Emma 🌺

Aziraphale [about Job being talked to by God]: I don't suppose he's getting any answers.

and this is the unanswered messages in my ask box today,

and I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has said such nice things about the season, and I'm sorry to everyone who had emotions they weren't expecting, and I'm impressed that so many of you have theories and don't plan to answer, validate or really even comment on any of them, but mostly I'm just sorry because I probably won't read whatever you've sent, not because I don't want to but because if I was doing nothing but reading Tumblr asks as a full time job I still wouldn't catch up with the thousands of asks coming in.

(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)

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Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off. 

Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse? 

Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended

In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB–

Crowley's expressions of love in season 2

Bonus:

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.  

In particular, I’ve been thinking about how this idea applies to the sunglasses in the Aziraphale as Crowley scenes. On one hand, maybe the rule of sunglasses as a way to create an emotional boundary doesn’t hold up in these scenes, because we’re dealing with Aziraphale. 

Now, personally, I think Aziraphale knows Crowley well enough to knows when and why Crowley chooses to wear his sunglasses. Maybe he doesn’t get every individual reason as to why, but we never see Aziraphale push the boundary with the sunglasses. He doesn’t joke about them. He doesn’t force Crowley to take them off. He just accepts the sunglasses, because he understands and respects that they are important to Crowley. 

So we then we have the swap, and Aziraphale!Crowley is brought to Hell. 

During Crowley’s trial, Aziraphale chooses to keep the glasses on. This is very in line with Crowley’s character. He’s in Hell, surrounded by demons who want him dead, and he’s just watched the archangel Michael pour him a lovely bath of holy water. This is to say, in this situation Crowley would 100% be scared and need the security of the glasses. 

And then we see Crowley in the bathtub. 

No sunglasses. This is where we see Aziraphale breaking from Crowley’s character. 

Why is this breaking character? Because Crowley, when handling holy water in ep5 to set up for Hastur and Lingur, has his glasses on. Yes, he’s in battle mode, but the directors could have decided that he put on his glasses after Home Alone-ing his apartment. They don’t. Instead, we have this scene with Crowley in his glasses pouring the holy water into a bucket, and I think that it’s partially because Crowley is aware that he could screw up here. He could end up in a puddle of goo before Hastur and Lingur turn up, and part of dealing with that potential reality is by hiding behind the sunglasses. 

So back to the bathtub. If Crowley was about to face his extinction in front all of Hell, he sure as fuck wouldn’t take off his glasses. 

But Aziraphale chooses to take the glasses off. 

There are a couple reasons he might have done this. He might have wanted to keep the glasses free from holy water, like the coat, not wanting to risk potential harming Crowley when they switch back. This is a cute idea truly, but we also know that Crowley has back up glasses and, honestly, Aziraphale would have bought him new ones anyway (again, like the coat). 

Aziraphale might have also removed the glasses, because maybe he doesn’t know when or why Crowley wears his glasses. This seems unlikely, because, I mean, this is Aziraphale we’re talking about. He knows Crowley better than anyone. 

So that leaves us with the idea that this was a deliberate choice. Aziraphale decided that the sunglasses needed to be removed. And, in doing so, he creates a tremendous amount of power for Crowley. Taking off the sunglasses is a louder fuck you than any ask for a rubber duck or a towel could have been. 

By removing the sunglasses, Aziraphale!Crowley has essentially said “I am not afraid of you. I am comfortable as myself. You cannot hurt me.” It’s powerful. 

And then there’s one more detail. 

Aziraphale!Crowley has also chosen to go full demon eyed, instead of the human/demon eye that Crowley uses throughout most of the series. And I think that this choice was to further reinforce this idea of Crowley taking his power back. The full demon eyes take away the humanness of Crowley (which we, as viewers, know is a good trait, but the demons of Hell see humanness more negatively), but it replaces that humanness with an incredible amount of self acceptance/ confidence. In other words, this is Aziraphale saying “Try me bitch,” while all the other poo their pants. 

Aziraphale!Crowley survives, and our bois get back together. 

And the sunglasses are back on. This was also Aziraphale’s decision, and, to me, this is Aziraphale acknowledging that Crowley still needs that emotional barrier. He’s back in character. Back to understanding and acting as Crowley, because he knows that his display would be enough to keep Crowley safe for the time being. 

Anyway, if I don’t stop here, I’ll never stop talking about Crowley’s sunglasses. But here! Have a gif of Aziraphale walking like Crowley. My treat. Thanks for reading!