#this is the only non-wip fanfic i've bookmarked on ao3 before i even finished reading it

[quoththemaiden]

You ever read a fic and realize a month later that you've fully accepted part of it as headcanon because it's just that good?

The fic: Factory Settings

The author: Anonymous

The quote:

This is how Crawly learns that Hell will also not be implementing a suggestion box any time soon (at least, not until he explains how to make the concept fruitless and cruel), because Satan responds to this input by picking him up and tossing him back into the fire. It makes an effective point to the rest of the Dark Council, though Crawly himself doesn't really learn anything except that he'd rather keep as far away from Satan as possible going forwards. When he manages to get out of the flames again, there's a war on. They stick him in the lowest rung of the most miserable cannon fodder demons, where he utterly fails to distinguish himself as any kind of worthwhile fighter, but manages to rise through some of the ranks simply by virtue of not dying among his fellows every time Satan decides to just throw wave after wave of bodies at the Enemy. Eventually he gets command of his own battalion, which he approaches as a kind of a puzzle where Satan or the Dark Council will tell them to do things that will definitely get them obliterated by Heaven's forces, and Crawly tries to figure out how to not actually do those things or get obliterated without also being caught out and punished by Hell. They promote him some more, until he says the wrong thing and gets demoted back to the bottom again. In this way Crawly learns that there is a trick to getting ahead. Beneath a certain point, evading attention (and therefore punishment) is still a viable option, whilst getting above a certain point lowers the odds of meeting a grisly end. Get too high and they start keeping too close of an eye on him and expecting him to do things he'd rather not, and noticing if he doesn't, so it's better not to reach that point. But stay too low and it doesn't matter if they're noticing him or not, they'll just throw him directly into trouble as an expendable body. It takes finesse to succeed enough to not be on the front lines while failing enough to not be immediately promoted to a command position either, and one of the most useful things he discovers is how many other demons will just lie and take credit for his accomplishments if he doesn't step in and stop them. Then they get the promotions and Crawly stays under the radar, and everyone wins. Well, no, actually everyone suffers and it's awful and miserable and he hates every single moment of it. But he manages.

Maybe season 3 will spell out what Crowley's ranking in the demonic hierarchy had been in season 1, but if that doesn't happen, this is getting my vote.