#aziraphale has a secret

[performing-personhood]

I DROPPED EVERYTHING TO BRING YOU THIS POSTSECRET FROM AZIRAPHALE

[thesherrinfordfacility]

the thing that is actually making me giddy with the possible angst is that i really think that we are about to see the most monumental shift in not only how we saw these characters but also how they previously saw each other.

the fact that we literally now have confirmation that a) they knew each other before the fall, b) aziraphale has had heart eyes since before time began, and c) crowley... possibly not so much, completely changes the context on not just the eden scene but also all the historic scenes that followed.

aziraphale knew crowley as an angel, and knew even then when crowley was meant to be 'perfect' that crowley was maybe a bit different, always asking questions and toeing the line. maybe out of a bit of bastardy himself, or out of begrudging awe of his ability but also his audacity, or just plain attraction, aziraphale immediate takes to him. but this has meant that aziraphale has placed crowley, perhaps unconsciously, upon a pedestal. and the pedestal that aziraphale puts crowley on from that moment may have wobbled throughout their history together, but it's stayed relatively intact.

this worries me, that aziraphale may not have quite let go of the fact that crowley just isn't that person any more, maybe never was to begin with, and continues in some measure to idolise him. my interpretation of this is that yes, crowley can be a bit of a dick (because, well, obviously) and aziraphale knows this, has done since the beginning, but aziraphale continues to hold crowley to an overall moral ideal that is so firmly ensconced in aziraphale's first perception of him as an angel that crowley will never be able to live up to it. not because he isn't a nice person, or because he can't live up to it, but maybe... he just simply doesn't want to.

but the issue is that throughout the ages (including the job minisode which ive had corrected for me, so Crowley Anger is now simply simmering), crowley's actions have only reinforced to aziraphale that despite being technically a demon, he has a huge heart and is not a horrible person. bit of a bastard, but not cruel. all of this just feeds and feeds into this image of crowley that aziraphale has built of him, and when crowley has his flashes of, in fact, not being honourable or kind, this threatens to upset the pedestal altogether.

these wobbly moments - when he thinks crowley is going to kill the children, when crowley snaps at him in rome, when crowley first proposes the arrangement, the prospect that he came up with the french revolt, the holy water request, the bandstand, "how can someone as clever as you be so stupid?"... moments where just for a second, in a small or huge measure, aziraphale's faith in crowley... flickers.

and of course aziraphale has been here before, right? he's had his faith, his devotion, his loyalty tested to the absolute limit of angelic endurance. so when his faith in heaven (never lost it in god) was obliterated, well - it had to cling to something. something that wouldnt mean that aziraphale has to lose the concept of faith altogether. so we're back to the old standby of idolatry, that aziraphale's heavenly faith is replaced by his faith in crowley, this angel that despite never originally giving aziraphale the time of day, aziraphale cannot see - for all of crowley's faults and bastardy and the frustration he poses - crowley as anything less than something to be worshipped.

this is exactly why i think that one of the main points of s2 is going to be a rift between them both. obviously i haven't talked about crowley's perspective of this and maybe i will in another post, but i do think that crowley is going to do something, a bad thing for the right reasons, but aziraphale isn't going to see it like that. that crowley will do something awful to protect aziraphale, but all aziraphale will be able to see is the betrayal or the cruelty or the despair, he can't see wood for the trees, and just lose that last vestige of faith he had altogether.

i feel like once all the disillusion and disenchantment has been swept away, and they're both laid bare at each other's feet... that they may not quite like what they find. from aziraphale's perspective, that whatever crowley does in s2 might be crossing aziraphale's line in the sand, and now aziraphale is starting to see crowley as someone that is truly grey, fluctuating between doing things that are Good, and things that are Good for Crowley.

and it's not as if aziraphale was blind to this before, but instead now... he kind of finally sees who crowley is? who he has been all along? the film has lifted from his eyes. realises that love and worship are not the same thing. what he loves, who he loves, doesn't equate to worshipping it/them, idolising them. there's a very big difference that echoes down to the very core tenet of who aziraphale is and his experiences with having and losing faith, but love having remained.

so stripped of the pedestal, crowley is now just simply... crowley. a person, not an angel, not a demon. and there is the distinct possibility that aziraphale might be completely blindsided by what he finds.

[nicgoldomens]

[midnights-dragon]

i just really want Aziraphale to watch over Crowley from Heaven okay

[soloorganaas]

aziraphale has the 1941 photo of him and crowley framed and hanging up somewhere for sure

[foolishlovers]

what's your secret santa tumblr au about? 👀

ok so it’s basically this: florist! crowley and bookseller! aziraphale both indulge in fandom activities after exhausting days spent at work. much to their mutual friends’ dismay, they got off on the wrong foot when they first met a couple of years back. while anathema and newt know their secret tumblr identities, crowley and aziraphale are entirely unaware of each other’s internet presence. when anathema announces her annual secret santa exchange on tumblr, she is very adamant crowley should join this year. after some heavy convincing on anathema’s part, he reluctantly agrees to participate, but only in order to get a couple of early shifts off at their shared flower/ crystal shop space. the old-fashioned (but kind of thoughtful) guy he gets assigned to send secret santa messages to every day until christmas sounds awfully similar to the fussy bookseller he usually tries to avoid at all costs. but surely his friends would have mentioned if aziraphale had taken an interest in the bad omens fandom as well… right? to sum up: an enemies to friends to lovers secret santa tumblr human au that literally no one asked for if anyone has any more questions, feel free to ask away!!

[katierosefun]

y'know, i do think that actors are probably the closest that humans will ever get to a shapeshifter because sometimes i'll go through an actor's filmography and be totally taken aback by the sheer range of roles they've played and how violently dissimilar one role is from the other, so much so to the point that i'll literally forget that they played someone else and oh my god

[bugbugboy]

Aziraphale either has a nice big bed in thee master bedroom because it makes it feel more homely OR he doesn't have a bed for himself because he doesn't sleep so why should he waste such good book storage space for something of no use to him

[drawawyvern]

Everyone's getting excited about 1960s ineffable wives but what about 1860s instead

[lauranalanthalasa]

She needed to come back down to earth.

[catloverwhovian]

maintaining that the reason crowley asked for holy water in 1860-whatever was that he had the mother of all anxiety spirals after hell dragged him back from edinburgh.

like he’s gonna be rightfully paranoid at this point, he’s gonna have backup plans, he’d be like me and pack a little go-bag despite the low odds of needing it.

after he gets reprimanded by hell (or Whatever Happened There) he spirals for a decade or so until he reaches the conclusion that he needs the Nuclear Bomb Of Demon Deterrents.

yknow when a stranger knocks on your door and it’s probably just a jehovah’s witness or a fedex person but you grab a kitchen knife just in case? and you peek around the corner to try and see through the window? i’m picturing it as that feeling times a billion

[takeme-totheworld]

The affronted tone with which Aziraphale asks where Furfur got the bullet catch booklet, because it's only available to Working Professional Magicians, is so funny. His worst fears have just been realized, a demon has shown up to arrest his husband, but he can still take a moment to be offended on behalf of his fake profession that important trade secrets have fallen into the wrong hands.

[acheemient]

If part 3 of 1941 is not "A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square" coming on the radio and Crowley standing from the table where they have been drinking wine and coming around to Aziraphale's side and offering his hand to Aziraphale to dance, and Aziraphale looking a bit wonderstruck and a bit delighted and taking Crowley's hand, and they slow dance, holding each other so close, and they look into each other's eyes, and Crowley whispers, "Angel," and he's looking at Aziraphale's lips with all the wanting in the universe written upon his eyes, and Aziraphale with a face that says he's never wanted anything more than to swallow Crowley whole so he can Keep him, and they lean in, and at the very last second, Aziraphale stops them and they are standing there breathing heavily with their foreheads pressed together, and Aziraphale whispers, "I want to; oh God, I want to," and Crowley whines and tries again, but Aziraphale pulls back but doesn't leave Crowley's arms, and says, "We can't," and Crowley looks like he's been slapped, and Aziraphale looks so heartbroken and says, "They almost caught us tonight, and they would have destroyed you" and then continues so quietly, like it's a secret, "I don't know what I would do if I lost you," and Crowley tries to protest saying they can be sneaky, they won't get caught, they can have this, together, and Aziraphale looks so sad and says, "Oh Crowley," and Crowley knows Aziraphale is so close to agreeing and so close to pulling away, and he whispers, "Please," and for a second Aziraphale looks like he is going to give in, but he can't put Crowley in danger, so he makes his face colder, and he steps out of Crowley's arms, even though it nearly kills him to do so, and he says, "Besides, you know Angels don't dance," and Crowley remembers himself says, "No I don't suppose they do," and he straightens up and puts his glasses on and pretends nothing happened and says, "Of course you're right," and they nod at each other and Crowley moves to leave the bookshop, and Aziraphale feels like he's about to lose something so precious that he will not be able to ever get back, so he calls "Crowley," and Crowley turns to look at him, and Aziraphale says, "Perhaps someday...," but he can't say what he really means (some day we can have that, someday we can be together how we want, someday I will stop pulling away), so he visually changes his mind and finishes with, "we can dine at the Ritz," and he prays to a God that he, in this moment, hates so, so much for keeping him from the demon he loves more than anything, that Crowley understands his true meaning, and Crowley looks like maybe he does and like maybe he still has hope, and he nods and says, "Stay safe, Angel," and Aziraphale nods back, and then Crowley leaves, and Aziraphale is left looking absolutely devastated and heartbroken and angry, truly angry, for the first time in his long and lonely existence that he has to be loyal to Her rather than to him, and he takes a moment, takes a breath, and walks silently over to the radio and turns up the volume on the song and closes his eyes and gives himself that moment to remember what it felt like to be held, to be loved, to imagine what saying yes would bring, then honestly what is even the point of all of this?

[neil-gaiman]

Hey Neil,

I was just rereading the S1 script book and I realized that the clandestine meeting Crowley has to plan the holy water heist takes place in the Dirty Donkey. Which means he had his super-secret, Aziraphale-would-totally-disapprove-of meeting, across the street from the shop. That also says to me that its possible Aziraphale didn't appear in the car, but had simply walked out of his shop and seen the car there.

Was this intentional when the first book was written, that the pub is across the street from the bookshop, or was it an accident created when we decided to explore the area in season 2?

The latter, but it made me smile when I decided to put a pub over the road.

[brainwormcity]

I like to think of Crowley as a demisexual virgin. Like, obviously he appears on the surface to be sex on legs. He's the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. Plus, he's got that goddamn walk... And you know he's definitely had occasion. It would be nearly impossible for him to not have been propositioned at least once in 6,000 years, given his job.

Most of his existence has been spent in places where 'sin' breeds. Bars, bathhouses and brothels, just for a start, and we've seen that (at the very least) human women are attracted to him. (I.e. Nazi spy lady and also Mrs. Sandwich) But absolutely nothing can convince me that he has ever even considered sleeping with anyone who has propositioned him.

We all know he has a secret very romantic streak and I think that for him sensuality is likely very tied into that. The one person he's ever loved has been sitting to his right for millennia and if you think for one second that he'd want that sort of intimacy with anyone else, I'd say you're wrong. Who needs a one night stand when you can spend the evening drinking wine with your angel? However, if things between he and Aziraphale were to heat up, I'm certain that the eroticism that has eluded him for his entire existence would hit him and vavoom, it would all start to make sense. Also, this look?

[foolishlovers]

so if crowley and anathema work together at the flower shop and aziraphale is a bookseller, what does newt do?

newt got a job at aziraphale’s bookshop a few years ago! he introduced aziraphale to the friend group (anathema and aziraphale even share a flat now) which crowley secretly may or may not resent him a little for 🫣