I Think My Favourite Line In Season 2 Is Crowley's "he's Far Too Pure Of Heart To Be Anybody's Bit On

I've read so many versions of the analysis of THAT scene, and, to be honest, most of them were at least very interesting, but this one, in my opinion, is the ultimate.

I should watch the season once again… but, frankly, I'm not ready yet.

A very long meta explaining why the confession scene in Good Omens is the best that has ever been written and performed on screen

First of, the scene begins with two different realisations that makes each of them believe that their dynamic will significantly change (Crowley wanting to confess his love and Aziraphale wanting to break out the news about heaven). This, you can see, creates an unprecedented shift in their energy, makes them super excited (Azi) and super nervous (Crowley) to break the news to one another. And despite the two matters being drastically different, when Aziraphale begins his revelation we don't get the Miscommunication trope where Crowley listens to the offer and passively retreats back his emotions. No. He is steadfast in his resolution, in his love for Aziraphale.

And that right here is king attitude no.1, because even if Aziraphale just threw something so godforsaken on him, he won't allow himself to be cowardly or let go of the one person he loves more than eternity. Crowley still bares his heart, still lets it all out, because he will not lose Aziraphale in his naivete of still believing that Heaven is good and Hell is evil. (I write this with supreme detachment of my own beliefs lol) He tries to make Aziraphale understand that sides didn't do them any good the past 6000 years, that the only solid foundation they ever had was them, and that Crowley would rather have them than have everything.

Now you see here a moment of disbelief on Aziraphale's behalf, because he doesn't understand why Crowley would refuse going back to heaven with him when all Aziraphale remembers of Angel!Crowley was how utterly bright his eyes shone when he lit up the stars and surely Crowley must miss that too? He wants the same thing Crowley is saying, just in a different dimension. The “I can make a difference” immediately changes to “We can make a difference” because that's all what’s ever been for Aziraphale; them changing the small engines of the world according to their partnered will. He is genuinely benign and not ill-intentioned when he says “Nothing lasts forever”, because he truly wants a better life for them, a better existence. And that's when it gets better: Crowley has his walls back up, he's walking away, because he can't bear that he was never enough as he is for Aziraphale. That he was never worth reciprocation.

The way you hear Tennant's voice breaking when he said “And we spent our whole existence pretending that we aren’t”, is the perfect reflection of how Crowley genuinely despairs the time they lost and wouldn't have any more of it. And even with how bare and raw he's feeling with revealing all this, he still goes on. He still tries to tell him and I would like to spend our whole existence together, but struggles and struggles because he's strung wide open. But he keeps trying.

But Aziraphale doesn't let him leave.

And that's when it gets reaaally interesting. Aziraphale's expression then turns from sorrowful desperation to rageful desperation, because he's baring his heart and Crowley is walking away from him. Their solid ground is completely shaken when he says “I don't think you understand what I'm offering you” because he's trying to be subtle about his love for Crowley and still direct as much as he can, but Crowley responds with a condescending “I think I understand a whole lot better than you do” and if this isn't peak human beings in their arguments, I don't know what is. Because we all think we are so misunderstood every time we get into an argument with someone we love, and we absolutely despise it when we feel patronized, so it's no wonder Aziraphale bitterly says “Then there's nothing more to say”, because if Crowley understands, truly does, then he'd see right past his fear to how much he loves the ground Crowley walks over.

And that is king attitude no.2, because he doesn't want Crowley to leave when things are strewn all over the place that they don't know where they stand. All Aziraphale ever wanted was for them to stand on the same ground. He asks him to come back to him but hides it by finishing it with “to heaven!” because the whole conversation is going too fast for him, and he's undergoing a religious crisis of sorts that does not end in 6000 years, yet even so he still doesn't want to lose Crowley because he's everything he has and he can't do it without him and “I — I need you!”

And on the other hand I don't believe Crowley truly meant to be patronizing, but in a desperate last attempt he wanted to make Aziraphale understand what he is trying to say, what he spent his entire eternity feeling for Aziraphale, what Aziraphale would be giving up if he goes to heaven. What their life sounds like with no nightingales.

“You idiot, we could've been.. us” is the very culmination of love confessions. It took every single emotion and equated it. Tennant's delivery of it was unsurpassed in the way that it truly covers everything. And the way he grabbed Aziraphale, not entirely lovingly but desperately and angrily and, honest to God, awfully, is the reason why their kiss is so perfect. No queerbaiting, no beating around bushes. It is raw and sad and giving and agonising. Crowley wants to say see what you're giving up? See what we can have? And all Aziraphale thinks is how could you lay this on me now after everything, after every chance we could've been something, after me loving you from the first time I've met you. He's angry towards himself too, because nothing he can offer Crowley will be good enough that he chooses him instead of his choices. Sheen's choice in making his character grab Crowley's shoulder and let it go and then grab it once more in desperation is so unexplainably perfect of how much Aziraphale wants to hold onto Crowley.

And when Crowley lets go of him, not the other way around because of course it is Crowley who must let go and detach from the utter pain that pierced his heart, you can see his expression being one of defeated longing. He sees all expressions passing across Aziraphale, sees how torn apart the other man is, too, and awaits just a semblance of anything they could work with. But instead, Aziraphale's face closes, and he tells Crowley “I forgive you”, and Crowley thinks this must be his second falling, because he's never felt more pain. “Don’t bother”, he says, yet still waits for Aziraphale outside and doesn't leave until Aziraphale has left him. Because in the end, Crowley would always be there for Aziraphale, even if he doesn’t feel worthy of it.

But in the back of his mind, Crowley isn't choosing the same. Instead, Crowley's choosing to run from something that no doubt will rebound in their faces. They are angels and demons of heaven and hell, how could Crowley expect they could run and hide without being a repercussion later on? At least what Aziraphale is suggesting ensures that they will have a high position of power, enough to make them together, enough to make them happy, but instead, Crowley is walking away.

And that, my beloveds, is why eternity will remember this scene.

when simm says ‘I don’t know what I’d be without that noise’ and ten says ‘I wonder what I’d be without you’ it makes me so insane because like

they’re both naming something that actively hurts them, that has fundamentally changed who they are and that has made them a darker, less controlled version of themselves. it has caused them so much pain and yet they’re terrified to be without it

for the master, there’s the drums and for the doctor, there’s the master

Part 3 Voyage of the Damned

(Almost) exactly my sentiment! Thank you so much for expressing it better than I ever could hope to do myself.

RTD explaining why he didn’t put Then-Three in Thirteen’s outfit, is not an excuse. It is his genuine thought process.

Nobody has to like it, I don’t like it, I understand his reasoning but I would still have done it anyway.

But no, damn it, the trans rights campaigner is not transphobic for fearing the British public’s transphobia.

Look. Have a moment of honesty with me right here. Is there not even a teeny-weeny bit of you that wanted Ten-Three in 13’s clothes because you think it would look a bit funny. Because it would have, that’s why we made funny art about it.

I do not think it’s beyond the pale, for Russell to know that would be the case, and go, ‘No. I don’t want that to be a laughing matter.’

The episode he’s got next has a trans character in it. Deliberately casted as trans. This will be a feature. Considering that it is something that will be handled seriously, him not wanting to start off on the foot of ‘ha ha man look funny in lady’s clothes’ is understandable.

Again, I think it would have been alright, but it’s understandable he is afraid of this. He has been incredibly vocal about trans people and trans issues, he has not been sat idly by as trans people are being attacked as Britain becomes TERF Island, please take a moment to understand what a gay man of his age is thinking seeing all this, people’s reactions, the legislation, he’s watching time run backwards.

Perhaps you had to be there, but even with Doctor Who’s drop in popularity, you should’ve seen the reactions to things like the pregnant man in Chibs’s first series. Russell knows his own joke with Cassandra that was just meant as a comment on her not remembering her life was taken and used by goddamn transphobes.

That he is afraid that your first reaction to Ten-Three in Thirteen’s clothes would be a giggle, is not unfounded, or unreasonable, and while I think he is catastrophising here, we are currently in a state of catastrophe over trans issues and depictions, that he is trying to make better, not worse, when he is aware that this moment will be ON THE EVENING NEWS. For every single Not-We to see.

He clearly is covering trans issues, we know he’s covering trans issues, doing so in an episode where he brings back David Tennant so literally everyone and their mum is going to watch and he knows it. And he wants to do everything right so that people do not just go into it with ‘man dressed as lady lol’.

We all would probably have taken the risk here. Felt that doing this might be more boundary breaking (positive) than funny (negative). But a moment of empathy for why he would choose to do this. Because we might have taken the risk and that turn out to have been the wrong move. That he wants to be more careful than risk adding even a splash of fuel to the fire is completely understandable, and if you don’t think so, you might not realise how much trans people in my country are already being burned.

You don't understand how devastating it was seeing the Doctor opening up to Donna just for her to not be real.

One is in a romcom, one is in a thriller

I absolutely cannot stop thinking about the version of Crowley we get to see from before the Fall. He smiles differently, he speaks differently. There's so much oppenness in his expression. He loves what he does! Is genuinly mournful when he learns it will be destroyed.

Compared to the Crowley we see after years of solitude, abuse and treading on eggshells around his bosses. Closed off, furious, suspicious. I do truly believe that after he was called back to Hell in the graveyard that the next time Aziraphale saw him was in 1862, when he asked, in that feeble, broken down voice, for Holy Water. He has spent so much of his existence in survival mode, is desperate to cling to the peace he's found.

Nina describes him as the "hard bitten one" who can't trust anyone ever again, and it sort of gobsmacked me that she could see that!!! that Neil Gaiman would have someone say that!!!!! But, of course, she is in many ways the same.

Whatever happened to Crowley after the Laudanum incident certainly wasn't a one-off. He was certainly punished again and again for deeds seen as too good. Enough so that when he is called kind, when he is called good, when he is thanked, his response is violent panic.

It's easy for us to believe that maybe he's always been like that. But no. Gaiman gave us incontestable proof that there was a time where Crowley smiled freely, where he looked with wide and joyful eyes at the parts of the world he created. The difference from that, to the numb and deeply lonely Crowley that we see with Job, the anxious, repressed and angry Crowley that we see in the present day, is one of the biggest tragedies of all.

Oh, RTD, I could frigging KISS YOU!

Just as a proper "thank you" because you dared to give your Doctor an unapologetic happy ending. (With a TARDIS!!!) And if that is not LOVE I don't know what is. That sheer I-don't-fucking-care-what-you'd-make-of-this but I love them, I want them to be happy and if that's in my power I'd give them this. It's love, guys. Simple as that, love that is brave and doesn't look for excuses because it doesn't need 'em.

And you know what? I'm an aro, and I bask in and laugh and cry and feel so alive because I feel incredibly lucky to have this.

Happy, happy, happy. Stupidly, perhaps. But so what?!

Part 4 the Next Doctor

It was 20 years ago today!..

The first episode of Blackpool was aired on the BBC on 11 November 2004.

I can't even start to tell how much I love that show.