contains the seed of its own destruction.”

Crowley shakes his head, grinning. “Not this time angel,” he replies, tongue flicking out without any real awareness of the action. It captures Aziraphale’s attention—as it always does. “This time there’s no self-destructing happening!”

Aziraphale drops the matter after that but—if he is entirely honest—he is more concerned than ever because Crowley refuses to tell him what the solution is and thus the angel is left to wonder what sort of catastrophe is about to occur because of the demon’s antics. He is, also, a little bit excited to see what the wiley serpent has thought up.

..

Crowley doesn’t show up at the bookshop for a week. Aziraphale tries not to panic about it since—well—they had thwarted the apocalypse, both got downgraded to even lesser underlings than they’d been beforehand and Crowley was sometimes forced to go abroad unexpectedly to perform this or that temptation. It’s fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

When one week turns into two, Aziraphale decides to panic. It’s a fruitless sort of panic, more dithering than actually productive, but it’s panic nonetheless and he engages in the very human habit of flapping his hands while pacing in his bookshop and conjuring up all sorts of reasons for why Crowley hasn’t spoken to him.

After week three, Aziraphale goes to the flat and miracles his way inside.

There he finds Crowley, curled up on his bed, asleep. As a bloody snake!

“Crowley!" 

The snake rolls and flops away from Aziraphale, eyes opening comically wide as it lets out a string of hissed curses and promptly falls off the bed as part of its own body serves as a weight for gravity to exert itself upon.

"Crowley what are you playing at?” Aziraphale near shouts, hands waving wildly about him in an expression of honest frustration that is plagued with hurt. “You decide to have a nap and don’t think to tell me! After everything that’s happened? The apocalypse! Heaven! Hell! I know you act impulsively at times, Crowley, but this was thoughtlessly cruel of you!”

Crowley’s head appears over the side of the bed he’s just fallen off, hair askew and eyes wide still. In his human form, Aziraphale notices that the demon looks—for want of a better word—a mess. 

“‘Was the point,” the demon says awkwardly. Crowley clambours to his feet, wobbling a little on one leg as though he’s not quite used to having them anymore. Aziraphale wonders, quite suddenly, if the demon has been a snake for the past three weeks. It seems quite likely. 

“It was the point,” the angel repeats. “The point of not even having the courtesy to leave me a note or call the shop was to be cruel?” Crowley—not looking at Aziraphale—nods. “Why?”

The demon shifts on his feet, hands shoved in pockets too small for such long hands and Aziraphale watches the thumbs work at the material of the jeans a little worriedly. It seems, shockingly, that Crowley is very uncomfortable with this confrontation.

That is unfortunate for Crowley but Aziraphale will have answers.

“Figured that since I always fuck myself over when doing evil, made sense to do something that my life worse at the same time,” the demon mutters, still avoiding Aziraphale’s gaze.

The angel lets out a huff of frustration. “And how did it make your life worse, exactly?” he asks in as measured a tone as he can manage. It’s not very measured but at least he’s trying. “Sleeping for three weeks and comfortable in the knowledge that you at least know where I am doesn’t quite sound as bad as having no idea where the only person you’re friends with is for three weeks, does it now?”

So measured is not within his range of emotional control right now; Crowley always does cause Aziraphale issues with his control. For a variety of reasons. Feeling honestly hurt is a relatively new reason and—if he’s quite honest—not one Aziraphale cares for.

“Sorry angel,” Crowley says, glancing up at Aziraphale and wincing before looking away again. “Won’t happen again.”

Aziraphale must have quite the Unhappy Expression on his usually friendly features for the demon to be acting so contrite.

“You didn’t answer my question, Crowley,” Aziraphale says and he’s determined now to know Crowley’s answer. “How did three weeks of not seeing me make your life worse?”

If Aziraphale was ever asked about it, the angel would forever deny that he had Multiple Reasons for wanting to know the answer to this particular question. He simply wished to understand Crowley’s thinking. That’s all.

Crowley looks at him again but this time the demon maintains eye contact.

“I keep thinking the bookshop is still burning and that you’re- that you-,” the demon says before his voice breaks and he closes his eyes. “I thought that I’d figured out how to do Real Evil by not seeing you, denying myself you, and I did. I did. It’s- angel- I’d rather be doused in holy water.”

“Then why did you not stop your self-flagellation and simply return to the bookshop?” Aziraphale asks, heart pounding at the admission and aching at the pain on Crowley’s face. 

“I couldn’t,” Crowley says, shaking his head. “Couldn’t- I just couldn’t- I didn’t- it hurt too much to think,” he finally gets out, looking down and away, serpentine eyes brighter with tears. “I wanted to just forget the hurt and so I—” he waves a hand at the bed “—slept.”

“Oh, oh you absolute fool darling,” Aziraphale says then and he steps forward. Crowley looks at him in surprise because Aziraphale’s voice is no longer firm and full of hurt anger, now it’s warm and gentle and—yes, Crowley, it is—loving. “Don’t do that again, please?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Never,” he croaks and Aziraphale pulls the demon into an embrace that Crowley doesn’t fight. If anything, the demon sinks into Aziraphale’s touch, head dropping to rest on Aziraphale’s shoulder as Crowley’s arms snake around his chest and keep him close. “Promise.”

“Well then,” Aziraphale says softly. “That’s quite all right then.”

#Anonymous #Kat answers #People talk to me!!! #Good Omens #An Angel and a Demon together #Inefffable Husbands #Crowley #Aziraphale #my writing #kat writes #fic