NATHAN FOAD as Lucius Spriggs & CON O'NEILL as Izzy hands in OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH (2022— ) Episode 2.05

I feel like the fact that Lucius is mostly holding multiple cigarettes but we barely see him actually smoking them in contrast to Izzy taking a big fucking drag is supposed to symbolize something. I'm just not sure what it is yet.

I feel like the fandom greatly underestimates the implications of The Arrangement.

Like yeah it’s a cute little monicker for Aziraphale and Crowley basically being married since medieval times and having reasons to secretly meet up and doing things their home offices would never approve of.

But looking at the bigger picture, it means goody-two-shoes Aziraphale doing a demon’s job. Successfully. (Or otherwise Hell would’ve already cussed Crowley out for it, I assume) It means an angel who pretends he’s being reprimanded for too many miracles doing temptations. For hundreds of years. You cannot tell me that in all this time, Crowley has never used that as both a hazing and flirting topic. Oh, angel, what are you gonna do? Turn me to sin like you did with that handsome fella four hundred years ago in Italy? I’d like to see you try.

You can’t tell me it hasn’t given Aziraphale, already on shaky ground with his beliefs if he ever cared to admit it, more grounds to question himself and his role and his connection to heaven.

And on the other hand, it means Crowley going back to being angelic in a way. Getting to do blessings and small miracles. Finding ways to do good for those humans he pretends to absolutely not love. Not being detested or feared by them for a change, every once in a while, even if in disguise. The moral implications of that. The mental implications for a demon who didn’t exactly ask to be a demon, but sure as hell (pun intended) doesn’t want to be an angel ever again. The ambiguity of it all. And worse, Aziraphale praising him for it sometimes, thinking ‘see, this is the good in you I keep trying to mention’. The absolute pain of wanting that praise and hating it at the same time.

Anyway, The Arrangement is a hell of a fucking lot and nobody is talking about it.

Another headcanon I’ve been working with, that makes an appearance in Hell to Pay and a current WIP: Crowley can’t heal or save the lives of humans. Not because he’s unable to–in that arena, his powers are functionally the same as an angel’s. But because it will register with Hell and he’s learned the hard way that it’s not so easy to explain away.

This applies to healing or saving Aziraphale, too. If you look at the miracles Crowley does in his angel-rescuing scenarios, none of them affect Aziraphale’s corporation directly. He miracles the shackles in the Bastille; freezes time for the humans but not for himself and Aziraphale; he affects the bomb (and possibly a plane and a human pilot) to make it land on the church, but relies on Aziraphale to stop them from getting discorporated; he miracles the stain off Aziraphale’s clothing but (my conjecture here) doesn’t heal the bruise underneath. When they hit Anathema, Aziraphale is the one healing her broken wrist while Crowley is fixing the car. Which is hilarious and in character for them, but what if it’s something else, too?

I don’t think they keep track of animals (see: book!Crowley raising the dove) but human souls, they pay attention to. And obviously a demon helping an angel is something they have to keep on the DL. But at some point he figures out that miracling inanimate objects doesn’t ping any infernal radars that shouldn’t be pinged, so that’s what he has to work with.

Can I get some more art acknowledging Aziraphale’s trauma because like yes Crowley’s should be acknowledged but Aziraphale is suffering from anxiety and the abuse of the other angels and the Rules and I just

please!!!!! show!!!!! Aziraphale recovering!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do I have to do all the crying around here

Anyway Aziraphale was abused and has anxiety and I need to wrap him in a blanket and get him some cocoa.

Yes! Aziraphale’s huge issue is that he believes losing faith in Heaven is the same thing as losing faith in God. I believe Aziraphale never loses faith in God– that’s why he never Falls despite lying and defying Heaven and so on. 

But when Metatron tells him the point is to win the war, not prevent it, I think that’s the point when Aziraphale finally starts to separate Heaven from God in his mind– realizing that he can oppose Heaven and still keep faith with God.

What I love most about his big “Is that the ineffable plan” rules-lawyering moment is that Aziraphale weaponizes his own anxiety against Heaven and Hell. From the Garden on, Aziraphale worries that he’s not doing the right thing. He secretly thinks there must be something wrong with him because the other angels seem so certain what’s right, and he’s not. At last he realizes that they don’t know either– but they’ve been pretending they know God’s will and using that feigned confidence to do what they want.

Aziraphale forces Heaven to admit that they don’t know any more than he does– he finally understands that his anxiety and feelings of inadequacy have been an illusion caused by their lies. He turns it around on them and forces them to experience the kind of self-doubt that their hypocrisy imposed on him for 6,000 years. No wonder they try to execute him later.

This is fantastic. Spot on! The doubts that have plagued him becoming allies when he realises that NOBODY KNOWS.

I’d like to talk about something that has been bothering me and I haven’t seen addressed anywhere else: Hell’s physical effect on Crowley.

There has been a lot of talk about how Heaven is generally emotionally abusive and controlling while Hell is generally less suffocating/paying less attention to their demons’ behaviour - except actually physically punishing them when found lacking. Regardless, I’m going to say Hell has a sort of constant latent physical aggression on Crowley, which manifests at least three times during the show and is frankly unsettling to watch:

1 - the hand burning in the graveyard when he signs the contract (more about it here):

2 - the passing of information about his mission shortly after in the car, which steals Crowley from consciousness to the point that he almost crashes into another vehicle:

3 - the Satan scene at the airbase, where Crowley is literally yanked to the soil, in pain, because Satan is coming to exact vengeance:

All of these instance look terribly creepy to me, especially considering that Crowley doesn’t quite belong in Hell. It feels like many small violations, forcing apart his defences and getting in uninvited whenever they want (especially 2; that never fails to make me cringe).

There are also subtler hints, like Satan and other demons randomly chiming in in the car radio, or Hastur and Ligur appearing in whatever screen Crowley is watching/in front of in order to bully him, hinting to the fact that they always know where he is - and can very likely spy him at his place; one could speculate that that’s part of the reason why Crowley spends so much time in the bookshop but not the other way around. Did he ever have to keep Aziraphale from buying a TV set?

Anyway, it makes you feel bad for Crowley, makes him look terribly vulnerable in that aspect, which makes his flippant exterior look more like a defense mechanism. One has to wonder how often he’s willing to go Downstairs and face THAT, and how scared he actually is when he does. Now to my question: is this how Hell is with every demon down there? Is it just with Crowley because he is a cinnamom roll acting too kindly to pass as a real demon? Is it intentional at all from Hell’s part?

And yeah I made myself sad and I’m not okay and goodbye forever

Gif credit (x)

One really interesting thing about the church scene is just how Aziraphale reacts when Crowley shows up, especially when compared to the Bastille scene.

I mean, look at his face when he hears Crowley's voice in France.

He just lights up. Whether you believe he arranged his own arrest with this outcome in mind, or whether you think it was just a lucky coincidence that Crowley happened to be nearby, Aziraphale is clearly thrilled that he's there.

That is the face of an angel who's just learned that his immediate future no longer involves his own beheading.

And he doesn't even hint. We don't get any of the puppydog eyes he uses to get Crowley to make Hamlet popular or clean the paint off his coat. He's totally relaxed and at ease during their conversation, he agrees that he's lucky Crowley was in the area, and then Crowley frees him. He doesn't have to ask. By this point in their relationship, they've clearly reached the stage where the idea that Crowley might not be totally willing to save an angel from discorporation doesn't even occur to either of them.

And now compare it to Aziraphale's reaction when Crowley shows up to save him in the Blitz.

It's basically the same situation. Aziraphale has got himself into a situation where he's about to be murdered by humans (and for some reason can't just miracle the problem away) when Crowley shows up to save him.

Except this time, Aziraphale isn't thrilled. If anything, he sounds rather annoyed. "What are you doing here?" His first assumption is that Crowley must be working with the Nazis, for god's sake, even though he knows that that isn't Crowley's style, and was genuinely shocked a few centuries earlier when he thought that Crowley was admitting to being responsible for the French Revolution. (Crowley is right to be offended.)

But of course, it's easier for Aziraphale to believe that Crowley is somehow involved with the Nazis, because there has to be some reason why he's in that church. At this point, Aziraphale honestly finds it easier to believe that Crowley could be working with Nazis than that, after their big argument, Crowley could still be working to protect him.

After all, how familiar do we think Aziraphale is with the concept of forgiveness?

Given the Fall, given the Flood, given humanity's exile from the Garden.

Given the whole Heaven and Hell set up that he and Crowley's jobs revolve around, which really depends on the idea that humans cannot repent after death. Aziraphale might be able to redeem some of the humans on Earth, but once they've died, if Crowley's convinced them to commit whatever magical number of sins you have to commit to warrant eternal damnation, then that's it.

Given the fact that Aziraphale's own 6,000 years spent living on Earth might well be meant as a punishment for letting the serpent into Eden, because despite its reputation on Earth, Heaven really isn't as big on the whole 'love and forgiveness' thing as everyone seems to think.

Aziraphale lives in a universe where if you mess up, even if you didn't mean it, even if you regret it right after, then that's it. So why wouldn't he apply that to his friendship with Crowley?

Why would it occur to him that you could fall out with somebody and then make up afterwards with no hard feelings? That you could say things, hurtful things, that you didn't mean— because you were scared and because he wanted holy water and because it was too much and too fast— that you could fall out so badly that you don't speak to each other for nearly a century and that, after it all, they'd still walk across consecrated ground and bomb a church for you. And even save your books in the aftermath.

And Crowley, it's worth mentioning, doesn't even seem to realise this. Crowley is baffled and a little insulted that Aziraphale would even ask why he was there. Obviously he's keeping his angel out of trouble— isn't that basically his second job by this point? He's totally casual about offering Aziraphale a lift home, though I suspect that that might be a conscious decision to deliberately act like everything's back to normal, so as to signal to Aziraphale that everything is indeed back to normal. Crowley (and we get to see this trait more later on when it comes to the whole Alpha Centauri thing) forgives so easily that he doesn't even notice he's doing it.

And that, I think, is why this is such an important moment in their relationship.

It's not just the rescue of the books that makes Aziraphale realise the true depth of his feelings about Crowley. It's the fact that, in his own way, Aziraphale considers himself to be just as unforgiveable as Crowley, and Crowley forgave him regardless.

one little detail i love from the novel is that when crowley is in his flat waiting for the apocalypse he starts trying to stress clean. but everything is already organized so he can't. that's so stupidly adorable i can just imagine him in the bookshop and in a moment of distress organizing aziraphale's books and being like. "IT'S CALLED THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM YOU ASSHOLE WHO RAISED YOU"

i think he does occasionally stress-clean the bookshop and aziraphale would HATE IT

“It’s exactly how it’s supposed to be, thank you very much. I have in the optimal configuration for dissuading potential book-buyers and I won’t have you messing it up,” he says, handing Crowley one of the 3D puzzles he’s learned to keep around for these occasions.

I can imagine Aziraphale, in despair, taking a Rubik cube and quietly switching one piece physically around and then mixing it up. With the switched piece, it should be impossible to solve, right? Right,

Only until you hand it to a demon, who will bring it back six hours later, completed.

But hey, at least he stopped trying to vacuum the carpets for a moment.

Okay, but now I'm imagining Aziraphale as the opposite. Like when he's anxious he'll just pick up random objects absentmindedly to fiddle with them, and then put them down a few minutes later, in the wrong places.

(Just checked and this is practically canon. When Aziraphale figures out where the antichrist is and is worrying over whether to tell Crowley or take it straight to Heaven, he walks around his shop picking up bits of paper and dropping them again and fiddling with pens.)

He'll pick at paint and pull at loose threads. He'll stress-eat and not think to clear away the crumbs.

And so now I have the image in my head of Aziraphale and Crowley being stressed together for whatever reason, and Aziraphale just going around absently messing things up and Crowley stress-cleaning behind him.

Yes. Headcanon fully and instantly absorbed.

So glad I found this again. *Clears throat*

OMG I was just writing a scene where Aziraphale and Crowley are arguing about Heaven/Hell and Order/Chaos, and Aziraphale starts fiddling with things uncomfortably and I remembered this thread and realized -

Aziraphale is an agent of order but when he gets stressed he creates CHAOS. Crowley is like a one-man force for chaos but keeps his life in complete ORDER.

Even the default state of the bookshop is a sort of barely-controlled disaster.

Are their conscious and subconscious tendencies actually at war, or do they just contain BOTH within themselves and the one they don’t “tend to” slips out when they least expect it?

I don’t know, but this show, man. It just keeps coming.

#fandom has written off Gabriel as dumb but like #you don’t show up unannounced with a violent enforcer your employee is clearly uncomfortable around and trap him in a room by accident #this is deliberate mob level intimidation #“politely” reminding him exactly what theyre capable of if he steps out of line #and its terrifying #he cant even look at them

@ileolai hitting the nail on the head as usual!

In addition, Sandalphon is blocking the exit. And he and Gabriel are standing at complete 180 degree points with Aziraphale in the centre. This is a thing I have known sadistic interviewers to do: to deliberately sit (or stand) at such angles to the victim/interviewee that they can never have both interviewers in their eyeline at the same time. To make eye contact with one, you have to lose sight of the other. Normally I’ve seen it done with the two interviewers at 90 degrees, so the interviewee has to keep turning their head. This is even more cruel: Aziraphale has to turn his back on whomever is not speaking. It’s a deliberate tactic to make a victim more awkward and wrong-footed, and in this case, even physically vulnerable.

Yep. You’ve articulated what I was trying to get at with ‘’trap’’. You don’t block off the exits like that to have a polite conversation. You do it to threaten somebody.

It’s like they took the mob intimidation bit from the original book and turned it into something far more horrifying and with more weight for his character arc, because this is what gangsters do to scare people. imo Gabriel is fairly well aware of whats going on long before the surveillance photos come into it and he just likes watching Aziraphale squirm with anxiety over how much he knows, because he’s not stupid, he’s a sadistic bully. 

And Aziraphale is playing the game so well. He tells himself he trusts them but he absolutely doesn’t. He smiles, he nods, he tells them nothing. He has a quick answer for the jibe about the evil smell. He shows zero reaction to their loud comments about pornography (react, and prove you’re more used to humans than to angels? That you find angels embarrassing now? That you know more about earth than the guy who stationed you there?). He’s covering his ass expertly—he knows how to defend himself. He’s watched angels fall.

@kedreeva oh NO you’re right.

Like don’t get me wrong, I like a good clueless boss as much as the next person. But that’s not Gabriel. Michael asks if Gabriel minds Michael following up through back channels and Gabriel plainly says “there are no back channels, Michael” and it’s not because Gabriel thinks there are no back channels, of course there fucking are, he’s been using them too. But how dare Michael bring them up so baldly. How dare Michael betray the ruse, and to his face like that. They’re the good guys, you know.

i recently noticed david’s very deliberate lack of blinking, and i’ve therefore concluded that this

must not be any kind of normal blink, but a significant blink. a blink of realization. a blink of amazement.

a blink of love, if you will.

mister sheen i just want to talk!!!

His face in the last one is the epitome of “Okay, it’s just Crowley, just the man you have an ENORMOUS CRUSH ON, be cool.” (Ofc, then Crowley saves the books and Aziraphale realizes IT IS WAY MORE THAN JUST A CRUSH.)

It’s okay, it’s just Crowley. Walking down the aisle to me I mean how much gay panic can one face contain?

OKAY BUT IT’S NOT JUST THAT.

They haven’t spoken to each other since their fight in the park in 1862. This is 1941. Aziraphale hasn’t seen or spoken to Crowley in eighty years.

That second gif? That’s disbelief, mixed with a little bit of hope. He didn’t expect Crowley to come. Once upon a time he would have trusted, on some level, that Crowley would be there to get him out of any scrape he got himself into, because that’s like half of what Crowley does. But then they fought, and now Aziraphale genuinely believed he was dealing with this alone. He might have wanted Crowley to show up like a dashing knight to save him, like he has so many times before, but Aziraphale didn’t expect it. And then he sees Crowley hopping down the aisle of the church and he can’t believe his eyes.

And then, immediately after that, I think he’s remembering their fight. He’s remembering what Crowley asked for, what he didn’t want to give, how he said fraternizing like it was a terrible thing when everything they’ve done for each other feels like the furthest thing from terrible. They hurt each other in that fight. That’s still hope in his eyes, but there’s a little bit of pain there as well.

It is the demon he has an enormous crush on, but equally important is that this is his closest friend, the friend he may have thought he’d lost forever (because Aziraphale couldn’t bring himself to give Crowley the one thing that could destroy him (because he can’t bear the thought of living without him but that’s another tangent)).

But Crowley came for him. They fought, and they hurt each other, and Aziraphale hasn’t apologized, and Crowley still came for him.

And so Aziraphale takes a steadying breath and tries to pull himself together because he’s not out of the woods yet, but oh, Crowley is here and maybe, maybe that means he hasn’t lost him at all.

Maybe there’s hope for them yet.

I think Aziraphale didn’t just not expect Crowley to come, he thinks Crowley can’t. They’re in a church - a place Crowley can’t easily go. Meeting in the church excuses Crowley from coming, which means Aziraphale won’t have any reason to be disappointed when he doesn’t show. He’s protecting himself from disappointment even as he does the most reckless thing we see him doing throughout history, aside from Armageddon. Says a lot about Aziraphale’s state of mind, and then here’s Crowley anyway. He didn’t have to come, and in fact he shouldn’t have come, and in fact he is risking his own life by being there - would a demon discorporated on consecrated ground be discorporated, or destroyed? - but he’s there anyway, stopping Aziraphale getting into trouble. Relying on Aziraphale to save them both. Saving the books, which don’t ultimately matter to anyone but Aziraphale. The layers going on in this scene are 👌👌 chefs kiss

Casual reminder that Aziraphale is physically very strong.

My evidence is thus:

That is an effing big rock and he’s carrying it as if it’s made of cardboard. Ergo, Aziraphale looks soft, but can and will carry Crowley if he feels the urge with no visible effort.

Ya boi is lifting a big ass rock without breaking a sweat. Fanfic opportunities, people!

Broke: Aziraphale doesn’t look scared when Crowley slams him against a wall because he knows that Crowley would never actually hurt him.

Woke: Aziraphale doesn’t look scared when Crowley slams him against a wall because he knows that if he really wanted to fight back the only hard part would be making sure that Crowley didn’t get too badly injured.

Since this has taken off, I’m really craving a scene where Aziraphale punts Gabriel through a wall. Like Gabriel tries to come after him and Crowley and Crowley freaks but Aziraphale is 100% Done with Heaven and just levels him completely with a single blow that sends Gabriel hurtling. Then he dusts himself down, retrieves the blinking Crowley and keeps walking, pondering where they should go for afternoon tea.

Ten minutes later, Crowley shakes him by the front of his coat. “Where the fuck did that come from?!?!?!?”

“Everyone forgets,” Aziraphale says, as if he hadn’t hurled the Archangel Gabriel twenty feet across the road and through a shop front, “I was the Guardian of Eden. They don’t give that job to featherweights.”

Archangel “lose the gut” Gabriel is shooked

INTERESTING…

So, I hadn’t decided (until right about now) how physically strong I think Aziraphale is. I’ve hovered somewhere around ‘surprisingly impressive due to his thick build, but not professionally-trained strong.’ I never thought about this thing with the rock. 

So either A) he IS just plain ridiculously strong, or B) he was using a miracle to augment his strength (or temporarily make the rock lighter) at the time.

One wonders which of these things is true, so let’s consider the following:

Aziraphale was issued a flaming sword, and we never see any other angel using one.

Gabriel brings up the topic of the sword in the jogging scene, and it’s apparently important enough that he goes so far as to interrupt his jog and teleport himself backwards to ask Aziraphale about it.

The quartermaster brings it up, wondering ‘why does that name seem familiar.’ Aziraphale’s name is familiar to this dude just because he was issued a flaming sword? That seems a bit strange. That feels like if a real-life army quartermaster was baffled at a vague recollection of issuing someone a rifle. That wouldn’t happen unless no one else was given a rifle.

The Bible does actually only mention one flaming sword, placed in the Garden of Eden as a ward after Adam and Eve were cast out. Obviously Good Omens deviates fairly sharply from the Bible canon right away, but I think it’s safe to assume that Aziraphale’s sword is wholly unique in the Good Omens universe. He wasn’t issued ‘a’ flaming sword, he was issued THE FLAMING SWORD. (… which seems incredibly appropriate for THE SOUTHERN PANSY.)

I rather doubt that such a unique weapon would be issued to someone who didn’t have the knowledge AND the natural physical power to use it to its full potential.

There is a post somewhere on tumblr (I dunno where, but would gladly add a link to it here if someone shows me where it is) that points out a few screenshots of how Aziraphale uses the sword, too. Whoever wrote it has some knowledge of proper sword form, and points out that the way he holds the grip and positions his feet as he readies for battle indicates that he does know what he’s doing.

And while probably any angel could use a miracle to make themselves ‘as strong as they currently need to be,’ it would make sense to give the sword to someone who doesn’t have to spend mental resources in combat concentrating on actively imagining that he’s overwhelmingly strong.

In conclusion: I think we do indeed have some fic opportunities here. I dunno why, but I just suddenly had this odd mental image of Crowley coming out of his flat to discover Aziraphale bench-pressing the Bentley.

Oh goodness I now want a fic in which Aziraphale has a total Valjean moment, and ends up lifting a car (the Bentley or Dick Turpin, probably ;-) ) or a cart (or a lorry…) in order to save someone.

Or, better yet, not even rescuing someone but retrieving a kid’s ball or something while he’s distracted.

Aziraphale always hated meeting with Heaven. They left him shaken and uncomfortable, so much so, he scarcely noticed the small child on the ground, scrabbling under a car until he all but tripped over them.

“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry!”

The child looked up, red faced and tearful. “My ball!” He motioned miserably under the car. “I can’t get it.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale reached down absent-mindedly and caught the edge of the car, hoisting it up. “There you go.”

The child stared at him wide-eyed.

“Your ball?”

The child nodded wildly, scrambling under the car and fetching the ball, then scrambled back out, hugging it against his chest. “Are… are you a superhero?”

A little of the icy chill of Heaven thawed away in the warmth of such human wonder. “What?”

The child looked at the car, held up at a 45 degree angle from the road.

“OH!” Aziraphale dropped it so hard that the alarm started shrilling. “Oh… oh, dear.”

The child reached out and took his hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, seriously. “I’ll keep your identity secret.” He beamed, then bounded off, hugging his ball.

Aziraphale looked awkwardly at the car, then glanced around and hastily miracled every CCTV camera in the area, just in case.

YESSSSSS PERFECT.

Also, *does the I-accidentally-prompted-the-amazing-Fyre-to-write-a-thing* dance. :D

love this @castiel-saved-me-from-myself

You’re not the only one that he makes all tingly, lady.

Bonus:

Crowley’s face in the third gif is doing a particular number on my soft heart.

Okay but—Crowley’s face in that third gif. He’s looking him over, so attentively. He looks almost stunned. Could be jealousy, but it’s such a tender look and it’s shy and it’s sad. And I’ve just now realized this is the first moment he’s seen Aziraphale since “I won’t even think about you!” The first good look he’s had at him since he sat on the floor of the bookshop and cried, convinced he’d never see him again. And even after arriving at Tadfield he hasn’t known he’d get to see Aziraphale again in this corporation. He hadn’t expected Adam to give him back.

Musings on the Body Swap

or alternatively: I Can’t Believe Aziraphale And Crowley Had Sex On Screen And We’re All Just Ignoring It

Yeah I’m going there and I’m taking y’all on the journey with me.

Let me start with a bit of headcanon. Within the world of Good Omens, angels and demons are not physical beings. That is, they have to inhabit a physical body while on Earth, but they are not, in and of themselves, physical. My personal interpretation of this is that, while humans and other animals are creatures made of matter, angels— fallen or otherwise— are creatures made of energy. This explains their immortality (first law of thermodynamics, anyone?) and basically all of my headcanons about the actual mechanics of how angels and demons function in the GO ‘verse are centered around this concept.

Therefore, a demon or angel inhabiting an Earthly corporation is basically stuffing their energy, their “self” if you will, down into a body made of matter.

We see this when Aziraphale is discorporated. Before he finds a willing vessel in the form of Madame Tracey, he’s present in his “true” form on Earth, not as a physical being, but as something of a disembodied energy signature. When he finds Crowley in the bar, he’s there-but-not-there.

Moving on from the realm of headcanon, I think anybody who has been in this fandom for more than a week is familiar with Paradise Lost, the legendary work of poet John Milton, which is as far as I’m aware the first English text to give angels (and demons) personalities and identities of their own. In a lot of ways, Aziraphale and Crowley exist because Paradise Lost did it first.

There’s a bit in Paradise Lost where Adam asks the Archangel Rafael whether angels have sex. Rafael confirms that they do, and goes on to describe what the act entails for angels. You can read the full section here, but the relevant portion is this:

In short, according to Milton, angelic sex entails merging souls. Sharing oneself completely, experiencing on a spiritual level the kind of intimacy that human-style sex provides on a physical level. The implication is made that this mingling of selves is the ultimate expression of love for angels.

So if commingling souls is for angels what sex is for humans, what are we to make of the body swap? Because that isn’t a simple hop-skip-and-a-jump between bodies the way we see Aziraphale do when he possesses Tracey. They’re not separate entities who just happen to be inhabiting the same physical vessel. We don’t really know the full mechanics of how the body swap was pulled off, but you can see for a moment when they switch back that they’ve ceased to be individual and are instead a sort of hybrid, a two-in-one:

Neither fully one or the other. Sort of like their souls are, uh, a bit mingled, mayhap? Yeah, sure fuckin looks like it to me. Certainly puts that sort of shiver they both do after they’re back in their own bodies into perspective, doesn’t it?

So… am I saying that Aziraphale and Crowley were full on going at it on that park bench in broad daylight in front of God and everybody? Not exactly, but I am saying that the act of switching bodies was definitely the angelic equivalent of a quickie handjob in the coatroom at your third cousin’s wedding.

Anyway this is actually a really long shitpost but I 100% stand by it

I hear he does remarkable things to oysters. I’ve never eaten an oyster.

….I . I cannot believe I didn’t notice this before. I cannot- holy shit I swear every time I look at any part of this entire fucking show everything gets better.

Look at that third gif. Look at the way he moves his head as he begins to grin. That’s a little challenge. That’s 100% absolutely “you’re supposed to be the one tempting me, shouldn’t you get started?”

This wasn’t a mix up at all. Aziraphale’s just a brat that put a toe over the line to see what Crowley was going to do about it. Crowley had just admitted that he was in town for a quick temptation, and Aziraphale looks at what a bad mood he’s in and must conclude “oh it’s gone poorly” and he proceeds to take the first opportunity presented to him to give Crowley a chance to do some successful tempting. Of him.

So I noticed something in the gifset below...

(originally posted by @fuckyeahgoodomens and used with their permission)

THE FLOOR IS MADE OF WATER.

You can see it clearly in the second gif.

For those of you not up on your bible trivia, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus walks on water and the disciples think he is a spirit. So Jesus invites Peter to walk on water to see that it’s Him. Peter walks on water until he loses faith and starts to sink!

You notice they start out walking on the water together and Aziraphale successfully walks on water because he has faith, but after a few steps Crowley starts to sink because he’s lost his faith!

I can’t with this show.

(Do you think Aziraphale secretly hopes that one day Crowley won’t sink?)

Sure he does. And maybe, just maybe, tell me how did Crowley get from heaven after body swap WITHOUT sinking?

Aziraphale threw him accross the hall over the water-floor straight into the entrance door.

Oh fuck me he has tears in his eyes already.

Ok but I don't think Aziraphale (a being of love and all that) automatically loves everybody. I'm not a big fan of people saying "he loves Crowley because he can't help it, because he's a being of love and he just loves everyone". I mean, it's convenient, sure but Really? Aziraphale didn't love those Nazis, Aziraphale doesn't love the people coming to his shop (or in the worst case buying something), Aziraphale doesn't love any other demons and he doesn't love his fellow angels either, in fact they make him rather uncomfortable.

Aziraphale doesn't love Crowley because he can't help it, but because he can. He loves Crowley because of how they were both thrown into the world without much knowledge of how 'blending in among humans' worked. He loves Crowley because they grew together and they grew apart, but they did grow and somehow none of their respective 'species' evolved with them. Aziraphale loves Crowley because they're so similar and in all that gluttony and other rather human indulgences, there's a tiny bit of narcissism as well. He loves Crowley because he chooses to; because after millennia of observing and being an (admittedly rather strict) judge of character, he knows Crowley like he knows no other, and he has come to the conclusion that Crowley deserves his love. This is part of why it took him so long.

Aziraphale is not a being of (unconditional) love, he is a being of kindness and a being of warmth but his love needs to be earned.

While I do think that Aziraphale loves every creature on the planet because of his being an angel (doesn't mean he has to like them, if they are an inconvenience to him or are doing bad things), I agree that this is 100% not the same love he feels for Crowley. Because that is passionate love that Crowley had to earn.

Also I think that may be why it took them so long to get their shit together, because as moronic as they are, I don't think Crowley couldn't see the heart eyes directed at him (I mean, he has eyes! Snek eyes, but still), he just didn't think the angel felt anything for him beyond the unconditional love and compassion he displayed when they first met at the garden of Eden.