David Said "I Don't Want To Go" And RTD Said "don't Worry Babe I Got U"

I came to your ao3 site after watching OFMD because I knew you could 'fix' the ending. Will you do it again for go2? Please?

I'm afraid I won't be fixing it because I'm one of the rare batch who actually love it. I love Aziraphale white-knighting himself, making the sacrifice play to go back to a place he never wanted to return to, purely to try and protect the earth (and Crowley). Is it selfish of him? Yes. But is it also selfless of him, throwing himself on that grenade to try and fix the very thing that hurt them both? HELL YES.

And he didn't want to go back to Heaven. He absolutely didn't, not until he got the promise that he could save Crowley and keep him by his side and out of danger's path. But now, he's going there alone, to the place he hates, because he needs to try and keep terrible things from happening again.

I’m emotionally ruined by the fact that Aziraphale hasn’t broken out of his heavenly conditioning. He still loves doing good. He gets happy when people tell him he’s an angel and says “it’s nice to tell people about the good things you’ve done now that I’m not reporting to Heaven”. He will literally put himself in harm’s way to make sure he does the Good and Right thing.

It can’t be understated how much Heaven’s influence still impacts on him. Aziraphale has been created, ordained and conditioned to believe it and he can’t just switch it off or walk away. Crowley didn’t get the choice. He was Fallen. He was kicked out and - as per the rules of toxic and terrifying cults - Aziraphale was always told for centuries and millennia, Falling was the worst thing that could happen. If you’re bad, you’ll be forced out. If you’re bad, you’re not one of Us. You’re one of Them.

When he did something he perceived as Right (ie. saving innocent children from death), but knew it wasn’t what Heaven intended, he broke down. Crowley found him a crying, shaking wreck afterwards because he was so convinced he was Evil. He was so convinced he was going to be dragged to Hell and that he was now a demon because he did one thing that saved some children but because it wasn’t a specific directive, it was Bad.

It shapes so much about him and it’s why the whole series looks like he’s having so much fun doing silly human things, but there’s this brittleness to it. He’s happy and excited and he’s doing his human-life things and having a lovely time, but he’s also constantly stressed because of the Need To Do Good. From the moment Gabriel turns up, he’s a nervous wreck and is trying to hide it by Doing Good, by Solving the Problem, by Fixing Things, by being so active and reactive rather than letting himself think about it. It’s a sign of exactly how frantic he is that he starts giving away his books and letting humans touch them.

Watch his face when the Archangels show up unexpectedly: that isn’t joy. That’s blind terror. He’s so afraid of doing the wrong thing in Heaven’s eyes, even though he made the active choice to do so because it was the Right thing to do. He’s a Guardian and he will protect, but he is so very afraid of the repercussions, even now. 

At the end of S1, Crowley said “they’re gearing up for the big one” so Aziraphale’s not oblivious. He knows a big one is coming. He knows something worse than the Antichrist will be on its way. And he’s trying so hard to pretend that everything is normal and fine and if he ignores all the looming bad stuff, it won’t happen. If we don’t say anything about it, nothing has to change.

But then the changes come knocking at his door holding a box and the choice is gone. He can keep trying to blinker himself to it, but then there are angels and demons in the bookshop and he’s had to use his halo and everything is falling apart.

So when he realises that he can get himself into a position where he can guarantee those repercussions won’t happen to Crowley? He will absolutely take it. He says himself “I don’t want to go back to Heaven”, but the instant the Metatron offers him a free pass for Crowley, to take Crowley out of both Heaven and Hell’s sightlines, to keep him safe (Another bee inside the hive, if you will), no wonder he grabs it with both hands.

The tragedy is that Crowley thinks that when they saved the world together, that was the end of Heaven’s influence in Aziraphale. When he was cast out the split between him and Heaven was sharp and clean. He doesn’t - he can’t - understand how deeply it has tangled around Aziraphale. It’s built into Aziraphale’s entire being and unravelling it isn’t that simple. Aziraphale’s trauma is a horrible, terrible Gordian knot and Crowley can’t understand that he couldn’t simply cut through it, because that’s just not how Aziraphale works.

If evil, why hot?

He grows tomatoes.

Well, he tries to. Crowley does not usually try to grow plants. He decides to grow them, and they obey. It's vendetta ad vengeance at once. But lately, nothing seems to obey his will. It's weak, that will, broken into smithereens just like his heart.

And he can't even take it out on his plants. That's because Crowley has mercy.

So he tries to grow tomatoes.

It's summer (the first summer without him) and he has lodged in an airbnb in the country, and behind an old ramshackle ram-shack he has made himself a little plot of land. Well - it's all God's stupidly green earth, isn't it. But this two by two piece of earth he claims for himself. He could have at least that, right? He looks up at the sky. Frowns.

Let me have at least that.

Aziraphale liked to do things the hard way. (He's still doing that, Crowley supposes, up there. Up there. He's not dead, but it feels like it. He's gone. Gone to Heaven. Not to a better place.) Aziraphale liked to do it properly, the human way, when it pleased him. Which was often, but not always. French. Nom de dieu de merde. Pardon his French.

Pardon his stupid everything.

Crowley inspects his tomato plants. He's trying to grow them the human way. Funny, that. He nurses them like he nurses his heart, and miracles won't do. He's tried.

I think I should not be encouraged to grow tomatoes, he thinks.

Raindrops fall on red and green: the plants and the vines and the tomatoes and his hair. It's August, it shouldn't be raining this much. It's been a shitty August. It's been a shitty year. Thirteen months and two weeks and one day, to be exact. Not like he's keeping count. Why bother?

There's a spot on one of the leaves, and Crowley's heart sinks beore it even had the chance to ever rise. It's only one tiny, dark, black spot, but he knows what it means. It means it's too late.

A horrible month. A horrible life. Not the right conditions to thrive. Disease, showing its ugly head, grinning. It's already too late. It's always too late. It would multiply and spread.

His soul is a tomato leaf.

Black as grief.

He's tended these seedlings, he's raised them, and planted them, too, and here they are before him tall and proud and still alive, and Crowley knows they are already dying. He can relate.

The sensible thing to do is to discard it all, be done with them. It's not worth the effort, technically, to keep them alive, but to Crowley it's worth it. It has to be. They are worh it. He is worth it. Stupid stubborn perseverance, stupid stubborn hopeful heart.

He isn't immune to foreshadowing. He looks up again. Angry, this time, bitter. A bit of surrender, too.

The rain drips and drops on his face.

He looks back down, snaps the sickly leaf off with expert fingers. Continues to tend to the plants, as he will until they inevitably die. He plucks a tiny tomato. It's so small, fragile, one of the first of a doomed harvest: but it tastes sweet.

Determined, Crowley continues his labor of love, patient as with all living things.

He is responsible for these vines.

Maybe, despite everything, just this once, he can nurture his heart back to health. (And maybe, just maybe, he is not human and does not do things the human way. When it pleases him. He's always been a rebel. Just a little miracle, a little bit of life-giving defiance. So small no one notices, not even us.) Crowley smiles.

He grows tomatoes.

.

This ficlet was inspired by Louise Glück's Vespers. May she rest in peace. "In your extended absence, you permit me use of earth, anticipating some return on investment. I must report failure in my assignment, principally regarding the tomato plants." read the full poem here

Neil talking about this season being inspired by Austen just hit me:

Aziraphale is like the Emma for his side of the story. He’s trying to arrange everything just so. He wants people to be happy without pausing to ask what they want. He has this perfect ideal of how everything is going to go and he’s clinging to it. He will arrange for people to fall in love and everything will be fine! Which makes Crowley his Mr. Knightley, fond but critical of Aziraphale’s schemes and entirely smitten on him without giving it voice until it’s too late.

Only he and Crowley are in different books. Crowley is the Lizzie Bennett. He’s the one who won’t do what is expected of him and asks questions and rejects the role he’s meant to be in. He misinterprets Aziraphale’s actions and intentions and in the proposal it’s very much like Darcy’s first awful “I love you against my better judgement” proposal. And likewise, he doesn’t understand that a lot of Aziraphale actions are in the name of protecting him, much like Darcy is trying to shield people from Wickham without ever explaining why.

They are running in different narratives in their own heads because they never talk to each other. They never ask what the other wants or fully understands what the other is thinking. There’s always another side to the story and neither of them is fully aware of it.

I can’t remember if this is right, but I think Neil mentioned Mansfield Park as Aziraphale’s favourite and I feel like this is prescient for the set up for season 3.

crowley and his golden nail polish

I think I have a potentially controversial opinion on Aziraphale and the ending.

So one of the things that made me smile so, SO much, was THIS:

That PURE ABSOLUTE UTTER JOY.

We have not seen ANYTHING like that from demon Crowley. We've seen him be drunk and silly, we've seen him be amused, but we've not seen this.

Now, let's consider what we know about Heaven:

It's never fully populated. ALL of the shots are completely devoid of angels, except for a few, who are almost always just getting somewhere and never really talking to each other.

Where I thought the archangels were a tight clan, it really looks like they're super catty and prone to jealousy. No doubt they would stab each other in the back happily if it came down to it. How much of Heaven is like that, if even the archangels all hate each other?

Aziraphale already has a nervous disposition when he meets Crowley. Is he perhaps an angel that NEVER fit in? Is he familiar with being ostracized by his peers? Just how lonely IS Heaven? Crowley seems to be a pretty powerful angel, and HE doesn't even know that it's all getting shut down in 6000 years -- it's like no one talks to anyone.

Aziraphale, during their whole meeting, looks absolutely smitten. At one point, Crowley goes, "Look at you! You're gorgeous!" and Aziraphale looks over with happy surprise, just before realizing he's not looking at him but rather at what he's created. And then, when Crowley starts going on about making suggestions and asking questions, Aziraphale is IMMEDIATELY concerned and doesn't want him to get into trouble.

Aziraphale is hooked on this angel, and I cannot help but think that this is perhaps the first angel who has ever WELCOMED Aziraphale into his company.

He is hooked on this angel, and the way Crowley smiles is with the light of all the stars he's just created, and it's infectious and it brings a smile to Aziraphale's face as well. And then this angel shields him from the oncoming falling stars.

He is hooked on this angel, and then this angel goes and joins the Great Rebellion, and becomes fallen himself.

"You were an angel once," Aziraphale said, softly, at the bandstand. He remembers.

I think it's reasonable to guess that Heaven has never felt so warm as it did in the presence of millions of exploding stars, next to the (arch?)angel that may perhaps be one of the few (only?) to pay him any positive attention.

I think it's reasonable to assume that Heaven was not the same after Crowley fell. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Aziraphale had wondered about the angel, wondered if he was okay. I would imagine that Aziraphale keeps that picture of pure, angelic, unbridled joy somewhere inside of him.

So, really, is it any surprise that threaded throughout EVERY interaction, Aziraphale has this deep-down feeling that Crowley is good? Would it be any surprise that Aziraphale, an angel who goes along with Heaven as far as he can (which isn't always), feels that if HE is still an angel, then what was done to Crowley was a great injustice?

I think it would make sense that we are shown "before the beginning" not just because it is fun, but because THIS is the foundational context for everything Aziraphale thinks Crowley is, everything Crowley enjoys. I think he remembers this moment and wishes he could live there forever. With Crowley. The two of them with this happiness, forever.

But nothing lasts forever, as much as he wishes it did.

I'm not saying Aziraphale was right with what he did to Crowley at the end of s2. There is a lot I think he did wrong. I think he held onto this picture so tightly, he didn't realize that Crowley had long since let it go, and painted a new one with Aziraphale with all the shades of grey he picked up as he sauntered (or plummeted) vaguely downward (into a pool of boiling sulfur).

I don't think he was right, but I do think he is understandable. I think there was a lot of selfishness, but also some misguided selflessness too. I watched that first scene with angelic Crowley and my heart actually broke a little, because I thought, "What a shame this joy was taken away from him."

I think Aziraphale is trying to right the injustice he feels has been done. But I also think Aziraphale doesn't realize that Crowley can never go back. The concept of falling never crossed Crowley's mind when he suggested that he ask a few questions, and he will NEVER get that kind of innocence back. And Aziraphale doesn't understand, because Heaven has clearly always just been that way for him (he is already aware of the danger of asking questions).

Crowley does not want to go back because he can never go back. He can never be the same angel he was when he thought he could build a universal machine that would crank out stars for eons and eons. He can never be the same angel he was when he thought he could make some suggestions and ask some questions and co-create with THE Creator.

Crowley understands that, and Aziraphale doesn't. But I can understand why Aziraphale would want to try. And I think it's all because of this:

How much have we lost!

Specifically – a chance to see David Tennant in the role of "a cross-dressing, cocaine-snorting therapist", OMFG.

"Screenwriter Paula Milne, who wrote The Politician's Husband, says Tennant can convey "a kind of damaged humanity… although he may not have been that likeable you felt he had gone on a journey where he became that person".

"Sometimes when you write a very tough, muscular character the actor says, 'yes, but will they like me?' That is a question he never asked. He took it on and delivered it."

She previously discussed another project with Tennant, about a "cross-dressing, cocaine-snorting therapist". Despite his enthusiasm, it proved "too out there" for the BBC or Channel 4, Milne recalls. "He was up for it. He read it and said he would love to do it." Perhaps, in a parallel universe, he still will.”

If only I could go and get a glimpse into this parallel universe!

I love The Politician's Husband – it's definitely in my personal top of things DT has done for television. It provides a gripping and poignant insight into the psyche of an essentially decent human being, whose chain of decisions becomes a downhill slide that irrevocably ruins his life, his family, burns him out – and literally kills someone he loves. Heartbreaking stuff.  

BTW, I'm actually quite surprised that anything is really "too out there" for Channel 4. Reminds me of the scene from Life Of Mars where Sam Tyler, during the raid on the porn studio, casually remarks: "Hardcore? I've seen worse on Channel 4". And that was a decade earlier!

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/nov/14/david-tennant-profile 

All praise to DT – the patron saint and/or totemic being of us all, Who Cannot Sit Normally. 

I, for one, find this exact arrangement of lower extremities quite comfortable. Years of reading crouched in various crooks and nannies + breaststroke swimming have got my joints used to being put in positions that are not conventionally normal for the average human. Having knees that do… well, turn outwards, I guess is the right way to put it –  is pretty useful. 

Full credit for tag furniture_abuse goes to the incredible @mizgnomer, of course. (I'm awfully sorry if I'm breaching the Tumblr etiquette there, tagging non-mutual, but that blog is a bona fide treasure trove of all things DT-related, especially visual stuff.  It was the reason I came to Tumblr at all, for what it's worth.)

Even after the master craftsmanship of Season 1, I am STILL blown away by all the little things they put into this show.

S2E1 -- Crowley and Aziraphale's argument about what to do with Gabiel. Look at this imagery.... wings behind Aziraphale and the dichotomy of colors in the background.

And Then.....

Crowley in Hell, meeting with Beelzebub. In THESE chairs, which make horns.

Such beautiful touches