#good omens meta post

[lavendermoonlitskies]

Gonna randomly shout my opinions that nobody asked for into the void for a sec:

Before I get into it I just wanna preface this by saying that ALL the different concepts explored in fanworks is loved and appreciated, and people should create anything their heart desires. There is an audience for everything, create whatever you want because someone out there is going to love it!

Now, that being said, I am personally not a fan of human AUs in the context of Good Omens. Part of what I find so captivating about Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship is the fact that it’s been developing over the last 6,000 years. They have this sort of shared experience of only really having each other to lean on, as they don’t really consider their respective “sides” to be anyone they have a real connection with like they do each other. Human beings live their lives knowing they’re going to die some day, so any part of their lives that’s going to be there until the day they die feels permanent because, for them, it is. They develop relationships with other people, romantic and platonic, find a home, and generally live the rest of their lives having settled down with all that because it’s unlikely that all that is gonna be going anywhere in their lifetime.

Aziraphale and Crowley have no such concept of permanence, always knowing that humanity and earth as a whole isn’t going to last forever while they, as immortal beings, probably are, and so this idea that their relationship is the only part of their lives that has any chance of being permanent might even be something that they haven’t even fully grasped yet. At a certain point it may or may not become the only thing they have and I just. Ugh. I eat that shit up. Love it.

[and-this-of-all-my-hopes]

So, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I keep seeing metas about how Aziraphale wants Crowley to return to Heaven and be an angel again because he wants them to be on the same side/be good/change/etc., etc., etc. but I don’t see that at all. I actually see it as the very opposite.

Aziraphale loves Crowley just as he is. But there’s something more. Something huge.

Aziraphale loves Crowley and because he is an angel who is stuck in seeing things as black and white, he constantly praises Crowley for being nice. For being good. For being kind.

Aziraphale has watched Crowley on and off for 6,000 years. He watched him thwart the plans of Heaven and Hell because it was unjust. He spared the lives of innocents. He did small things that made Aziraphale happy just because (like making Hamlet successful and saving valuable books). And because Aziraphale sees things in black and white, he sees all the things Crowley has done as nice, as good, as kind.

Crowley vehemently attests he’s not nice or good or kind.

He’s not exactly wrong nor is he lying when he says this. When Crowley spares goats during a cruel bet over a righteous man and swallowing laudanum to prevent a suicide, when he prevents Armageddon by working with Aziraphale and stopping the Anti-Christ from being the Anti-Christ, he’s not doing the nice/good/kind thing.

He’s doing the right thing.

Crowley chooses to do the right thing without hesitation. He is better than all of Heaven and Hell who have callous and dispassionate view of all existence because he questions, because he makes choices. Crowley sees the world for all its messiness and he sees himself. He sees a place where he fits in. He sees the blurred edges.

And Aziraphale sees that, even if seeing the blurred edges is hard for him.

But here’s the thing that Aziraphale can’t voice.

It’s the reason why he told Crowley about being allowed to return to Heaven and become an angel again. He doesn’t want Crowley to change. He doesn’t think Crowley is flawed. Or not enough.

It’s something that is so monumental that it cannot be put into words. Because to put it into words would be more than blasphemy. It’s down right unthinkable for anyone in Heaven, Hell, or Earth to say what Aziraphale knows deep in his soul.

God was wrong to cast out Crowley.

Aziraphale believes Crowley can/should return to Heaven because he knows that Crowley should never have fallen in the first place. He wants him to be forgiven because when Crowley fell it was unjust. Aziraphale is trying to correct a mistake. He’s trying to do the right thing.

Yes, Crowley would never accept returning to Heaven. And Aziraphale was wrong to even suggest it (although that conversation is another can of worms to unpack).

Aziraphale loves Crowley. He loves him exactly as he is. He doesn’t want him to change. Aziraphale knows that Crowley the best of all of them. He wants to change Heaven because of it. Because God was wrong and Aziraphale knows it.

Aziraphale may have difficulty seeing beyond black and white, but when it comes to Crowley he sees everything crystal clear and in vivid color.

[vavoom-sorted-art]

Is that. A Nightingale????

"I'm afraid that's not for you, sir. What about this?", Goldstone asks while showing Aziraphale a case with a bronze nightingale as a handle. "No, no, no, it's alright. I've found my showstopper.", Aziraphale answers, looking at the magic bullet catch.

Is Aziraphale actually choosing a RIFLE over a Nightingale in this scene. I am losing it.

Not only is he choosing danger over the safe option, he's choosing a weapon. HE IS CHOOSING TO FIGHT.

And, he is also choosing to do this with Crowley (even though Crowley is reluctant) and he is choosing to trust him. He's not even considering the safe option.

[lenaellsi]

One thing that really gets me about the opening with angel Crowley is that he's not just excited by how beautiful his stars are, or how fun the process of creation is, or how impressed he's made Aziraphale. He’s not in it for the glory or the aesthetics. He’s actually horrified by the idea that the universe will just be "fancy wallpaper" in the future, even though Aziraphale assures him that humans will "marvel" at his creations.

What Crowley loves about his stars is their potential. He is building, essentially, a nursery. Most of the universe's stars, he explains to Aziraphale, will come pre-aged--but his are just starting out! After they're given time to grow, who knows what could happen! Good or bad, black holes or new constellations—there are so many possible futures ahead of them, and Crowley can’t wait to see what happens.

And then Aziraphale tells him that he knows what will happen: those stars will never grow up. They will never shine or burn out or implode or become anything new. They’ll be destroyed before they get the chance.

"You can't kill kids."

“Whose side are you on?” “God’s, of course!” “Same God that wants me to whack the kids?”

"People die." "They do, don't they?"

“Great pustulant mangled bollocks to the Great blasted Plan!”

"Don't test them to destruction."

"It's always too late."

"Nothing lasts forever." "No, I don't suppose it does."

This fear has been chasing Crowley since before the beginning. It’s what caused his first doubts, put the first traces of gray in his wings. He’s been raging at the futility of watching beautiful, complex things be damned or destroyed for his entire existence, and that’s why he seems to the audience and to Aziraphale to be a mess of contradictions.

He loves to follow the trends of the times, but he clings to his classic car in an era of planned obsolescence for vehicles. He lives in an ultra-modern flat, but finds his greatest comfort in the unchanging security of aziraphale’s old shop. He hates the idea of killing children, but is willing to see a child die if it preserves the rest of the universe and foils the Great Plan. He “goes too fast,” but his most unique and notable power is that he’s learned to stop time.

Crowley hates predestination. He hates divine intervention and the removal of agency. Crowley, the architect of free will, is constantly torn between his love of change and choice and potential and his terror that everything will be destroyed by an unstoppable, incomprehensible higher power. That’s his driving conflict in the way that Aziraphale’s is learning to find his own path without following Heaven’s rules, and I am fascinated to see how it resolves.

[divorce-enjoyer]

you paint your walls the colour of your beloved’s eyes you invite him into your home and keep the rest of hell out you fill your shelves with books for both the serpent of knowledge and the angel who fell for only asking questions you stock your liquor cabinet with the same alcohol you drank the night you realised you loved him and almost died for it and when all else fails, you give away everything youve ever loved for even the chance to keep him—to keep the both of you—safe. together.

he kisses you, and leaves the bookshop.

[couldhavebeenus]

crowley is braver than any us marine for being interrupted during a love confession, taking aziraphale’s devastating news about heaven, and STILL following through with it anyways

[gingiekittycat]

"There must be something I can do for you."

OK so I have been trying for the longest time to make sense of why the fuck they KEPT GOING WITH THE MAGIC ACT when they realized they couldn't do miracles. And I think I've got it.

Once again, it boils down to misunderstanding and miscommunication (surprise surprise):

I fully believe Aziraphale thought he was doing Crowley a favor by offering to do his magic act. Crowley’s in trouble with the theater, the alcohol he was going to sell is ruined because of Aziraphale’s shenanigans at the church. To take some of the pressure off Crowley, he offers to perform.

Here's the thing, though. Aziraphale DOESN'T think he's a very good magician. Just look at how nervous he is! He has zero confidence. Even the coin trick he does for Crowley, he's shocked and delighted when it actually works because he doesn't think it's going to. He's pretending for Crowley's sake because he's trying to get Crowley out of the hot seat with the theater.

That's also why he chooses such a dramatic and dangerous trick for the stage: he has to make it good for Crowley.

Meanwhile.

MEANWHILE.

Crowley sees Aziraphale's offer to do the magic act purely as another one of Aziraphale’s whimsies. Which of course he is going to indulge, because he's a lovesick fool. He goes into FULL SUPPORTIVE HUSBAND mode, builds up Aziraphale's confidence, agrees to do the highly dangerous trick because Aziraphale wants to, because he thinks Aziraphale thinks he's good at magic, because he thinks Aziraphale really wants to get up on stage and perform, and he just doesn't want to see Aziraphale embarrassed... (Sound familiar???)

So. We get to the stage. Aziraphale doesn’t actually want to be there, but he's doing it for Crowley; Crowley doesn't actually want to be there, but he's doing it for Aziraphale. BOTH of them are complete idiots, because they're so enamored with each other and so fucking COMMITTED that neither of them wants to back down when they find out they can't do miracles. They just really want to make their husband happy--so badly that they're willing to risk discorporation for it.

In conclusion: they are idiots and I love them but THEY NEED TO COMMUNICATE JESUS CHRIST

It's no wonder the season ended like it did...

[indigovigilance]

How Aziraphale Responds to being Pinned to a Wall

Aziraphale trusts Crowley more than God, part 1/?

bonus:

[snek-eyes]

"You do not know me."

(But oh, how he wishes you did.)

[lavendermoonlitskies]

The nature of Aziraphale & Crowley’s relationship (Good Omens)

So I know I have like 30 followers and probably no one gives a shit what I think, but the internet’s the internet and it’s free to post on Tumblr so who cares

I have gone back & forth a bunch on what I think of the “discourse” (if we can even call it that?) surrounding Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship in Good Omens, and I think I’ve settled on something.

I am still very much for the “why does this criticism only seem to come up when the pairing in question is of the same sex (or played by actors of the same sex)” argument against the whole “why can’t they just be friends” criticism that comes up in response to a lot of queer media, however, I can see why it doesn’t necessarily apply here. At least not in the same way.

In the book, and subsequently in season 1, their relationship is entirely up to interpretation. The information we are given at that point about their past can absolutely either be seen as platonic OR the grounds for something more. I don’t think it’s wrong to say you think it’s one way or another. With the way that their relationship works at this point in the story, they have a lovely friendship and if that’s the point where the progression of their relationship ends, that’s all well & good.

However

Moving on to season 2, we get a little more. There are people saying that the romantic element that has been added kind of ruined it, and I would like to respectfully disagree with that. First of all, the surviving author of the original novel is directly involved with the writing, so I have to say I find it kind of hard to say that anything has been ruined when it’s still directly from the mind of one of the people who wrote it. He is writing it with what the two of them had planned originally in mind. (I believe he said at some point that season 2 is a sort of stepping-stone between the original book and the sequel that he and Terry had in mind)

Second of all, the romance didn’t exactly come out of left-field. As I said earlier, you can interpret their relationship in season 1 however you like, but the notion that their relationship may actually be more than just a friendship is an interpretation that was clearly explored in the second season. Neil Gaiman is not one to shy away from queer storytelling, so if that is the direction he wants to take it, that’s where it’s gonna go. It’s 2023, LGBTQ+ representation in media is far less taboo than it used to be, and so he has virtually no reason to filter their relationship into something that he doesn’t actually want it to be as the writer.

If you want my personal opinion, I think that season 2 being “quiet, gentle, and romantic” is foreshadowing for their relationship’s progression season 3, so I can definitely see the romantic undertones that have more or less been there the whole time (of course depending on how you interpret it) being brought out into the limelight. (I know he said that season 3 will most definitely not be those 3 things, but that’s not to say that none of those elements will be showing up at all)

All in all I don’t think it’s wrong or “homophobic” to interpret their relationship however you see it, but in terms of my own theories, I think that if the fact that the (once again quiet, gentle, and romantic) season 2 is a “stepping-stone” between seasons 1 and 3 is true, their friendship is evolving into something more.

[biceratops7]

hold- wait a fucking minute...

Beelzebub is acting really freaking weird in this scene.

Ok so I encourage you to rewatch it cause I can't really properly illustrate it in gifs, but they don't sound irritated, or even particularly intimidating. We know Beezlebub to be a very dry person, even in moments they want something and need to manipulate/ convince someone for it. So this abnormally animated and even somewhat friendly demeanor doesn't strike me as part of buttering Crowley up to get him to help them.

This is a weird line. We know Beelzebub isn't like Shax, they've been around a bit more and have a better grasp on things like tone and figurative language. There's almost no way they're unaware that saying this would immediately clue Crowley in to the fact that Heaven and Hell do in fact have communication, so they must want him to know. For whatever reason, it's important to them that Crowley knows they're a reputable source.

And then I remembered where I've heard that tone before.

It's nearly the exact same one Crowley uses to tell Aziraphale that he needs to protect them. It's the kind of tone you use when you need someone to read between the lines and understand more than you can safely tell them. Beelzebub is fully ready to believe Shax when they say Gabriel's in the bookshop, and acknowledge later that Aziraphale was a very fitting and likely candidate to harbor him. They know full well Crowley doesn't want jack shit to do with Hell, and would probably be offended if anything by anyone referring to his "nasty little heart". That is merely a performance to mask what they're really trying to tell him, which is that Aziraphale is in danger.

Without this detail Crowley very well could've turned Gabriel in to Heaven instead of Hell, he certainly doesn't see much difference between the two. Beelzebub is the reason he decisively doesn't, and races home in a panic.

And I think it's genuinely so sweet, this moment of understanding and comradery between them that goes unnoticed, even to Crowley. They drop the shtick and make sure that he knows the book of life is a real threat, and you only need to be merely involved in hiding him to be erased from it. Because to them, there's also the very real possibility that Crowley knows about Gabriel while Aziraphale doesn't, so they're double checking Crowley will not to tell him and instead go straight to them. There’s just something so protective in it.

[galaxgay]

Thinking about how Azi and Crowley both are barred from being the people they want to be.

Crowley is a demon who, while still loving chaos and mischief, wants to be caring and empathetic and let the all love in his heart out.

Aziraphale is an angel who, while still loving love and devotion, wants to be a skeptical trickster bastard who can be a little selfish sometimes.

The writing of this story is phenomenal. I'll never get over it.

[canarybell]

A little touch of Miles in the night

Do you think about this Michael Sheen post as often as I do?

Cause...you can see what he meant here, right? Comparing Aziraphale (especially this Aziraphale, with this boa) to Miles Maitland. Comparing two Sheens with twenty years between them.

And it's not just a boa. They are so...them. Gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Dramatic. Flamboyant. You can see this similarity in their energy in these particular moments.

And yet...is it all? Or there is something else?

Spoilers for "Bright Young Things" under the cut. tw:homophobia, just in case.

You remember what happened to Miles in the end of his storyline? To sweet, frivolous, charming Miles?

The police got Miles' letters to his ex-lover. It was 1930s, and one piece of paper with love confessions inside could lead you to prison. So he had to leave for France to avoid arrest, without even really packing his things. And it's happened just before WW2, so his further fate in soon-to-be occupied France was...unclear, let's say that.

And you know what's happening to our angel here?

He's so silly and happy. He's spending the night with a demon he just recently realized to be madly in love with. Crowley trusts him - as he showed in another round of their peculiar roleplay. He was able to be a terrible magician for one evening. This is a perfect evening, right? He's happy and is ready to share this happiness with the whole world.

There is knock in the door. In this second Aziraphale is beaming and shouts "Enter!".

The next second the door will be opened. Hell is gonna come into the dressing room. Hell that has evidence of an impossible, criminal connection. Hell, ready to trample not only over this second joy, not just this evening - but all past and possible future evenings too. Ready to destroy all of Crowley, and with him, all of Aziraphale.

All thanks to one piece of paper.

……. It was good that Aziraphale knew that trick with the photograph, wasn't it? After all, he and Crowley have nowhere to run to within the confines of Earth - the jurisdiction of Heaven and Hell is somewhat wider than that of an English court.

[actual-changeling]

Aziraphale sees Crowley standing next to his their car and he hesitates; this is his last chance, the last possible moment to change his mind about leaving.

Do you think he feels the sunshine on his hands, against his stomach, and remembers how warm Crowley had been in his arms? How warm he had felt beneath his palms even through several layers of fabric?

How for the first time in his existence his body had felt complete, like there was no longer something— someone missing?

Do you think he sees him standing in the sun, all shining fire-red and hidden golden eyes, and regrets not sliding his hand to the back of his neck, up into his hair? Do you think he regrets not taking the chance to feel it silken soft and familiar between his fingers?

Do you think he remembers all the times they enjoyed a warm, sunny day together and the way the star seems to remember that Crowley had put its siblings into the sky? Do you think he remembers rays of sunlight caressing his cheekbones and wishes it had been his fingertips instead?

'Anything you need?' the Metatron asks him, and he is still looking at Crowley with the sun on his skin.

I need you, he thinks, and even though his eyes are hidden away, he knows Crowley is looking at him.

Do you think Aziraphale remembers the kiss, remembers the love he could taste on his tongue, the six millennia of do that, please, kiss me, the slow, painful minute of do that again, please, right now?

(The realization that he won't.)

He almost stays. Almost. But the Metatron is already walking away, and he looks at Crowley again, looks past sunset conversations and sunrise breakfasts and the heart-shaped star in Crowley's chest, and feels his pain.

(Their pain.)

Do you think that's why he leaves anyway? Not just because heaven needs fixing but because all that pain, all the hurt they caused each other, can't have been for nothing?

I can't leave him— no, I don't want to leave him.

No.

No, I want to go back to him.

Do you think he takes his anger and holds onto it until it burns his palm because it is easier to be angry at Crowley, at himself, than to think about everything they just took from each other? Everything they just lost?

Everything they could have been?

Aziraphale takes the memory of sunshine on his skin (Crowley's lips on his) and locks it away in a golden cage made out of faith; faith that Crowley will be there when he comes back.

Once he does (because he will, he will, he has to), there will be sunshine and warmth and Crowley, and they will finally be able to love each other with the sun and the whole universe as their witness.

No more shadows or shades of grey. Just the two of them in the light where they belong.

[lenaellsi]

“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.

Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'

Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.

We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.

But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.

And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)

Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.

Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.

Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.

[ladybracknellssherry]

how ridiculous we are walking around saying shit like "supreme archangel" "the metatron" "bildad the shuhite" "memory tampering" "demon army" and "nazi zombies" like we're discussing the weather

but then we have to out bonkers ourselves with

"well, because they used this particular filter, when crowley's sideburns were at this particular length, and based on the fact that the sidewalks are dry, and you can hear something breaking in the background, and that person in the hawaiian shirt has been standing there a little too long, but what is "too long" anyway when the hour hand and the minute hand on the georgian era long case moonphase clock are switched?, never even MIND that aziraphale only had the bullet in his mouth when he took the bullet out of his mouth, combined with the fact that there are runes in heaven, when examined within the context of a song and a film from the 1940s... it is clear that...something very odd is going on."