ambeeuk

[ambeeuk]

I was doing some digging and I just found this amazing album of prop photos from Good Omens! From what I can gather the site is a community of prop and costume makers, but I didn’t see much context for where they came from than that. I’m so surprised I haven’t seen these on Tumblr yet. They’re high quality and would make really good references for anyone who needs them. I included a selection here but I’d highly recommend checking out the album for more!

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Just a warning that some are funny, some are sweet, and some are angsty 💕

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La femme damnée, Octave Tassaert

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What if, during the body swap, Crowley had been a snake?

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Crowley vs Crowley!!!

(credit:@/Maddie's Minis on tiktok)

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me thinking I'm getting normal again. I can have other interests. Fixation on good omens reached that comfortable level where I have space for other thoughts and can still enjoy everything GO-related. I'm fine this is fine this is healthy, finally

cue to me spending one entire week with the theme songs stuck in my head and having a visceral, full body reaction upon allowing myself to hear the intro

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Meanwhile in the South downs Cottage 🌄☕

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“Am I ssure?” Crowley hissed, pressing scalding kisses under Aziraphale’s jaw. “Six thousand years and you ask if I’m sure?” @theladyzephyr

This started as a couple of cute sketches and was going to be a quick comic (after all, the fic is less than 500 words), but well, things quickly spiraled out of control. I mean, look at them.

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canon

what happened at the bastille

(after an idea one of my friends had)

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Aziraphale x looking at Crowley

(x)

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holy

moly

this

frame

🥵

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I just want him to be happy

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What’s Really Magic About Aziraphale

Aziraphale: terrible magician, cringey speaker of bad French, laughable dancer of antiquated steps. Even defenders of the angel say “What a dork!” and giggle over his clueless antics.

I don’t, and have never, seen them in that light, and I’d like to talk about why.

First off—maybe most importantly—I don’t laugh at good-hearted people who are dorks. I try to see their challenges and celebrate their achievements on their own merits. I strongly dislike people who cut others down because they don’t measure up to an arbitrary standard.

Angels, presumably, and demons as well, are functionaries. They sprang fully-formed into existence equipped to perform the duties that were required of them (this may or may not jibe with the GO universe, but it seems likely to). Both Crowley and Aziraphale challenge their boundaries, and both should be appreciated for doing so.

We forget the main characters in GO aren’t human, because the actors are humans cosplaying supernatural beings cosplaying humans. We see them as human in the show when they’re actually not physically embodied, and because all fictional beings are, at base, cosplaying humans by metaphorically representing our humanity.

But they’re not human, and I like it like that.

Aziraphale loves humans. His first great act of rebellion is to give away his flaming sword with the intent to protect them. We don’t know a lot about what his directives actually were, but in both books and show he’s protective of them. He loves cosplaying humans, with his portly, comfortable shape, his reading glasses, his love of creature comforts.

I think Aziraphale is fascinated by human cleverness, and wants to understand it.

Aziraphale can speak all languages, but chose to learn French “the hard way.” (In truth, this is very likely to explain why his French was “rusty” in the prison scene in S1, but it becomes an important plot point in itself.)

How does a being who was created to speak all languages learn a language “the hard way”? You can’t learn a language badly when you already instinctively speak it perfectly; can can only pretend to speak it poorly.

To actually undertake this feat, he would first have to forget the language—presumably with a self-applied miracle. This is an important point in itself because it suggests that the supernatural beings in GO can choose to forget at will. But specifically it means Aziraphale cared enough about something to go to extraordinary lengths to explore it.

Crowley is baffled by the angel’s linguistic struggle, as he fairly frequently is about Aziraphale’s special interests. As Crowley says, Aziraphale is unpredictable; and it’s one of the things Crowley adores about him, no matter how cringey or frustrating the demon finds it from time to time.

I expect if you intrinsically speak a language, it may be exceedingly difficult to relearn it. Adult humans may struggle to learn a new language, and we’ve needed to do so many times over the course of human existence. We’re born with the ability to learn languages, and learn new ones if necessary.

Aziraphale was made with the ability to speak all languages; he isn’t naturally equipped to learn them word by word as humans have to. It’s outside of his skill set. Of course he isn’t very good at it, but he had the persistence to make the attempt, and is justifiably proud of his progress, no matter how we feel about it. Aziraphale is the only angel (or demon) we know of to have taken this radical step.

It’s been pointed out that French is known as the language of love, and that it’s beyond relevant that Aziraphale learned it from a Monsieur Rossignol. We might say that metaphorically he’s the only angel who has forgotten what Heaven has taught him about love (if anything), and relearned it, haltingly, the way a human learns it—by heart, the hard way. I hope he speaks it fluently some day.

The Gavotte. Ok, it’s cute and funny that Aziraphale learned something as antiquated and obscure in modern times as this dance, and it’s so adorable to watch him enjoy his skill. But let’s take into consideration that, canonically, angels don’t dance. Like they really don’t dance, like, “it’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that marks an angel” don’t dance. They don’t dance the same way orioles don’t tie their shoelaces, and even demons (presumably laxer about decorum in general) apparently aren’t very good at it.

This is something no other angel has ever done. He’s not a two-left-feet guy who has to work to get a mediocre skill, he is a pioneer of an art form that his species has never explored.

But Aziraphale, although he took to it like “a duck to merchant banking,” persisted, and (unlike French), he became “quite good at it.” If that’s not a triumph against your conditioning and your toxic heritage, I don’t know what is.

Then there’s magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, usually he’s embarrassingly bad at it and it’s very funny at his expense. Why is he bad at it? Because, as Crowley points out as he tries to fathom what the hell is up with his angel, he can do real magic, and he’s good at that. That engineered Austenian ball was a tour-de-force of miraculous orchestration.

But he loves human magic—prestidigitation, sleight-of-hand. He was made with the talent for miracles; the skill for illusion he has had to fight for and to persist at.

I think about ancient cultures where the imitation was more valuable than the original—imitations of natural objects made of cloth or precious stones where the value is in the human ability to mimic, to fool the eye of the observer. I’m a sculptor in a small way, and I know a good statue of a cow will generally enthrall me more to look at than a living cow (no matter how fond of cows I may be), and in a different way.

NO HE ISN'T “GOOD” AT IT. Of course he isn’t. It’s actually against his nature, but he does it anyway. Why would an angel need an aptitude for stage magic? He doesn’t have the aptitude, but he persists.

And I know, I know: Crowley was so very gentle when he told Aziraphale—right after Aziraphale’s magic trick saved his demonic bacon—that he really is “terrible at magic.” I think it may actually be the worst thing Crowley does in the series. It always makes me cringe. He could just as well have said “retire the act until all the kinks are worked out” (which is also a fun double-entendre, of which they are fond), or something of that nature. Give the angel a break—it was his first time on a big stage, with a dangerous act that hadn’t been rehearsed, in the chaos of trying to perform with an unexpected miracle blocker in action—and they pulled it off. Aziraphale scarcely missed a beat.

Terrible at (stage) magic? Aziraphale is better at it than any other angel. That’s pretty impressive, really.

Angels are also presumably not engineered to lie, which is another form of human magic. We often see Aziraphale as a bad liar, but when the chips are down, he lies as well as any demon (or any human, more germanely).

In Conclusion

Aziraphale is not just funny and clumsy; he’s actually a trailblazer. We all know Crowley asks questions—but so does Aziraphale. The questions are just different ones. I think he loves how humans work and delights in experiments to celebrate them.

We see Aziraphale being brave a number of times—in the Final Fifteen, certainly, in the confrontation in the dressing room with FurFur, and—my favorite—when he goes balls-out (with apologies to Jane Austen) to defy the hectoring martinet of a quartermaster, to desert Heaven’s army and defect to earth despite being handicapped by the lack of a body, in search of someone to possess despite having no idea how any of that works. He figures he will just learn on the job, and he did.

But I think he deserves recognition for the bravery of doing so many things he isn’t good at, will likely never be good at, likely never can be good at. He delights in them for their own merit and doesn’t judge himself by others’ standards.

Maybe your own victories are worth celebrating, even if your best friend thinks you’re terrible at them.

[ambeeuk]

you can have it - on ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62366917/chapters/159583702#workskin

God, his face when he saw the roses. Making a man who looks like a marshmallow cursed by a witch to live as a human look that sad should be fucking illegal.

Enjoying being able to finish this fic at last!

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Chalk doodles!!

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Ok, so you know that amazing vintage photo (x) from the stage production of The Warrior’s Husband? 

That Amazon energy is now fierce angel energy, and a certain demon is very appreciative.