Oh, god, I couldn't last here a week. Everyone's too nice. When I got my coffee this morning, the barista tried to give me a hug.

Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca Welton

from a shippy perspective it's a really fun scene. and i know that there's a general impression the fandom seems to have formed around crowley's fall, with some amazing fanart and fanfic portraying it as a dramatic and heartbreaking affair... but one of the things i like so much about the original story is that, in it, crowley genuinely doesn't seem incredibly troubled about his fall. i really think, in the book at least, it was, for him, not much more than 'sauntering vaguely downwards', because while hell is definitely portrayed as a scary force that can and does do bad things to its subjects, joining that 'side' was sort of just something he fell into and has had to stick with ever since, even though he doesn't really believe in hell's mission. the fact that he ended up as part of hell's 'staff' is not something book!crowley frequently troubles himself with or tortures himself over - even if the threats he receives from his bosses every now and again do genuinely frighten him.

a lot of folks hc that crowley jokes about his fall to hide how traumatic it was for him, but i actually don't think it was intended to have been particularly traumatic, or even a dramatic spectacle, in the book. the fact that it was sort of just something that vaguely happened to him is deliberate, in my eyes - it points to the arbitrary nature of the 'sides' he and aziraphale are respectively on. the whole point is that the 'sides' themselves don't actually mean much in the end, so to paint crowley as someone who's tortured about the fact that he fell thousands of years after the fact is really interesting in its own right as a piece of fanon, but also feels to me like it isn't entirely true to one of the things the book was trying to say.

“Did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downward” is an (apparently) objective description in the book, not Crowley minimizing his trauma.

Besides, book-Crowley takes pride in his work as a demon; he isn’t 100% good and lovely and always trying to do good things under the pretense of doing demonic ones.

Other useful AI Removal/Detection links

How to spot AI Hallucinations like a Reference Librarian (originally on Substack)