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maraudersarecanon · 26 minutes
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It had to be done
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@neil-gaiman @goodomensonprime
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maraudersarecanon · 1 hour
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*Crowley casually driving in the Bentley at like 100 mph*
Muriel on heelys speeding past the Bentley: HELLO MR CROWLEYY
Crowley: what the fuck-
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maraudersarecanon · 2 hours
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im so sorry guys this is all I have to offer
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maraudersarecanon · 3 hours
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annabeth: guess what your son did today at school?
percy: my son? uh oh, that never means anything good
annabeth: your son poured a blue colored chemical in all the beakers in his honors chemistry class today, just because it was blue. and since he didn’t know what it was, it ended up causing a toxic gas to build up and the entire school had to evacuate. he has now been moved to regular chemistry, because he is not trusted to handle chemicals and labs anymore
percy:
annabeth:
percy:
annabeth:
percy: ok well your son is the one who willingly took honors chemistry in the first place
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maraudersarecanon · 4 hours
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Wildest dreams wishes for Good Omens Season 3 which will probably not come true but I can still hope hey!
Number 27.
I’ve said previously how I want the silliness in season 3 dialled up to 11. Another scene I have in mind would be how petty Crowley tries to be because “they’re not talking”.
I picture him in the Bentley. Aziraphale walks up and knocks on the window. Crowley slowly winds the window down, then just as Aziraphale starts to talk he very deliberately cranks the volume up on the radio. Extra points if he’s playing something really absurd that he knows Aziraphale would hate like anything by The Darkness. Then he cups his hand to his ear and mouths “what’s that, I can’t hear you!”
You can imagine how frustrated Aziraphale would be. Prim and proper he’d try to raise his voice, tell Crowley he’s being unreasonable. Crowley would go to turn the radio volume up even more.
Finally, the Bentley has had enough. The door flies open, Crowley is launched out right into Aziraphale, bowling them both over sprawled onto the pavement. The Bentley then peels off driverless down the road, blaring the horn for good measure, whilst Crowley yells at her to come back.
Perhaps now they’ll be forced to talk.
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maraudersarecanon · 5 hours
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RIP Leo Valdez you would’ve loved spending your life savings on tickets to the Eras Tour only to spend the whole time sobbing uncontrollably.
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maraudersarecanon · 6 hours
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Thanks for the tag!
No pressure tags: @peachysoymilk, @shestrying, @aspenshade88, @3-crows-in-a-trenchcoat, @iamarat + anyone else who wants to join
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maraudersarecanon · 9 hours
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yall ever think about the fact that Thalia Grace went from a person who was doomed by the narrative to a person who haunted the narrative?
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maraudersarecanon · 10 hours
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maraudersarecanon · 11 hours
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What if Crowley had bangs in season 3?
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The breakup wasn't *that* bad... jk. Love him with bangs.
I miss the 2008 hair. Would like to see something like that back.
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maraudersarecanon · 12 hours
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So we agree, James is ABBA, Remus is David Bowie, Sirius is Queen and Peter is Fleetwood Mac
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maraudersarecanon · 14 hours
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my prediction for the following books in the percy jackson and the olympians book series (chalice of the gods, the wrath of the triple goddess, etc...) is that rick will continue to speed run through references of the first five books. in the chalice of the gods, the opening line directly mirrors the opening of the lightning theif. rick continues to make references through brief mentions of luke, moments from the first quest, and even having annabeth climb up percy's bedroom fire escape like she originally did in the sea of monsters. if this theme continues, I predict the wrath of the triple goddess will have:
- revisiting percy's insecurity of feeling small (like a guinea pig) in comparison to his responsibilities/expectations
- having percy confront/briefly mentioning his fear of drowning
- tyson cameo (and ella, or brief mention of her) !!
- revisiting annabeth's trauma with cyclops/losing thalia
- having a thalia cameo to highlight the significance annabeth and thalia relationship !!
- chariot race or something similar
- grover in yet another dress
- artmeis (or someone like artemis) being the goddess percy does a quest for
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maraudersarecanon · 15 hours
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Great Balls of Fire
Ok, I've got a Final 15 theory on the kiss and the elevator and... pie?
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This is for-- and in thanks to-- @indigovigilance, @ineffablelunatics and @somehow-a-human, as their metas reminded me of the idea of something in Aziraphale's mouth after the kiss and their talk of ball bearings and The Bullet Catch has eaten my brain alive and so here we are. Thanks also to @kayleefansposts for drawing my attention to 2/3rds of the metas. 🤗
What, exactly, happened in The Final 15? Maybe this...
As observed by many of us and discussed in the metas of the people I mentioned above, Aziraphale visibly has something in his mouth when he pulls back from the kiss. We also see him move the object around in his mouth-- or, we do, if his expression doesn't distract us first.
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Because it's on his tongue, this isn't just light being weird or showing a filling or something. This is, clearly, a piece of metallic-colored something in Aziraphale's mouth. @indigovigilance pointed out how aspects of this parallel aspects of The Bullet Catch and I would agree with that. @ineffablelunatics, off of @somehow-a-human's post on the object, said it looked like a ball bearing and that's actually when I realized that I think the show might have subtly told us over the first two seasons what it is. And if it is what I think it is? The object is the reason for Aziraphale's reaction after the kiss-- not the kiss itself.
So, what is it?
To explain that, we have to start with two scenes, one from each season: 1601 and Crowley in Heaven with Muriel in 2.06.
In the 1601 scene, we learned that Crowley & Aziraphale experimented with their powers after they got tired of canceling each other out and that they discovered Heaven's dirty little secret in the process. That secret is that basically the only differences between them are the colors of their feathers and the lack of immunity to hellfire/holy water. Heaven has been telling everyone that some magic was "demonic" and that angels couldn't do it and they also had told everyone that demons no longer possessed angelic powers. Crowley & Aziraphale realized that this was bullshit-- Aziraphale could do temptations and Crowley could still do blessings. It's this discovery that allowed them to start fulfilling each other's assignments. They didn't tell a soul because of the danger of admitting they knew, especially because admitting it would be acknowledging that they had worked together to figure it out. This means that, with the exception of holy water being dangerous to him since he fell, Crowley is effectively still an angel in terms of the power he possesses.
This would mean he can magically make just about anything he could make when he was an angel. It's relevant because Crowley, as we'll see, made the object he slipped into Aziraphale's mouth during the kiss.
When Crowley is in Heaven with Muriel in 2.06, he opens the file on Gabriel's trial, which we are told can only be accessed by "a throne, or a dominion, or above"-- further showing that the truth is that Heaven actually can't strip angels of their power to do miracles. They're just simply telling them that they have done so as a form of social control and casting some to Hell to use them as way to discourage rebellion. This scene also reminds us of Crowley's awareness of this and shows him using his "angelic" powers to get information to help Gabriel.
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The same scene with Muriel and Crowley that showed us that Crowley still retains his angelic powers reminds us again of the rank of throne/dominion in Heaven. (I say "throne/dominion" because Muriel's verbal commas and the way the sentence is structured-- along with the scene in S1 when Crowley goes from his throne to dominate his plants lol-- suggests that it is possible to be both ranks of angel at once, which is another topic so we won't go too far into that right now.) Crowley was undoubtedly a throne/dominion-- and it's not even just the fact that he had that hilariously tacky throne in S1. It's relevant here because of ties of throne-related things to what it is that Crowley made and slipped into Aziraphale's mouth.
Thrones are apparently God's chariots. They are concerned with justice and reside in the areas of space "where matter originates"-- which feels very Before the Beginning, right? They are symbolized by big wheels that rotate and by eyes that change color.
Yes, by wheels and eyes that change color... seems very Crowley, no?
The eyes repeat on the symbolic wheels and are in the position of what we on Earth would call ball bearings, apparently looking kind of like this:
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...and remember the interconnected, turning wheels in the scroll that Crowley had Aziraphale hold in the moment they met, at the start of 2.01?...
It could be said that Crowley... a throne, a polymath, a scientist, an inventor... a being whose signature thing is the sexiest old car on four wheels... could make ball bearings from his body when he was an angel and, since we know that he still has basically everything but the ability to make holy water from his angel days, it means that he still can make those ball bearings...
...but we also know what else he can make from his body since he's also a demon-- and not just from his hands but from his mouth...
...hellfire.
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Yes, I'm saying that it really was a ball bearing in Aziraphale's mouth-- but it was not hollow or empty. Not by a long shot. It was full of hellfire. It wasn't for Aziraphale's memories as Crowley didn't think that Aziraphale had time or opportunity left to extract them.
It was a suicide pill.
The story was calling back to The Original Ineffable Divorce in 1862...
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Think about what Crowley saw when he was up in Heaven in S2...
Crowley is the one who put together what happened to Gabriel. He watched the video of Gabriel's sham "trial" and he saw The Metatron basically order Gabriel killed and cast down through the ranks and he knows that Gabriel only evaded Hell because of how it would have diminished the power of the institution of Heaven to send him there. Crowley knows that Aziraphale does not have this same amount of political power. He knows that The Metatron is a shifty motherfucker and that Michael cannot be counted on. He knows how much danger Aziraphale is in.
So, he takes a page from Lord Beezlebub after seeing that they protected Gabriel with the fly... only it's not exactly the same thing.
Beez's fly was given to Gabriel to help save him. It was a place to store his memories to help protect him long enough to keep him safe until they could make sure he was safe and intact. It worked because Beez and Gabriel had time to make a plan together. By the time Crowley is in Heaven watching the video of what happened to Gabriel and then getting back to the bookshop to sort it all out, there's no time for he and Aziraphale to make a plan. They are not alone again until after "The Metatron" has already shown up and, by then, Aziraphale is already on his way to being lost.
Beez is actually the first character we ever see make their signature thing on-screen and when they do? I mean...
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Evocative of a kiss, with that big closeup on Beez's mouth. We watch them push the fly gently out of their mouth with their tongue. It foreshadows Crowley making something in his mouth and ties delivery of it to the kiss. We know that Crowley knows that he can make a single object that is of aspects of both Heaven and Hell combined-- like a ball of hellfire tempered, unless consumed, by a ball bearing.
Plus, earlier in the season, there's Gabriel tying The Fly-- which came about as a result of Beez trying to help him manage his depression by helping him to feel safer-- to metaphorical suicide when he spends the scene where the angels show up chasing it around the bookshop, trying to kill it with one of Aziraphale's Bibles, symbolizing just what Heaven is doing to everyone's mental health here...
But this is just where this possibility starts, really... because why else do I think it's a hellfire-full ball bearing suicide capsule that Crowley gave Aziraphale?
Well, for starters, there is all the holy water that is all over this plot at the end of S2... At the end, Crowley stands in Whickber Street outside The Bentley right across from The Dirty Donkey in a nod to-- among other scenes-- the 1967 scene, when Aziraphale brought Crowley the holy water.
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Aziraphale knew that Crowley also secretly wanted holy water as a last resort and Aziraphale initially couldn't handle the idea of losing Crowley and reacted badly before eventually coming around to the idea that maybe Crowley needed to have some supernatural cyanide at his disposal in order to feel safer and that he should have that option. Based on the holy water story, Crowley, then, would be the first person to think that Aziraphale needed a suicide pill as an option if he found himself in trouble he couldn't get out of.
In 2.06, Crowley knows how likely it is that Aziraphale could be harmed by the angels and/or sent to Hell-- which is the domain of Crowley's assailant, who is literally Satan, and who hates both of them for, among other things, turning Adam against him. Crowley knows Aziraphale is a good person who wants to believe the best is possible but he also knows how unlikely it is that this is going to go well for Aziraphale. Crowley can't stand the thought of Aziraphale suffering so he gives him a way out as an act of love because Crowley would sooner lose Aziraphale for eternity than see him suffer.
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When it becomes clear that Aziraphale is going with "The Metatron" and Crowley is out of ways to convince him not to, he sees Aziraphale look away and start to cry. Crowley goes back and kisses him as a last resort but Aziraphale is initially resistant-- not because this is their first kiss and not even just because they're upset (though that's part of it) but because to kiss Crowley then would be to let him in... (after all of those symbolic doors and "let me in"s happening in the story)... when Aziraphale making the mistake of trying to shut him out.
Aziraphale eventually, though, can't help but let Crowley in a little...
...because, ya know, it's Crowley...
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...and, when he does, he opens up a little, and Crowley slips a suicide pill into Aziraphale's mouth.
It's also definitely worth noting that one of the reasons-- the primary reason, even-- why Crowley kisses Aziraphale is because he needs a cover to both make and give the fireball to Aziraphale without being noticed-- and to do so in such a way that Aziraphale would be assured of the ability to have it on his person when he got to Heaven-- even if he lost his clothes in the process, as like what happened to Gabriel when he was cast out. It has to go in Aziraphale's mouth for easy consumption for it to work and kissing him is the only way to do that. What's really worth noting, though?
Crowley's plan hinged on Aziraphale eventually giving in and kissing him back. He couldn't tongue the fireball into Aziraphale's mouth without Aziraphale parting his lips and Crowley knew he would... because he always does. Not that they're regularly trying to kiss while being super miserable lol but mah point is that Crowley knows that Aziraphale can't ever not kiss him. That's not indicative of this being a first kiss-- that's indicative of the complete opposite of that.
Anyway...
Aziraphale knows what Crowley can make and what it is that he just gave him and that's why this is his reaction after the kiss:
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The devastation isn't over the kiss itself. It's because Aziraphale trusts Crowley's interpretations of things more than his own sometimes and, by secretly slipping Aziraphale a suicide capsule out of fear and love and delivered in a kiss, it really hits home for Aziraphale that Crowley thinks they are now in a situation where there probably isn't going to be another way out. It's not because it's a first kiss-- it's because it's likely a last one-- and things are so dire that it came with supernatural cyanide.
It's the realization that Crowley really thinks Aziraphale has been fooled and Aziraphale can't bear it because he knows, deep down, that Crowley is probably right and he's embarrassed. 'Pride goeth before a fall' and all that... Aziraphale is lovely-- an absolute poppet-- but he's imperfect, just like us all. One of his worst traits is that he doubles down when he's been embarrassed as a way of trying to save face and retain pride. It's maybe his worse flaw and it gets very dangerous for him here. Crowley is no stranger to trying to stop situations where it could happen, like this paralleling time in 1941:
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Some other reasons why it's a fireball suicide pill before we get to what then happened in the elevator...
There's the fact that the show had a scene set in S2 in The Dirty Donkey-- where the elevator is. (As the start of the scene, Crowley & Aziraphale even walk through the door where the elevator will materialize at the end of S2.) Part of their conversation is very possibly Crowley recounting their first kiss-- at minimum, it's about kissing-- and then Aziraphale makes it also about balls, combining the two to, among other things, foreshadow The Final 15:
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The wordplay here is already threefold in this scene off of Crowley's joke that follows Aziraphale remembering Jane Austen's balls: balls (testicles), the phrase that x person "has balls" (is badass), and balls (of the cotillion/dancing variety). This continues into the meeting that Aziraphale hosts-- the disaster of a ball that goes straight into the end game of the season. Here's Aziraphale making yet another ball-related wordplay joke-- this one, during The Meeting Ball:
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"We're having a ball" as in they're literally having a ball-- a party-- but also the idiom "we're having a ball" meaning "we're having a great time." We are now up to four different meanings of the word 'ball' in S2, stretched across different scenes, emphasizing the importance of it. One of the missing ones still needed here to complete this idea is a literal ball-- and the ball bearing would not only meet this idea but would then make all of the ball-related wordplay have had the purpose of building towards it. We think it's building towards The Meeting Ball-- and it is-- but all of it, including The Meeting Ball, would actually then be building towards the hellfire ball, which is the actual ending of S2.
Then, there's what this all has to do with the eccles cakes...
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Yes, eccles cakes lol... Eccles cakes, as a lot of us already know, are popularly referred to as "fly cakes", off of how the currents sometimes look in them, but the significant thing here is that, despite their name, eccles cakes are not actually cakes at all-- they are really pies.
Ball bearings are also used in Good Omens' favorite metaphor of food to weigh down dough when baking pie crust. Pie weights and ball bearings are basically the same things, just put to different use. It means you literally cannot make eccles cakes from scratch without a jar of pie weights... which are just, structurally, the same thing as ball bearings... and Crowley can make them. You also make pie dough by first rolling it into a ball.
Which is likely why this hilarious moment exists:
Please hold The Cake-Pies of Symbolism, my pie (and Pi)-loving dear...
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Crowley's face at having to stand there holding some little pies 😂...
The eccles cakes-that-are-really-pies go along with this theory as well because look how the show presented the forthcoming apocalypse to us back in 2.01:
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The horse is Crowley, the rider is Aziraphale, and they're headed for Armageddon-like mental health disaster-- all ushered in by the four eccles cakes, representing Gabriel, Beez, Nina (who suggested & gave them the eccles cakes) and Maggie.
Presumably, The Lords of the Flies are the two eccles cakes that are already canoodling on the back of the plate while Maggie and Nina are the two in the foreground who are aligned but not yet together. Crowley's S2 plot is largely working at the behest of these wonderfully rebellious pies. He looks after Gabriel, finds out what happened to him and connects it all to Beez... and this is after he spent the season on his vavoomy Operation Lovebirds to get Maggie and Nina together. He's responsible for the pie crust-- the containers of the eccles cakes-- in a show obsessed with containers. Crowley is, symbolically, a jar of pie weights in being form by way of his actions-- which is suggestive of the fact that he can probably physically make them. (There's also: "Just a few million years to bake," which Crowley said of his stars-- which he made-- in the opening scene of the season.)
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"Nina, what do you sell that calms people down?"
Calm is from the Greek kauma, which means the heat of the day. Heat, as in slang for a weapon. Heat, as in hellfire. Heat, as in what's needed to bake. Heat, as in passion. Heat, as in "bringing the heat." The heat of the day-- the sunny daylight of The Final 15. Eccles cakes-- really: pies-- calm people down... they bring them heat, in every possible way, and it sets them on a path down-- to Hell.
Then, there's Agnes Nutter...
When The Witchfinder Army came to kill Agnes, she hid gunpowder (a weapon) and roofing nails (the construction-related metal that enabled it) in her dress. Agnes blew up-- she became a literal. fireball. Crowley wasn't necessarily suggesting that Aziraphale turn himself into an Agnes-like bomb in Heaven when he gave him the capsule but he was giving him a weapon involving fire with which he could kill himself if he had no other way out.
Then, there's the theme of suicide in examples from earlier in the season:
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Crowley saving Elspeth (on the night Crowley was dragged to Hell)... The bit when Aziraphale then calls Crowley from Edinburgh in the present and tells him that he's read that Dalrymple left in disgrace and killed himself... "The Bananafish" being a short story about trauma by J.D. Salinger which ends with a traumatized man suddenly killing himself... Crowley setting Gabriel up to jump from the window and then stopping him from doing it...
There's also the fact that the end of S1 was Heaven and Hell forcing Crowley and Aziraphale into forms of suicide (getting into hellfire/holy water) and the "Aziraphale" in the Heaven part of it was Crowley spitting hellfire-- at Gabriel, no less, whose story is what jumpstarts S2.
Then, there's that the song that is The Clue to everything in S2 is "Everyday", the significance of which is that it's a foundational song of American rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll is a blend of musical styles that actually wouldn't exist without first the big band/swing that Aziraphale loves that came before it-- symbolizing how Crowley & Aziraphale paved the way for Gabriel & Beez. There's another song, though, that, like "Everyday", is from the pivotal rock year of 1957 that is equally influential and is enormously Good Omens-y, in the sense that it cleverly uses wordplay to the effect of barely disguising sexual euphemisms and often through amusingly church-y language:
You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain/Too much love drives a man insane/You broke my will/But what a thrill...
Goodness gracious... great balls of fire...
[Also: less part of the theory and more just a possible nod but... "The Metatron" brought Aziraphale a coffee, there's a threat of non-existence, and Aziraphale might have gotten a 'kiss of death' from a being who is, essentially, a cherry pie lol... so, those of you who know that other greatest television show to ever television show might see a bit of a nod to Twin Peaks in here as well.]
Speaking of kisses of death... the film that popularized the word "vavoom"-- and which GO S2 is homaging all over the place-- is called 'Kiss Me Deadly.'..
So, after the kiss, Aziraphale gets the capsule and keeps it tucked into his mouth and he's gone too far with the conversation and doesn't want to admit that maybe he's wrong and Crowley is right. Crowley goes out, "The Metatron" comes back in, and Aziraphale keeps looking at Crowley staying by the car out the window and he's a bit more nervous now ("what about, um, my bookshop?"). Even if he still wants to be right, he's beginning to doubt even more that he is.
He almost tells "The Metatron" to go. He almost goes to Crowley. We see him start to say that he thinks he made a mistake but he doesn't go through with it. He's too embarrassed. Fraulein Maria can't face The Captain and is trying to run back to The Abbey over here.
Aziraphale goes out with "The Metatron" and the significant moment is this revelation: "We call it 'The Second Coming'."
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This is the moment that Aziraphale realizes for sure that he's been tricked and there is no Supreme Archangel job for him. The Metatron doesn't want to change Heaven or save anybody-- he wants to destroy the world, same as he always has-- and there's no way that he'd ever trust Aziraphale to carry that out when Aziraphale is who stopped the first round. Heaven will never admit they did wrong by Crowley-- to do so would be to collapse the system because then every demon would want to appeal their own status and demand justice and the Heaven/Hell regime would fall, in the sense that their little supernatural empire would crumble. The Metatron would never allow that and Aziraphale realizes in this moment for sure that he has been played for a sucker.
It's still possible that, at this moment, Aziraphale might still believe that this being who has tempted him with the possibility of the justice he wants for Crowley more than Crowley actually wants for himself-- and with false reassurances that he and Crowley could be together forever-- actually is The Metatron. Or, Aziraphale might be starting to get the sense of what's actually happening but, either way, he now knows that he's been fooled. He knows now that while he and Crowley both got some things wrong (suggesting they run off and proposing suddenly were not great moves on Crowley's part)... about this bit anyway? About being in danger if he believes the being who came to the door? Crowley was right.
So, Aziraphale has a choice: does he go to Crowley or does he get in the elevator, knowing now that to do so is to go to a form of death?
He can't face Crowley. He knows Crowley would forgive him and just wants him to be safe but, in the moment, Aziraphale is too ashamed and too embarrassed to admit that he was fooled and to deal with how awfully he just behaved. He's also exhausted from being hounded by the weight of his halo and Heaven for thousands of years. Negative thought cycles in overdrive-- he's never truly believed that he deserves Crowley and he has convinced himself that maybe Crowley might be better off without him. Maybe they just don't get a happy ending and maybe Aziraphale is so tired and can't run and hide anymore and just wants it to end.
Imagine spending thousands of years in service of an organization that also doubles as family and who abused you and abandoned you and who now wants to kill you... and you so hoped that change was possible that you clung to the idea beyond a point of reason-- to the point of hurting the one you love, with whom you have the only real love you've ever known. And you know he'd forgive you in a heartbeat because he loves you and he just wants you to be safe but you can't face him because you can't yet face yourself... that's Aziraphale deciding between Crowley and the elevator.
Aziraphale can barely glance over at Crowley and when, he does, it's also The Bentley he's looking at because he's telling the car to play Crowley their song. Crowley said "no nightingales" but Aziraphale says, in response: "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." His last moment on Earth and he uses it to basically leave a suicide note for Crowley that says nothing but I'm sorry. I love you.
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Their song plays when Crowley starts the engine of The Bentley, which calls back to the first time they met in the Before the Beginning scene that began the season and showed how they started the engine of the universe together.
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Aziraphale might be trying to warn Crowley about Armageddon by sending an "engine trouble"-type of message or he might be calling back to when they first met or, as I suspect, he might be doing both but the show, at least, is referencing Before the Beginning here with this, whether or not Aziraphale intentionally is.
So, Aziraphale? He makes his choice. He gets into the elevator...
...and he swallows the fireball. Which we can see him do here:
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Or, as this was foreshadowed in S1 by the being whose own fall and subsequent arrival at the bookshop door set all the events in this season into motion:
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(The eerieness of the fake grin on Gabriel after seeing how it foreshadows S2 ending with Aziraphale's mad grin...)
Because, when all is said and done, this poor bastard really would have a death-by-swallowing-something story over here, wouldn't he? Can they just hurry up and destroy the Heaven/Hell system so Aziraphale can have food and sex in peace already, please? 😄
Aziraphale knew he'd been played and he didn't want to go through whatever came next. He didn't want to reach the top floor of Heaven because he knows that only forms of death await him there. They'll take his memories. They'll cast him to Hell. Being a demon is no picnic and Aziraphale has seen that in being with Crowley for so long. Satan is not exactly the biggest fan of Aziraphale and Aziraphale, better than most, knows what Satan is capable of. He doesn't want any part of that. He ingested a suicide pill to avoid being captured by the enemy.
Crowley gave him the pill because angels are not immune to hellfire. That's what made it a suicide capsule, right? It was supposed to kill him within seconds. It was supposed to be quick and relatively painless-- a way to escape the horrors that might await him. Even when Aziraphale is at his worst-- as Aziraphale was in their last scene in bookshop-- he is still a pure-of-heart, lovely being to Crowley because Crowley loves Aziraphale as he is-- imperfect. Just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. It never occurred to Crowley that the capsule might fail. Why? Because Aziraphale is, always and forever, his angel.
Both Crowley and Aziraphale thought the fireball should have protected Aziraphale from pain and suffering by killing him almost instantly once he ingested it.
By that measure, Aziraphale should have burst into flames in the elevator, seconds after he swallowed the pill just after stepping inside.
But he did not.
We watch as the seconds start to tick by... and we see the realization play out on Aziraphale's face as each second that passes is another one where he's still here...
...the look gets more and more unhinged as the elevator keeps climbing until we get the slightly mad dark grin as the last shot of him before a fade to a deathly black... with Aziraphale having spent the final splitscreen since he got into the elevator on the other side of Crowley, symbolizing what's happened.
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In the elevator scene, we are watching the dawning realization play out on Aziraphale's face as the fireball doesn't work and there's only one reason why it wouldn't-- because he's no longer an angel.
Aziraphale has been sauntering vaguely downward for the season and maybe for awhile before then. He's been letting the darkness in, more and more, throughout all of S2. We have been watching his fall happen. The 'falling from a great height into a pit of boiling sulphur' part of falling? Ceremonial. An aftermath of sorts-- an additional punishment. It awaits Aziraphale when he gets off the elevator in Heaven but it's something we likely don't really need to see and never have seen in the show yet because that's not actually the main point of a fall. By the time you're literally falling from a great height, you've actually already fallen.
Aziraphale's determined-- but also just really half-mad-- final grim smile in the elevator over his understanding of what's happened is both the pain of thousands of years of religious trauma and abuse-related misery and a bit of completely unhinged I'm gonna burn this place to the fucking ground fury.
Aziraphale swallowing the capsule also parallels Gabriel having to "consume" The Fly to open it. The Fly went through Gabriel's eye and allowed him to "see"-- it give him realization and understanding by returning his memories to him. For Aziraphale, he swallows the fireball and it also gives him a kind of sight-- realization and understanding of what's happened and what's to come... all of this also in the moments before his memories (and, so, his sense of self/his life) will likely be taken from him.
(For a time-- he'll be fine eventually. *mantras* South Downs Cottage, South Downs Cottage...)
"And from his mouth go burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out." The Job quote on the matchbox. The matchbox contained the fly-- it's the equivalent to the ball bearing containing hellfire. Works now on several different levels but one of them then is: And from his mouth (Crowley's mouth/the kiss/the fireball/Aziraphale swallowing the fireball)...
...go burning lamps (the light that goes out in the bookshop when Aziraphale is in the elevator)...
...and sparks of fire leap out. Several meanings:
Literal sparks-- in that Aziraphale can now spit hellfire, like how Crowley did in his body in Heaven in S1.
Sparks of fire leaping out, in the sense that Aziraphale has made the leap-- he is a demon now.
Lastly, though... sparks of fire leap out... as in, Hell (and Heaven) hath no fury like this very, very, very pissed off Angel of the Eastern Gate whose whole thing is freeing those imprisoned by corrupt systems...
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Visually paralleling the elevator with a grey wall behind him and light/darkness alternately striping Aziraphale is the 'Aziraphale and God' scene in 1.03, setting up its sister elevator scene in 2.06, where Aziraphale realizes that he has been tempted by Satan and has fallen. (Ironically, a realization about having fallen that happens while going Up in an elevator.)
God: "Aziraphale. (dryly) Angel of the Eastern Gate. Where is the flaming sword I gave you, Aziraphale?"
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Aziraphale, unintentionally foreshadowing the fuck out of the plot:
"...must have put it down here somewhere."
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Yeah. 😉 Give 'em hell, Aziraphale.
Bonuses:
The awning of a new age/Dawning of a New Age joke. An understanding/a daybreak that begins a new era...
"Oh, listen, I think it's about to happen-- the 'awning' of a new age." Yes, indeed, Crowley. A dawning of a new age was imminent...
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...and, finally, if you substitute 'Aziraphale' for his parallel of 'Job' in these sentences, Bildaddy summarized the season endgame quite nicely in 2.02:
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maraudersarecanon · 16 hours
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maraudersarecanon · 17 hours
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The Ok Sign's historical ties to Vavooming
When Crowley describes his "hypothetical" (😉) Vavoom scenario in S2, he gesticulates a moving version of the OK hand sign to Aziraphale. The history of this particular gesture is rather interesting... especially when you consider what Crowley is saying when he is choosing to use it.
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In modern times, the initial, vertical part of what Crowley is doing while talking about canopies is a sign known as "the OK sign" and, in most places, it is seen as signaling a positive response to something. Even though something that is "okay" is seen as sort of middling-- more "not terrible" than "good"-- the OK hand gesture has a much more positive connotation than the word itself does and generally means that something is excellent. It came to mean that in the United States and many other countries through American political campaigns of the early 19th century. The gesture itself, though, is much, much older than that and can be traced back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece... where it has ties to romantic love.
When painted on vases and the like, the gesture was meant to evoke a kiss through the touching of the tips of the thumb and the index finger. Interesting considering the topic of a vavoomy first kiss in the scene while Crowley is making this gesture, no?
In first century Rome-- a time and place we know to be significant to Crowley and Aziraphale's history-- it was a gesture of assent and if a person made the gesture towards another person in the Greco-Roman world? It was a way of professing romantic love for that person.
While describing a hypothetical scenario for Maggie and Nina that many of us suspect is really a recounting of his and Aziraphale's first kiss, Crowley is gesturing "I love you" to Aziraphale by the social customs of classical antiquity.
There's also a bit of fish, food and Jesus in this as well... so, very Ineffable Husbands. In the modern era, the OK sign is also the gesture used universally by scuba divers to signal that they are feeling good while on a dive. It is also a version of the "chef's kiss"-- the one that is more of an OK sign near the face than kissing the tips of your fingers. In the original version of 'The Prisoner,' the watched prisoners use the OK sign to communicate with each other, which was famously inspired by use of The Sign of the Fish/Jesus Fish as a secret symbol used by early Christians.
The gesture is also used in another unspoken language: Christian monks who took a vow of silence would also use the gesture as a base to indicate other things to communicate-- forming the index finger and thumb into a ring and holding it in front of one's self as Crowley does in this scene would indicate in that language an oblation, or offering, to God.
Crowley then keeps his fingers in the OK position and tips his hand down when he says "together", turning it all into a second gesture-- one that is known as gyan/jnana mudra, which is a hand sign used most frequently in meditation and sometimes in yoga. It is known as the knowledge mudra. Crowley also used it during the Gabriel miracle while Aziraphale used its pair at the same time-- chin mudra-- which is the same gesture, just with the palm facing up, and focuses on similar things.
Both focus on knowledge gained and the calming effects of the unification of the individual soul/ego (represented by the index finger) with the thumb (the supreme soul/paramatman-- the more actualized individual soul made boundless by light and wisdom.) The gesture is done as part of meditation to create a circuit that redirects the prana-- life force/energy-- through the body, alleviating anxiety and calming the mind through a grounding sense of connection, calm and peace.
By connecting the two gestures into one while talking about this canopy scenario, Crowley seems to be connecting the erotic and the spiritual and referencing his millennia-old romantic passion for Aziraphale to Aziraphale by using a gesture for love from antiquity... and that's somehow all before this shows up:
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Who knew Richard Curtis films were this hot?
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maraudersarecanon · 19 hours
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Best keep on your toes under the eyes of an expert
Aziraphale: Gabriel here witnessed Eve's birth in The Garden of Eden!
Bildad: Oh, did he now? Well! I'll have to be on my toes under the eyes of an expert.
Aziraphale to Gabriel about Bildad in 2019:
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Backwards storytelling for the win. 😂
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maraudersarecanon · 21 hours
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NEW 22 SHIRT (x)
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