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[inlovewithmycar]

ANTHONY J. CROWLEY
❝ Okay, I know you’re testing them, you said you were going to be testing them. You shouldn’t test them to destruction. Not to the end of the world. ❞

BASICS

CANON. Good Omens (TV).
CANON POINT. End of the series
AGE. 6000, give or take a few decades. Looks and acts like he's in his mid/late 40s
APPEARANCE. Outfit, Without shades

IN CHARACTER

HISTORY.

In the beginning... there was a fat lot of buggerall. God looked upon this and thought it was a bit dull and so She created the universe. This has widely been regarded as one of Her worse ideas. Among the things She created were angels, and among those angels was Crowley. He wasn't called Crowley back then -there's little he says about his brief stint as an angel beyond he helped build some stars and nebulae and that he asked a few too many questions, which got him the boot.

As a demon (at the time known as Crawly), he'd generally learned his lesson about openly questioning authority and got sent up to make some trouble from the newly minted humans while Earth still had that new planet smell. Tempting Eve to eat the apple succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and as the humans were tossed out the garden, he stopped to make conversation with the Angel of the Eastern Gate, a Principality named Aziraphale.

The rest is, quite literally, history.

That is to say, Crowley has been puttering around through the last 6000 years as Hell's operative on Earth and taking credit for the bigger human atrocities, all while instead wining and dining with his Heavenly counterpart, sworn enemy and dearest friend Aziraphale.

Around 1020 A.D. they struck up an Arrangement to generally just help each other out. For example, if one was in the area, he would simply cover the blessing or temptation that needed to be carried out there. And they generally stayed out the others way, letting each other work in relative peace, occasionally meeting up to get a bite to eat and compare notes.

As it stands, Crowley and Aziraphale had more in common with each other than their respective sides, and so a friendship began to grow between them (quite grudgingly at first on Aziraphale's end). Their visits became more social than business, and there were times where they would even help each other out when it was completely unrelated to work.

Fast forward to the mid aughts of the 21st century. The Antichrist was born, and the end of the world was just eleven years off. Both Crowley and Aziraphale are quite fond of Earth and all its pleasures, and don't really want to see it go so soon. And so they devise a plan - to act as Godfathers of sorts and help raise the child to not be either angelic or demonic, but human, and hope that he chooses Earth over Heaven or Hell.

Of course the whole thing falls apart when they find out there was a mix-up with the babies at the convent and they'd been helping to raise the wrong child for six years. Fortunately, Crowley's suggestion about raising the Antichrist as human was on the money - Adam was raised by two loving parents, had a normal childhood, and decided that the world ought to keep spinning after all.

Of course, Crowley and Aziraphale were in a great deal of trouble with Heaven and Hell, but luckily for them, a mad prophetess witch from the 17th century was looking out for them, and they managed to survive their executions via Holy Water/Hellfire by swapping bodies beforehand.

PERSONALITY.

Note: Provided it either supports or doesn't explicitly contradict show canon, I use stuff from the book to fill in any gaps since we don't really get to see Crowley's inner thoughts in the show.

One of Crowley's most defining characteristics is his curiosity. It was the catalyst that got him booted out of Heaven to begin with. He's always been inquisitive, always tried to puzzle out the workings of higher powers whether or not one might consider it a safe course of action. His very first temptation, The Big One as we'd think of it, was convincing Eve to take a bite of the fruit from the tree of knowledge, and throughout the series he's shown to admire human innovation and creativity.

This isn't to say Crowley is a wide-eyed idealist. He is certainly more optimistic than pessimistic, but it's all tempered with a degree of cynicism. Crowley is quick to pick up on the seedier aspects of things. He's all too aware of the many failings of human nature, or how Heaven will hide its atrocities behind a veneer of self-righteousness. As he sees it, he's a demon, he's (technically) supposed to be horrible, and at least Hell is honest in their intentions to control and dominate.

Not that he's a big fan of Hell either. Lucifer's rebellion didn't go so great, and his grand vision just seems to be a version of the Heavenly bureaucracy with a dark coat of paint and a lot lower standards for hygiene.

But Crowley is good at being a demon. Oh, he's not so good at things like spinning heads, creepy voices and disembodied hoofbeats in the halls, but he's good at tempting people. And he's astonishingly efficient. You see, Crowley is a big-picture sort of thinker. He focuses more on tarnishing souls rather than outright corrupting them. After all, someone losing their temper once? Down the line, they're likely to do it again, and again, and again. Cut a few phone lines and he has half of London bloody furious. Move a few construction markers, and now the M-25 makes traffic literal Hell. And there isn't even any need for that vomiting pea soup mess. Though while good at concocting such widespread schemes, the devil's in the details, which is why so often his cunning schemes turn around and bite him in the ass. He never really thinks things through.

By the time Crowley had become a demon, he'd learned how to survive. He knows when to obey and when to present the face of obedience. He projects an image of a cool, calm, and disaffected individual who's caught up on modern trends and is invaluable for his insights into the human condition. He struts around brazenly, he dresses in trendy styles, and he owns a cool, modern flat, dark as a tomb and just as minimalist, just like the kind of rich and callous human he's trying to ape would. There's not a lot one could glean about Crowley's actual personality from the outside.

Because in all actuality, Crowley's kind of a mess.

He's genuinely hurt, confused and betrayed by his Fall; he doesn't actually understand what's so terrible about asking questions, about wanting to know things, or why God (whose Love is supposed to be unconditional) would hurt him for being how She made him. He's also quite terrified that Hell will discover he's not all that malicious of an individual. Oh yes, he can be a selfish coward and an opportunist; he'll run before fighting any day, and he'll gladly take commendations for human atrocities that he had no hand in (and is actually repulsed by). About the only other person's well-being he puts above his own is Aziraphale's; when he believes that they've failed and the world is going to end in a few short hours, Crowley does everything he can to convince the angel to abandon Earth and its people in one last desperate move. But he has nothing personal against humanity. He quite likes them in a general sense, and doesn't actually want to enact more than a bit of mischief at their expense. He has very little stomach for violence or torture (he had to get drunk for a week just to cope with what he saw going on in the Spanish Inquisition, and he's visibly upset when he finds out God intends to drown all the Mesopotamian people in The Flood). He also more outwardly high-strung and has a rather short fuse when under pressure - he snaps quite a bit more than his book counterpart.

Despite his many failings and flash bastard facade, he can also be genuinely kind, compassionate, and, even when scared out of his mind, put on an air of bravado and seem quite gallant. Crowley is a pro at 'fake it until you make it' after all. He does genuinely care about Aziraphale, and enough about Earth to actually go against the forces of Heaven and Hell to try and save it (eventually). He also has a strong sense of fair play; even when tempting the mortals, he always makes sure they have a choice in the matter and aren't put between a rock and a hard place, or have the temptation planted directly in their brains (which is how Hastur and Ligur operate).

ABILITIES

STRENGTHS.

Well-versed in human nature.

Sweet-talking/temptation

Shapeshifting

Imaginative

Weird biology

• Ageless (or just perpetually middle-aged), Crowley is effectively immortal - his physical form can be destroyed fairly conventionally (if it would kill a human, it will discorporate him, barring a few exceptions like fire or disease.) The well-placed demonic miracle may make things a bit tricky - but mostly "death" is just really, really annoying inconvenience to him.
• His corporation is effectively a meatsuit with organs being optional (and so too are food, water, sleep, and air). He's pretty fireproof, both to the Hellish kind and your garden variety bonfire. He can also possess a receptive host (this is shown when Aziraphale shares a body with Madame Tracy after getting discorporated, and when he and Crowley switch bodies before their execution)
• He has some serpentine traits he can't just glamour away and his other corporeal form is a giant red and black snake. All we know about his true, demonic form is that it's reptilian and has a lot of teeth.
• Angels and Demons got big ol' feathery wings. Like everything Crowley has, they're sleek and black. They can flap. Presumably he can also use them to fly.

Physics are Optional. A deleted scene shows Crowley sleeping on the walls and ceiling of his flat, and another part shows that angels and demons can shrink down to be smaller than electrons when Crowley escapes into the phone lines to trap Hastur in his answering machine.

Sin sense! Can generally sense emotions tied to sins and use that to give people what they want (for example real guns instead of the kind that just shoot paintballs)

Talks to vermin (in the deleted scene to show how he knocked down the mobile networks in London, he's shown to have conspired with a large colony of rats and talks to them amicably like some sort of Disney princess)

Demonic miracles: don't have any hard and fast mechanics or consistency to them so this is just sort of an overview.

• Effectively angels and demons can cause minor warps in reality. These seem limited to being within a localized area around them or one has to be intimately aware of the area they're miracling if doing it remotely. Miracles are largely convenient in nature; Crowley and Aziraphale's favourite table in their favourite restaurant is always available when they want it. A stain or mess can be blown away with just a thought. A satchel of books survives a church bombing unscathed during the blitz. A traffic warden's notebook goes up in sparks to avoid a ticket (Aziraphale does this in the book, Crowley does it in the show). A recently deceased dove can be revived by breathing life into it (Crowley does this in the book, Aziraphale does it in the show).

  Trickier things like passing through a wall of flames unscathed, and driving a burning car for 45 minutes without it falling apart takes a lot out of Crowley physically and requires a good imagination to maintain certain degree of denial for that long. So for miracles to be performed, the mindset of the one performing them is integral. For example, Crowley has an unplugged fridge stocked full of gourmet food that never goes off because (while we know that's not how any of that actually works) Crowley assumes that putting food in a fridge will keep it fresh indefinitely and so reality warps around that assumption.

• Demonic miracles are not necessarily used for evil. Angels and Demons are functionally similar so Crowley can use his reality bending powers to do blessings as well as temptations.
• Stopping Time (Temporarily): Not necessarily sure if this is a miracle or something unique to Crowley. It's definitely something that only happens in the TV series. It could just be a little Dr. Who reference. He does it twice, and one time it takes them to a completely different place, and I have no idea how it works, please just nerf it completely.
• Angels and demons can perform some degree of mind manipulation. Crowley is shown to put Sister Mary in a brief trance where she can tell him only the truth (though the truth isn't always the same as 'useful information') and Aziraphale makes it so that she awakens from it having dreamed of 'whatever she likes best'. Hastur and Ligur are able to plant temptations directly into the minds of mortals. It is possible to extrapolate that this is just a general thing demons can do since they seem to expect the same methods from Crowley. That being said, Crowley is never shown to use this ability so either he can't or won't.

WEAKNESSES.

Non-confrontational/Cowardly

Anxious

Bad At Biology - does not understand how mammals work and word of god says he also had no idea why Noah needed two of every animal.

Bad with animals in general. Can't ride horses to save his life.

Gone native: seems to forget he has the reality-warping abilities of a demigod at weird times and generally just prefers to do things The Human Way anyway. He's also gotten used to things like food, sleep, and breathing so while he doesn't need to do those things, he may feel compelled to. Also doesn't really like shapeshifting - he's scared he might not be able to turn back.

Doesn't think things through. As good as he is at harebrained schemes in broad strokes, he tend to miss the details of how his plans may affect him, often winding up hoist by his own petard.

Not very powerful as demons go. Crowley can't exert his will on reality very far.

Holy things weaken or hurt him. A fairly skilled exorcist could easily trap or banish him. Denominations can vary for this, anyone of any faith should have the opportunity to make Crowley's life inconvenient.

Blessings would really hurt him

Holy water kills him dead, no questions asked.

OPT-IN. Yes

ITEMS

CLOTHES.

One charcoal blazer with actual pockets.

One black waistcoat.

One charcoal henley

One dangly necktie/scarf/necklace/giant shoelace thing (silver)

One pair of skinny jeans with pseudo pockets.

One belt, with a snake head for a fasten.

ITEMS / PETS.

Two pairs of Valentino sunglasses (one on his face, one spare).

One mobile phone

One wallet containing; four credit cards all sleek and black, one driver's licence (expired 1987), several hundreds of dollars in cash.

One ridiculously expensive watch (Tread 1, from DEVON Works)

One sleek matte black pen (can write underwater)

Keys to a 1926 Bentley

A small sack of rare and ancient coins

A small bottle of Gorilla Glue

A clip-on lanyard and several identification cards indicating that Crowley is some kind of technician, repairman, pest control, or plumber.

WEAPONS. N/A

SAMPLES

LOG. Sample Link 1, Sample Link 2.
NETWORK. Sample Link


NAME. Green Rivers TZ. EST AGE. 34 CONTACT. Discord: GreenRivers@4202, GreenRivers, or pm this journal