Hoo boy it has been TOO DAMN LONG since I’ve had time to write, my fingers are ITCHING for it, please accept this piece of something I spat out in approximately twenty minutes while sick and between jobs.
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“Who were you, before?”
Crowley raises his head off the back of the chair, squinting in confusion through his askew sunglasses. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. Aziraphale runs his hands nervously along the side of his glass, staring intently at an old burn mark on the table. His prim posture is slipping into a slouch, but he’s not as drunk as Crowley — not yet.
“Well, I don’t imagine Crawly was your name when you were an angel,” he says.
Crowley freezes, feeling instantly sober without even making an effort. He sits up, pushing his glasses back straight on his nose, staring at Aziraphale, who is still studiously avoiding his gaze.
“What the he— what on Earth do you want to know that for?” he demands. Aziraphale shrugs, and takes another swallow of wine.
“The humans have started this quaint tradition,” he says, “of sending each other cards at Christmas. Many of them use it to send well wishes to family and friends they haven’t talked to in a while. I wondered if I oughtn’t send a few to my colleagues up in— Well, I suppose they’d find it odd.”
“What’s that got to do with ME?”
Aziraphale takes another generous swallow of wine, and reaches to refill his cup. “Well— apart from check ins with Gabriel and Uriel and some of the others, I really haven’t kept up with what’s going on in Heaven since, well, since I was set to guard the Garden.”
“Can’t let ‘em see you without your sword, it was your signature item,” Crowley ribs him, trying to drag the conversation back into well-trod, safe territory. Aziraphale ignores the dig.
“It was only — I was thinking about the angels I knew before I came down to Earth, and I realized I didn’t know — who you’d been. Before.”
“Before I Fell,” Crowley finishes for him in a monotone. Aziraphale flinches slightly at the word, but he nods.
“Yes.”
“Why do you care now, all of a sudden? Why not ask me right in the Garden?” Aziraphale finally looks at him, if only because he’s scandalized.
“Well that would have been rather rude, wouldn’t it? I mean we were hardly—“ He huffs, turning back to his glass. “It was just that I wondered if I had known you.”
“You didn’t,” Crowley answers, too quickly. Aziraphale looks back at him again, quirking an eyebrow upwards.
“Are you sure? We mostly all knew each other, in the beginning.”
“Oh for Satan’s— why does it MATTER, angel? Whoever that was, they’re gone. I’m a demon. Do you think the name would even mean anything to you? Do you remember who Beelzebub was? Or Asmodeus? HASTUR? Our names were scrubbed from all the records. Except Lucifer, suppose the Almighty wanted to make an example of him.” Crowley slumped back into his chair, reaching for his own glass and tossing back whatever was left, before beckoning the bottle closer.
“But you still remember it.” He looks back to find Aziraphale watching him now, and frowns.
“I told you, whoever that angel was, he’s gone now. I’m just Crowley.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m a demon, Aziraphale. I’m literally a snake. THE snake. What else do you want?”
“Do you think maybe the angel that you were — do you think God… Do you think your fall was—“
“If you say ‘ineffable’—“
They fall silent, watching each other across the table. Crowley sighs, sits back up, leaning towards Aziraphale.
“Don’t ask those questions, angel,” he says softly. “Not those questions.” The drink suddenly feels heavy in his head. He stands up, forcing the alcohol from his system until he’s steady on his feet, and he turns and leaves Aziraphale sitting at the table, quiet and alone.
being a wiki admin is the modern age’s equivalent of being a monk
This reminds me of an old joke. As short as possible, here goes:
A new monk is accepted into the monastery. The head of the order leads him around, explaining his new duties. They finish in the room where they copy the old texts, and the new monk points at a heavily barred and locked door off to one side.
“What’s in there?”
“Those are the originals our ancient brethren copied from. We continue their tradition of keeping the copies fresh by re-copying them when the copies start to fade or there is a new translation.”
“Oh. Huh.”
“Yes?”
“I just… what if someone made a mistake somewhere? Like… copied down a word wrong or something? Do we just keep copying it wrong over and over again?”
The head of the order smiles benignly. “When you see how diligently we adhere to the texts, you’ll understand. It’s highly unlikely a major mistake was made. Rest assured, my son, we know what we’re doing.”
“Oh, of course, of course.”
However, much later that night, the entire monastery is awakened by a great howling from somewhere deep in the stones. They all, including the newest monk, run about, trying to find the source of the commotion. Eventually, they tumble into the copying room and see the formerly barred and locked door wide open. A flurry of crisp-edged papers have been flung about the room, several ancient texts swiped from their shelves. It’s a disaster.
“Master, are you all right?”
It’s a prudent question, as the head of the order is sitting at the small reading table inside the room, his head in his hands.
Back in those days, I think I was the only one of all of us who had specific controls and patterns for specific tasks, and it was VERY important to me to keep those things consistent.
These days, most of the screens you see actors interact with are semi-interactive. Usually, they run a flash animation that will change when you click a key, tap the screen, or click the mouse. Some of the more complicated touchscreen ones have hotspots that do different things. So for an actor working with those screens today, the order of operations is very important, because they affect what happens on the screen. For us, it was backlit plexiglass with the occasional blinking light.
But you know what’s cool? The LCARS interface that you see all over the Enterprise D from 30 years ago *clearly* influenced the screens you see on all your favorite science fiction shows, and I love that.
it’s hilarious how polite and proper aziraphale is with everyone except crowley. like his inflection is completely different talking to anathema or gabriel compared to when he’s talking to crowley. with crowley he’s always very enthusiastic or expressive, or whiny or irritable or passive aggressive. it’s literally Bitchiness As Intimacy
The Fact Is that aziraphale feels safe and comfortable being himself around crowley. he can be very dorky and excitable, and he can be in a foul mood, he can roll his eyes or be irritated with crowley and it’s okay, because crowley isn’t gonna freak out about it and give him a long lecture about how unbecoming it is of an angel that basically amounts to reminding him how inadequate he is for feeling things. he’s just gonna give him a Look like he does in the diner when aziraphale says “do you have any better ideas? or one, single, better idea?” bc he knows aziraphale is just being petty.
like i do love thinking about how aziraphale seems to feel safe expressing himself in excited and positive ways, i just really love how obviously aziraphale lets his guard down and lets himself be imperfect around crowley
I often work with children and it makes me kind of sad when I’m at work and I start talking to a small child and their parent says something like, “oh, she’s sixteen months, she can’t understand you.”
Like, 1. I know what a toddler is and 2. not with that attitude she won’t.
There are a lot of great additions to this post, but I think this also may be the time for me to share one of my favorite stories about myself.
Growing up, I spent most days with my grandmother while my parents were at work. My grandmother was a spry old Estonian woman from Saaremaa who had herself grown up on a farm, but her favorite hobbies in her retirement were reading, being a card shark, and gardening. She had a lovely backyard with a lot of flowers: both those native to Maryland and some that reminded her of her homeland. She spent a lot of time out in the garden, and my very earliest memories are of sitting in the grass watching her putter around in the dirt on her hands and knees.
So one weekend afternoon when I’m perhaps barely a year old, I’m at my parents’ house on their day off, just sort of noodling around on the grass behind our townhouse. My mom thinks she hears me babbling to myself and so she quietly sneaks up behind me, hoping to maybe catch some of my first words.
As she gets closer, she notices that I’m pulling up grass in my fat little baby hands while I mutter something. Just fistful after fistful of grass and tossing it in every direction. She gets up right behind me and finally she can make out what it is I’m saying as I rip up the lawn:
Hey fellas, either one of you know which way the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil
Endgame writers ignored Natasha and Sam’s friendship so I’ll just do it myself
Sam was crushed that he never saw her again. He came back in Wakanda expecting his dorky assassin friend to there ready to kick ass, but he never saw her. Once he found out, he was in shock. He’d just been fighting by her side and all of sudden she’s gone. When it starting to sink in, he mourned with Clint. He helped Clint, he remembered how destroyed he was after he saw Riley die and understood how traumatizing her death would be in a way no one else did. Clint and Sam had an unspoken bond afterwards, two brothers who lost a sister. It took months for Sam to stop making inside jokes out of habit of Natasha being there to laugh with him. Everytime he was answered with silence the grief hit all over again. Sam took even longer to not instinctively ask for her help or make sure she’s okay over comms when in a fight. No one said anything though, they’d just move on instead of correcting him. Steve growing old was hard on Sam, his best friends vanished so suddenly. He missed Steve, his Steve, the reckless dumbass he’d follow to the end of the earth. But Natasha’s death left more of a hole in him though. Steve got to live his life. He married, grew old, he got to be happy. Sam missed him but was happy for him. Knowing Natasha, he could guess how she must have been suffering over those five years. She died without getting to live, she led a desperate team when others left. He asked Rhoedy about how she had been over those years, they ended up talking for hours about her. Sam was proud of Natasha, she never gave up on being good and stayed strong when no one else stepped up. But he regreted not being there to tease her, to get her allow herself to express how she feels, to stay in the compound as much as he could so she’d not be lonely, to just be there for her. He felt like he failed her, even though it wasn’t his fault. He’d lost a part of him, he’d lost his sister and he missed her. After over a year, Sam visited D.C. again. He went to the spot where they met. A tree by the road, to anyone else it was just a tree, but to Sam it was where he met Natasha. He left a small figure of a dinosaur skeleton at the base of the tree. Sam finally found that fossil she was looking for, and left it for her to pick up someday.
i don’t think i’ve seen any kind of tumblr analysis that so far does justice to the face journey crowley goes through when he first meets aziraphale and finds out about the sword.
for context’s sake, this is how he reacts when he finds out aziraphale’s got rid of his own sword:
see that? that’s surprise, that’s unexpectedly-impressed, that’s holy-shit-this-is-an-angel-fucking-up-this-delights me. this is is this a rebellion? can angels rebel? i love it, five minutes on this strange green-and-blue rock and i’ve already found a playmate.
then compare with this, which is crowley hearing aziraphale explain why he ‘rebelled’ by giving away said sword: to whit, freezing cold, dangerous animals, pregnant woman:
that’s…dare i say it, tender? soft? certainly no less surprised but unexplicably, unexpectedly, touched. you can almost see the little flinch he experiences from that not-so-subtle heartflip that has just occurred. oh. oh. he didn’t lose his sword because he’s a brainless angel, or because he wanted to cause some trouble or stick it to the almighty he was just…being nice.
like, whatever reason the forces of hell had for rebelling, they sure as hell didn’t do it for nice reasons. i’m pretty certain, judging by the hell we see onscreen, that compassion features pretty heavily Down There. (nor, judging by the likes of gabriel or sandalphon, can i imagine angels are exactly known for their compassion amongst their demonic counterparts). crowley has come to earth expecting exactly 0% heartstrings-pulling, and then within the first half hour he meets this fluffy soft boi who smiles rather shyly even when he’s not supposed to and is painfully loyal to his boss even when he doesn’t understand Her ways and then does something daft like that, like giving away a heavenly flaming sword to a human for no other reason other than it’s a kind thing to do
and he’s an angel, they’re not supposed to do the wrong thing for the right reason, they’re sticklers, and yet look at what he’s just done…
and the next thing you know, crowley’s falling harder and faster than the day lucifer and the guys rocked up and asked ‘hey crawley, you up to anything today?’. and that is glorious.
also while we’re talking about the unacceptable face journeys of one anthony j. crowley, can we talk about his reaction to aziraphale reiterating that heaven will win the final battle
he’s touched.
a little sad, maybe, but ultimately touched. not mocking, like oh you really believe so do you, you naive angel? not angry, like you think you’re so much better than me, do you? not defiant, like we’ll just see about that, won’t we. when aziraphale announces that ‘good’ is going to triumph over evil, crowley’s first response is to think ‘aww. that’s kinda nice. my idealistic angel’s so cute’.
one thing i wish people would talk about a bit more is what aziraphale brings to the table in this relationship, which is a gentle-hearted, slightly naive but ultimately sweet sense of optimism. crowley’s pretty cynical about everything. he’s certainly lost faith in both heaven and hell – to a certain extent he’s even lost faith in humanity, because he knows that when you give humans an inch they take a mile and when you give them free will and a bunch of machine guns they shoot each other with the machine guns. but aziraphale is soft and sweet and genuinely tries to believe the best in things, and crowley just thinks that’s so damn adorable.
of course he then points out that even if heaven does win it’ll be an eternity of teetotalism and the sound of music but c’mon it’s crowley, he wouldn’t be crowley if he wasn’t encouraging aziraphale to think outside the box a little
thor ragnarok is literally 18x funnier when u realize the grandmaster knows what’s going on the entire time. he is telepathic and can read minds so he legit just let shit go down just for fun bc he’s such a drama hoe
loki, thinking they’ve sleezed their way out of another mess: oh ill totally bring those traitors back to you oh great powerful grandmaster
the grandmaster, knowing damn well that’s not going to happen: haha yeah
can someone write this fanfic POV grandmaster please
Oh my, the Grandmaster thought. This one is a liar, and wow, he’s good. He watched, fascinated, listening with half an ear to the easy, charming words coming out of the man’s mouth even as the man’s mind spun out the most amazing complex plans of usurping the Grandmaster’s power and taking his place. “I like this guy,” the Grandmaster announced, cutting the man off mid sentence. “What did you say your name was? Right, Loki,” he said as the man thought it. Snapping his finger at the closest waiter, the Grandmaster pointed at Loki and said, “Get this man a drink.” As he sat back in his chair, satisfied and entertained by Loki’s bemusement as he accepted the beverage, the Grandmaster thought, this is going to be fun.
It started back in the old days, when everyone knew about them.
Wolves that lived in the woodlands of Europe for most of the month, who take on the form of men and women when the full moon rises. They go to the little church on the outskirts of town, where a sister brings them clothes with a smile and a shake of her head. They thank her, and hike together to the nearest small town. They show up in a little German tavern, bearing freshly killed rabbits and medicinal herbs to trade tavern keepers for a drink and a room for the night.
They arrive in groups of six or seven, with wild hair and clothes that smell of earth. Their teeth seem a bit too long and sharp. But they joke around and push one another, watching their own children as they play with those from the village. They seem jovial, carefree, and get to know the old farmers and tavern workers and harried mothers chasing their little ones.
They are treated with kindness, although everyone seems to know who they are. No need to say it though. They bring fresh food and good laughs. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, they gather together and sing, hauntingly beautiful, echoing music that drifts up to the moon.
And they don’t forget these acts of kindness.
Bandits try to attack a small farm, attempting to break in and take what little gold the family had. They still tell stories of how the shadows seems to shift, and then there were gleaming eyes and fangs, and the promise of worse to come if they returned.
A tavern maid tells of how she was being followed by drunk men, a few miles from her little cottage. A trio of she-wolves slipped out of the shadows and walked beside her soundlessly, not leaving her side until the men backed off and she was safe inside her home.
A young child with a broken leg, lost in the woods, never stops babbling about his wolf story. A large gray male, an alpha perhaps, grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and carried him to his mother’s doorstep.
When the werewolves go to the taverns and hear these stories, they simply laugh. What wild imaginations these people must have. But they let the stories spread. It is good to let everyone know that the pack has grown. This village is defended.
