Okay, but, do you know what we’re not talking about enough? The body swap scene.
So, in my opinion, the mark of a good plot twist is that you shouldn’t see it coming the first time around, but the second time through, you should wonder how you possibly missed it. The body swap scene is that 100%.
David Tennant plays Aziraphale-as-Crowley almost identically to how he plays Crowley. The exceptions are marvelous to watch – seeing the Bentley is my favorite, when Aziraphale-as-Crowley smiles more broadly and easily than Crowley ever lets himself until the end dinner at the Ritz be still my heart.
But in Hell? No discernible difference. The swagger is there. The casual seeming disregard for the danger he’s in. Seriously, the energy of his entrance when he’s brought into the courtroom is identical to his “Hi, guys” in the graveyard at the beginning.
I love this. Because it’s how Aziraphale would play it. Hell doesn’t frighten Aziraphale the way Heaven does. Demons are, in his book, straightforward. He just has to out-intimidate them, and Crowley already does that. So be Crowley, and that’ll do the deed. And he knows Crowley well enough to pull it off without a single hesitation. The only time it felt even slightly not-quite-right (in terms of not questioning that it was Crowley) was the utterly amazing little nose wrinkle. And I’ll forgive Aziraphale that – he knows he’s won; he can gloat a little.
But MICHAEL SHEEN, FRIENDS.
Crowley-as-Aziraphale is a completely different story because Crowley is not as good at the facade as Aziraphale is.
He almost is. When Crowley-as-Aziraphale is getting dragged away by the angels? That reads as Aziraphale 100%. But in the park with Aziraphale-as-Crowley? In the bookshop? And especially in Heaven opposite the angels? That is so obviously Not-Aziraphale that I DO NOT KNOW how I missed it the first time through. And that is a testament to Michael Sheen’s talent.
Aziraphale is a being who shows emotion with his entire self. He is never still, not his hands, not his body, not his face. Everything he is feeling plays out across every inch of him. He is effusive and genuine and has no idea how to push away any emotion even a little bit.
Think of all the other times we see him in Heaven! He’s nervous, he’s anxious, he’s flustered, he’s doing that thing with his voice and his face when confronted with these beings who genuinely terrify him. He can’t hide it.
But Crowley is all too familiar with pushing down emotion. Crowley is guarded, he is caution personified, he reserve and preservation, and with his angel’s life in his hands, on Heaven’s home turf? He can’t shake that.
Crowley-as-Aziraphale is so still. His face, his body language, his posture, it’s all this perfectly calm facade hiding a smoldering fury that Aziraphale might be incapable of achieving. But when Crowley-as-Aziraphale is confronted with the angels and see how they treat his soulmate best friend, he cannot hide that fury. It’s in his eyes, his face, his voice. But Michael Sheen-as-Crowley-as-Aziraphale plays it so well because it comes across as Crowley-as-Aziraphale saying to the angels, You broke him. You pushed him too far and you broke him and this is what it looks like, and you should be terrified.
And it’s all so perfect, and they’re both so talented, and I don’t think we talk about it enough.
Do you ever wonder about how Crowley-as-Aziraphale is convinced that, even gagged and bound, Aziraphale would still be trying to mouth “Crowley run!” and how Aziraphale-as-Crowley firmly believes that Crowley would just chuck his popsicle across the park and go after the angels to save him despite being hopelessly outnumbered because
My headcanon for this scene is that they’re both genuinely panicking, because this wasn’t the plan.
They realized that Hell would probably decide to get rid of Crowley and that they’d need holy water to do it, so Aziraphale offered to take his place. But Heaven? They send memos. At worst a renegade angel might be cast out, but deep down Aziraphale’s always known that’s a possibility, and part of his choosing to stand with Crowley was accepting that.
They’re in the park to be out in the open and get it over with. But it’s Heaven who shows up first to take “Aziraphale.” So the real Aziraphale freaks out because he hadn’t considered this and doesn’t know what they might do to him. Meanwhile, Crowley wasn’t 100% on board with this plan–he knows that Hell can do a whole lot to a demon short of destruction, and there’s no way he’s going to let Aziraphale get tortured in his place. So he’s freaking out because Hell is still coming and now Crowley is powerless to intervene.
Basically, these two acknowledged that Armageddon would have probably happened if they’d been competent, so I don’t see them planning this perfectly. It all works out–better than they expected, even, because now Crowley can secure Aziraphale’s freedom just as the angel offered to do for him.
But for just this one moment, it all looks like it’s gone horribly wrong.
It’s an interesting question whether Heaven does in fact just “send rude notes.” That information comes from Aziraphale. Aziraphale is not only in the habit of being stiff upper lip about things, he’s a person who has invested an extraordinary amount of mental energy into pretending that Heaven is good and not at all psychologically abusive towards him. And you watch the way that Gabriel maneuvers Sandalphon behind Aziraphale in the shop—it’s a power play, making Aziraphale turn his back on a known threat.
Still, I believe that they didn’t expect it to go down that way, because I think Heaven is all about the psychological control, and I think their typical move would be to send Aziraphale a summons, demanding that he walk into whatever they planned for him of his own free will. So the idea that Heaven would just grab “Aziraphale” is shocking to them both.
I just realized something from this scene where the angels snatch Crowley-disguised-as-Aziraphale. Crowley keeps bobbing his head and looking off to the side and then trying to nod at Aziraphale-disguised-as-Crowley.
I think that was supposed to indicate that Az!Crowley (I’ll use this to keep track of who I’m talking about) knew that that was Hastur close by and was trying to warn Cr!Aziraphale (and this is the Aziraphale version) about him. It explains why Az!Crowley played Aziraphale in such an animated way during that part. He wasn’t squirming to simply escape. He was trying to prevent what he knew Hastur would probably do next.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work and Hastur whacks Cr!Aziraphale with that crowbar.
One thing I did wonder about there though was who was Cr!Aziraphale talking to when he said that “it’s no problem, it’s tickety-boo.” To himself? To the audience? Both of those seem a bit off given the tone of the scene. And it doesn’t seem like that’s something he’d say to someone like Hastur.
My thought is that he was saying that to Az!Crowley. Yes, it was unlikely that Crowley would have been able to hear by that point unless Crowley would still hear thoughts that are directed at him (which I can totally buy with them),
It makes sense that Cr!Aziraphale would do this given how Crowley normally comes to his aid every time he’s threatened, Cr!Aziraphale might have thought that Az!Crowley would finding it agonizing if he had to watch him suffer and couldn’t do anything about it. Thus, Cr!Aziraphale’s last instinct before he passes out is to try to reassure Az!Crowley that it’s all right and to not worry about him.
The script book adds another wrinkle to this as it included a stage direction that Cr!Aziraphale tried to crawl after the van that was taking Az!Crowley away. Even while in what had to have been an immense amount of pain, Aziraphale still tried his best to save Crowley.
However, all of this also means that, it was one thing for them to come up with this plan, and it was something entirely different for them to actually stick with it. And I don’t think they were really prepared for that. The whole point of switching faces was so they could protect each other from punishments that would be lethal to the other one.
But…that doesn’t work if they don’t let themselves get captured! Their deep seated instinct to protect each other could have easily ruined their clever plan. They were very lucky that it didn’t.
This is one of the reasons why “idiots in love” takes on more than just the light-hearted meanings for me in regards to them.
Select additional comments:
@ambular-dreply: Yes, but it wouldn’t have looked terribly realistic if they’d just calmly watched each other get kidnapped and hauled off without reacting, either, would it? “Oh, would you look at that, Aziraphale/Crowley is being made off with by agents of Heaven/Hell. Have a good time, dear.” That would have seemed downright suspicious. They couldn’t succeed in stopping it if they wanted their plan to work, but being seen trying and failing was perfectly reasonable and even necessary to the ruse.
@codicesandflorareply: Actually that makes sense too. They would both have to seem at least somewhat concerned about each of them being kidnapped or there might be concerns as to why they are so unworried…
Then again…Heaven and Hell seem pretty tone deaf when it comes to personal feelings, don’t they? I honestly wonder if it would occur to either of them that an angel could love a demon beyond the generalized feelings of love they are supposed to have for all things. So while Aziraphale might appear concerned, it would be the same sort of vague concern other angels might have for someone/something less fortunate than them.
And I think Aziraphale’s comments about how Crowley is a demon and thus implying that he’s not capable of love aren’t his own thoughts, but Heaven’s ideas. And Hell probably doesn’t encourage demons to love anything either. So I doubt either side believes that a demon could care about an angel beyond selfish interest.
That all said, I still really like your take because it implies that, despite the rampant obliviousness and prejudice of Heaven and Hell, they are still able to recognize the genuine love and affection Crowley and Aziraphale had for each other. The fact that they would have to show concern over the other one being kidnapped despite the thick, unmovable wall of beliefs Heaven and Hell have about the opposite side says a lot about how powerful the love Crowley and Aziraphale share truly is.
@megspictureaday reply: #ive always thought it was fortunate that crowley (as aziraphale) was taken away first #because if crowley had seen aziraphale get hit over the head with a crowbar #before he was restrained and forced to commit to the disguise #he wouldve gone fuckin ballistic #ALSO #poor aziraphale had heard crowley say my lot dont send rude notes #but then he gets cracked over the skull with a crowbar he mustve been like #oh my god is this what usually happens when crowley gets in trouble……
First off, 1000% yes. I don’t see how Crowley would have stayed committed if he hadn’t already been tied up and gagged.when Hastur did that to Aziraphale. I mean, this is a demon who will not hesitate to let people die just to prevent Aziraphale from being discorporated. Hell, he’ll let a bunch of corporate drones go through near-death experiences just because one of them had the audacity to stain his angel’s favorite jacket.
Granted, the ones who died tended to be awful people anyway and the paintball-to-real-gun prank was just as much about snark toward Aziraphale’s “Moral Argument” ridiculousness.
But both of those things still illustrate that Crowley can be ruthless when he chooses…and that choice often occurs when Aziraphale is involved.
Not to mention that Crowley already didn’t like Hastur anyway. Seeing him assault Aziraphale probably put him into Full Tilt Fire and Brimstone Mode. Which he ends up saving for Gabriel and his cronies, but that is another discussion….
Secondly….touche on going straight for the feels because I actually had not thought of that. I imagine Crowley doesn’t go into detail about what Hell does to people who directly defy orders because he doesn’t want his angel to worry about him (and possibly pull away in an effort to keep Crowley safe).
Although Aziraphale might be stupidly in love, but he’s not a fool. He definitely has an inkling of what could have been meant by “my lot don’t send rude notes”. He also might try to not think about it.
But having Hastur do that to him…and then seeing what goes on in Hell…and then realizing what that had/could have meant for Crowley…I think that would have been more traumatizing than anything.
I’m convinced that this is why he has that quietly horrified look (as Crowley) when that minor demon is destroyed.
That casual cruelty…the fact that anyone can be obliterated at any time for the flimsiest of reasons…that is/was the reality of Crowley’s life and the very real risk he took for choosing to “fraternize” with an angel.
Aziraphale is now seeing all of this for himself, and you can’t convince me that he wouldn’t harbor a sizable amount of guilt over that.
@monkey-on-nitrous-oxide oxidereply: Yes. I think that this is the point where Aziraphale realises how much he’s hurt Crowley every time he’s told him “you’re a demon”. Also, he probably realises that Crowley really wanted that Holy Water to use against other demons, not to destroy himself.
Crowley, as a former angel, knows very well how terrible angels can be. Aziraphale has no idea of how horrible demons are.
I mean, we all joke about Crowley having to teach Aziraphale to do the Walk™️ in preparation for the bodyswap, but honestly? I don’t think that Aziraphalewas necessarily the one with the harder job here.
How much time do we think was spent teaching Crowley how not to act like Aziraphale? Or, at least, not the version he knew.
“You’re waving your hands around too much, my dear.”
“Angel, you wave your hands around. You’re literally waving mine around right now.”
“Yes, but not in Heaven! Keep them behind your back, like this. That way you can keep better control of them. Also, please do not smile like that.”
“I actually thought I had the smile down pretty well.”
“That’s as may be, but it’s unlikely to be necessary during our execution. Anyway, that’s not a Heaven-smile. If you must smile, do it like this.”
“Like I’m fucking terrified? ‘Cause I really don’t think that that will be a problem, angel, considering what we’re about to try and pull off.”
“It’snot terrified! It’s respectful. It’s how you’re supposed to smile in Heaven.”
“… You’re certain that you don’t want me to set them on hellfire while I’m up there, right?”
percy+keyleth getting bodyswapped would be hilarious
we get percy, growing flowers out of the ground: “this is quite refreshing, i see why you’re so optimistic now”
and then we get keyleth who got shoved into the shit bag body of percival “my hair turned white from the stress of Torture and also i keep getting possessed by shit no biggie” de rolo going: “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU”
A multi-character line art head swap illustration made for Mako.
The girls from Monster Musume have all swapped heads, and they’ll all need to try their best to adjust to not only their new bodies, but also being different species!
This illustration was initially made in 2020. I will be releasing some of my older illustrations in between new ones every now and then.
Here’s a two-part line art commission piece I had so much fun with! Plumeria has swapped heads with an Eevee! It seems Eevee adapted faster to it than Plumeria has. As time went on, they both learned to adapt, and eventually, evolve together! Now, Plumeria and Sylveon have become a super cute pair!
Two ‘date nights’ drastically change pace as soon as the head swap collars activate and start swapping heads.This time though, the collars managed to send the bodies instead of sending the heads to new locations!
A young man named Donnie suddenly gains the interest of a formerly unimpressed girl he likes, while a dominatrix teaches her client a little thing about opening his mind (among other things).
This head swap was the winner of our first poll in February. Want to help by deciding the next one? Cast your vote in the next poll over on Patreon.
Here’s a line art body swap commission for QualityAce featuring characters from Fire Force.
Lisa and Tamaki have swapped bodies thanks to one of Vulcan’s inventions. Looks like the swap may be permanent thanks to Tamaki’s Lucky Lewd Syndrome, that is, until Vulcan can make another device.
