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AZIRAPHALE
GENDER Male
NATIONALITY Angel
AGE Very Old
EYE COLOR Assumed blue
HAIR COLOR Blondish
RANK Principility
EYESIGHT 20/20
PERSONALITY
Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong; Heaven is not in England, whatever certain poets may have thought, and angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort. But he was intelligent. And it was an angelic intelligence which, while not being particularly higher than human intelligence, is much broader and has the advantage of having thousands of years of practice. (Very Important Book Extract).
When you think of what a traditional angel is, you probably wouldn't think of an angel who thought tartan was stylish and hated selling his books so much he kept erratic hours. Quite the opposite, probably. He does, however, maintain a few angelic virtues; he is sweet and kind, in his own odd way, and he always does he best to try and make sure that his intentions are good. Hanging around with Crowley it's difficult to keep one's intentions perfectly good, after all, even for an angel.
He is rather stubborn, actually, when it comes to doing the Right Thing, which can be rather annoying when you're not someone who wants to do the Right Thing, such as his sort-of-maybe not-really best friend Crowley. He does rather enjoy doing the right thing, such as insisting that Crowley give a girl he ran over a ride home, even though they were attempting to stop the end of the world at the time. Indeed, his moral obligations restrain him rather a lot, even leading to him attempting to refuse to join the Armed forces of Heaven because he has a few "business matters" to clear up; he argues that "as a reputable businessman" he should do the Right Thing. Always.
Aziraphale is, however, in some ways rather un-angelic, if that is possible. His reasoning behind wanting to stop the Apocalypse? Well, he likes Earth and its pleasures; that's not exactly the most selfless reason for wanting to stop the end of the world. He's often quite rude to customers at his bookshop because he doesn't want to sell his books, going as far as to keeping erratic hours and glaring at them. He's also rather conniving in his own way (see; the Arrangement and sort-of lying to God about where his flaming sword disappeared to). He also supports terrorists (only if he can call them freedom fighters, he does draw a line). Furthermore, even Crowley suggests that Aziraphale has a bit of a bastard in him. He's not above using the ends to justify the means - he attempts to manipulate Shadwell the Witch hunter into killing an eleven year old boy (so what if he is the Antichrist?). In some ways he's worse than Crowley, because at least Crowley's honest about the things he does. Even so, he does feel guilty about some of the things he does, especially if it's Something Bad, and always tries to do Good and Right Things.
In a rather adoptive British way Aziraphale has demonstrated a limited patience with certain people (see; Crowley) and hides biting sarcasm behind British politeness. Terms such as "really, my dear?" and other such things ("my dear fellow") are often interpreted as muted sarcasm, though he'd never admit it if you asked. It's also probably that's he's just a little vain. He hates getting his clothes dirty, even though he can miracle new ones quite easily, has manicured hands and is quite testy when you mention the fact that he might be a little bit plump.
Ambiguously Gay, Badass Bookworm, Being Good Sucks, Beware The Nice Ones, Care Bear Stare, Estrogen Brigade Bait, Friend To All Living Things, Mistaken For Gay, The Philosopher, Samaritan Syndrome, Sweet Tooth, Terms of Endangerment
HISTORY
Once upon a time there was an Angel with a flaming sword who was told to guard the Garden of Eden. Or the Western Gate, at least. But then there was a snake who decided to mess things up a little (and, really, no matter what Crowley says, God did not overreact. He reacted the perfectly right amount, really). And then the Angel, who was named Aziraphale, gave his flaming sword to Adam and Eve because it was quite wet and he could easily say that he lost it. Which he did. He imagined the higher ups weren't too happy, but Eve was expecting. What else could he do? It was also at this point that he met Crawly, later named Crowley, who was rather kind and reassured him that he couldn't do evil, or something like that. That was what was called The Beginning.
In modern times, Aziraphale was getting quite comfortable living in the modern world, an agent of Heaven living on Earth. He had a second-hand bookshop that didn't really sell books. He had even made an Arrangement with one particular representative of Satan's (which only deserved the capital letter because it had been around for such a long time, you see) which meant that neither won or lost but let them prove that they were doing their job, sort-of. Because they had a lot in common with each other, and it was strange to fight each other when you had a lot in common. It's hard not to have a lot in common with a face you've seen for six millennia, which is understandable.
So for a very long time Aziraphale was quite happy being angelic and not selling books and gathering prophesies (as that was his speciality) when he learned that Crowley, being the good, obedient demon that he is, sorted out the Antichrist for his bosses. This meant that the end of the world was pretty much around the corner. Armageddon, the Last Battle, all that jazz. Which was not good news for Aziraphale (or Crowley, admittedly) as he rather liked his little Soho bookshop and getting drunk sometimes with Crowley. The thing was, Crowley actually asked for help (and reminded Aziraphale that Heaven didn't have movies that were at all better than the Sound of Music). Personal dilemma ahead; Aziraphale wasn't big on crossing divine plans, but he was supposed to thwart wiles. So that's what they planned to do. Thwart.
So, together they attempted to find the Antichrist, which sounds a lot easier than it was. They thought that the Antichrist (or the Adversary/Destroyer of Kings/Spawn of Satan/Angel of the Bottomless Pit/Father of Lies/Lord of Darkness, etc) was a child named Warlock due to the Satanic Nuns having a little mix-up at the birth. They soon realise that, hey, this child is not the Antichrist and decide to go back to the place where the Nuns where to find records of the real Antichrist. Problem was that one of Crowley's demon amigos decided to burn the place down, just in case. A Good Thing, kinda, did happen on the way to the nunnery, however. Crowley accidently ran over a woman, who turned out to be Anathema Device (witch and occultist) who had the single remaining copy of a book the predicts everything relating to the End of the World, which was called 'The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch'.
Aziraphale, once he realised what the book was, was so happy that he let his cocoa gather dust while reading it. Oh, and he also realised that everything written in the book was coming true. Clever, that Agnes Nutter. It's at this point that things get a little iffy for poor Aziraphale. As he's attempting to call his demon friend and inform him of his latest discovery, he accidently finds himself faced with a Witch finder (named Shadwell) who thinks that he's a demon. It was almost ironic, really. Aziraphale ends up trapped in the body of a lovely lady named Madam Tracy (after going through Australia (being called a poofter, of all things), Haiti and accidently making a American TV priest think a demon had possessed him whilst live on air) and is able to direct the lady (and Shadwell, who was a dear friend of hers, funnily enough) to the Lower Tadfield Airbase where the Antichrist (known as Adam Young to the locals) was 'waiting'.
Adam, surprising everyone in an odd sort of way, destroys the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and then proves to the big bosses that, really, he's not evil incarnate or good incarnate. He was just human incarnate, which was quite upsetting after all that struggle. Beelzebub and the Metatron (representatives of the big bosses) disappear and they all breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that it's all finally over. Except, actually, it's not. Oh. The ground does that woefully upsetting shaking thing, Crowley panics and picks up a makeshift weapon (a tire iron, honestly) whilst Aziraphale gets reacquainted with swords by picking up War's, setting it on fire as he does so. They go off, reading to confront the volcano of satanic power, when Adams looks around and waves his hand. And then the world changed. Crowley temped Aziraphale to lunch at the Ritz (where they never needed a reservation, because they don't exist in Crowley world) and they listened to a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square. And that was that.
- Application
It is the coming of the End Times: The Apocalypse is near, and Final Judgment will soon descend upon the human race. This comes as a bit of bad news to the angel Aziraphale (who was the angel of the Garden of Eden) and the demon Crowley (who, when he was originally named Crawly, was the serpent who tempted Eve to eat the apple), respectively the representatives of God and Satan on Earth, as they've actually gotten quite used to living their cozy, comfortable lives and, in a perverse way, actually have taken a liking to humanity. As such, since they're both good friends (despite supposedly being polar opposites, representing Good and Evil as they do), they decide to work together and keep an eye on the Antichrist, destined to be the son of a prominent American diplomat stationed in Britain, and thus ensure he grows up in a way that means he can never decide simply between Good and Evil and, therefore, postpone the end of the world.
Unfortunately, Warlock, the child everyone thinks is the Anti-Christ is, in fact, a perfectly normal eleven-year-old boy. Owing to a bit of a switch-up at birth, the real Anti-Christ is in fact Adam Young, a charismatic and slightly otherworldly eleven-year-old who, despite being the harbinger of the Apocalypse, has lived a perfectly normal life as the son of typical English parents and, as a result, has no idea of his true powers. As Adam blissfully and naively uses his powers, creating around him the world of Just William (because he thinks that's what an English child's life should be like), the race is on to find him-the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble and the incredibly accurate (yet so highly specific as to be useless) prophecies of Agnes Nutter, seventeenth-century prophetess, are rapidly coming true.
Agnes Nutter was a witch in the 17th century and the only truly accurate prophet to have ever lived. She wrote a book called The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, a collection of prophecies that did not sell very well because they were unspectacular, cryptic and, ironically enough, all true. She, in fact, decided to publish it only so that she could receive a free copy as the author. There is only one copy of the book left, which belongs to her descendant Anathema Device. Agnes was burned at the stake by a mob (because that's what mobs did at that time); however, because she had foreseen her fiery end ("ye're tardy; I should have been aflame ten minutes since") and had packed 80 pounds of gunpowder and 40 pounds of roofing nails into her petticoats, everyone who participated in the burning was killed instantly.
In the end, Anathema teams up with Newton Pulsifer, the descendant of the man who initiated the burning of Agnes, to use the prophesies and find the Antichrist. Unfortunately, that is exactly what everyone else is trying to do, and time is running out.
- Wiki Article
Chekhov's Gun, Crowning Moment of Awesome, Crowning Moment of Funny, Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, Flaming Sword, Knight In Sour Armor, Precision F Strike, Spirit Advisor, Take That, The End Of The World As We Know It, Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters
APPEARANCE
TO COME
Fetish Fuel, Fish Out Of Temporal Water, Time Abyss
CANON ABILITIES
TBA
'Angelic' Possession, Batman Can Breathe In Space, The Empath, Energy Beings, Mind Over Matter, Our Angels Are Different, Playing With Fire