#Metatron wants to quit
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[Re-Angelized Crowley ruling Heaven alongside Supreme Archangel Aziraphale #1 & #2]
You may have encountered this fanfic of mine on Facebook. Time to bring it here! This explores what it would have been if Crowley had accepted to follow Aziraphale in Heaven... Probably Metatron's very own version of Hell... right? 😈
[This is meant to be light and funny - well, at least am I attempting to be. I reserve my deep thoughts for my analysis and I'm just as against our favorite Angel's decision as the next person 😅]
That time the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale had a "big announcement" to make, Day 1
Aziraphale: On this day particularly important for me - I mean, for us all, I have the pleasure to introduce *weird Magishun tone* *already amused by his own pun* or, to re-introduce: Archangel Anthony Crowley!
Crowley: *arrives in all-black attire, already owns the place* Helloooo, suckerssss! Ooookayy, Time to change a thing or two: Beige is out, Black is in! *snaps his fingers because Crowley*
Aziraphale: aka... my husband.
Crowley: *stops in the middle of a twist* Wait, what? Since when?
Aziraphale: *with a both cute and firm smile* Since now. I've decided.
Crowley: *blushes behind his glasses* *shrugs his shoulders**tries to sound cool and detached* M'okay. Works for me.
The crowd: *Too stunned to react*
Aziraphale: A round of applause, please, that would be lovely.
The crowd: *weird applause*
Aziraphale: *innocent yet somewhat demonic smile* Thank you 🤭
When the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale asked the Meeting Room to be repainted in wood shades "because it will feel cozier"
Michael: *about to have a heart attack* *cannot deal with the Jealousy* You cannot be serious?
Uriel: Come on, Michael, it must be a joke... Right?
Metatron: *is waiting for Aziraphale to answer "Yes, of course"*
Crowley: *arrives in style* Have you told them about the yellow lights yet or have I arrived too soon?
Two Angels walk into the New Office That Somehow Looks Like an Old Bookshop to report the news on Armageddon 2.0 - which should have happened two centuries ago - and on how Attempt #451 mysteriously failed.
Crowley: *leans in Aziraphale's seat that looks like an old sofa* And why do they keep talking, exactly?
Aziraphale *holds himself back from rolling his eyes for two centuries* *sympathetic smile* I'm sure you've done your very best to make it work. Thank you.
In the middle of a very important War meeting
Crowley: *sighs* I need a drink, Angel *realizes* *does not care* Yeah, nope, cannot stop calling you that. *To Michael, Uriel, Saraqael, and Metatron* Deal with it, losers. *miracles a glass of Talisker and drinks it as if it were 6 expresso shots in one big mug*
Metatron: *Contemplates the end of his own existence as a valid option for the first time in his Eternity* *So done with their bullshirt since day 1*
Three Angels report on how Attempt #523 mysteriously failed.
Crowley: *straight-up laughing* You heard that, Angel? They didn't do what you asked them to do! *theatrical hand movements* How unusual! How revolutionary! *whispers* Can I hang them by their tiny little fee-T?
Aziraphale: *scandalized look* *high-pitched voice* Of course not!
Crowley: *sighs in childish* Ughhh, I need a drink.
When Archangel Michael makes an appearance
Crowley: Isn't it time we introduce quiet firing, Angel? Also, Micky, I need a towel! *winks at his husband*
That first time Supreme Archangel Aziraphale and Archangel Crowley were about to re-enter the Elevator together.
Aziraphale & Crowley: *dressed formally* *Aziraphale loves top hats and convinced Crowley they should both wear one with reversed colors* *arm in arm*
Metatron: *clears his throat* *severe tone because that is the only tone he knows* Where do you think you two are going?
Aziraphale and Crowley: *startle like children caught stealing After Eights way before eight*
Aziraphale: We... hum... We... *looks at Crowley* Weeee thought it would be... hum... good to... hum... go back to Earth to... observe humans and to... hum... to... do... groceries? *innocent smile*
Metatron: *cannot believe his ears* Groceries?
Crowley: You haven't got the faintest idea how many wars and plagues have started in a grocery store, do ya'? *is handsy around Aziraphale's hip for no reason*
Aziraphale: *giggles*
Crowley: Come on, Angel, time to start World War III by pissing off some Karens at the cashier. T'will take what, Supreme Archangel, to kickstart Second Coming, hum? Two days? *puts his arm around Aziraphale's shoulders* *strong grip*
Aziraphale: *looks at Crowley* Oh, hum, maybe a week. *looks at Metatron* Let's not be pretentious.
Crowley: *glasses slightly down revealing his eyes only to his hubby* You mean like Michael?
Aziraphale: *giggles again before tapping Crowley's hand away from his shoulder in order to concentrate* *pretends to be shocked* Don't say that!
Metatron: *trembling voice* But... You cannot go back to Earth!
Crowley: *has NOT removed his hand from Aziraphale's shoulders* Watch us. *walks like Rihanna because Crowley, straight to the elevator*
Later, after the elevator's doors are closed.
Aziraphale and Crowley: *sigh in unison*
Aziraphale: I thought he would erase our names in the Book of Life for a second.
Crowley: Yeahhh, well... The night is still young, Angel. But, for now, time to recharge at the Ritz.
Aziraphale: Remember your promise, right?
Crowley: *pretends to not remember* Hum? Wot?
Aziraphale: You promised you wouldn't drink too much alcohol so that we can go to the Opera after. I need us to see Madam Butterfly sober!
Crowley: And I still strongly disagree with that statement. If I find Laudanum, I'll take a hundred bottles: one for tonight, the other 99 to bear the sight of Killjoy in Chief* for yet another day.
[Oh, I think we all know who Killjoy in Chief is. Obviosleh.]
Crowley: If we ever go back Up.
Aziraphale: *scandalized in type A personality* Of course, we will come back! We have responsibilities!
Crowley: Says the Supreme Archangel *of course he always mentions his hubby's new title ironically* who ASKED for a week on Earth.
Aziraphale: Yes, well... There is no such thing as the concept of vacation in Heaven at the moment, but I will certainly introduce it in a century or two. This is important!
Crowley: Sure.
Aziraphale: *talks in Life Mission* It helps stay productive. And happy!
Crowley: Riiight.
Aziraphale: You know it's true! Stop mocking me!
Crowley: I'm not, I... *freezes*
Aziraphale: What is it? Are you okay? *handsy around Crowley's shoulder*
Crowley: My Bentley is going to be so pissed at me. My baby must be so depressed... *puppy-snake-like eyes*
Aziraphale: I know where this is going... And the answer is no, Crowley. *tries to muster some authority in his tone* *fails*
Crowley: Rahhhh! Come on, Angel! You plan on taking your diaries, your favorite books, and snacks! All I want is a dozen Talisker barrels, my plants, and my car back!
Aziraphale: These things will take too much space, Crowley! What will Metatron say?
Crowley: Tss. Says the Supreme Archangel who dreams of reproducing to perfection his very Earthy Bookshop in Heaven. And has started to do exactly that! You're no fun and you're a hypocrite! An Angel, for short. And a basic* one at that.
[Insert The Good Place Michael who says "It's a human insult. You're devastated right now" gif here - Hey, we're on Tumblr, actually, I can!]
Aziraphale: *crosses his arms like a 5 yo while being 6000+* You too are an Angel, Crowley. You tend to forget about that.
Crowley: I'm not an Angel-Angel, Angel. Do you know why? Because I don't have a whole range of brooms stuck inside my bottom.
Aziraphale: *hurt* *also annoyed* *but mostly hurt* And here I was, thinking we would just spend an amazing week together. *trembling voice* You're the no-fun one, Crowley. *almost about to cry* *avoids eye contact*
Crowley: *notices* *pretends not to care* *holds himself back from thinking how cute Aziraphale's pouty face is* *fails miserably* *growls in defeat* How unfair is that?!
Aziraphale: *pretends not to hear for a second* *turns back to him* *keeps his pouty face steady* What? What is unfair?
Crowley: Nevermind, Angel. *sigh* Alright... I will limit my alcohol consumption to four, maybe five glasses.
Aziraphale: *cutest smile emerges* Thank you 🥰 *happy as in a Mariah Carey Christmas clip* *giggles*
Crowley: *blushes behind his glasses* *takes Aziraphales' arm back*
*Pretty long silence*
Crowley: Seriously, though, Sexy is gonna be so pissed at me.
Aziraphale: *high-pitched voice* OH MY LORD, for Heaven's sake, Crowley, the answer is no! Not another word!
Crowley: She might not want to take us to places, you don't understand how serious that is, Angel! What if she never forgives me? What if... *parent's biggest fear* What if she has been car-napped? Or worse? Ran away on her own? She could be anywhere by now!
Aziraphale: *tries to be reassuring* Well, if she isn't here when we arrive, we can miracle her back, it will be fine, Cro-
Crowley: And hurt her even more, treating her like... like... well, a car? I cannot talk to you when you are delusional like that! You're really pissing me off, *makes childish faces* SuPrEmE ArChAnGeL. *crosses his arms* *looks away*
*New silence*
Aziraphale: What if I allow you to drink as much as you like?
Crowley: *mumbles* Not enough.
Aziraphale: Come on, I need you to meet me halfway!
Crowley: *gritted teeth* Not. Enough.
Aziraphale: *sighs in angry mom* What do you want?!
Crowley: I told you what I wanted. You just don't listen.
Aziraphale: We cannot bring the Bentley to Heaven, Crowley! This is not happening!
Crowley: Then I'm not coming back either. Simple. *shrugs in blackmail*
Aziraphale: *shocked*
Crowley: For the record: when humans get married, Angel, they usually do not reject their spouses' child. You... You're behaving like a nasty mother-in-law right now and I'm not having it.
Aziraphale: Did you just Lady Tremaine-labelled me? For real?!
Crowley: Yep. You're that mean. I cannot believe how quickly your new job had gone to that top hat-ed head of yours.
Aziraphale: ...
Crowley: How career changes people, isn't it just baffling.
Aziraphale & Crowley: *cross their arms and look away at the same time*
*ANOTHER silence*
Aziraphale: *defeated sigh* *literally cannot be mad at his hubby for more than 3 minutes* One Talisker barrel, only the plants that stayed in the Bentley and... the Bentley. IF, and ONLY IF she consents to be... huh... reduced in size a little.
Crowley: *yells in bad faith* Here, have some fatphobia, now! I've seen it all! *points a reproachful finger at his spouse* You're a disappointment, Angel.
Aziraphale: *starting to lose patience* Crowley...
Crowley: Two barrels.
Aziraphale: Do not push your luck, I swear...
Crowley: Have you not noticed I'm winning the argument by now, SuPrEmE aRcHaNgEl?
Aziraphale: This is. Not. About. Winning, Crowley! And it is so unfair you keep our Soirée hostage until you get what you want!
Crowley: I'm a demon, Angel. Demons tend to do that.
Aziraphale: Technically, you aren't anymore!
Crowley: We both know you never technically sent the form to make my re-Angelisation official, so I am technically AND in truth: *marks a pause* Still. A demon.
Aziraphale: Exactly! A nasty mother-in-law would never do such a thing!
Crowley: So?
Aziraphale: A raging bureaucrat either!
Crowley: So?
Aziraphale: And certainly NOT a basic Angel!
Crowley: *annoyed* SO?
Aziraphale: I need you to take that back! That was unfair and BEYOND mean, Crowley! *shaking lips*
Crowley: *growls* *rolls his eyes* FINE. *removes his glasses* Sorry, Angel. It was the worried parent speaking.
Aziraphale: *little smirk Crowley has never seen before* *so ready for his petty revenge* Not. Enough.
Crowley: *finds it super hot* *likes being imitated* *cannot concentrate anymore* You... hum... Okay, what do you want? *is wondering how he went from winning the argument to being a fair loser in a matter of a single no-so-angelic smirk*
Aziraphale: *ready to push his luck* How about... a little dance?
Crowley: Out of the question.
Aziraphale: Crowley...
Crowley: NO.
Aziraphale: Crowley...
Crowley: *feels his determination melt like ice at the heart of Hell* *gritted teeth* Fi-
Elevator: Earth. *neutral ding* *doors opens*
Aziraphale: *takes Crowley's hand in his* *looks at him with soft eyes*
Crowley: *cannot believe a SuPrEMe ArChAnGeL could ever make him swoon**longest sigh* Ughhhh. Let's get this over with.
Aziraphale: *recoils to enjoy the view better*
Crowley:
You were right,
You were right,
I was wrong,
You were righ-T. *sighs* Satisfactory enough, SuPrEmE aRcHaNgEl?
Aziraphale: Thank you, Cinderella. *leaves first in victory*
Crowley: *wants to murder and kiss him at the same time*
#Good Omens#Aziracrow#Ineffable Husbands#Good Omens fanfic#Aziraphale#Crowley#Supreme Archangel Aziraphale#Archangel Anthony J Crowley#Crowley and Aziraphale rule Heaven together#Metatron wants to quit#Of course Heaven looks like an Old Bookshop now#Oh and they are married#Archangel Michael is jealous#The Bentley#Shamelessly using The Good Place references#Also Mulan's#Also Doctor Who's#Using way too much hashtags#Ya BASIC#Crowley has been reangelized or has he?#Of course Heaven has a terrible administrative system
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The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2
(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous
But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code
And Have You Dead To Rights*)
(*Maybe)
***
Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off.
Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse?
Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended
In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB--
Proem
A dark theater. The rustling of the audience: clothes, breathing, whispers of anticipation. The lights come up. A man enters, stage left. He is a magician—a master magician—and he performs for you a magic trick so good and so subtle... that you don’t even notice you’ve seen it.
You know there must have been a trick—after all, you came to the theater to see a trick performed, didn’t you? And he claims to be a magician. So there had to be a trick somewhere. There had to be.
But maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there was just a man on a stage, talking to you, telling you a story with a strangely unsatisfying ending you didn’t quite understand.
I know. This is a weird beginning to an analysis essay. But hear me out, because I have to explain the mechanisms of the stage before I can show you what the trick was, where the trapdoor was hidden, and how Neil Gaiman pulled the whole thing off so gently and elegantly that you didn’t notice a thing. Ready? Here we go.
The Facts As We Know Them
Let us begin by establishing a baseline—some fundamental, logical assumptions that underpin the magic trick. These will seem obvious as soon as I say them, which is precisely the point: They are self-evident, loadbearing foundations for my entire argument, and if I don’t point them out, I’m going to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist. (Which! To be fair, I might be. I could easily be wrong about all this—but I don’t think I am.)
Our baseline, loadbearing assumptions that preface my Grand Unified Theory of Season 2:
1. Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job.
2. Neil Gaiman loves these characters and wants with all his heart to do them justice; likewise, he has a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for Terry Pratchett and is striving VERY HARD to write the show the way Terry would have been happy with.
3. The devil, as they say, is in the details: Neil Gaiman and the entire Good Omens cast/crew are fully capable of doing extremely subtle detail work, as conclusively proven in Season 1 Ep 6, specifically the whole sequence of the body-swap scenes.
With me so far? Great.
The Elephant In The Room
Season 2 was... odd. It was odd, wasn’t it. This isn’t a matter of whether you loved it or hated it—there was just something odd going on.
I spent the entirety of my first viewing very much enjoying myself and being very happy to be back with these characters and this world, but I was also liveblogging to my groupchat as I went, and a theme soon began emerging:
“Neil, what are you doing? Where are you going with this?”
“What in god’s name is going on here? I’m so lost lmao.”
“What is going on with the music situation?”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NEIL”
“zombies, ok, I trust u to pull this all together in the end, Neil, but I still don't know what you're up to”
“What is going on LOL”
“Incredibly what is going on here”
“NEIL! WHAT IS HAPPENING!”
“Literally what is happening”
“Neil Gaiman why have you constructed a regency au for mystery VIBES reasons”
“just????????? lesbians????????? dancing what's HAPPENING. just all the background characters are gay here ok sure sure sure NEIL GAIMAN WHAT IS HAPPENING--”
“mmmmmmm neil what u doin”
All these are copied verbatim from my liveblogging, and apparently I am not the only one to have this reaction. And to be clear, I was having a good time! I came out to this theater to see a magic trick, and this Neil Gaiman guy on stage is a master magician—but I didn’t see the trick, even though there must have been a trick.
At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the season. I wanted to like it! Indeed, there were many things that I liked about it! But I felt a bit muddled and jumbled up and confused—I felt like there was something I didn’t understand about it, and so I couldn’t yet understand how I felt about it either.
I started chewing on this question in a friend’s DMs: Why is season 2 so fucking odd? What is going on here, Neil? What are you up to? The matter of whether he was up to something was never in question. I knew that he had to be up to something. Writers are always up to something, and as I watched season 2, it was as if I was watching Neil scamper around the room with a mischievous expression as he messed with things here and there and made little tweaks and adjustments to the arrangement of all the Chekov’s guns he’s stockpiling on the mantelpiece.
You see, Season 2 has some very bad writing in it. HANG ON, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME YET! THIS IS NOT A JUDGMENT CALL!! This is the rug that the trick’s secret mechanism is hidden under!!! This is the hidden mirror that makes the trick work!!!!! This is the trapdoor in the stage!
Yes, of course I will explain myself.
Neil Gaiman is a master magician, but I am a pretty damn good magician myself—I’m a professional fantasy author who has published nine books, and I teach workshops for apprentice writers online and at universities—and if there is one thing I have learned about the process of achieving mastery of your craft, it is this:
Regardless of what medium they’re working in, the apprentice artist is concerned primarily with achieving realism via an expansion of their control—control of their brush strokes as they paint a photorealistic eye; control of their deck of cards, the mechanisms of their magic tricks, and where the audience’s attention is being directed; control of all the little factors of voice, plot, character, setting, suspense and surprise that go into writing a good story. However, the master artist has achieved that control—so much so that it often looks effortless to an untrained eye—and sometimes the master artist returns to a messy, amateurish style simply because they have control even over this too.
As an example, consider Picasso and his entire body of work. He begins as an apprentice focused on achieving control, doing portraits of people that look like people—like what we expect a portrait of a person to look like. Then, as he grows in skill and gradually achieves mastery, he pulls away from realism. He develops a style, he experiments with faces that don’t look like any human alive colored in ways that do not appear in nature. He expands his control. His work becomes abstract. Towards the end of his life, he starts experimenting with what’s called “Naive art”, something that a 5 year old could theoretically draw... but you have to achieve mastery before you can do it on purpose and have it look good.
On one hand, Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job. On the other hand, Season 2 has bad writing in it.
What does that tell us?
Well, we know from our Baseline Assumptions that Neil Gaiman is simply too good of a writer to fuck up through garden-variety clumsiness and lack-of-control the way an apprentice writer would. Additionally, he cannot fuck up by accident in this case because I am positive that the man is scrutinizing his work on Good Omens far too closely to let anything slide—for Crowley and Aziraphale’s sakes, for David and Michael’s sakes, and especially for Terry’s sake. The stakes are sky-high, and he cares too much to write a weird, kind of “bad” season by accident.
Which leaves only one option: He did it on purpose.
(Am I sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist? Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m gonna get SO MUCH MORE CRACKPOT.)
If he did it on purpose, then the natural question to ask is: WHY!?!?!??
It’s a great question. Not “Why?” in terms of why he as an individual person with emotions would decide to do that, mind you. More like, “What purpose does this serve for the structure of the narrative?” There is a story he is intending to tell, and out of all the choices he could have possibly made, for some reason this one was necessary and correct in order to achieve that end goal—so what was that reason?
See? Intentionality. He knows exactly what details he left in, and he did it on purpose. (Editing! It’s important!)
So there has to be a reason. It’s like when a master magician “casually” rubs an itch on his nose—why did he do that? What is he sneakily slipping into his mouth by hiding it under the excuse of this little gesture that does not even register to you as meaningful? (If you haven’t watched enough stage magic to know what I mean, watch this.)
This question is, of course, impossible to simply answer out of thin air without any further evidence. It is a dead end—so we must adjust the question and come at it from a different angle.
The one I settled on when I was chewing on this was: Well, okay, what do I mean when I say “bad writing”? What is it about S2 that makes it feel so goddamn odd?
The Pledge, The Turn, and... The Conspicuous, Expectant Silence
There are three parts to a magic trick: Pledge, Turn, Prestige.
First, the Pledge: You show the audience something ordinary.
Second, the Turn: You make that ordinary thing do something extraordinary, like vanish.
Third, the Prestige: You bring the ordinary thing back.
To quote the 2006 film The Prestige just after its explanation of the first two parts: “You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”
You have to bring it back.
When I teach apprentice writers, I call this a “setup-payoff cycle”. Achieving control and dexterity with this tool is crucial, because the setup-payoff cycle is the engine of the story—it’s what makes the story run. You can have a setup-payoff cycle at any scale—I have read ones that were a single sentence long; I’ve read ones that were two books long. Additionally, all jokes, no matter how long they are, are structured on a setup/payoff cycle. These cycles work precisely the same way a magic trick does:
You set up the audience’s expectations.
(Optional but generally considered stylish and elegant: You give those expectations a firm jolt to throw the audience off-balance.)
You pay off the audience’s expectations in a way they weren’t expecting, while saying “TA DA!!!!” really loud with your arms flung wide.
Audiences really like this. A setup-payoff cycle executed just right makes the audience’s brains light up like Times Square and hammers on their mental “reward” buttons like nothing else. It’s like you’ve personally handed them a cookie and a gold star. They go wild for this.
Here’s an example of a setup-payoff cycle, though it’s not a perfect one—and you’ve probably heard it before, so you’re not going to be throwing chairs and tearing down the theater from sheer glee:
The Setup: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who?
The Jolt: (the joke starts over and repeats several times without reaching the payoff (aka the prestige) while the audience grows more and more annoyed and frustrated about the unfulfilled expectations, until finally...) Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who?
The Payoff: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?
Good Omens Season 2 feels so fucking odd because the setup-payoff cycles are incomplete—nearly all of them are, and the ones that do close the loop do so in really weird ways which, as a professional author, make me feel kind of, “Bwuh?????? But where’s my cookie? Excuse me??? Sir???? Neil????? My cookie, tho???”
When I realized this, when I finally put my finger on why the whole season was giving me some uncanny valley heebie-jeebies, a chill ran down my spine.
(The rest is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ I’M GOING TO GO STARE INTO THE ABYSS NOW BYE)
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So there's a lot to unpack here but I want to start by talking about the ending and specifically about the Metatron and the calculating moves made at the end of episode 6.
Every single piece of what happened there was a manipulation technique being employed against Aziraphale to an almost brilliant degree and I'm honestly a little obsessed with what this says about the Metatron in particular.
Let's go in order.
First of all. We see him order coffee. In a human body. Something sweet and sugary. He talks to Nina and asks her about her shop name. Does anyone ever ask for death? And when she tells him no they don't his response is to say "so predictable". Our introduction to him here even when everything about him reads like a sweet old man is presented to show us someone who reads the world in terms of being predictable to him.
He then shows up in the middle of Aziraphale's existence being threatened. He immediately cuts down the threat's authority (using outdated language like Az himself would favor) and reemphasizes his own connection to Heaven. When Michael doesn't recognize him and he puts her down and then directly engages Crowley. Crowley who, to Aziraphale, has for centuries at a minimum been someone he thinks is smarter, better, more Good than these other archangels. The Metatron validates these beliefs. Crowley is more Heavenly than these archangels who couldn't even recognize the voice of God when he was standing right in front of them.
The Metatron draws attention to the fact he's in a human body. The kind of body Aziraphale has been in and loved for nearly 6000 years. He then banishes the archangels, implying their morality is in a gray space, and validates Muriel someone we have seen Aziraphale react positively to and someone outside the current power structure. Look at me, he's saying. I see and validate the little guy.
He then tries to talk to Aziraphale. Aziraphale says "I've made my position quite clear." And then the Metatron offers Aziraphale the coffee. This bartering chip, consuming sustenance, is a thing that Aziraphale and Crowley have used as their connective tissue for centuries. It's an olive branch for them. It's giving Aziraphale bodily pleasure and the Metatron implies that he himself has partaken also - a thing we know that Aziraphale has struggled historically with moralizing. He is seen by the closest thing he has left to his parent and he is having old fears validated as safe and old habits being played upon to make him feel secure
He then REMOVES Aziraphale from his home turf. Not only does he remove Crowley from the equation but he takes Aziraphale from the place that has stood as a place of sanctuary throughout the entirety of the season. The shop is Safe and Aziraphale is leaving it and he is leaving the one person who might be able to smell the bullshit coming from the Metatron. The music notably turns absolutely dire here.
The next time we see them the Metatron tells Aziraphale that he doesn't need to answer instantly. He can take his time, if he likes. All the time he needs. And then tells him to go tell Crowley. Once again bringing Crowley in as a valid part of this while manufacturing a scenario where he can't possibly be.
Az ends up in a place where he's overwhelmed and confused and he wants so badly to believe what he's being told. It's an appealing thing from his perspective! He feels off kilter like he's made a mistake in judging the Metatron. He can't even fully articulate what happened to Crowley at first and he's had absolutely no real time to actually think it through. He's running on sheer reactive energy.
The Metatron starts their conversation by asking Aziraphale's opinion. Who should rule Heaven? This is once again playing into making Az feel validated and like he's a part of this decision making process. The Metatron corrects him, complimenting Aziraphale and making him feel capable and in control. He reassures Aziraphale's bafflement. And draws attention to some traits that, while true of Aziraphale around Crowley, are not his defining traits in the eyes of Heaven. You don't just tell people what they want to hear I find particularly notable in this regard given Aziraphale spent most of his time on earth actively lying to Heaven and doing just that. But it fits into the narrative Aziraphale has built around himself, especially post Apocalypse. The Metatron then says I need you (a phrase Az will use much more painfully here in a minute).
And even after all this Aziraphale says no. He says flat out he doesn't want to go back to Heaven. He says this!!! And then the Metatron sweetens the pot. He swaps tactics. Not once has this come up until Aziraphale pushes back against the idea. If the Metatron could've gotten him without using it I have no doubt he wouldn't have bothered with it. Come to Heaven and we can save Crowley. Aziraphale loves Crowley. Aziraphale thinks Crowley is better than any of the angels he's interacted with. Crowley is Good and Nice and Kind and always saving him and now he's being presented with a way to return that. He can Forgive Crowley - a thing Crowley has always presented to Aziraphale as something he struggles with. All of these things Aziraphale has watched Crowley react to in a way that belittles himself or distances them from one another. Of course he wouldn't consider that maybe what he was actually saying is "I'm unforgivable and I don't want that forgiveness."
The Metatron offers Aziraphale a Dream Offer for the pre Armageddon Aziraphale. You can keep your Crowley. You can heal him like you have always thought he deserved. You can have power and control the people who for your whole existence has beaten you down. It can go back to how it was but BETTER.
When Aziraphale leaves he still hasn't answered. He goes and has the conversation they have. It's intense and emotional and the Metatron comes in after the Moment all casual and asks how it goes, knowing fully well the shitstorm he had just set up to get created. And then he turns around and says "always did want to go his own way" which is not only true of Crowley but framed as a bad thing despite the fact that he has just spent twenty minutes or so telling Aziraphale that he's done his own thing and that is Good. He is playing both sides of this perspective as it suits him. And then he cuts down Crowley asking questions, pressuring Aziraphale to avoid doing the same. He then proceeds to ask Aziraphale not if he's made up his mind but if he's ready to get started. He is one by one closing off exit routes to this thing as Aziraphale starts to look more and more panicked and indecisive. He makes sure the bookshop is in good hands and asks Aziraphale if there's anything he needs to take with him. Letting Aziraphale have the illusion of choice while cutting down "I don't want to" as an option altogether.
And Az, as soon as the Metatron is out of shot, tries to express this. And then he falls back right on old coping methods. The Metatron pats him on the head. Reassures that he's the right one for this. That he is Good. That his particular skillset is needed here.
It is a masterstroke of manipulation. A very dark twist on what we see Crowley do time and time again with Aziraphale throughout the millennia. Familiar in a way that makes Aziraphale feel safe. Except this time this is being used to put him back in line. It's brilliant and painful and it fucking hurt and I need a season 3 to see the Metatron get what's coming to him stat.
#good omens#good omens season 2#gos2 spoilers#good omens spoilers#Metatron#Aziraphale#Episode 6#Every Day#good omens meta
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Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.
It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.
The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.
Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...
#Good Omens#Good Omens spoilers#Good Omens 2#Good Omens 2 spoilers#GO2#GO2 spoilers#mymetas#this is so rough and I'll probably write better metas later#but I just have FEELINGS RIGHT NOW OKAY
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I was watching the bts videos yesterday including the making of the opening credits and Mr. Anderson said “We added plaques to the back of chairs and Neil chose who to honour on them”.
He’s referring to the chairs we briefly see in the theatre where Aziraphale is doing his magic act:
Left to right: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and The Crow Road by Iain Banks.
I want to focus on these three in a row specifically because Neil chose to put those books there in that order and I had something of an epiphany last night about it all when insomnia was chewing on my toes.
These three books have also been mentioned out loud in the show in episode 2 when Gabriel is reorganising the shelves:
“It was the day my grandmother exploded” - The Crow Road
“It is a truth universally acknowledged-” - Pride and Prejudice
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” - A Tale of Two Cities
For those unfamiliar with the books, I’ll do a quick potted summary of each, with a focus on why I think they’re relevant and especially why the order of the chairs in the theatre feels relevant.
A Tale of Two Cities
Set during the French revolution with one lead who is an aristocrat who has stepped away from his class and background to support the less fortunate than himself because he disagrees with the way they did things. Also, he changed his name because he doesn’t want to be associated with the place where he came from.
The big culmination of the books is when said man is betrayed and set to be executed, but his friend takes his place. There is very literally a body swap by someone who looks very like him in order to save his life. This body-swap is done out of love.
aka - season 1.
Pride and Prejudice
Two people from very different class backgrounds have a very very bumpy start to their relationship because of misinterpretation, miscommunication and a lot of external pressure put on them by the rules of their respective societies. Both of them have different information and because of that, both of them are seeing exactly the same situation very differently. One of them tries to express his affection, but does it so badly that the other tells him there is no chance she will join him.
aka - season 2
The Crow Road
A young man tries to solve a mystery of someone’s disappearance using only the papers they left behind, with said young man’s background rooted in faith and belief in a higher power. There’s also a secondary plot about emotional growth into a more mature and more fulfilling relationship.
(And wouldn’t you know it, it’s the book handed to Muriel by Crowley, who tells them they’ll like it, and the Metatron comments on it)
aka - season 3
Needless to say, I am quite excited :)
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Imagine Crowley takes the Prince of Hell job because that is the only way to stop the World ending.
Aziraphale is keeping his job for the same reason.
Their relationship is quite cold, Aziraphale tries to get closer but it’s like Crowley changed. He really put a thick wall between them. He’s kind but he’s emotionless. Every time they finish talking business he just leaves.
With them in power and actually not being distracted by anything, they do sabotage the end of the World. They get rid of Metatron.
After, there is a wedding they get invited to. Maggie and Nina. Who would have thought. Aziraphale stands behind Maggie and Crowley stands behind Nina.
Aziraphale can’t stop looking at Crowley. He’s all in black and handsome, gold jewellery making him truly seem like a Prince.
But the Prince is not looking at him.
Aziraphale knows that Crowley was kicked out of his job just like him. They both had their pardons because they made everything better but they still sabotaged the end.
He didn’t think either of them minded being set free. That’s what they always wanted.
During the party, Aziraphale watches Crowley dancing with others; laughs and moves all around. He’s gorgeous.
During the meals, Crowley looks at Aziraphale, knowing that it will be that one moment where Aziraphale won’t be trying to look at him.
He’s glad they were sat on opposite sides of the room.
When the girls plan to throw flowers, Aziraphale sees Crowley lounging in the chair, glass of champagne in his hand, nails still the black claws.
Not making a move with everyone else to catch the bouquet.
Aziraphale swallows his tears back. He misses him so much it is painful. And seeing him, during a wedding day, so far away, when it could have been them…
And that’s when Nina turns and throws her bouquet right at Crowley, smashing the glass out of his hand.
“Nina!!!”
Aziraphale would have gasped in shock if he didn’t get hit with another bouquet, from Maggie.
“Maggie!”
They don’t really have time to swear before they’re both dragged outside and kicked out on the balcony, told to “fucking talk!” before the door shuts behind them and the party continues without them.
Crowley is mad, swearing at them, “have you seen this?!” as he’s taking leaves out of his hair.
Aziraphale is still holding his bouquet.
“Here.” He reaches out to take a flower out of Crowley’s hair.
And Crowley finally looks at him.
And Aziraphale feels that maybe, just maybe, they will finally talk.
#good omens#crowley#ineffable fandom#good ineffable omens#ineffable husbands#ineffable boyfriends#ineffable dumbasses#ineffable idiots#ineffable lovers#aziraphale#aziracrow
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I was curious how you manage to keep features consistent when you draw them? Do you use models? Is there a model for Crowley? He is very handsome.
I don't use models per se, but I sometimes keep files of photos or art that resembles the subject.
Crowley is based a bit on the French actor Alain Delon who was once considered the handsomest man in the world. He doesn't look exactly like Delon, but that is in my head when I draw him. I recall reading Neil and Mr. Pratchett once considered Peter Sellers for Crowley.
There is no reference for Aziraphale because he is entirely in my head and I can't really find anyone who looks exactly the way he does. I recall reading that Neil and Mr. Pratchett thought of Brian Dennehy at one point, but my head canon Aziraphale won. I think a Brian Dennehy Aziraphale would have been amazing, though. Anyway, he is actually kind of hard for me to draw because his facial structure is a bit outside my usual style. His face is a bit long and his eyes closer together than I normally do, and if I'm not careful, he slips away. He appears younger and more classically handsome as an angel than he does in his corporeal form, but I think he's quite fetching as a bookseller.
Michael Sheen is so perfect in this role it is really hard not to leak bits of his performance into the graphic novel edition, but I have to resist the impulse. I am not allowed to use any of the show actors as models.
I adore Michael Sheen. Who doesn't?
Adam is also a head canon character. He is a perfect young Greek God, so that's kind of drawing on a day with a Y in it for me.
The inspiration for Newt I'm keeping a secret. I submitted a number of sketches for Newt. The show Newt dug in deep and I had a hard time shaking him off.
The Them are based on kids I knew. They're in my head, I don't need any photos. They don't really look like the kinds in the show. The book version of Pepper, for example, is a freckled red-head.
Anathema is an amalgam of features that don't come from one person, which I think fits the description of the character. She's also unusual for me to draw but she's easier to draw than Aziraphale. I nail her every time.
Hastur is a caricature of the stereotypical English upper class you'd see in broadsheets 200 years ago. I have a file of pictures of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury for Hastur. I considered making Hastur more handsome in a Duke of Hell sort of way, but I think Hastur likes to be scary. I keep thinking of Peter O'Toole when I draw Hastur, too.
I feel kind of bad basing Hastur on Lord Ashley because he was a wonderful person and I'm sure he didn't go to Hell.
Ligur is a broad caricature of Danny Devito. I obviously can't use a DeVito portrait. That would be wrong. But I can tweak from there and come up with a general idea of the face I want to use.
Beelzebub and Metatron are head canon, and don't look a thing like they do in the show. I postulate some demons prefer to look like their angelic selves, and at other times prefer to be fearsome. Crowley can look fearsome when he wants, for example. In the book, Beelzebub appears as a young man in red flames.
Shadwell was drawn from reference at the direct suggestion of Neil.
Madame Tracy is based on a certain person, but no one you would have heard of. The original source might not be flattered, but I love Madam Tracy. She's really easy to draw because she's a bit over the top. I'm sketching around her scenes right now because I don't have final approval on some things yet. So she might need some changes later.
War is head canon, very easy to draw. She's a knockout. No reference required.
Famine looks a lot like Famine in the show, actually, but that's what Famine always looked like, pretty much. Except he has the grey eyes he has in the book.
Pollution is initially described as being a forgettable white guy, but later described as looking like a romantic poet, which strikes me as being memorable. Because he's only on one page in his forgettable white guy phase, I chose not to make major changes in his appearance between those panels and later when he appears as his true self, because that's a bit more confusing than it needs to be in the graphic novel edition. He's rather glamorous as the essence of Pollution, though. No reference needed.
Dog is a dog.
While I do give every detail a lot of thought, I am sure other people have other opinions. I understand that, and hope you enjoy what I do anyway.
Thanks for your question.
I'm still a bit under the weather, so may be stepping away from the net for awhile so I can concentrate on work. I have a lot of sick time to make up.
But don't think I don't appreciate your interest in the Good Omens graphic novel adaptation. Your wonderful support is acting on me like a tonic, let me tell you.
kickstarter
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Okay SO. I have a question that I don’t quite have a satisfactory answer to. I have an answer, certainly, but—
Why is it that, as Aziraphale is being threatened with erasure from the Book of Life, Crowley is sprawled in an armchair half a room away?
This is Aziraphale distracted by the door as it opens. He is facing them alone.
Just—it’s a little odd, no? For Crowley not to be standing right next to his angel at a moment like this?
What I think is happening is that Crowley knows Aziraphale can handle this, and is giving him a chance to handle it on his own. Throughout S2, Aziraphale has been trying to establish his independence and agency (with taking the car, with being a forgiving landlord, even with saying that rescuing him makes Crowley happy but he absolutely has his own plan too). And Aziraphale has just done very impressive things. He blew up the halo, sure, but it’s more than that: Aziraphale becomes the ultimate arbiter on Gabriel and Beelzebub; he brings the Archangels and the Hell-folk in his bookshop to order. (Crowley’s expression as he observes that through the window? He is so proud and fond of his angel I could cry.)
Point is: Aziraphale is seriously impressive here, and Crowley loves to see it. So Crowley has full trust that Aziraphale will deal with the current threat on his own, and steps back to watch the resolution.
Which—
As Metatron walks in, he says that Michael does not have the authority to erase Aziraphale from the Book of Life.
Does… does Crowley know this? Is that why he’s sitting back, giving Aziraphale a moment of agency and triumph all his own? Believing that Aziraphale will know and invoke the rules? Or is Crowley’s languid pose camouflage? Is he as calm as he appears?
(A side question, of course, is whether it’s even true that Michael does not have the authority to act on their words. The first rule of season 2 is clearly never to trust Metatron. He walked into the bookshop at that moment, at the moment of an existential threat, and very literally brought coffee instead of death. This is no accident.)
So yeah, I really, really want to know what Crowley is thinking there. What do you know, Crowley? What do you know?
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[Re-Angelized Crowley ruling Heaven alongside Supreme Archangel Aziraphale #3.1]
Hi, Angels! 👋
If you haven't read Part 1&2, here you go:
Now, time for Part 3.1 [this part was long so I divided it into two subparts]
That time Supreme Archangel Aziraphale suggested - or, more so, presented - a suggestion box.
Uriel: *blinks uncontrollably*
Saraqael: *annoyed but kinda ready to know more*
Michael: *most unsubtle eyeroll ever*
Metatron: *has heard that shit before* *so pissed rn* Aziraphale...
Crowley: *scandalized in you-owe-me-royalties* Hey! That was my idea, Angel!
Aziraphale: I know, Crowley! Look! *flips the loosely painted in gold cardboard box*
[Written on the box, in black: ARCHANGEL CROWLEY'S VERY OWN SUGGESTION BOX] [Plus a couple of hearts drawn around Crowley's name]
Crowley: Oh. *clears his throat* Nevermind.
Aziraphale: *smiles in I-knew-you-would-react-like-that*
Metatron: *looks at them Severus-ly* We are not suggesting things, Aziraphale, we just do them.
Aziraphale: Well, not exactly, we, hum... We already have meetings where we discuss things together, each giving their own id-
Metatron: *deadeye* Are you, really, defining the term "suggesting" to me?
Aziraphale: *already feels like he's no longer existing anymore*
Crowley: *barely mumbles* Looks like you needed it.
Metatron: *murderous look*
Aziraphale: There is... There is no need to fight, we...
Crowley: Angel, the simple fact we are discussing this is implying we need to use suggestions!
Uriel: *sigh* My head hurts already.
Metatron: *refuses to budge* Suggestion is very close to Temptation.
Crowley: COME ON, it depends on the context! Look, if I approach Aziraphale like that *walks like Rihanna towards his hubby* *approaches very very closely, taking his Angel's arm to not leave him a chance to recoil* Right? Like that, and say something like... *leans in* *suggestive voice* "Should we have dinner, Angel?"
Aziraphale: *is about to melt right to Hell's gates* I... huh...
Crowley: *his hand goes up near his shoulder in a flirtatious caress*
Saraqael: I'm ready to suggest we shouldn't witness that.
Crowley: *turns to Saraqael* SHHHH. *gritted teeth* I. am. teaching. *Turns back to Aziraphale*
Aziraphale: *Supreme_Archangel_Who_Has_Standards_Aziraphale.exe has stopped working*
Crowley: *tries to bring him back to Ear-Heaven* *soothing voice* Angel? Should we have dinner?
Aziraphale: Huh... I mean... huh... Yes?
Crowley: *mumbles* No, no, Angel. That was a suggestion! We are supposed to discuss it!
Aziraphale: *enamored Supreme Archangel* *out loud* But you made such a good case, Crowley, there is no need to discuss it! Of course, I will have dinner with you! 🥰 *Cutest Smile Ever*
Michael: *rolls their eyes in Someone-has-been-casting-couching*
Crowley: *wants to smile back* *also wants to tell his Angel how stupid he is sometimes*
Metatron: *annoyed beyond words* *also loves being right* Told you this was too close to Tempting.
Crowley: Okay, bad example, but still. Suggestions are important!
Metatron: Not at all. I or Aziraphale tells you what to do and you do it. Simple.
Crowley: Oh? Fine by me! *turns to Aziraphale* Supreme Archangel Aziraphale, what do you want us to do?
Aziraphale: *looks at Metatron for a second* *looks at Crowley for five* *has found the courage God-knows-where* *talks in boss bitch* I want you all to put any suggestion you may have in this suggestion box Muriel had the kindness to make for us. Thank you.
Metatron: *super pissed entity* *turns to Crowley* THIS IS NOT. HAPPENING! NOT ON MY WATCH!
Aziraphale: *freezes*
Crowley: You said, "I OR Aziraphale tells you what to do and you do it." Not "AND". Which means we only need one of you to approve of something. Right? Unless... unless you two need to discuss it, to make... suggestions to each other? *smiles like the aggravating brat he is*
Metatron: *ruminates his bad life choices* Why are you always so difficult? Aziraphale, I want you to throw that nonsense in the trash. Now.
Aziraphale: *does not know what to do* *looks at both of them* *stressed out in bureaucracy*
Saraqael: What if... we keep it for a decade and see what happens?
Michael: *shook* *feels betrayed*
Uriel: *she-just-said-what face*
Crowley & Aziraphale: *cannot believe their ears*
Metatron: *just wants to erase the names of everybody in this room*
Saraqael: *smirks* I bet nobody will ever write a thing anyway.
Michael: *snorts*
Uriel: Whatever.
Crowley: That's the spirit! Right, Aziraphale?
Aziraphale: Huh... Y-yes! That's a good start!
Crowley: Unless the old man has anything else to say?
Metatron: *will kill him even if it is the last thing he does* Careful, Crowley... the floor is slippery and you look like you could fall again...
Crowley: *removes his leathery boots* That... *reveals a pair of socks full of cute halos and books* is a risk... I'm always willing to take, wooohooooo! *proceeds to ice-skate like a pro because he is a showoff*
Aziraphale: *follows Crowley's every move scared he might break an ankle* SOOO... How about we all go to Earth to have dinner?
Michael: *has a heart attack* Say what now?!
Uriel: Ingest human matter? No way.
Saraqael: *eye-rolls in I'm-trying-really-hard-to-save-our-asses-and-you-are-not helping* This does not sound like the right moment to do another stupid thing, Aziraphale.
Aziraphale: Well, as Crowley said, I can tell you what you do and you are supposed to simply do it, so... *snaps his fingers to open the elevator doors from afar* *bends in a Magishun way* Everyone. If you please. Let's have a... business seminar on Earth.
Metatron: *too stunned to have a brain cell left to give a fuck anymore*
The group: *leaves in astonishment without him*
#Good Omens#Good Omens fanfic#Aziracrow#Ineffable Husbands#Aziraphale#Crowley#Supreme Archangel Aziraphale#Archangel Anthony J Crowley#Crowley and Aziraphale rule Heaven Together#Metatron wants to quit#Oh and they are married#Featuring Good Omens suggestion box
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Why Aziraphale is an unreliable narrator
Part 1: The Story of Job
I'm absolutely not the first one to talk about this on here and I probably shan't be the last either. Alas, here's my take on why all of the minisodes in Season 2 should be enjoyed with great care – and taken with a grain of angelic salt.
I'm gonna split this into 3 parts, aka the three minisodes we are shown, since I tend to get a bit waffley in my posts and want to still be able to include all the little details. Once I've written them, I'll link Part 2 & Part 3 here as well!
Alright, let's get into it under the cut of doom.
Episode 2 opens with the Story of Job. Right off the bat, I noticed that it sort of looks like an old film playing. At first I didn't read that much into it, but once we see the cut-away to Aziraphale at the bookshop, currently reading that part of the Bible (presumably), I immediately thought: "Oh! It's because it's his memory. He's remembering how it went down and therefore it plays like a figurative film in his head."
This, I then came to realize, is a very crucial difference to all the flashbacks of S1, which were exclusively told and narrated by God. May her intensions be as ineffable as they are: She did tell us all of these stories from an objective outsider's point of view. Now, however, it's Aziraphale who's re-telling those stories to us from memory.
And if there's one thing that's for certain, it's that a memory is something entirely different to an objective narration of a story. Just think about how you yourself remember things. Especially things that happened years, maybe even decades (or, in an angel's case, millenia) ago. What is it, that you really remember? Can you know for sure, that a conversation was held with those exact words? Are you 100% certain that the clothes someone wore weren't different? Had it really been snowing or would that make very little sense given what you're remembering happened in May? And did it even happen in May? Or does that just happen to be your favourite month, the current weather, your preferred style of clothing and what it was that you would imagine someone would have said to you?
What I'm trying to say is: The further away it is that something happened, the more your brain has to fill in the gaps. This is why, for example, your parents will remember the family summer holiday entirely different when you ask them about it 20 years later.
"No, it was Sarah who puked on the car ride home!"
"Nonsense, Sarah never puked as a child. Bobby had that gone-off pizza, he's the one that was sick the whole ride long!"
We've all been there. Bobby made it out alive. Don't buy gas station pizza.
Alright, back to the plot: Naturally, Aziraphale is not actually human, so it is a pure assumption on my part that the way his memory works is similar to ours. However, the whole topic of "memory" is actually quite a recurring one on Good Omens.
Crowley seems to have lost his in the Fall, yet somehow managed to get most of it back. Not all of it, though, he clearly has some major gaps ("You used to jump on me back, little monkey in the waistcoat!"). Beelzebub helps Gabriel store all his memories in their little fly container before they get wiped entirely too, by the Metatron and/or Saraqael. Crowley and Aziraphale (and possibly Jimbriel) perform a miracle together that makes everyone in Heaven and Hell forget who Garbiel is or what he looks like. And we know that the Book of Life apparently has the ability to completely erase someone from existence – ergo also erasing them from everyone's memory and making it is as though the person had never been in them at all.
So, clearly, angels and demons being able to remember, forget, reconstruct and, if you're the Metadork, wipe memories, is very much canon. Apart from that very last one, it does make them quite human-like in a way. We too can forget or (wrongfully and incompletely) reconstruct memories, due to things like trauma, illness or simply a lot of time having passed.
So, just like Crowley remembers going into battle but doesn't remember Furfur being there, or just like Jimbriel has entierly forgotten who he is but still remembers the tune and lyrics to Buddy Holly's song Everyday, and just like archangel Michael was miraculously made to forget Gabriel and yet says "Don't I know you?" when seeing him again – just like that, Aziraphale's memories of the story of Job, the story of wee Morag and the story of the magic show in 1941, might not actually be the whole truth.
So, time to look at where the furniture isn't.
Now, it could very well be that the costume designers of S2 thought: "Fuck it, let's go crazy" – but given that this show has a track record of meticulously making sure to stick to accurate and cohesive character design, doesn't it strike you as odd that Crowley would go from this look at the Flood in Mesopotamia, 3004 BC:
... to the (very iconic, don't get me wrong) Bildad the Shuhuite drip in 2500 BC:
... back to this at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in 33 AD:
I mean ... I mean– come on, that seems like a bit of a far stretch, even for someone as enthusiastically experimental with fashion as Crowley.
And it's not just that: Where did the sunglasses come from, all of a sudden? And why do they look like some sort of obscure, ancient optometrist's device? It's a known historical fact that the Romans were the ones to have invented sunglasses, somewhere around 50-ish AD. Which actually matches perfectly with when Crowley and Aziraphale meet again in Rome 8 years after the crucifixion (51 AD).
So, where do the weird spectacles come from, over 2000 years too early? Maybe from Aziraphale's brain filling in some gaps? Hasn't Crowley always worn those ridiculous sunglasses? Was it Rome? Or Golgotha? Wessex? Oh, blimey, what does it matter!
And it's not just Crowley: Aziraphale's own clothes, as well as the other angels', seem to be very different from the rather plain linen we see him wear before and after the story of Job.
They're laced with golden embroidery along the neckline and sleeves. The remind almost of the clothes angels are depicted wearing in biblical and historical drawings. Ornate and decadent. Not at all like we see Aziraphale in the other flashbacks of S1.
Even Bildad the Shuhite's hair within the minisode keeps changing, going from all pouffy and voluminous to rather deflated and straight-looking:
The costume department either had to fix up two seperate wigs or manually straighten out the volume of the one again to give it a more sleek look. I'm not a professional in this field, but if there's anything I've learned from watching hours of behind-the-scenes material of movies and shows, it's that very little about costume, character, prop and set design is purely coincidental.
You know what it could be, though? An accurate representation of how memories aren't linear, historically correct and objective representations of a certain event, but rather an ever-changing, jumbled mess of impressions, emotions and exaggerations.
More specifically: Aziraphale's impression, emotions and exaggerations.
Like "remembering" Crowley with sunglasses because he's been wearing them for so long.
Like "remembering" himself wearing more luxurious, angelic clothes because that's how he thinks of the difference between Heaven and Hell.
Like "remembering" the permit as a ridiculously long scroll that folded out over an entire valley.
Like "remembering" Job's children to be weirdly sassy in an almost Aziraphale-esque way (Enon: "Don't be silly!") for the fact that Job would have probably taught them to be more humble and obedient in the presence of a literal angel.
Like "remembering" eating an entire fucking Ox after having just one bite of it while Crowley watched him lustfully, sipping on his wine.
Like "remembering" Crowley calling him 'angel', despite them having barely known each other back then.
There's a reason why the flashbacks in S2 seem so much more alive, quirky and, at many points, confusing and all over the place. Because they're not objective stories being told by a third party. They're Aziraphale's. So much of his own thoughts and feelings at the time get projected onto them because that's simply how memory works!
It's subjective. It's unrealiable.
It's not that I'm calling Aziraphale a liar. He's no more a liar than your parents are, mixing up Sarah and Bobby. Or you, remembering snow instead of sunshine. Memories aren't lies. They can simply be faulty, focus on things that you thought were more important and leaving out or changing things that weren't, to you.
The real challenge in all of this, is trying to filter through Aziraphale's stories to see what it actually is they're telling us. Where it is that the furniture isn't. And I think in this case, that's 6 main things (eff you, God, I know you like sevens, but I don't care):
God and Satan (still) talk to each other
We see that Aziraphale is quite surprised when Muriel mentions that the whole Job thing is God's bet with Satan. But clearly, despite having made him and the rest fall, God still converses with Her number one traitor about whether or not the humans simply love Her because she gives them nice things or because they truly believe in Her.
God and Satan (and Heaven and Hell) can and do collaborate with each other when they feel like it
So much for choosing sides, huh? Truthfully, this is not the first time this is shown to us, but still. It's another piece of evidence on the growing pile.
Aziraphale understands the World and humans way better than any of the other angels
"Well, you see ... Citis is 58 ..."
Aziraphale, despite having troubles voicing it, absolutely disagrees and even condemns God's plan of destroying Job's children (and goats and camels and––)
Aziraphale is willing to lie and thwart the will of God
Also not the first time we're being shown this but again, piiiile of evidence.
Angels don't automatically Fall simply by doing the above
To me, this is one of the most important take aways. It's already hinted in S1 as well that 'Falling' seems to have been a one time even back when the first war broke out in Heaven. And I actually believe that ever since then, no other angels have Fallen again. Aziraphale is the best example for this. He has gone against God's plan numerous times and even lied to her very face (voice?) about it. And yet, nothing ever happened to him. Why exactly that is the case remains a topic for another meta (that I might or might not be working on already, teehee).
Alright, that concludes this first look at the Job minisode! If there's anything I missed, feel free to share it with me. I'll try and add Part 2 (the story of wee Morag) and Part 3 (the magic show of 1941) soon.
Update: Part 2 and Part 3 have officially been written, you can find it them right here:
Part 2: The Story of wee Morag
Part 3: The Story of the Magic Show in 1941
Hugs and kisses, (God)!
#good omens#good omens season 2#gos2#go2#good omens 2#good omens meta#ineffable husbands#aziraphale#crowley#story of job#job minisode#good omens analysis#aziraphale is a storyteller#but not a very accurate one#my own meta
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I’m doing it. I’m breaking down the Scene. You know the one. I've been tearing it apart for a week straight now in discord and figured I should leave my observations here. So, uh, yeah, this one's a big one so buckle up folks!
I want to start with the build up because I can never leave well enough alone and because I think the framing we have coming into this sequence is important. We start with the camera on Mr. Acts of Service himself. Crowley, after banishing Muriel, starts cleaning up the bookshop. The music playing is the soft slow rendition of the opening theme. He is returning this space to the status quo, resetting back to normal, fully intending to do this for Aziraphale before dragging him out to the Ritz, falling back on their typical pattern of going out together for food and drink.
Now in a moment he's going to get interrupted by Nina and Maggie but before we get there I want to take a second to draw attention to the area of the bookshop that Crowley will be operating in for the bulk of this. This space is one we very frequently see Aziraphale in. It's his desk behind the till - a spot linked intrinsically to him, even down to the fact that it's located on the east side of the shop. The windows are throwing beams of light onto Aziraphale's chair and onto the same spot Crowley will stand during The Scene. This lighting choice will not change from now until our last shots in the bookshop and the way the blocking plays around these sunbeams is very aware (as Good Omens nearly always is) of exactly where they will land.
Nina and Maggie enter the scene to have a chat about boundaries and communication. Maggie, his own mirror, tells him flat out that he can't play with their lives like that. Maggie and Nina then both tell him that he and Aziraphale need to talk. And I don’t think they're wrong, exactly, but I do think that Aziraphale and Crowley are actually a lot better at communicating in general than they are in these following high stakes scenes. But that's some meta for later - for now I want to just focus on the particular way Crowley's been primed for the conversation he and Az are about to have. Nina in particular does something really interesting. She does exactly what we as the audience did when we first saw Nina and Maggie: she mistakenly projects herself onto Crowley. She says he has trust issues because she does and in the process accidentally frames the core of their problem as Crowley needing to allow himself to trust Aziraphale, a thing that he actively already does and has done for quite some time and has been shown to us several times throughout the two seasons.
Now the build up we get for Aziraphale going into this conversation is very small. By which I mean practically non-existent. We start at the end of his conversation with the Metatron who tells him to go tell his friend the good news - which notably does not imply that the news is something that would require Crowley to make a choice - and sends Aziraphale on his way. Now the most crucial thing in this sequence, to me, is the expressions Aziraphale makes when he thinks the Metatron isn't looking at him. While polite and smiley when engaged with him, Az's expression falls as soon as he doesn't have eyes on him. Something is wrong and Aziraphale knows it.
Aziraphale enters the shop. The doorway is dark and shadowy and he hasn't composed himself yet - though he does give Nina and Maggie a little smile as they leave. Then, as soon as they're not looking at him, but before he approaches Crowley, the tension is back.
He hesitates, then smiles and approaches Crowley. Crowley, planted dead center in that beam of light from earlier, takes off his glasses and promptly starts nervously rambling. The music cuts off here entirely, giving us nothing to focus on but the noises coming from our lead actors, the background noise from the street, and the ticking of the clock in the background. Aziraphale puts up his hands like he's going to interrupt then lowers them again as Crowley keeps talking, his face shifting into this helpless sort of smitten look.
Now look at the light and how it hits the bookshelves behind Crowley as he tries to get his confession going. It's in the shape of a wing. Keep an eye on that - when the camera chooses to show us this one wing of light is important.
Aziraphale then interrupts and there are two things I want to draw attention to here as Aziraphale fumbles for words. First of all is the fact that he glances in the direction of the door (and the Metatron) at least three times as he's struggling to speak.
Secondly, I want to draw attention to the words Az actually says here. He first echoes the Metatron's earlier statement about good news. He then does not roll into the news itself and instead glances at the door and says the Metatron. He starts rambling about the Metatron to a very confused looking Crowley and evetually talks his way into that the Metatron said something. He then hits a wall again, scrambling to find words and instead of explaining the context of what the Metatron says he lands on Gabriel. His brain latches onto someone obviously on the forefront of both their minds and something vaguely relevant to the news he's about to share. He rambles more about Gabriel's job, glancing once again at the door in the middle of this, still avoiding getting to the actual point or perhaps even synthesizing said point as he goes.
We then cut to what is framed as a flashback. I think it is very notable we only see this as Az is telling it to us. In other words that this is not us witnessing an event happening but us witnessing what Aziraphale is telling Crowley. This sequence is the single scene where the Metatron calls Crowley by name despite actively avoiding it in any real time continuity sequences. He uses it twice here which I think also is the strongest thread in here that tells us that we are seeing what Crowley is being told not necessarily what actually happened.
The instant the idea of restoring Crowley comes up the wing of light behind Crowley loses visibility. Crowley's speechless for a moment so Aziraphale fills the silence, already looking like he wants to cry as he talks about the old days. (I also can't help but to notice that the lights behind Az in this shot look like eyes.) Crowley finally speaks and circles around the beam of light he's been standing in like an object seeking to re-establish a source of gravity. The music cuts back in here with tense drawn out notes.
Crowley talks about how Hell offered him his place back and he turned them down. Aziraphale in turn presses on ideas that we know he doesn't really believe. It's a echo of the bandstand and uses a lot of the same language of that fight - another fight we know features Aziraphale saying things he knows aren't true. By now, we have seen him multiple times this season express he does not want to go back and make it abundantly clear that the side they have made for themselves is important to him. We see him actively calling angels bad and incompetent, contrary to everything he's telling Crowley here. We see him be the one to repetitively remind Crowley that they are on their side and be the one that always draws attention to that first. Yet here he says Heaven is the side of light to Crowley - who by the way is literally framed in light. The frame is telling us outright that Crowley is already Good as he is, while Az's expressions are telling us he knows Heaven isn't.
Aziraphale can't tell him that he did not turn down the job and Crowley does another orbit. The music cuts again. This time, he stops with his back to Az, tilts his head upward and decides to ruin me by invoking God.
Here he is, hearing these awful things that he was sure they had moved on from, hearing these things he has tried for so long and so hard to help them both unlearn. But these sorts of habits and lessons are insidious and he knows that and he himself is even a victim of that himself. I mean, don't get me wrong, he recognizes this is weird, I think, but between his own self worth issues and the stress of the few days they'd had can't work out what exactly is off here. He's confused and lost and just been told, in his mind, that he is not good enough as he is - a thing he has always on some level also believed. Yet he reaches out to the parent that taught him that lesson in the first place for strength and grounds himself with that. He circles back to stand in the beam of light and, with that wing of light finally backlighting him again, he is brave and tries to be enough anyway. He bows his head downward, fully emerging the line of this body in the light and tries again. Because even now, even after that emotional blow, Crowley is an optimist who can't help but to try.
At first Aziraphale can't figure out quite what is going on here. He squints at Crowley and glances at the door again. Crowley meanwhile keeps continually glancing upward, whether at God or to hold back tears or some combination of both. In most of these shots Crowley bisects the room, creating a dark half to his left and a light half to his right.
Crowley says he relies on Aziraphale. Even here, even now when he's just hurt him. Because it is the truth. Because Aziraphale makes him feel less alone. Because Aziraphale proves to him that no matter how fucked the system is that there is still good in the world, even if he doesn't always agree with it.
It is only once there is no doubt what Crowley is doing that Aziraphale starts shaking his head in very small quick shakes. He looks panicked even as they both physically draw closer to each other. It's huge not here, not like this energy to me. Aziraphale asks Crowley to come with to help him run Heaven. This is the point where Crowley starts tearing up.
Crowley then says you can't leave this bookshop, trying to say you can't leave me. Az, nearly in tears himself, says 'oh Crowley. Nothing lasts forever' as a means to convey that the books aren't what is important here. Crowley, naturally, hears 'including us.'
Crowley looks down again, quietly agrees, and puts on his glasses, covering himself up again. He then wishes Aziraphale good luck and the music starts up again, still tense but sorrowful now. He leaves the light and heads to the door. Az can't help but to call after him. Please wait. And Crowley can't help but to listen. It's worth noting here that even as he rotates toward the north door, the light still gently hits his face. The shots in general are darker though. He's moved away from the light but it still can't help but to touch him.
"Come with me," says Aziraphale and then after a pause adds "To Heaven." Aziraphale, looking heartbroken, starts one of two 'I' statements he will struggle around in the next few moments. He lands on I need. Which. I want to pause there a moment because holy shit. That is not something they say out loud either. Az looks at him a moment, visibly struggling before he says his dialogue about Crowley not understanding his offer. Like he's said something he didn't mean to and needs to cover it up or like he can't handle the silence after such an honest statement. And on some level he's not wrong there. Because Crowley doesn't understand what Aziraphale is trying to say. But Aziraphale doesn't understand the way Crowley is reading it to course correct either.
Crowley says that he does understand and that he understands better than Aziraphale does. And he also isn't wrong either, from his perspective. Because he does understand the implications behind the offer theoretically in play here. Because he does know that the position Aziraphale is presenting him is not going to result in the outcome Aziraphale is presenting him with. There are some things you can't undo just like memories slipping through the cracks.
Az says there's nothing more to say, trying to dismiss Crowley despite having been the one to pull him to a stop moments ago. He puts on a fake polite smile for a beat but then his is jaw sets, mouth working as his eyes drop - unable to look Crowley in the eye.
Crowley tells him to listen as the music fades out and points upward. Aziraphale humors this, glancing up a few times before looking frustrated, saying he can't hear anything. The light from the window shines down in his direction without actually touching him. Crowley tells him "That's the point. No nightingales." The shot he's on here is a dark one without even any of the book shops pillars visible in it to brighten the shot.
Aziraphale looks frozen a moment here and then as Crowley calls him an idiot and says 'we could have been us' his face completely crumbles. He rapidly glances away to hide his face and Crowley moves and reaches to pull him back. They're both distraught. Az is clearly already holding back tears even before Crowley touches him. The angle of this shot frames Aziraphale in the light of the window. For the first time in this whole sequence Aziraphale is in the light, literally being physically pulled into it by Crowley.
The music swells, playing a similar theme to the one that plays as the Pillars of Creation are formed at the start of the season. They shift back and forth, the camera focusing on Aziraphale's face and hands. His hands move uncertainly, trying to reach out even as he's struggling emotionally. He is visibly shaking but he crucially does not pull away, not even a little.
His hands settle on Crowley's back, right where his wings would be, and for a brief moment gets taller, like he's allowing himself to lean into the kiss. They press together tightly, their mutual gravity sending them crashing together before they break apart. When they do Aziraphale looks devastated and his eyes move pretty much instantly to look out the window where the Metatron would be.
Crowley's glasses make him harder to read here, but he looks at Aziraphale like a man awaiting judgement in a trial he knows he's already lost. He's sad too, but as always, is waiting for Aziraphale's reaction. Because he might push continually at he boundaries of them as a unit but he has always let Aziraphale decide where to set them in stone.
Az fumbles over words here. He gets stuck on "I" here and lets it hang in the air. He then visibly thinks his words over, his expression slowly filling with resolve as he comes to some sort of conclusion. Then, like it's difficult to say, he falls back into old coded language. "I forgive you." A thing he has always said in response to things that he agrees with but cannot or should not allow himself to have.
Crowley sighs and tells him not to bother, refusing to fall into the old pattern that Aziraphale has. He is setting a boundary, for once, and even if it is one born from misunderstanding I am proud of him for being able to. He turns away and leaves. And this is where Az seems most in danger of falling apart. His lips move as Crowley goes, forming the start of a 'no' after him. He draws back from the door and turns his body away from it, physically distancing himself from anything that would feel like following Crowley. Except he can't help himself. With shaking hands he reaches up to touch his lips. He presses in, like he's trying to recreate the pressure and then his jaw works a moment and his expression sets as resolved.
The Metatron enters through the front door, which is framed in dark lighting. Aziraphale looks panicked and immediately turns his whole body away from him to hide his face while he collects himself.
He turns around after a beat and the Metatron asks 'how did he take it?' This is an odd question that only sort of half fits the fact that we are meant to believe at this point - that Aziraphale should be obtaining a yes or no from Crowley. It's not asking Crowley's choice at all. It's like the Metatron assumed a different conversation had happened or perhaps that he already knew the answer.
Aziraphale says he took it badly and the Metatron just takes a moment to direct a few casual digs at Crowley. He references him being stubborn and too curious - all the while avoiding the use of this name. At this point Az's eyes are locked out the window in the direction Crowley vanished to. The Metatron asks if he's ready to start despite originally having promised Az time to think over his answer. Aziraphale keeps glancing out the window.
For a moment he cracks, stepping away from the Metatron and back toward the east side of the bookshop. For the only time in this whole sequence he steps right into the sunbeam Crowley started in. It notably never illuminates his face as he mentions the issue of his bookshop (a statement absolutely not about the bookshop).
The Metatron explains Muriel will take care of it. Aziraphale looks back out the window with the start of an objection.
The Metatron interrupts him asking if there's anything he needs to take with him. Az's mouth takes a moment to try and form words. He steps out of the light again, starts to object, and then cuts off, eyes back to the window. Then his expression shifts again, settling in another state of resolve before he puts on his falsely polite face and follows the Metatron out.
As they leave the shop we cut back to Crowley. Crowley, who could've left to go handle his own emotions, did not leave. Instead he planted himself there, nice and noticeable. Like he wanted Aziraphale to see and know that he still has a choice. Like he needs to see Aziraphale make that choice for himself. Like he can't quite bring himself to be the one to close that last door. He stands there, framed by light, and doesn't move until the doors to the elevator to Heaven close behind Aziraphale. He then glances at Nina and Maggie and then gets in the Bentley, which starts playing the song that we now know he knows is supposed to be theirs. He turns off the music and drives away.
So there's a lot in these sequences and most of it probably won't help us figure out exactly what comes next, but there are definite signs that all is not as it's being presented to us. Whether he's actively lying or not, something is wrong that Aziraphale either can't or won't talk about frankly with Crowley. I suspect, whether it's under stress from a literal threat or because he believes that it is the safest option for them, that Aziraphale is doing all of this to protect Crowley.
There are also all sorts of signals here, especially in the lights, that gesture at the fact their togetherness is a net good. Together they are balanced and stronger for it and likely more in alignment with the Ineffable Plan. And, more importantly than that, that said togetherness is so clearly what they both want. They have loved each other longer than anything alive has ever loved anyone and none of this changes that. They both are saying that in their own ways here, even if those ways are not ones the other is particularly good at picking up and I for one cannot wait to get to see the payoff of them learning how to.
#good omens#gos2 spoilers#good omens spoilers#good omens meta#kind of#is it meta if its mostly me pointing and yelling?#come suffer with me#you have no idea how many times i had to watch these sequences for this#crowley#aziraphale#the bookshop
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The Big Damn Kiss
Buckle up, my fellow Good Omens Ineffable Mystery Puzzlers, Crackpotters, and Assorted Brainrotters, because I learned something HUGE yesterday.
This will be a bit of a long post, because I want to show you exactly how I got where I am. I want you to understand. I want to put all the naysayers to bed (ha! But I'm still gonna try), and settle this once and for all.
I know (almost) exactly what Crowley gave to Aziraphale during the kiss.
DO NOT TAKE ANY OF MY THEORIES TO NEIL! PLEASE!
Okay? Okay. Thanks. Shall we begin?
Ahem.
Firstly, whether you believe me or not, I am 100% certain that Crowley did, indeed, give something to Aziraphale in his mouth during The Kiss. I've covered that in the link previous. Okay? Okay.
I did not know what it was. I've now heard theories that it was a bullet (nope), a ball bearing (nope), hellfire (nope), and no one, NO ONE has suggested what I see. (If you have, hello! Talk to me!)
Here's our first foreshadowing Clue:
And here's our next foreshadowing Clue:
And the next:
And our last Clue:
With me so far? Well, that first GIF is a bit off, I couldn't find one of Crowley actually spitting out the flies. But he does. When Beelzebub first drags him to Hell, he actually goes "Pleaugh!" and spits out four or five flies. Edit: Found it!
Moving right along, we come to Crowley in Heaven with Muriel, looking at the trial. We learn two important things here:
One, Gabriel doesn't have a desk.
Two, Muriel does. Where they keep the records. And it's a bit lonely. Every few hundred years, someone comes and asks for something. Muriel can't access the sensitive ones, you have to be pretty high up. A throne, dominion, or higher. Like, maybe Supreme Archangel?
So if Gabriel doesn't have a desk, whose desk is he at when he's getting ready to leave Heaven? Of course I can't find a damn picture of Gabriel at the desk, but it's Muriel's. Where they keep the RECORDS.
Gabriel puts his memory into the fly, then gets on the elevator to go to Earth.
Now, when Gabriel opens the fly with his memories inside, we find out that it's a container. Bigger on the inside. You can put thing(S) in it. The bit we see of him remembering is shot in two parts, one where he's flying down a red tunnel, one where he's flying down a blue. If you slow this scene down and watch, you can see that he is NOT looking at just his own memories. There is more going on here, more that he was not present for. @embracing-the-ineffable put up a great meta about that here. Go look!
Now I figured Gabriel must have taken something else. Something important. Something useful. Something he meant to give to Aziraphale, except he forgot.
I also figured he must have left whatever it was in the fly when he took his memories out. Crowley must have realized while watching the trial footage that Gabriel also grabbed something else. I don't know when Crowley grabs the fly, but he does. And that is what he gives to Aziraphale in the kiss. Why? Well.
I had no idea what Gabriel took until I started working on the chiastic structure of season 2. I'm not done with that analysis yet, but let me show you one thing that I have found so far:
(The numbers are just to try and help me navigate the story and its events without time stamps)
My note #357 of what happens isn't quite right, but when I saw the only two times Aziraphale says "I forgive you" are towards the beginning of Season 2 and towards the end, I realized I had something.
Rephrase line 357: Crowley's kiss is forgiven IN EXCHANGE FOR RECORDS.
(Not that I think Crowley's kiss needs to be forgiven. It's just what Aziraphale says, and had to say at that moment, because the Metatron was listening in.)
What does Heaven in Good Omens remind us of most of all?
A big corporate entity. And what do powerful people do when they get fired from a big corporate entity? They download all their emails while they're cleaning out their desks. Damning emails. Emails that can be used to black mail or even destroy big corporate entities. Or, ya know, maybe they swipe some sensitive RECORDS?
Oh yes.
Records that Gabriel meant to give to Aziraphale, but he forgot. Records that Crowley realized Gabriel had put in the fly. The fly that Crowley grabbed once Gabriel had his memory out. The fly that he gave to Aziraphale when he kissed him. The fly that no longer held Gabriel's memory, but did still contain those damning records.
Here's Aziraphale reading the records:
Here's Aziraphale being horrified and outraged by what he's reading:
And here's Aziraphale realizing he has got some GOOD DIRT on Heaven. Maybe enough to bring them down:
That's it folks. I have no idea what the records actually say, and maybe we're not meant to know until season 3, but whatever it is, it's GOOD.
That's my story, and by God Herself, I'm sticking to it.
#good omens#good omens 2#crowley#good omens meta#aziraphale#ineffable husbands#aziracrow#good omens analysis#good omens fan theory#ineffable mystery#aziraphale elevator#corporate heaven#the big damn kiss#the kiss#good omens muriel#good omens gabriel#good omens beelzebub
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THE MEANING OF THE END OF GOOD OMENS SEASON 2 (SPOILERS UNDER CUT)
I binge-watched this entire new season and immediately unleashed every thought I had about the ending of the show alongside MANY others who were experiencing a lot of feelings.
After we all calmed down, we started talking and analyzing- and I think we found something way bigger than we saw on screen at the end of this season. And what this might mean for Aziraphale and Crowley going forward into (FINGERS CROSSED) a wonderful 3rd season.
The biggest complaint many of us in our chat had about the choice Aziraphale made at the very end- to ascend to Heaven, leave behind Crowley and the bookshop, to take Gabriel's place.
Everyone is saying that it's out of character, there was so much build up all for Aziraphale to throw it away, etc.
But the theory- a miracled brainwash.
By Metatron, on Aziraphale.
Metatron has proven to be a very dismissive and rude character, especially in regards to Aziraphale, since we met him in season 1. During the literal end of the world he still only spoke as God's voice and never appeared in person.
Suddenly, Metatron comes down- IN PERSON- to talk with Aziraphale about a promotion. Before we know who he is exactly, we see him buying a coffee and giving it to Aziraphale- KEEP NOTE OF THIS.
When Metatron first talks to Aziraphale, Azi says something to the effect that he has "made his position quite clear." The Metatron insists, pointing out the coffee and insists they talk.
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART:
Metatron says "are you going to take it?" and RIGHT BEFORE Aziraphale says "shall I?" you hear the FAINTEST GLIMMER of the sound effect for miracles. I'll be honest I had to turn my sound up and lean in once someone pointed it out, but it's there and you HAVE to listen for it.
They both go for a walk.
Crowley clearly believes Metatron is up to something, and watches them leave and walk but doesn't follow- this isn't addressed again. Then Crowley, Nina, and Maggie have their talk, and this is the part where Crowley is meant to confront his feelings.
We switch back to Aziraphale with Metatron. Clearly Metatron and Aziraphale have talked about a deal and Metatron asks him to "think it over." Aziraphale has presumed to finish his coffee at this point, because he heads directly back to the bookshop to talk to Crowley. They fight, they kiss, they give each other up because Aziraphale decides to go to Heaven and leave everything behind.
Like I said earlier, this is the part that enraged a lot of people- why would Aziraphale do this? This is so out of character. Why would he leave Crowley behind? Why would he leave his BOOKSHOP behind?
The current persistent theory is this:
Metatron has proven to be dismissive and untrustworthy since we met him. It is odd that he suddenly shows a change of heart for Aziraphale and wants to promote him. We, as the audience and fans, know Aziraphale's desire to live a simple, humanlike life with the person he cares about the most (Crowley) with his most prized possession (the bookshop).
The subtle miracle sound effect when Aziraphale took the coffee was the moment the miracle took place, affecting the coffee to brainwash (or at least to make more easily persuaded) Aziraphale so he'd say yes to the offer Metatron was giving him.
Aside from this, they editors/director/writers purposely wrote in and left the entire part about Metatron getting coffee for Aziraphale (as what? Some sort of peace offering?). The entire ending could have done without bringing so much attention to the coffee that Metatron gave to Aziraphale. It was unnecessary.
Unless it wasn't, and we are meant to find that out in season 3.
The coffee is Chekhov's gun. In filmmaking, nothing is ever just a coincidence or an accident. They made a point to give us the miracle sound effect without showing any visible changes, made Aziraphale act wildly out of character, and framed it as though it is not, let's say, an institutional issue that is being covered up 👀👀
And let's not ignore that the episode 6 description specifically says "The Metatron brings an oatmilk latte, along with a final offer." Which would be an odd thing point out if the coffee was a mere prop.
All to say- I personally loved the season. I loved every minute, and I want to see what happens next. I think that people are going to be very angry with the ending, but that there's so much more we have yet to uncover and we shouldn't underestimate the wit of Neil Gaiman.
#good omens#good omens spoilers#good omens 2#good omens season two#good omen season 2#aziraphale#crowley#ineffible husbands#anthony j crowley#my post
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Don t know if i missed any but
Would you mind sharing some headcannons for your ineffable rascals au?
It looks so adorable captivated me immidately 💚💚
Hi! Oh thank you for your interest in them!!
I did throw some stuff in tags on my first post of them, but i kinda changed the settings for their families so here are the current main lines i’m thinking of! (bad english incoming) :
(It is set in the 20’s/30’s)
- Few years ago, Anthony was found with a bleeding head (still has the scar on his right temple), amnesia, and without parents. He’s been living in an orphanage since then. He’s very good at stealing/pickpocketing (which Aziraphale strongly disapproves of), and often brings back snacks and stuff to the other children at the orphanage (where he is liked and respected, but he doesn’t speak much with the other kids). Of course the people in charge hate him and he often gets punished.
- Aziraphale lost his parents, they were doctors. He now lives with a very wealthy relative (the human counterpart for Metatron) who is quite manipulative with little Aziraphale. Human!Metatron gives a lot of money to charities and to orphanages (including the one where Crowley lives), but doesn’t actually care for the children there, and forbids Azi to meet with them (especially Anthony). He gives money because « it is the right thing to do » (and he might have other reasons…)
- They have a secret hideout in the woods that stands between human!Metatron’s manor and Crowley’s orphanage
- Anthony calls Aziraphale « Az » most of the time
I really want to explore more of this AU ! And also maybe animate them a little when i have time !!!
#good omens#aziracrow#aziraphale#crowley#ineffable rascals#my art#ask#nice people#ineffable husbands#sketch
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I get it now,
I know why ineffable bureaucracy happened first. I had a realization and it finally makes sense to me.
The reason why the “arch angel fucking Gabriel” was able to put aside his hang ups in the fraction of the time it’s STILL taking Aziraphale is precisely BECAUSE he’s the “arch angel fucking Gabriel”. It’s not about who is more willing to embrace the trappings of humanity and all the beautiful shades of grey it holds enough to put differences aside, it’s about privilege.
Gabriel has never had to fear what aziraphale has even in supposedly the “same” circumstances. He can meet with Beelzebub face to face, converse and even flirt with them as freely as he pleases. There is no demeanor of caution in their sequence what so ever. And why would there be? They’re both in the highest position of power actually on the ground floor making decisions. They’re the ones who dole out the punishment, keep those under them in line, and generally have final say on what goes on in their day to day world. I mean who would even be surveilling them?
The seeds of this imbalance were planted in episode 3. Elspheth lacks power by being impoverished, so she quite literally doesn’t have the means to be the best version of herself. Instead of burying her friend and mourning the life lost, in a genuinely unsettling moment, she must jarringly transform the thought of her into just a fresh body. By being with Beelzebub, being kind to them and opening his heart so willingly, Gabriel is able to fully realize his potential, and accomplish the highest virtue there is.
… But love has never been something Aziraphale and Crowley could afford. The price of loving each other isn’t a slap on the wrist and a permanent vacation, it’s fearing for the other’s life everyday. They’re armed to the teeth in fire extinguishers, and Aziraphale would sooner declare war on hell than use holy water in a place Crowley spends a significant amount of time. The memories of how they’ve almost lost each other are ugly, cruel, and terrifying.
They’re both scared and fed up. They want the exact same thing, they just have completely different ideas of how to achieve it. That’s why aziraphale is so excited to “restore” crowley and be in charge of Heaven with him, and so distraught when Crowley hates the idea and refuses. He’s essentially an allegorical cult survivor. His insistence on rejoining Heaven is not a rejection of Crowley’s confession, it’s a reciprocation. Aziraphale is trying to provide, what is in his eyes, the ONLY thing that can possibly allow them the freedom of love, safety, and self autonomy: power.
It’s as if to say “no actually, we can’t just do that.” Aziraphale truly believes the only way him and Crowley can be safe and together in the current circumstances is if they play by their oppressor’s rules, and to be honest I’m not entirely convinced at all that he’s wrong. I don’t think for a second Metatron intended the offer to be a genuine choice and would’ve left them alone if the answer was no, and even though he is excited by the offer, Aziraphale probably knows this too.
#look it’s kinda like when your homophobic bully grows as a person and comes out as gay and their family is super supportive#and you wanna be happy for them but a part of you like ‘’this mother fucker…’’#good omens#season 2#gos2 spoilers#renew good omens#amazon prime#please#my fuck#ineffable husbands#ineffable bureaucracy#aziraphale#crowley#Gabriel#beezlebub#meta#analysis#s2e3#s2e6#2x03#2x06#biceratops
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Good Omens Season 2: Some Thoughts (and also Screaming)
First, /screams
Second, obligatory disclaimer that this meta contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all six episodes. If you somehow have managed to remain virginally unspoiled, look away now, scroll past, or add "good omens s2" and "good omens spoilers" to your block list, as those are the tags I have been using for all posts and reblogs.
Third, /screams more
Okay okay okay. Deep breaths.
Anyway, so, uh, how about all that, huh? First, the good thing about the tone of the season overall was that it felt considerably darker and more adult, in a good way. We didn't have the precocious kiddies, the kitsch and literally-comphet Anathema and Newt, the so-clever narration, etc. All that was gone, which makes sense when you consider that a) the end of last season saw them reboot into an entirely new universe, and b) the fact that God has gone silent is, in fact, a major plot point for the season. We don't have Her slyly telling us the story, or indeed anything, and everyone is left to make their own judgments and take their own actions. Which, obviously, gets them into a lot of trouble, especially when Metatron (the Voice of God, aka someone acting in the belief that they're speaking for God and therefore doing terrible harm) swoops in with the ultimate buzzkill at the end of episode 6. But we'll get to that.
The downside was that the main, present-day plot (hiding Gabriel in the bookshop and trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love) was fairly thin, felt stretched out and at times weirdly paced, and otherwise existed mostly to get us to That Ending and the setup for season 3. But the ending was so damn good (if obviously, very painful) that I can't be TOO mad, not least because we spent six episodes with them just making absolutely no pretense about the whole thing being as incredibly homosexual as possible. I'll be honest: I did not think they were going to actually, explicitly go there. Neil Gaiman has been so consistent about "your interpretations are valid and you're welcome to read it however you want, but the only canon is what's on screen," which I think is frankly a good thing (not least since the Neil GAYman Cinematic Universe is consistently very, very good to us queers), that I just... didn't quite think they'd pull the trigger. Sir Terry is dead and can't have active input, this is based on a book published 30 years ago, maybe they didn't want to make it LIKE THAT... etc. I certainly hoped, but I didn't really think they would.
Uh. Well.
As I said in my various semi-coherent liveblog posts, I honestly don't think there was a single straight person in the entire season, among both major and background characters. Aziraphale/Crowley and Maggie/Nina are the obvious paralleling couples, but Beelzebub (using "they" pronouns and addressed as "Lord" despite presenting as femme/femme-adjacent) is clearly nonbinary and therefore also queer, and the countless gay/queer side characters were just /chefs kiss. From Job's son making a sassy pass at Aziraphale, to the random Scottish goon with Grindr on his phone (which he then gives to Aziraphale, because what is subtlety), to the interracial couple with the trans spouse at the Pride and Prejudice ball, there was just a lot of casual, unremarked, non-story-critical queer representation visible at every turn. It's like the NGCU saw the bigots wailing about Sandman season 1 being extremely gay and went CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, LET'S MAKE GOOD OMENS 2 EVEN MORE GAY.
God bless.
Obviously, Jon Hamm as Amnesia!Gabriel stole the show (he was SO fucking funny) and it was also incredibly fun to watch Miranda Richardson repurposed as a scheming demon. Nina Sosanya also reappeared as Nina the coffee shop owner, which leads us into the Maggie-and-Nina subplot. They're obviously, wildly, incredibly clearly an analogue for Aziraphale and Crowley themselves, but they're also each, crucially, a mix of both. On the surface, Maggie is Aziraphale: the plump, blonde, earnest, sweet-natured one owning a slightly dated book music shop and somewhat clueless about emotional nuances, while Nina is (also on the surface) Crowley, the hard-edged dark loner who doesn't want to open herself up to people or be spotted caring. But emotionally, Maggie is Crowley: the one openly pining, clearly besotted, only wanting to hang around their crush and do whatever they can to make themselves useful, while Nina is Aziraphale. Interested but reticent, attracted but conflicted, trapped in an abusive relationship with a demanding offscreen "lover" (Lindsay/Heaven) who tries to constantly control and shame them without ever offering much, if anything in return. By the end, they bring themselves around to what Maggie/Crowley are offering, but by then, well. We've got a lot more problems on our hands.
As I also said in my earlier posts, this entire thing has always been a metaphor for religion, queerness, and what religion -- especially abusive, fundamentalist, organized religion -- does to queer people, but they really cranked the FUCK out of that metaphor this season. Aziraphale is guilt-tripped, controlled, and shamed for his attraction to Crowley at every turn. He is torn between his imagined duty to Heaven, in all its ignorant, uncaring, bureaucratic, gratuitously cruel system that he still insists on seeing the best in because he can't bear the alternative, and the chaotic and sometimes grey but genuinely more good morality that Crowley offers him. (Can I just say, we were explicitly shown that the two of them together doing "just a little miracle" are more powerful than Heaven AND Hell combined.) And at the end, he's told that the only way he can be with Crowley -- what Metatron explicitly blackmails him with -- is if they both go back to heaven, submit themselves to the cruel system again and give up everything that has made them who they are: their home in London, their human friends, their reliance on each other, their independence, their own ways of doing things. You can be queer in this (religious) framework, but only the limited, watered-down, controlled, controllable, constantly-under-supervision kind of queer, which relies on both you and your lover "converting" back to the true faith. And if you don't cooperate, they will literally kidnap you, lie to you, manipulate you, take you from your soulmate, and force you right back into doing the one thing (destroying the world) that you never, ever wanted to do in the first place, because in their minds, that is still better than this. It's for your own good.
Ouch.
And the thing is: that's why the ending a) hits so hard and b) is so fucking painful, because of course Aziraphale agrees. He has no conception of being able to defy Heaven on his own; he has always, always needed Crowley for that. In the flashbacks, when Aziraphale is faced with an order from Heaven that he desperately does not want to carry out (such as letting all Job's children get killed), he still relies completely on Crowley to "outsmart the rules" and find a better way. Crowley is A Crafty Demon; that's what he does, and so Aziraphale rationalizes it to himself that therefore that must be fine. Even in season 1, when he really didn't want the Apocalypse to happen but initially thought it was his duty as a good Heaven footsoldier, he relied on Crowley to talk him out of it and allow him to do what he really wants instead. That's their whole dynamic in a nutshell, as exemplified in that scene in episode 2, where Crowley tempts Aziraphale with the "pleasures of the flesh" while sprawled on his back in Ravish Me mode like the giant walking gay disaster that he is. (Sorry, buddy. That beard. Can't do it.) Everything that Aziraphale's existence is, that makes him who he is, that he loves and cherishes the most (in this case, food and wine) comes from Crowley. Everything else is just background noise.
Throughout the season, what we see is Aziraphale increasingly coming around to the fantasy of being with Crowley. He's coy and flirty; he talks about "our car" and expects Crowley will let him (which he does); he wants to have a Jane Austen ball and for them to dance together (oh my heart); he even thinks, at the crucial moment, that the best way for them to be together is to go back to heaven just like they were in the beginning, once more perfect angels, as if those entire six thousand years of struggle and grief and pining and separation and falling didn't happen. And Crowley -- poor, poor, brave, devoted, heartbroken Crowley -- has just heard for the first time in said six thousand years that actually telling the person you love how you feel is an option. Maggie and Nina tell them point-blank that their whole stupid plan failed because people aren't chess pieces who can be moved and automatically achieve the desired result. And of course this gobsmacks the dearest and dumbest Ineffable Husbands, because they can't conceive of anything else. People are chess pieces in the Great War of Heaven and Hell; Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are chess pieces who have been desperately trying to get out of being moved by external forces, but that doesn't change the fact that that's what they are. They don't have volition or agency aside from that which they can sneak for themselves in brief and stolen moments. That's it.
Until, well. It's not it. They discover that this whole would-be war is actually an elaborate ruse to cover up another angel-demon romance, that of Gabriel and Beelzebub. (I'll be honest, I'm 99% sure they did this storyline because they saw the fans crackshipping them, but I appreciate a fictional narrative that values and incorporates its fans' input, rather than trying to constantly "trick" or "outsmart" them or "do what they don't expect.") And Gabriel and Beelzebub get to be together, but only by leaving their world forever. They have to desert their homes, their structures, even their own identities, and never return. And Crowley and Aziraphale are so rooted in their "precious, perfect, fragile" life in their little corner of Soho, with their bookshop and their Bentley and their dining at the Ritz (which they didn't get to do in the end because METATRON /shakes fist), that that just doesn't work. Neither of them can conceive of doing that. So Aziraphale thinks "go back to heaven and try to make the terrible system do some good and take what we can in terms of being together" and Crowley just... pours out his heart. He's ready to fucking propose. He barely stops himself from saying something to the effect of "I want to spend eternity with you." He begs, he pleads with Aziraphale to go away not in the literal sense, but the emotional/metaphysical: to finally break this toxic dependence on Heaven and tell them once and for all where to stick it. And because he is desperate to make Aziraphale understand, he finally throws all caution to the winds and recklessly, desperately, adoringly kisses him, the one thing he's wanted to do for ages and...
Gets. Shot. Down.
Ugghhhhh. I'm suffering all over again. Aziraphale wants him, hungers for it, for them, and yet he's been so abused and so conditioned by Heaven (he's still blithely repeating to Crowley's face that "Hell are the bad guys!") that he just cannot accept that kind of desperate, blind, limitless, lawless affection. He even forgives Crowley for this "transgression," just to really twist the knife, and Crowley just can't take it, can't face up to how terribly this has all gone up in flames, after he went to heaven trying to find the answer for Gabriel's situation. Gabriel, who he fucking hates. Gabriel, who tried to kill the angelic being he loves (and for which Crowley has transparently never forgiven him). And yet at one pouty puppy-eyed look from Aziraphale and a warning that whoever is harboring Gabriel might be in danger, Crowley leaps headlong into the Bentley again and rushes to the rescue while "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is blaring. He stoutly protects Gabriel; he does a miracle to disguise him; he lets him have hot chocolate and stay in the bookshop; he guards him from the literal demonic horde outside. All because of Aziraphale. That's it. And then, it still doesn't work. Not only that, Gabriel's absence and decision to forego Armageddon gives Heaven the one tool they finally need to take Aziraphale away from him.
I repeat: Ugghhhhhhhh.
(In a good way. Ngl, I love this angst. This is the kind of angst my brain Thrives on, the Thematic Parallel Romantic Character Arc kind. Nom nom nom. But also: AGONY.)
I also need to talk about Aziraphale driving the Bentley, aside from the obvious metaphor of him being in Crowley's home while Crowley is in his. Last season, we had the "you go too fast for me, Crowley" scene with them sitting in said Bentley, which was Aziraphale saying he's not ready for a relationship. In this season, as noted above, we see Aziraphale increasingly embracing the potential fantasy of being with Crowley. But here's the catch: when he's in the Bentley this time, driving it, setting the pace, acclimating to the idea, he's driving his own idea of what the Bentley/his relationship with Crowley is. It's not the real thing. He plays classical music; he supplies himself sweets; he turns it yellow; he drives too slow. Crowley calls him in another old-married-couple snitfit to complain that Aziraphale's messed it up, but what Aziraphale has actually messed up (or will, by the end of the season) is far more consequential than just a car. He's changed the entire shape of their relationship to the one he thinks can make it work, and it just doesn't. It has to be them -- "we could have been... Us" -- or it's not even close to the truth. It's not worth their time.
I repeat: Ouch.
Speaking of the writers validating fan theories, I know we all picked up and screamed about on Crowley's idea of Peak Romance Guaranteed To Fall In Love being sheltering from rain and gazing into each other's eyes, which confirms that that poor bastard was indeed ass-over-teakettle gone as soon as he met Aziraphale (again) in Eden. I also need to talk about the 1941 redux, because wow. This time, the danger comes from Hell, which we see being its usual self: gleefully, pointlessly cruel, pettily backbiting, dirty, sniping, tedious, endless, determined to mindlessly destroy because They're The Bad Guys and they like it. So they blackmail, spy on, miracle-block, illicitly photograph, and try to prove that Aziraphale and Crowley are secretly a couple, right after Aziraphale himself has just had the Light From Heaven realization that he's in love (which we all also picked up on in s1). They're forcibly outing them (to speak of more Religious Queer Trauma) in order to break them up/get them into trouble with their authorities/families. Aziraphale and Crowley manage to escape it mostly by dumb luck, but Crowley having an altogether freakout, hands shaking, barely able to actually point the gun at Aziraphale even in the knowledge that it's supposed to be fake, is just... wow. He can't even fathom the idea of ever trying to destroy him in earnest, especially when he knows on some level that Aziraphale also finally just realized his own feelings. So I just need to --
/screams
Anyway, Aziraphale's entire arc this season is doing what he thinks is the right thing and then inadvertently causing harm and damage as a result. In the Edinburgh flashbacks (live slug reaction of me: SEAN BIGGERSTAFF???!!) he tries to stop Elspeth from stealing bodies and gets Morag killed and Crowley drinking the laudanum to save him (though that part with David Tennant just riffing left and right, using his natural Scottish accent, and being Tiny Crowley/Huge Crowley was hilarious). He invites his neighbors to a Pride and Prejudice ball and makes them all the target for demonic attack. And of course the Job episode: Aziraphale, horrified at Heaven's callous cruelty, desperate not to get Job's children killed, willing to go along with Crowley's tricks to save them somehow, tempted by Crowley to do the fucknasty with their angel bits eat some food and decide that he likes it. As mentioned, the whole thing about God being silent this season is a major thematic choice. The only time we see/hear God is Her communing with Job from afar. Aziraphale enviously imagines the answers he must be getting (he's not, he's baffled and perplexed), while Crowley longs beyond words to even have the opportunity to ask the question: why? Why do this? Why is this your plan?
And of course, this absence culminates in the Metatron, the Voice of God, the person arrogantly claiming that they're speaking for God and know exactly what Heaven wants, being able to seize Aziraphale by the short hairs and absolutely fuck him over. Gabriel is gone/decommissioned/eloping with Beelzebub, so Heaven needs a Supreme Leader (God apparently is no longer a factor in the equation). And what this Supreme Leader needs to do is finally unleash the Apocalypse that Gabriel decided to pass on (the Second Coming). Aziraphale needs to be punished, taken away from Crowley's influence/love, and put back under Heaven's explicit control, so Metatron spots a great opportunity to do all three at once. It's not an accident that the exact tool he uses to get Aziraphale to agree is "now you can actually be with Crowley!" Aziraphale and Crowley have been trying so hard to hide out from their respective Head Offices, but now all at once, there's this seemingly miraculous opportunity for them not to have to do that anymore! They can be together! They can be sanctioned by Heaven! They can give up all this hiding and sneaking around and lying! Isn't that better?
... As long as, of course, they give up absolutely everything that makes them who they are. No big deal. Minor catch. Probably nothing.
Metatron doesn't let Aziraphale have time to escape, or think it over, or reflect, or anything. He pressures Aziraphale to come with him immediately, or be once more subject to Heaven's implicit wrath/destruction/judgment. Believe me, Aziraphale already KNOWS he's made a huge mistake, as soon as he hears what Metatron really wants: bringing him back to unleash the Apocalypse that Aziraphale and Crowley have given up literally everything to prevent. He doesn't need time to reflect. By the time my man is in that elevator, he's well aware of what a catastrophic misjudgment he's made, and yet --
Aziraphale needs this. He has, as noted, literally always relied on Crowley outsmarting Heaven's cruel orders in order to prevent himself from having to do them. He's relied on Crowley rescuing him ("rescuing me makes him so happy," WELL BUB, IT'S BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS NEED IT). He admits to Crowley's face that "I need you!" He hates Heaven's sadistic meanness, but he has absolutely no framework, in and of himself, to defy it. When the rubber hits the road, he will crumple and try to go along with it, and now he's been put in a position where he's going to have to stand up, defy Heaven, and make the break once and for all BY HIMSELF. He doesn't have Crowley around to do it for him, he has no support, he is going to arrive in Heaven and be shuttled straight off to the Apocalypse 2.0 War Room. The only way he gets out of this is if he actively stands up, if he chooses himself and Crowley and their life, and he has to.
The thing is:
Aziraphale has lived his entire eternal existence Looking Up. Up is the direction of Goodness and Heaven. Up is where Angels go. Up is where Aziraphale comes from and where Demons and Hell are not. But now he's going Up, in a position to take over the whole shebang, and it's the last thing he wants.
So he's going to have to come back Down.
He's going to have to Fall. He's going to have to get back Below at all costs. He's going to have to finally, once and for all, understand what led Crowley to make the choice to leave Heaven and never come back. It's only then that they can possibly be together on any kind of conscious, equal, deliberate footing, claim their own agency, reject Heaven AND Hell, and try to really earn that South Downs cottage and that happy-ever-after, and it's gonna hurt so good.
Now if you will excuse me, /screams
#good omens#good omens meta#good omens s2#good omens spoilers#ineffable husbands#look this probably could have been twice as long#but i had to stop somewhere#I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS
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