It’s that story I’ve been telling! Vandal! Here’s a link to part one if you want to support and share but don’t want to reblog such a long post <3

In fact, a few people accused me of plagiarizing, but it didn't bother me.

Aziraphale nodded and winked back.

As methods of communication go, a wink is quite versatile. You can say a lot with a wink. For example, Gabriel’s wink meant:

You’re going to go down to that earthly territory and make sure those hairless monkeys don’t do anything to get in the way of the divine plan and make sure they know what it is to fear the wrath of the Almighty and behave themselves as lesser beings should.

And as far as he was concerned, Aziraphale’s answering wink meant: I shall indeed descend to the earthly plane full of gross matter and hairless monkeys and be sure to keep them in their well-deserved place, beneath our divine heel.

Whereas Aziraphale, on the other hand, thought that Gabriel’s wink was more along the lines of: You lucky beggar Aziraphale, getting to go down there and look after God’s new humans and all the exciting things they have to make and discover. Now you go down there and experience all the humans have to offer and protect them with your life.

And therefore, his own wink had meant: Message received and understood. The humans will never have a more stalwart guardian. Looking forward to seeing what sushi is when it comes around.

Folks let me talk about Crowley and sunglasses, because I have a lot of emotions about when he wears them and when he doesn’t, and Hiding versus Being Seen.

We’re introduced to the concept of Crowley wearing glasses even before we’re introduced to Crowley, by Hastur: “If you ask me he’s been up here too long. Gone native. Enjoying himself too much. Wearing sunglasses even when he doesn’t need them.”

Honestly Crowley’s whole introduction is a fantastic; we learn so much about his character in a tiny amount of time. The fact that he’s late, the Queen playing as the Bentley approaches, the “Hi, guys” in response to Hastur and Ligur’s “Hail Satan”. I like this intro much better than the one originally scripted with the rats at the phone company, but I digress.

Crowley wears sunglasses when he doesn’t need them. Specifically, he still wears them around the demons, and when he’s in hell.

You know where Crowley doesn’t wear glasses? At home.

We never once see him wearing glasses in his flat, except for when he knows Hastur and Ligur are coming. That’s an emotional kick to the gut for me. Here’s one of the only places Crowley’s comfortable enough to be sans glasses, and when he knows it’s going to be invaded he prepares not just physically with the holy water, but by putting up that emotional barrier in a place where he wasn’t supposed to need it.

An argument could be made that Crowley actually never needs glasses. We’re shown that it’s well within the angels’ and demons’ powers to pass unnoticed by humans. Crowley and Aziraphale waltz out of the manor in the middle of a police raid, and going unnoticed by the police takes so little effort that they can keep up a conversation while they stroll through. Even an unimaginative demon like Hastur apparently doesn’t have trouble with the humans losing it over his demonic eyes. The humans in the scene at Megiddo are acting like “this guy is a little weird” and not “holy shit his entire eyeballs are black jelly”

That means that Crowley’s glasses are a choice, just like Aziraphale’s softness. Sure, he could arrange matters so that nobody ever noticed his eyes, but he doesn’t want to. Crowley wants acceptance, and he wants to belong, and he’s never, ever had that. He didn’t fit in before the Fall in Heaven, he doesn’t fit in with the demons in Hell. With the glasses, and with the Bentley and his plants and with the barely-bad-enough-to-be-evil nuisance temptations, he’s choosing Earth. This is where he wants to fit in, perhaps not with the humans, but amongst them.

Even after Crowley is at his absolute lowest, when he thinks Aziraphale’s dead and he’s on his way to drink until the world ends, he takes the time to put a new pair on when the old ones are damaged. He needs that emotional crutch right now, even with everything about to turn into a pile of puddling goo he’s not ready for the world to see his eyes.

Which is why I swore out loud when Hastur forcibly takes them off.

It’s about the worst thing that Hastur could have done. Rather than leading with a physical threat, his first act is to strip away Crowley’s emotional defences. It’s a great writing choice because god it made me hate Hastur, even more than all the physical violence we see him do.

It’s also the moment that Crowley really truly gets his shit together, and focuses all of his considerable imagination on getting to Tadfield and Aziraphale to help save the world. He’s wielding the terrifyingly unimaginable power of someone who’s hit rock bottom and realised it literally could not get any worse than this. He doesn’t put another pair of glasses on after discorporating Hastur, and he spends the majority of the airbase sequence without them.

He puts them back on again, I think, at the moment that he really lets himself hope. When he thinks ‘shit, there may be a real chance that we get through this to a future that I don’t want to lose’.

The vulnerability is back, and he needs Adam to trust him. In Crowley’s mind being accepted by a human means he needs to have his eyes hidden. Someone give the demon a hug, please.

Interestingly, there’s only one time in the whole series that we see Crowley willingly choose to take his glasses off around another person. Only one person he’ll take down that barrier for, and even then he’s drunk before he does it.

Dear God/Satan/Someone that makes my heart ache. Crowley’s chosen Earth, but he’s also chosen Aziraphale. He’s been looking for somewhere to belong his entire existence, and it’s with the angel that he finally feels it.

When the dust settles and the world is saved and they finally have space to be themselves unguarded, I like to imagine Crowley takes off the glasses when it’s just the two of them; the idea of being known doesn’t scare him quite so much anymore.  

but you know, he gets his work done, right? sure, he’s a bit frivolous with the old miracles there, and to talk to him he’s highkey super bizarre and seems to ask a lot of questions while pretending he’s not asking questions in the strangest way possible, but except for reminding him to be aware of a bit of restraint now and then, he’s a fairly sound guy

and you know what? he used to be a fuckin general in the war, so the guy’s allowed a bit of a strange turn, no? flaming sword and everything, and he was one of the guards at eden, so he’s earned his right to go a bit funny in the head

and then

and then

it turns out that for six thousand years, he wasn’t just a bit eccentric at all, he wasn’t just being a little frivolous

he was embezzling miracle money to help fucking hell, and do bad stuff as well as good ones, and also he gave away his fucking flaming sword and INVENTED WAR, and he was lying to everyone’s face for six thousand years like. just because he’s shtupping some demon?

what the fuck, aziraphale?

Like, one minute Crowley's like "it's a bicycle angel, ffs, you're scaring the human", and then the next Aziraphale's all "did you just drown a duck, Crowley?!"

I dunno, I just like to imagine people in Soho (and later the South Downs) talking to each other and getting increasingly confused because half of them have seen Aziraphale scolding Crowley for gluing coins to the pavement, or rescuing him from himself the 99(thousand)th time he's decided to do something insanely stupid because it's Cool™️ and are like "that Mr Crowley is a real wildcard. Good thing he has Mr Fell keeping him from getting into too much trouble."

And then the other half have just seen Crowley trying to explain how modern slang works to a willfully ignorant Aziraphale for the 99(million)th time, or having to quickly yank him out of the road because he's just walked straight into moving traffic, and are like "Mr Fell is a time traveller from about 1853, and Mr Crowley is the only reason he's survived this long in the modern day."

Happy 30th Anniversary to Book Omens!! (on May 1st) hugs and kisses to my favorite book~~ and cuddles to all of us right now u-u9

Tip Jar: Kofi / Paypal :)

Transcript under cut:

@ileolai hitting the nail on the head as usual!

Gabriel’s bland “I’m sure there must be some explanation” to those pics of Az and Crowley is not the shock of a being who finds out he’s been betrayed by a trusted employee for at least 400 years. It’s not even the vindication of finding out that an UNtrustworthy employee has in fact been guilty for 400 years. He’s entirely unsurprised and his denial that back channels exist is a tacit approval for Michael to finally bring this out in the open. “Go ahead and do what you want but I didn’t tell you to because I’m the good guy.”

Yeah, Gabriel has been waiting for Az to slip up for six thousand years. So why doesn’t he just use his knowledge of the Arrangement against him? Because LOTS of angels and demons have arrangements. Michael has Ligur; Gabe himself has some unnamed downstairs source. If Gabriel punishes Az and/or Crowley and one of them knows about this, the whole system could come crumbling down. (It’s fine to be a hypocrite as long as nobody knows about it.)

Some other moments that make me suspicious:

Gabriel saying to Aziraphale in the sushi restaurant, “it’s a miracle he hasn’t spotted you yet” about Crowley, when 218 years ago in 1800, Gabriel spied on Crowley and heard him talking very specifically about Aziraphale and his ability to thwart, which I think counts very much as having “spotted” Aziraphale. It’s a deleted scene, but it definitely got far enough to be worth considering.

In that same 1800 scene, when Gabriel and Sandalphon show up at the shop, Aziraphale argues that he needs to stay on Earth because Crowley has “been here as long as I have.” Later, when Gabriel comes to tell Aziraphale that Armageddon is starting, Aziraphale reminds him how long he’s been here, and Gabriel responds, “so has Crowley.” These lines - the whole incidents - seem referential to each other.

Finally, Gabriel asks Aziraphale, “how was the hellhound?” after Warlock’s birthday party. Theoretically, of course, Aziraphale could have informed the angels that he was planning to attend the party…but we don’t see him or hear any reference to him doing it, and in fact Aziraphale didn’t know himself that there was supposed to be a hellhound until the 11th hour. This looks to me like Gabriel knowing more than he lets on (except in strategic moments like this).

Aziraphale failed in Eden, so being on Earth, basically cut off from most of Heaven, would be a punishment (except he actually loves it, which must frustrate Gabriel to no end).

On the other hand Crowley’s stunt in Eden was a major success, and it would make sense that staying on Earth would be a reward. Hell is clearly miserable. Threatening to take that reward away would give Hell yet another tool to blackmail and control Crowley. I don’t think they would have given him the Antichrist if they didn’t trust his abilities, it was too important of a job to use it as a test or a punishment, anyway.

Also, from what we saw in the show, I wouldn’t be surprised if Heaven knew a lot more than Hell does. Unlike the book, Heaven is very present, and organized in a cult-like manner. Gabriel really reminds me of a cult-leader, friendly and apparently innocuous on the outside while being actually ruthless. Such a group would have the means and the motive to create a very efficient surveillance system, under the guise to protect the sanctity of Heaven.

On the other side, Hell is much more chaotic, ruled through threats and violence. Collaboration is actively discouraged. Fear is encouraged, and I got the impression that powerful demons prefer to terrorize minor demons into obeying instead of actually checking if orders are being carried out (“Do this or I’ll skin you alive” instead of “Do this and I’ll come down later to check you actually did it”). Such an environment isn’t optimal for a good surveillance system, because information will be lost in the chaos, or hidden in fear.

You can also see this difference in the way Heaven and Hell contact Aziraphale and Crowley. Hell constantly talks to Crowley through the radio or the telly, basically a constant reminder of “you are never safe, we are always watching and we will hurt you if you make a mistake”. Except that’s really inefficient, and it allows Crowley to hid things under their nose despite being very scared of his superiors. Correct me if I am wrong, but Hell representatives only interact with Crowley in the flesh when he is called to pick Adam up, and when Hastur and Ligur go to murder him. The demons usually keep their distance, which means the information they get may be distorted.

Heaven on the other hand? The Archangel Fucking Gabriel goes personally, multiple times, to talk with Aziraphale. In the sushi restaurant, at the park, in the bookshop. He gets into Aziraphale’s personal space all the time, and he usually plays it as friendly interactions. In a lot of instances, he isn’t even trying to scare Aziraphale into compliance, he is emotionally abusing him. It’s not “we are always watching so you should be terrified”, it’s more of a “hey buddy, you see how I really care? I am here and you are really disappointing me, why can’t you do this one thing right?”.

Only when he brings Sandalphon the emotional abuse takes a step further into a more threatening territory. Gabriel has a more hands-on approach than his counterpart, and if he asks the same of his underlings he probably gets very precise information.

Hell is inefficient. That’s clear from their offices, it’s one of the major traits separating Heaven and Hell. So they might not check up on you often, beyond lazily sending reminders over electronic media. If you are caught not doing your job, the consequences are dreadful - ‘reprimand’ is a mild word for it - but it doesn’t happen often. Your odds of getting busted for any one thing are very low, so if you’re a renegade demon, you might as well live on the edge and take that chance.

Hell was semi-present and explicitly awful; Heaven didn’t care about the right things but they cared about doing things the right way, and weren’t deliberately cruel. Just unfeeling. The narrative shared Aziraphale’s disinclination to be really critical.

Heaven is the thing that therefore got the most new building-up and updating to the current political climate, in the miniseries, as it became a central player. Its identity didn’t necessarily change, but what Gaiman was trying to say about it sure did.

Visually, they went with the effect of Heaven as the upper reaches of a skyscraper and Hell as its mouldering horrible basement, but the structural impression is of Heaven as the government and Hell as organized crime.

Aziraphale, who is afraid of falling but even more afraid of what Hell might do to Crowley, tries to protect them both by pulling away, putting distance between them, even straight up putting an end to their relationship if he thinks he needs to.