I Love The Paintball Scene In The Show, It Gives Us So Much. But I Need To Speak My Truth And That Is:

I love the paintball scene in the show, it gives us so much. But I need to speak my truth and that is:

This scene is SO much funnier in book-verse. For real. If you haven't read it, this is one scene I wish they'd kept more of in the show.

These two idiots think they've legitimately been shot and that they are actively in the process of dying in a way that only beings that have never actually been discorporated would.

They spend literally several minutes ON THE GROUND, Crowley propped against a statue and Aziraphale literally falls on his ass into a Rhododendron bush.

Not until Crowley realizes their 'blood' is not the right color and tastes it(because of course that's what one does when they think they're bleeding out) does he consider there may be something else going on. And after which he still CRAWLS over to share this newly discovered information with Bushziraphale.

How am I not following you on Tumblr?? Anyway hi, it's Em from the loonie server <33

I have no idea, but HIII

Omg it’s so true… Eden Crowley is much more Richard II and pre-fall is absolutely Campbell

all those years of people imagining pre-fall crowley as richard II only for it to turn out that he was actually just campell from takin over the asylum...we were so blind....

Hi!

I read your post about the Good Omens 2 kiss. The kiss, which wasn’t a romantic gesture per se, but Crowley’s desperate attempt to make Aziraphale stay, make him understand what Crowley himself only allowed himself to realize after Maggie and Nina talked to him.

That in mind, do you think there will be a second kiss in s3? Given that it wasn’t a romantic gesture, is there the need again for such desperate actions like kissing?

Tbh I’m always quite confused when it comes to Aziraphale & Crowley and the need/ the desire of displaying physical affection. I know there is love, friendship and thousand of years between them, but when it comes to human things like kissing, hugging etc. I’m not sure if they ever want/ need that as a way to show affection.

I don’t believe that the season 2 kiss was just a means to an end, and therefore needs no repetition, but a part of me fears that this one heart breaking kiss is all we will get.

Sorry for this mazy message. I think I just want to know if you believe that there will be second kiss, and this time a happy one please.😭

hello! thank you and congrats, you’re the first person to ever ask me a question on here! 🥳

obviously i’m not 100% certain, and i fully trust neil and everyone else working on the show to do what makes sense for the characters and their growth, but i personally hope we get another kiss!

true, they don’t need to have anything physical between them to express their love for one another—we’ve seen it over and over and over again throughout history, even before history! they do not need to kiss or hug or even hold hands for us to know they’re in love. it’s very frustrating when people say that, especially after the s2 finale and after neil has expressed it time and time again that this is a love story.

[tl;dr: although aziraphale and crowley don’t need to show affection physically to know their own feelings and each other’s, i think the way the story and character arcs are going makes a second kiss seem very likely]

physical affection is a very human thing, something that the angels and demons don’t crave or need.

BUT. they also don’t need, and generally don’t crave, food and drink, yeah? throughout both seasons, aziraphale and crowley are the only ones from both heaven or hell (that i remember) that are seen eating and drinking.

aziraphale eats because it brings him pleasure. he indulges his cravings and relishes in the joy he gets from them, a very human thing. the only time we see him go overboard with it is the first time he eats: when crowley offers him the ox ribs. aziraphale doesn’t get full because his body doesn’t need the sustenance, so he just keeps eating, not knowing how to stop and making a mess. over time, he learns temperance in earthly desires and refrains from overindulging. he allows himself to enjoy more and more of humanity and what they create simply because he enjoys it. he finds pleasure in food and drink and theatre and magic and books and music and so many things that would never have existed if humans didn’t also indulge in their pleasures.

conversely, we only ever see crowley drinking, never eating. it’s possible that he’s tried human food before, but he usually sticks to alcohol and coffee (and that one time with laudanum), beverages that alter your state of mind at least a little bit. he doesn’t seem to get pleasure from them, though. it’s like he either drinks to be social with aziraphale, to drown his sorrows/give himself a boost of energy, or out of habit/appear more “human” to blend in. crowley doesn’t let himself indulge, finding joy in his few earthly possessions (his plants and his car, things he takes care of but also has some control over), being near aziraphale, and just generally being a mild nuisance to humanity.

in season 1, although aziraphale clearly likes crowley and being around him, we don’t see him “indulge” physically with him. in season 2, that completely changes. they’re both free from heaven and hell, and so punishment from fraternizing, so aziraphale begins to explore what indulging in pleasure is like with the one being he can’t imagine ever parting from—through small touches, dancing, even just looking at him. aziraphale is so fucking ready to allow himself this one pleasure he’s denied himself since the creation of the universe: to openly love crowley in any form he can.

in season 2, crowley is still a little…stuck (he’s living in his car. not ideal for him or bentley. or the plants). he’s so used to not allowing himself to indulge and is probably a little frightened over this sudden freedom he has, so he almost lives vicariously through others: following aziraphale around with his own projects/duties and trying to get maggie and nina to fall in love. it isn’t until nina tells him that he and aziraphale look to be “together” that he realizes, “wait, does he like me, too? we look like a couple??” he keeps it in the back of his mind, sees gabriel and beelzebub go off together, gets that pep talk from nina and maggie, and thinks, “fuck it, we can do that, too, cause we want to and not just out of self preservation.” he’s about to communicate what he wants and allow himself the pleasure he’s been keeping at arms length or more for thousands of years.

SO, i think, keeping in mind everything we’ve already been shown about aziraphale and crowley, and their personal relationships with themselves and pleasure, it’s highly likely that another, hopefully more passionate and romantic kiss will happen in season 3. obviously a lot will have to happen before then, but aziraphale knows what he wants and has so much practice in discovering new pleasure and enjoying it that i think he wants to have some degree of physical relationship with crowley. he didn’t forgive him for the kiss, or act like he didn’t like it, because he didn’t want it (he would’ve probably pushed him away if that were the case); he was upset and hurt and angry that was how it was done. crowley has much less practice and the kiss is the first time crowley let himself indulge, but it’s devastatingly overshadowed by his desperation and frustration with aziraphale.

just like aziraphale couldn’t stop himself from eating the entire ox, crowley couldn’t stop himself from kissing aziraphale, no matter how messy it got.

anyway, i love the idea of crowley learning to indulge in the things he wants to and finding pleasure on his own and then aziraphale helping him even further 😊

(aka they should kiss and fuck about it)

(and if they decide it’s not for them, then that’s good too 💜)

That but about the guard dog… ooo that hits hard, I am not okay.

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection between artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt them one-at-a-time. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --beyond getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication of Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself while surviving), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice...! :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

They don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale enough to make poor Leo sick)

Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of, apart from Aziraphale.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them, cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity, actually. One from long-lost days when he could make beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it, I'd say --he incorporated it into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was not that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He has no sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

Ouch… this- this is better but I’m also so glad I have therapy in 2 hours

I wanna talk about The Angel Who Would Be Crowley.

Because I had a certain set of expectations, which got thoroughly trashed in the first five minutes of S2, and my genuine response is, "Oh, fuck, yup. You're right. That's WAY better."

Looking around at GO fandom, I'm not alone in this. So let's talk about it.

Basically, a lot of people (myself included) believed that he was a high-ranking angel, and therefore as chilly and remote as every other powerful angel we'd seen at that point. We pictured Crowley-To-Be as long-haired, regal and imposing --and the fanart at the time reflected this. I'd link some if Tumblr didn't hate links.

Something like this:

We were collectively drawing on a few things --mostly, Crawly's appearance and general bearing in the Biblical scenes of S1--

--But also scattered hints of his importance, backed up by conspicuous absences in Heaven and a few profound displays of power. That's all better covered elsewhere, so I won't reiterate the arguments here. All I'm saying is: I think our headcanons were justified.

But it turns out he was this:

!!!

With his curly little--!!

And his neat white--!!

IT TURNS OUT, he was an angel who squeaked and squealed when he was happy; who flailed his arms around and made explosion noises with his mouth to explain nebulas; who preened when told his stars were pretty. Furfur, who knew him before the Fall, says:

"You used to jump on me back, little monkey in a waistcoat..."

(The use of a diminutive there, 'little'...oh, that fascinates me.)

In a pretty huge subversion of expectations, we're given these glimpses of an angel who was sweet, and joyful, and heart-meltingly silly.

In sum...an innocent.

(Perhaps innocent to a troubling degree.

We see how he troubles Aziraphale, during their first conversation. He starts looking around and behind them, checking to make sure that no one can HEAR the blithe and reckless things coming out of this angel's mouth. This angel who talks like he's never been reprimanded in his life; like it's never occurred to him that anyone would want to hurt him.

Before the Beginning, Aziraphale understood Heaven better than he did. The danger is plainly occurring to Aziraphale.)

So now, we the viewers are in on a cruel joke that Aziraphale has known all along, which is that this --THIS-- is the angel who--

*checks notes*

--did a million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulphur. For asking questions.

...Imagine you are Aziraphale, and everything inside you wants to believe Heaven are the Good Guys, and God is Good and Everything She does is capital-R Right...and now try to reconcile that. Keep trying. I don't think he ever totally managed it in 6000 years.

All this gets further complicated when we learn that, despite all of the above, we were still right. That sweet excitable babby up there?

He WAS a powerful and high-ranking angel.

That much is explicitly confirmed, with significant evidence that he could have been among the mightiest of archangels...

...Who apparently accosted his fellow angels for piggyback rides. And was remembered millennia later by those (now fallen) angels as something 'little.'

What does that tell us about who he was? Is?

Hell, Aziraphale has known to be wary of the archangels (and the judgements of Heaven in general) since before the Fall even happened. He chooses to believe they are Good; he can't fool himself into thinking they are Safe.

Yet he's absolutely certain that Crowley won't hurt Job's children. Enough to stand in a burning building and say to them, "I can't save you, but don't be afraid. I won't need to."

And what reason does he give?

("I know you."

"You do not know me."

"I know the angel you were.")

What does that tell us about who he was? Is?

("The angel you knew is not me."

But how is Aziraphale supposed to believe that, when he can see him all the time?)

tl;dr --yes, this is better. I love the tragedy of it.

'Innocence died screaming' and all that.