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indigovigilance · 6 months

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Continuity Errors

Crowley can stop time. We’ve noticed buggy things about time. Let’s talk about it.

I’m going to start with an overview of every time he has definitely frozen time in order to establish the mechanics of Crowley’s time-stopping power in the GO universe. Then, I’m going to talk about other events where Crowley may have stopped time, and it wasn’t (directly) shown to the audience.

or read this 3,500 word beast of a meta on Ao3

edit: if you're deciding whether or not to read this, check out the reblog notes!

Opening obligatory "do not put anything about this in Neil Gaiman's askbox"

Crowley freezes time locally, selectively exempting individuals

S1E2

In S1E2, Crowley freezes time at the corporate training ground to interrogate Mary Hodges, formerly Sister Mary Loquacious (played by Nina Sosanya, actor for Nina in S2). It may seem like she’s just hypnotized and time is progressing normally around all of them, but that isn’t the case. Immediately before Crowley hypnotizes Hodges, we can hear gunfire in the background; a few seconds before Hodges is released from the trance, we hear shouting and sirens. But during the time that Hodges is entranced, all we hear is three things: the dialogue, music, and what sounds like the ticking of a kitchen timer.

We could do a little bit of extrapolation from the fact that the beginnings of gunshots and siren sounds are temporally very close together, especially depending on how we measure time. Crowley turns the paintball guns into deadly weapons at 36:59. Crowley freezes Mary Hodges at 38:47. A ticking sound starts the same moment. We also hear what we will come to recognize as the “pause time” sound, a sort of wobbly sound. The ticking sound seems to stop around… 40:07? Right before the line about lovely little toesy woesies? It’s unclear with the overlapping tracks. At 40:11 Crowley says “let’s go” and we can hear sirens in the background start now. Aziraphale then snaps his fingers and unfreezes Hodges at 40:17.

So during 191 seconds of screentime, 84 seconds of it was spent with time frozen, if I accept the ticking sound to be the indicator. If time was only frozen locally, meaning just the paintball grounds and not the nearest police station and roads leading to it, then emergency services had just over three minutes from the time the first live round was fired to arrival. If time was actually frozen globally except for Crowley, Azirarphale, and Hodges, then emergency services got there in 85 seconds, or less than a minute and a half. Maybe Britain is doing something wildly different than here idk but I think the more likely explanation for the event timing is that Crowley is only freezing time in a local bubble. The shooters stop shooting but the police are still driving towards them while Crowley and Aziraphale are interrogating an entranced Mary Hodges.

The case with Hodges is kind of confusing because the audience is presented with a false dichotomy between “frozen in time” and “hypnotized.” It’s actually both. Crowley has frozen time around the three of them, but Hodges, like Aziraphale, was exempt. It just so happens that she was also entranced at the same time, which explains as well why Aziraphale can release her from the trance, since our best evidence indicates that he can’t control time.

S1E3 & S2E3

In S1E3, Crowley freezes Jean Claude, the executioner at the Bastille. Immediately before, we can hear the guillotine, screaming and jeering outside the cell. As soon as Jean Claude is frozen, however (13:29, complete with wobble sound), there is complete background silence, except for the dialogue between our ineffable aristocrats. When Crowley restarts time, background noise restarts as well. This evidence indicates that Crowley froze time for the surrounding area as well as inside the cell.

In S2E3, Crowley freezes Mr. Dalrymple. We don’t have definitive information about how much of the rest of the world is affected since the scene takes place indoors on a quiet night and there are no external cues of time starting or stopping.

S1E6: Freezing Out Satan

In S1E6, not only are Crowley, Aziraphale, and Adam pulled out of the normal flow of time: it seems that they are also pulled out of normal space. They appear to be in an ethereal desert where we can see their wings, but we don’t actually know where they are. The way we enter, inhabit, and then exit this time-stop is completely different from any of the other three explicit timestop scenes: Crowley must use his whole body to summon the power to cast the miracle, they travel elsewhere, then he must use his crankshaft to exit the time-stop.

I take this to indicate that freezing time when Satan is near takes a lot more power than freezing time around Mary Hodges, Jean Claude, or Mr. Dalrymple. Presumably, the power a being has, the more power it takes to lock them out of a bubble to stopped time.

Time Stop Mechanics

Here are my key takeaways from analyzing these four scenes:

Crowley isn’t so much freezing all of time as pulling himself and Aziraphale (and sometimes Adam) out of the flow of time. The effort this takes is dependent on the entities that they are “pulling away” from. It is easy to pull away from humans, so much so that they don’t have to pull away very far and can occupy the same space in a bubble of paused time. When he is “pulling away” from Satan, however, he must pull away much further, all the way to another plane.

Crowley’s ability is so powerful that he can use it to escape Satan. He could use it to lock out other powerful beings, if he wanted to, but it would take a lot of effort.

Aziraphale, a being with power somewhere on the spectrum between human and Satan, could be frozen by Crowley’s powers. The fact that Aziraphale is still present and active during all of these scenes, unaffected by the time stop is only indicative of Crowley’s choice to exempt him, just as he does with a hypnotized Mary Hodges and Adam.

Crowley has stopped time on Aziraphale

In a previous post I have addressed the possible symbolic meaning behind the Honolulu Roast sign that suddenly appears behind Crowley in the S2E1 coffee shop scene. This addresses the symbolic meaning of Honolulu with respect to Aziraphale, but fails to address the “roast” part, which I have the opportunity to do now. I begin by establishing two premises:

Crowley loves Aziraphale and after 6,000 years knows him very well.

Crowley is a dick.

Crowley sits down at the table across from Aziraphale and asks him what the problem is. At this point, there is no “Honolulu Roast” sign behind him. The camera flips to Aziraphale as he (badly) tries to deny that there is any problem. When the camera flips back to Crowley, a “today’s special: Honolulu Roast” sign has appeared behind him.

What does Crowley do next?

Crowley roasts Aziraphale.

Crowley proceeds to read Aziraphale to filth, rattling off all his tells and putting him in his place for even daring to think that he could mislead Crowley about his internal emotional state.

While we’ve seen a lot more of his soft side this season, we cannot forget that the demon Crowley, at the end of the day, is a prick. He really did pause time just so that he could go get a chalkboard, write a pun on it, and hang it on the wall behind him like a display card for open mic night. He’s still going to help Aziraphale, of course. But he’s going to make fun of him first.

Let me reiterate: Crowley literally paused time, got up from the table, put up this sign, then sat back down in (as close to) exactly the same position (as possible) to fool Aziraphale into not noticing the pause, because this joke is entirely for Crowley’s own amusement. We have some cinematographic evidence of this besides just the sign itself: the lamp behind him has moved slightly, and the camera angle focusing on Crowley has changed. Literally, the left hand side of the frame gets cut off due to the repositioning. From a production perspective, this scene would have been shot all at the same time, so should not have changed angles. That said, they did a by-hand follow-in of Crowley walking in and sitting down, then switched to a dolly, but… I have faith that they could have matched the shot line-up practically pixel for pixel if they wanted to. All to say: changing the camera position before and after, alongside the other conspicuous changes, seems like it was a deliberate framing choice used to indicate that Crowley tried his best to get back into exactly the same position, but was just a little off.

But Crowley’s prank is troubling from a perspective of honesty and agency. Based on the way the dialogue progresses, it seems pretty clear that Aziraphale doesn’t know that he was frozen. Whether or not Crowley could freeze Aziraphale was beside the point until this scene where we learn that Crowley would, even for a really dumb reason like making a joke at Aziraphale’s expense.

Before moving on, I want to note that the sudden appearance of this sign could be characterized as a continuity error, even though it was the result of a deliberate action by an in-world character. Jettison your traditional understanding of “continuity error” as “production made a mistake.” In this universe, we can have continuity errors by virtue that Aziraphale is experiencing time as if it is continuous, not noticing that he functionally blacked out for a few minutes and that things have changed around him. This is not a show-level continuity error. This is an Aziraphale-level continuity error.

Crowley can reverse time

Credit where credit is due: it was this comment on the Ao3 version of my meta, The Erasure of Human!Metatron, that became an earworm that got me thinking specifically about Crowley's abilities:

So thank you, LoveIsLove <3

Let’s go back to the Mary Hodges scene, or actually a few minutes before. Our ineffable idiots get shot by paintballs.

“Look at the state of this coat. I've kept this in tip-top condition for over 180 years now. I'll never get this stain out.”

“You could miracle it away.”

“Hmm… Yes, but… well, I would always know the stain was there. Underneath, I mean.”

Aziraphale finagles himself a favor without ever actually asking for it. Full points, princess. But let’s examine the actual content of the dialogue. This cannot be a complete 100% bluff; Aziraphale is not going to tell a straight lie to Crowley that they both know is false about the respective nature of their powers. It must be the case that there is some truth to this statement. There is a fundamental difference between what Aziraphale can do about the paintball stain and what Crowley is actually going to do about it. Furthermore, what Crowley does is something different than a miracle.

Crowley then blows on the stain, it disappears, and Aziraphale looks quite pleased. Yes, yes, he cajoled Anthony J Acts of Service Crowley into doing his signature move, but also, he’s genuinely thankful that Crowley did something for him that he couldn’t do for himself, because miracles don’t work like that. Notably, Crowley doesn't snap his fingers or make any other gesture that we normally associate with miracles, and we don’t hear the miracle sound, which is further evidence that this is not a miracle, but something different.

If you haven’t already, please read my meta entitled Jimbriel, Satan, the Book of Life, and what it means for Crowley. It explains in depth and with evidentiary support my theory about how erasure works in the Good Omens universe. The Cliff’s notes version is that erasing something, whether it be a name from the Book of Life or a paintball from a coat, is akin to erasing a pencil mark on paper; it’s technically gone but you’ll always know it was there. Underneath.

What Crowley has done, then, is not erasing the paintball stain.

He’s reversed it.

When he blows on the paintball stain, he is reversing time in a microcosm of the universe, truly making it so that the paintball never hit the jacket. In a world full of rubber erasers, Crowley has the only Control-Z. When things are “erased” by the Book of Life, they are changed, but when Crowley reverses something, they never happened (making Beelzebub’s description of the Book of Life actually a more accurate description of Crowley’s power). It is something unique that Crowley can do that Aziraphale can’t, and we haven’t seen any evidence of any other celestial being pausing or reversing time. Please feel free to reblog with links to relevant meta if I’m wrong about that.

In true Neil Gaiman style, Crowley using this power to do something mundane like get rid of paintball paint was an incredibly benign and subtle way to indicate that Crowley has an immense, untapped power that we have not yet seen him use for any major purpose.

I repeat: we didn’t see him use it. Because usually, like Aziraphale, we the audience are exempt from the time freeze, and we get to watch what happens. But this time, we were frozen out with Aziraphale.

Clock Theory revisited: a reinterpretation of “continuity error”

A summary of clock theory

Neil Gaiman’s ask and answer on clock theory

Neil Gaiman responded to an ask about the clock jumping forward from 9:25 to 9:40 before and after the kiss with a single sentence: “It’s a continuity error, I’m afraid.”

In the usual manner, Neil is not lying, but he is relying on you making an incorrect interpretation of his seemingly straightforward and innocuous but actually ambiguous and incredibly meaningful statement. As I stated with regards to the Honolulu Roast chalkboard sign, do not interpret “continuity error” as “production made a mistake.” Interpret “continuity error” as “Aziraphale believes that his experience of time is in lockstep with the actual flow of time and doesn’t realize that 11 minutes passed while he was frozen.”

Let’s consider the evidence:

Image at timestamp 41:04 “[Hold that thought!]” the clock reads 9:25

Image at 45:04 “If Gabriel and Beelzebub can go off together, then we can” the clock still reads 9:25

Image at 47:56 the clock now reads 9:40.

Image at 48:14 the clock reads 9:40

There are two four-minute gaps, from the perspective of the viewer, and we have views of the clock face at both ends of each gap.

Gap 1, from 41:04 to 45:04, the clock hands do not move at all, nor do they in any of the intervening shots.

Gap 2, from 45:04 to 47:56 (or 48:14, as you prefer), the clock hands move 15 minutes.

The Occam’s razor, Doylian explanation for why the clock hands don't move from 41:04 to 45:04 is that the clock is a prop. It does not have any timekeeping mechanism, the hands don’t move unless some human being opens up the glass, reaches in there, and manually adjusts it. They weren’t going to interrupt filming this moving scene to move the clock hands minute by minute, so it seems pretty plausible that the fact that it doesn’t move is just an artifact of production limitations.

The Watsonian explanation, which I do not favor, is that Crowley has frozen time for just the two of them. They are in a microcosm all their own. If true, this would have an abundance of implications, such that they are actually free to speak to each other freely, which they don’t. So I feel like with that alone, we can set this aside, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise.

If we accept the “clock is a prop” explanation for Gap 1, it doesn’t really hold for Gap 2 that they moved it a full fifteen minutes. So much care and attention to detail was given for all other parts of this show; I don’t realistically believe that a production staff member moved the hands a random amount. The music carries us from Crowley’s exit to Metatron’s entrance seamlessly, yet more time seems to have passed in-world than on-screen. There are two possible explanations:

There was more material that was supposed to be filmed to account for 15 minutes that got cut

We are supposed to figure out that there’s some “Greek play” style shenaniganery afoot

I will debunk explanation #1 with simply this: David’s contact lenses would sometimes rotate so that the slit pupils were not vertical. This error was fixed by VFX in post.

You might assume, when watching Good Omens, that Crowley’s serpent-like eyes are created using contact lenses. Or perhaps you’d presume they’re CGI. Actually, they’re a mix of both.

“The CGI versions were usually because the contact lenses had swiveled in David’s eyes … and we had to fix it,” says Mackinnon.

If they could fix Crowley’s eyes in post, there is absolutely no reason to expect that they couldn’t or wouldn’t have fixed the clock hand positions in post, especially if it was someone’s job to reach in there and change the positions to try to maintain set continuity in the first place. Additionally, there is deliberate use of clocks to symbolize various themes across both seasons. A Doylian error like this is not something that would have been overlooked and survived into publication.

So we are left with explanation #2. Time has passed that we, the viewers, don’t observe. What was happening during that time that we missed? More importantly, who knows that this time has passed? Aziraphale doesn’t seem to, and it’s unclear what the Metatron does or doesn’t know.

Some fans have posited that the Metatron is doing the time manipulations, but canonically, the only entity we have observed manipulate time is Crowley. We assume the Metatron is powerful because the angels are all afraid of him, but we’ve never actually seen him do anything, and so have no primary evidence for this. All over, he’s got some big “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” Wizard of Oz vibes happening; I’m not convinced he could miracle his way out of a wet paper bag, and there’s a chance that in Season 3 we’ll find out that he’s all bluff. Not so with Crowley.

My hypothesis is that Crowley froze Aziraphale and everybody else for a one block radius, including the Metatron, and did something important in the bookshop before it lost its protection. Please see my meta on Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop for an evidence-based argument on why the bookshop was the only place in the universe that Crowley could have safely hidden something. Since Aziraphale is no longer the head of an independent embassy, whatever Crowley was keeping safe in there isn’t safe anymore, and needs to be moved. Universe time continued to pass and the clock reflects that, but Aziraphale and the Metatron aren’t aware that they were paused.

Which also gives us a new interpretation for the kiss.

The Kiss, revisited

Crowley didn’t want to send Aziraphale a message.

Crowley needed a plausible cover for the immense effort it was going to take him to freeze time against Aziraphale and the Metatron that he knew was standing outside.

How do I know he knew?

No nightingales.

Juliet. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

No nightingales could be the end of a romance. I argued as much in my inaugural meta just six weeks ago (and what a six weeks it has been, people!) But “no nightingales” could also be a secret signal to two people who have a unique bond through Shakespeare that Crowley has realized he is not safe, and he needs to leave, and he’s trying to tell Aziraphale that without letting their spectator in on the message.

Now he has to stop time to secure whatever item he’d been keeping safe in the bookshop. But keeping Satan at bay required him to lunge upwards, using his whole body to freeze time. He can’t get away with anything like that here in the bookshop, that would give up the ruse.

But what if he lunged at the person everyone knows he’s in love with and violently kisses them on the mouth, his entire body tense with the effort of freezing time in the presence of two ethereal beings? No one would notice the difference, or think anything nefarious of it; a Class A surreptitious time-stop.

One last crackpot theory.

Aziraphale knows what Crowley did. Well, he knows that he froze time, and for the first time realizes that Crowley has locked him out, and that he used the kiss as a cover. The violation of agency, trust, and their romantic bond are all breaking across him in the instant that time restarts, after Crowley has gone away for 11 minutes and returned to almost, but not quite, the same position inside Aziraphale’s arms. It is an intimate act that Aziraphale is fully tuned into, and for the first time, he’s noticing the continuity errors.

His horror-filled expression is one of broken trust. But his bond to Crowley is too strong for even this to break it. He knows that whatever reason Crowley had to pull this trick on him, it must have been a good one. It must have been to protect him.

“I forgive you.”

***

One more completely crackpot theory based on the Gavin Finney interview at The Ineffable Con last weekend.

The camera was supposed to circle them. Finney says that this was to show that they are the center of their universe, and their world is spinning.

Okay, okay. But could it not also have represented the spinning of clock hands? I’m just saying.

Closing obligatory "do not put anything about this in Neil Gaiman's askbox"

Find my entire collection of metas here

535 notes · View notes

michaelsheens · 8 months

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✨ GOMENS FIC RECS ✨

i asked for people's favorite fics and sharing is caring :)

(i included my own recs as well)

feel free to reblog and add more!

❤️ recommended by @oldzhishen ❤️

Crown of Thorns series by irisbleufic (rating G-E)

This series was never intended to be a series as such: I wrote "A Better Place" in the wake of rather accidentally getting to ask a certain question (What are Aziraphale and Crowley doing on the South Downs, anyway?) of both authors within a week of each other back in 2005 and actually getting an answer (Sharing a cottage), thinking it'd just be a happy little one-off. But something curious happened when my Good Omens Exchange 2010 assignment resulted in "The Walls, the Wainscot, and the Mouse." From that point onward, interest in this little 'verse slowly, but steadily picked up momentum, and I kept finding more stories to tell. Some of the characters that appear herein (Phillippa [Pippa] Morrison, the Mouse, Amanda [Mandy] Tomlin, Uriel, Raphael, et al.) first turned up in my one and only attempt at a second-Apocalypse dark mirror universe, A Crown of Stars (AO3 posting of same) and its follow-ups, which predates this series considerably. The two universes parallel each other, but this one is, for our purposes, post novel-canon and set in our reality. That's pretty much what you need to know. Thank you all for continuing to read and also for giving this project life. I'll continue to add stories and ficlets until I run out of ideas or until my heart stops (whichever comes first)! The current existing pieces are complete; the series overall is ongoing on an as-and-when basis, which means that the time between additions may be weeks or months or, in rare instances, up to a year.

Madman and a Fool by loserchildhotpants (rating E)

God considers Crowley's unyielding pining for Aziraphale, his acts during the End of the World, and his very genuine desire to protect Aziraphale, worth rewarding. She can't make him an Angel again, but She can nudge Aziraphale in the right direction. If nothing else, She'd really just like Crowley to stop using Her prayer inbox for endless soliloquies about Aziraphale.

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm (rating T)

As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. At first glance, she paid attention to the following: --His clothing was expensive and stylish; --He wore very strange but noticeable cologne; --His relationship to the seat he occupied could only, very loosely, be described as “sitting;” --He looked angry; --He was wearing sunglasses. What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?

A Home at the Beginning of the World by stereobone (rating E)

"Oh," Aziraphale says. "I think Crowley might have moved in with me."

For the Angel Who Has Everything by triedunture (rating E)

Crowley likes giving Aziraphale things. Whatever he wants, actually. Which, happily, includes Crowley himself, as it turns out.

I'm the treasure baby, I'm the prize by stereobone (rating E)

"Are you working for Mrs. Sandwich?" Nina asks. "No," Crowley says. "Well, yes. Well, define 'working'." -- Or, Crowley is very good at faking sex work, as it turns out.

🧡 recommended by @reloha 🧡

let me feel your heartbeat (grow faster, faster) by thehoyden (rating T)

Aziraphale saw him sometimes in all-staff meetings, sitting toward the front but off to the side, lounging against a wall. Even then, he’d had style—wings tipped in gold and face painted with gold flakes in the pattern of the first constellation he designed. He was amazing, and eye-catching, and it was no exaggeration to say that he did not know Aziraphale even existed.

You'll Find Something Waiting (Right There Where You Left It) by PrimalBeatsOurHearts (rating T)

"Lets go in the Garden, "You'll find something waiting" "Right there where you left it" "Lying upside down" ------------ Or What if Crowley was Erased from The Book Of Life?

Moving Forward While Standing Still by Justanothernerdsstuff (rating G)

“Uh, yeah, sure! Thanks,” They replied and walked away, not sure why this specific book was so important to the angry man, but they were £50 richer, so they didn’t really care. Crowley flipped through the book, stalling making the decision to go into the bookshop to confront Muriel. He turned to walk away, stopped, groaned, and stalked his way into the bookshop. *** Crowley finds himself at Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death a month after Aziraphale left to run Heaven, and ends up back at the bookshop, something he never planned to do again.

7 minutes in heaven by waddlesthejoghog (rating T)

"If Crowley and Aziraphale couldn’t figure it out, Muriel would have to take a different approach. It wasn’t enough to put them in the same location. They had to plant some seeds of conversation. They had to come to a conclusion naturally, but with a push." OR Muriel reads every book in the shop, then comes up with a plan to get Aziraphale and Crowley back together.

In the Pocket of the Universe by indieninja92 (rating E)

Immediately after the church scene (and The Slow Zoom of Homosexual Panic), Aziraphale takes Crowley out for dinner in the only place still open in the middle of an air raid. Feelings closely follow.

How to Run a Bookshop by IneffableDoll (rating T)

Muriel has been running Aziraphale’s bookshop ever since his promotion Upward. Mr. Crowley seems intent on sticking around, and Muriel has no idea what to do about that. Then, Muriel stumbles upon a collection of sketchbooks full of a familiar redhead. Did…Aziraphale draw these? Has Mr. Crowley seen them? * (“No. No. Put that back.” “Oh, but isn’t it cute? A little cup with wings! I don’t suppose it can fly like those birds can? I don’t see what a cup needs wings for, really.” “You can’t use that.” “Of course not! These wings are too small for me, and I have my own if I want to get around.” “Wh – okay, first off, you can’t go flying about London. You’ll freak people out, cause a bunch of chaos – actually, you know what, do what you like. Heaven if I care. But don’t touch that mug.” “Is it dangerous?” “…No. But it’s not yours. And it’s not polite to use something that’s not yours. Not very angelic of you.” “Oh! Of course. I knew that.”)

�� recommended by @cheeekycharchar 💛

Together We're Golden series by Guardian_Rose (rating G-T)

Crowley & Aziraphale move to a small town, into their own little cottage but it's not without its difficulties.

True Disaster by NuriaSchnee (rating E)

After Crowley saves him in 1941, Aziraphale realises he's fallen in love with the demon. Scared this dangerous feeling of his will cause problems to his friend, he tries to break their relationship. However, his plan to push the demon away fails and they end up admitting their feelings to each other. To be able to be together and keep it a secret, Crowley stops time every time they meet. However brilliant this seems at first, it doesn't take long to backfire, opening new wounds and raising more barriers between them.

Nanny Knows Best by DictionaryWrites (rating M)

Being a nanny, that should be simple. Simple. Easy as pie. Crowley wished that were true.

💚 recommended by yours truly 💚

Strange Moons series by racketghost (rating G-E)

“At least they were together for a time,” Crowley says, staring at the lit end of his cigarette, “maybe that’s enough.”

tales from a bookshop by Rizandace (rating T)

Post-season-two. Crowley's moping, Aziraphale wants to fix things, and turns out, there's enough blame to go around. ----- "You're being ridiculous." Crowley very nearly falls over. Like, actually. He very nearly loses balance for no reason at all and tumbles to the sidewalk next to his car. He’s been playing Aziraphale’s voice in his head for weeks, he’s been trying very hard to drown out the sound of it, in fact, and now suddenly, abruptly— “What are you doing here,” is all he can think to say. He whirls around, and there he is. on Crowley’s right, standing there like he’d never left. Where he belongs, Crowley’s mind helpfully supplies. He wishes he could punch himself in the brain, knock the thoughts right on out of there.

Meanwhile the World Goes On by lineslines (rating G)

Crowley looked at him. He was still wearing his suit, there was tartan in it, but it had become polished, the worn edges returned to pristine, boring perfection. He looked prim. Proper. Perhaps this hurt most of all. (Crowley is on earth, Aziraphale is not. Meanwhile the world goes on. Plans, great and possibly ineffable, are set into motion. They are--always, inevitably--drawn back together. Long before reconciliation, long before they can bear it. The only thing they can bear less is staying apart. Oh, and Heaven seems to have misplaced Jesus.)

So You Need To Get Into A.Z. Fell & Co.; Now What? (A Guide For Unfortunate Bookworms) by c4llistrad (rating G)

London’s antique enthusiasts and rare lit nerds alike know that if you’re looking for a specific vintage or antique book, you have a good chance of ending up in A.Z. Fell & Co. as a last resort. And if you’ve ever been in (or are currently in) this predicament, you know how much of an absolute nightmare it is trying to even get in the door. Luckily, this handy guide, the fruit of a months-long collaborative effort to create the perfect formula for gaming the A.Z. Fell system, will tell you everything you need to know, complete with a comprehensive breakdown of what, exactly, the opening hours are. Compiled by pageknight and inky of the Rare Antique Forums.

Like Icarus Before Me by Arokel (rating T)

If Aziraphale were a Good person, a virtuous person, he wouldn’t have taken Crowley’s hand at all. Aziraphale muses on the nature of Goodness, and finally shares those musings with Crowley.

It's Something Like a Corkscrew by Arokel (rating G)

“How do you live with this… this inevitability? This knowledge of what’s to come?”

So let us melt by Arokel (rating G)

Of the two of them, Crowley thinks Aziraphale has held on to more of his faculties than Crowley has, but then again, he is putting off angelic heat like a particularly virtuous furnace.

So Much to be Consoled as to Console by Arokel (rating T)

“What are you,” Crowley drawled, “the patron saint of queer kids?” A series of lost souls over the centuries who prayed, whether they knew it or not, to the Angel Aziraphale.

Factory Settings by Anonymous (rating T)

Crowley gets reinstated as an angel.

such surpassing brightness by bibliocratic (rating G)

The revelation that Aziraphale might have been in love with him for thousands of years is surprising. The fact that literal books have been written on the subject comes as even more of a shock.

knowing this will I reach for you by Aria (rating E)

It wasn't as though his interest in Aziraphale was entirely appropriate. Of course it wasn't bloody appropriate. He was consorting with the Enemy, nothing about it was appropriate.

The Sandford Flower Show by Mussimm (rating E)

Crowley had waited six thousand years, kept it all in check. But this was the slipperiest slope he’d ever set foot on and as soon as he’d indulged in a few discretionary acts of kindness he was falling face first into pining, tumbling into flirting, about to dislocate his knees on the sharp rocks of intimacy. Was this really it? What he had waited six thousand years for? A stupid flower show? Aziraphale wasn’t pulling away from him. Maybe… maybe this time he wouldn’t? Maybe they’d hold hands again. Maybe tonight with a bottle of merlot in them he’d finally work up the courage and just kiss him and he wouldn’t pull away. The very moment he’d thought it he spotted the problem at the flower show.

you knew my name on sight by brinnanza (rating G)

“This wasn’t me, you know,” Crowley says, the words out of his mouth before he’s made the conscious choice to utter them. “Not just the library, but the whole civil war. You know me; I’ve mostly been getting drunk at Bacchanals.” “I know,” says Aziraphale.

The Longest Night series by charlottemadison (rating T-E)

The night the Apocalypse doesn't happen, an angel and a demon share a bus bench on the way home to face their fates. This is the story of their evening spun out line by line, all the little moments that carried them through the night they knew might be their last.

Witness the Fall by Waifine (rating G)

Crowley never talked about his time as an angel. Aziraphale never asked. But when Hell sends Crowley a package containing his most painful memories, it is Aziraphale who is plunged into the nightmare history of when his beloved friend, the angel who had once been Crowley, was hurled from the Heavens into the bowels of Hell.

An Angel who did not so much Fall In Love as Settle Into It Gradually by TheLadyZephyr (rating G)

Crowley was standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, looking a little lost. Aziraphale eyed the distance between them. Five steps. Five steps, and six thousand years, and a battlefield spanning an eternity. The story of the little moments over the millennia that shape an angel’s regard for a demon, and the way he slowly, with great reluctance but inevitable surety, falls in love.

This Soul Outstreaming by Rend_Herring (rating E)

“Why did you come here?” Aziraphale interrupts. “Why do you keep doing this?” All the saving, he means, all the chasing after Aziraphale he does. It can’t only be that he’s not keen to endure a replacement. That can’t be it, not anymore. He’s going to get himself in trouble, and then it’ll be Aziraphale’s fault. Crowley’s mouth shuts with a click. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, reaches for the handle of the fork and taps his fingertips against it before setting his hands in his lap. When he speaks, it’s very soft. “Don’t you know?” he asks. Aziraphale, unnaccustomed to his heart refusing to translate why it throbs with such haste, shakes his head.

a lighthouse (burning) by books-and-omens (rating M)

In good weather, one can see the lighthouse at the Rock from the shore: a dot on the horizon, a distant star flashing red and white and red again. It’s been dark for a fortnight, of course—ever since the incident that every newspaper had breathlessly written about, that the paper-boys on the corners had shouted themselves hoarse over. This is where Aziraphale is headed: it is his duty, after all, to find out what happened, to make sure that the beacon can be safely lit once again. He does not expect Crowley to follow him to the windswept isle, to the lonely lighthouse at what could just as well be the edge of the world. Crowley follows him anyway.

paint the skies by ToEdenandBackAgain (rating G)

“This was one of yours, wasn’t it?” Aziraphale remarks casually, and Crowley feels like the warmth of the room has been sucked into space. A cold, uneasy feeling begins to creep into his gut. One of yours thrown out so casually. One of yours said like he... like he knew “What.”

Good Endings by WyvernQuill (rating T)

A Narrative of Certain Events following the Ending of the World (Except Not Quite), as vaguely hinted at in The Slapdash and Not Very Helpful Prophetic Tidbit of Agnes Nutter, Witch (And Matchmaker.) "Their lives are in horrible, terrible danger that only we can save them from!" Anathema held up the Prophetic Tidbit. "It says so. Right here." Madame Tracy peered at the page. Raised a meaningful eyebrow. "Dearie, as a woman of, well, considerable experience, I really don't think that's what 'the lyttle Deathe' means in this context..." "Huh." Anathema squinted. Flipped the page. Read another bit. "....huh." (Or, alternatively: Eight - give or take - matchmakers trying really, really hard, honest; two clueless ethereal/occult beings mutually pining their endless days away; and one witch, who can't leave well enough alone when it comes to matters of the heart, no matter how many centuries ago she died.)

If We've Got Nothing (We've Got Us) by Kedreeva (rating G)

Two months after the failed apocalypse Aziraphale finds the first dark feather growing in his wings. A story about middle grounds, ineffable plans, and what happens when the world doesn't end.

lit in the darkness by ToEdenandBackAgain (rating M)

Aziraphale returns to Crowley's flat for the night after Armageddon. After all, it's hardly the first time they've shared sleeping arrangements. Or: Times throughout history Crowley and Aziraphale have shared a bed.

💙 recommended by @vonlipwig 💙

Petrichor & Parchment by MrsNoggin (rating E)

“Mr. Crowley, I presume?” Aziraphale asked in lieu of an introduction, which was not forthcoming. The guy hadn’t even removed his sunglasses. Oh God, he had a tattoo on his face. Aziraphale wasn’t one to judge, but… what kind of gardener had a snake tattoo on his face?

💜 recommended by @darthbreezy 💜

post-professional endeavours by darcylindbergh (rating T)

Retirement is a four-letter word.

💗 recommended by @thegeekyartist 💗

Fire, Bridges, and other Sensible Idioms by KiaraMGrey (rating E)

To: The person who stopped the washer in the middle of my wash cycle and took my clothes out just to wash your own… You are an arsehole! Unfortunately for you, so am I. You can find your wet clothes frozen outside in the snow. If you have any problems with this, come see me in 301. or Aziraphale has a new neighbor, and they certainly don't start off on the right foot.

❤️ recommended by @weiwnxian ❤️

Any Other Name by mostlyanything19 (rating T)

“The Angel of the Eastern Gate.” Crawly grins. “What’s your name, anyway? You never said.” “Oh...” Apologies, Aziraphael almost says, but then he doesn’t. That would be taking things a bit too far. This is still the Enemy. “Aziraphael.” “Aziraphael,” repeats Crawly—or tries to, because halfway through the word he chokes. Quite badly. Or: What if Aziraphale’s name was originally "Aziraphael", in keeping with the conventional spelling and pronunciation of angel names, but because of its divine nature Crowley is physically unable to say it out loud.

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