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sonkitty · 4 months ago

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Timestamp Notes and Theory for Episode 1: The Arrival

This post was last updated 08/27/2024.

I am heavily referencing this wonderfully helpful post: timeline rundown. I am also referencing this post, The Main Bookshop Clock's Hands are BACKWARDS and Other Revelations!

Below are my notes for an overall forming theory and then getting into the specifics of episode 1. I have a few different notes of what I think the time is from the referenced link above, will be naming the days, and guessing some order.

Reminder that I'm growing more confident in my theory that Crowley earns his red streak from a Big Miracle performed the first time Gabriel arrived with a cardboard box.

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This theory is very tentative.

Episode 1 is an out-of-order mix of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Most of it is Monday.

Maggie and Nina might not have "existed" until Monday. In Before the Beginning, we are informed of the concept of "pre-aged" stars, so these characters might be like that. They are "pre-aged" humans, whether that's from the Big Miracle Crowley did or was part of or the Metatron messing with the book that holds most or all of this story or Adam creating a pocket reality or whatever.

The clothing for Maggie and Nina is the story's main clue that most of episode 1 is Monday. Their clothing also gives clues for the other days.

In that timeline rundown link, my interpretation of events is that before Crowley enters Heaven in the present day, the clock by Aziraphale's desk works such that the ornate hand is the minute, and the other hand is the hour.

This functionality reverses no later than Maggie and Nina being shown using fire extinguishers on the demons in the bookshop. From that point onward, the ornate hand will be the hour, and the other hand will be the minute. I took some extra time and effort to check the 1941 minisode and season 1 out of curiosity. The clock hands match the meaning for after Crowley returns from Heaven in episode 6, where the ornate hand is the hour, and the other hand is the minute. If my conclusions are correct, the main bookshop clock hands are actually reverting, in episode 6, to how they operated before Season 2, Episode 1 started.

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Extra ideas:

Something of significance happened 8 months ago because that's how long Maggie has not paid her rent. My main best guess is that is when Hell kicked Crowley out of his flat.

The week that Season 2 covers reset at least once or the overall story is a time loop of different timelines stitched together, including season 1.

With at least two significant games happening in Good Omens 2, the humans are game pieces, and the setting is the game board. Hence, these elements are allowed to shift as part of the games. The games are The Sideburns Scheme and Earthly Objects.

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Episode 1: The Arrival

The present day part of episode 1 starts on Monday sometime before 4:20PM.

When Aziraphale receives Maggie's note, it's difficult to find the clock, but it is there. The time is, conceivably, 3:58PM. If the hands are not reversed yet, the time is possibly 11:20AM. Based on the season overall and maybe the bookshop closing at 3:30PM, I do think 3:58PM is the correct time.

In t he record shop, Maggie's watch is visible when Aziraphale visits, but I find it very difficult to read since it seems to fluctuate during the scene itself. Based on what I can read of it, I hesitantly think it goes 12:25PM, 12:32PM, 12:00PM, 11:25AM, 11:57AM. With such fluctuation, I don't trust it. But still, I'll acknowledge that I tried to check it. Again, based on how the whole series goes, Aziraphale's bookshop clock looks to have the more likely correct time.

Aziraphale receives Maggie's note.

Aziraphale goes to the record shop and talks to Maggie.

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Crowley in St. James' Park. According to the referenced timeline rundown post, chimes indicate 5:00PM. I could not find all 5 but will trust that person's judgment better than mine since it's not the type of thing I even knew to check for at all. I think this day is Sunday, not Monday, and happened before the past two scenes of Aziraphale receiving Maggie's letter and their conversation in the record shop. Crowley has earned his red streak, receives his mail, and will throw the mail away later.

Back to Monday...

Maggie enters the coffee shop, talks to Nina.

Nina reacts to the events happening outside.

For now, my guess is Gabriel's naked arrival sequence is actually still Monday, possibly two different versions of Monday due to how the extras shift in the background. It could be both Saturday and Monday instead, but I haven't been able to figure it out. I lean more toward two different versions of Monday.

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Aziraphale getting up from chair to answer door, 4:20PM.

Maggie and Nina comment on what they saw.

Michael on phone in Heaven. My current speculation thinks this phone call is also Monday but actually more like 10:04AM, rather than between 4:20PM and 4:26PM. My reasoning is admittedly very biased in trying to fit the pieces where I want them to be. Such a time would allow Shax to receive news that events in Heaven are related to Gabriel, then pass that along. She has not been given the specifics of the threat on the Book of Life. I would rather think such is the order of things than that Crowley's supernatural time zone is off from bookshop time by something close to 5-6 hours.

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Gabriel receives hot chocolate in bookshop, 4:26PM.

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Crowley throwing mail away, then looking at phone by his car in isolated street, 10:35AM. This day is Monday morning. This scene took place before the Whickber street scenes but not Michael on the phone in Heaven. This scene is the morning after Crowley met with Shax on Sunday when she gave him his mail. The mail is supposed to connect the scenes as close to each other in the sequence of the story.

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Crowley answering phone, his watch shows 11:35AM. I think this one is Crowley making Shax wait for an hour to manage his personal space with his sideburns. So, still Monday morning before most other scenes.

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Aziraphale looks in the cardboard box. When he asks what was brought, the clock says 4:30PM. The fly was in the box.

Aziraphale calls Crowley. Gabriel still has hot chocolate to indicate not a lot of time has passed.

Heaven, Matchbox Muriel Scene #1, Muriel finding the matchbox. At this point, Heaven seems to line up with the time that is happening in London on Earth. Muriel finding this matchbox at something like 5:00PM. This speculation is, again, me being biased on trying to fit things where I want them to go. It is based on a basic work day of Earth ending at 5PM for many. Since Heaven doesn't seem to sleep and always has daylight, Muriel could have been between shifts of what they were working on to somewhat mimic an Earth office environment. Also, this part would fit the time between the last time-stamp shown and the next potential time-stamp shown.

Crowley enters the coffee shop, presumed Monday due to Nina's employee and Nina's clothing.

Crowley sits down, and there is a sign that isn't behind him yet. In the next cut of him sitting, there is a "TODAY'S SPECIALS HONOLULU ROAST" sign. That sign has Nina's handwriting. The other sign above it doesn't. The shift could be a sign of the differing timelines. That is the more plausible and easy idea in play.

Due to my retying studies, knowing that Crowley performed The Perfect Entrance Trick on the way in, and knowing that the spaces read Crowley due to his sideburn lengths, I'm starting to suspect those silly Tied Hands can perform tricks. In this case, this event is like a little trick he and the space perform with each other to make something appear.

Plus, the sign seems to be acting as an assist while Crowley's Tied Hands manage a Table Connection Reflection (best guess for the name from me). The full text of the sign is visible when Crowley says, "Charmed." It's the last cut with his hand touching its reflection on the table before he leans forward in the next cut.

A previous draft of this post considered that the sign was a hint to a potential Saturday visit, but I have since changed my mind. I think it's Monday during the whole scene. It could be two different versions of Monday, or it could be trickery because Crowley's a demon playing around with the space, or it could be both of those things, but I'm still guessing it is Monday.

Crowley and Aziraphale exit the coffee shop and encounter Maggie with the record. They then finish crossing the street.

Maggie gives Nina the record. Nina says "Back again?" to indicate the day is the same one as shown earlier. Maggie's dialogue mentions getting a "...final something. End of the day."

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In the bookshop, Crowley removes his sunglasses and starts the scene with, "I wasn't gonna say this out there..." The main bookshop clock is not visible during this scene. The other one that occasionally shows up is visible and blurry when Gabriel brings out the yellow feather duster. I have it at questionably 5:25PM. For almost all of this scene, the framing is making it clear that Crowley's red streak is there.

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Bookshop, private room scene #1 of the season. I'm not sure which day most of this scene is when considering both Saturday and Monday. There is a clue about Monday with just dumping Gabriel and the Something Terrible in the dialogue. There is a clue about Saturday due to Crowley's mostly lacking red streak. So, it seems to be a mix of both days, playing out the same way, and then something happened after Crowley's exit to change things.

Crowley has a subtle demonic hiss and says, "You're on your own with this one." That's Saturday because the timing and framing is showing that he hasn't earned his red streak yet.

The first cut after the door is shown as opened is Gabriel pretending to be Crowley. I theorize that the day there is also Saturday, or at least represents Saturday.

Then in the next cut is Aziraphale pretending to be Crowley. By then, the day is Sunday, or the cut at least represents Sunday. He passes by the cardboard box, leaving it untouched and unquestioned. While Aziraphale does not have a more saturated streak of red hair, red that is more red, he does have a brighter streak of hair where the more saturated streak tends to appear above Crowley's left eye.

Additionally, the clothing is more blue, much like Crowley's clothing in the park scene earlier this episode where I speculated the day was Sunday.

These characters are editing the story to indicate Crowley will storm out on Monday.

They also cut what was found out about the box and actions taken that involved putting the Book of Life into the matchbox without setting off the alarms in Heaven yet. They make themselves forget, leaving themselves clues to solve their own puzzle.

Crowley would have earned his red streak through a Big Miracle that happened at midnight on Sunday with a full moon.

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Once Crowley has three visible fingers touching his sunglasses, the storyline has returned to Monday, as it then joins with the Monday clothing Maggie and Nina are wearing. They watch Crowley from the window.

Crowley shouts "Ten!" and the lightning shoots out from him.

Maggie and Nina end up locked in the coffee shop.

In Heaven, Michael and Uriel talk. Eventually, Saraqael and Muriel arrive for Matchbox Muriel Scene #2.

Back on Earth, Crowley arrives at his car in the isolated street at night.

Beelzebub summons Crowley to Hell.

Having exited Hell, Crowley starts driving to return to the bookshop.

In the coffee shop, Maggie and Nina run to hold out their signs. A passerby does not stop to help them.

Crowley driving, changes three traffic lights.

Maggie and Nina talk about the record shop's history.

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Crowley arrives and restores power to the coffee shop. The time is 21:02 (9:02PM) on Nina's phone.

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The story wants it known that the apology dance happened at 9:06PM. The clock by Aziraphale's desk is as clear as it will ever be on that point.

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When Crowley finishes the dance, the other clock behind him is visible, and that time looks more like 9:00PM.

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After Gabriel says, "Where did you come back from?" the bookshop clock looks a little burred but now more like 8:01PM. We've gone back an hour. There are too many other indications this day is still Monday for me to think we've reverted to Saturday. Crowley's hair being charged with so much red is the main one. The scene is also too cohesive for me to think that the events within it are out of order.

As Gabriel is saying, "Is it big on the outside?" still seems to be 8:01PM.

Crowley telling Gabriel no, still seems to be 8:01PM.

Aziraphale suggesting half a miracle, seems more blurry but 8:01PM.

The clock is intentionally too blurry just as Crowley is describing how small they have to make the miracle.

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With the camera panning down during the miracle, the time seems to be 9:01PM or 9:02PM.

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The clock is intentionally too blurry with Crowley saying, "I don't know. Probably."

As Gabriel gets up from the chair, the clock has switched back to just after 8PM.

Crowley, preparing to stand on chair, still just after 8PM.

Crowley, jumping down, still just after 8PM.

In Heaven, the alarms go off.

...

So, the way I read it, after Crowley returns at night, the clock can only ever be trusted on the point that Crowley danced at 9:06PM. The characters telling us this story aren't concerned about the clock consistency or clarity for a lot of the scene, but they definitely want us to know that Crowley danced at that specific time. That's why they are making it as clear as possible and not so much the other times.

If you want to get more specific, Crowley is telling us the time was 9:06PM, and he is more certain of that than the other characters because of the clock being so clear. He's the one in the best position to sense-with-his-eyes that clock at that time. His layered play in the games probably wanted that time too.

From here on out, the story is actually more honest about the order of present day events. Background humans will act or be positioned oddly. Sometimes the clocks will have questionable times and continuity errors, but the story will flow forward, naming or hinting to previous events affecting those being experienced in the present. Aziraphale will tell us that the scene between him and the Metatron happened already when things are shown out of order in episode 6.

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That's all for this post.

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More: Timestamp Notes for Episodes 2-5

#crowley #david tennant #good omens 2 #good omens #good omens s2 #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #good omens analysis #good omens clues #good omens theory #good omens theories #good omens speculation #ineffable mystery #crowley good omens

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ineffable-alsaurus · 1 year ago

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Crowley has tried a lot of things during his long existence, and so far nothing has been quite as enjoyable as kissing Aziraphale.

He knew he would like it, if they ever got around to giving it a go. Granted, the act of kissing in general was a very abstract idea, since Crowley had zero experience with it before he planted one on Aziraphale that first time. So he didn't know exactly what kissing Aziraphale would be like. But he knew, sure as anything, that he would really like it.

That was the one and only thing he'd guessed correctly about kissing. Everything else is a nice surprise.

What's especially surprising is how it makes Crowley feel. He fully realizes this is stupid; of course kissing someone he loves makes him 'feel' things. That's the whole point, isn't it?

It was just so… theoretical, before. It was an idea, a notion, a fancy. A little treat for his brain when he got bored.

Kissing Aziraphale in real life, on the other hand, is not a 'little treat'. It's a huge, delicious, completely and utterly devastating feast.

Which would already be difficult enough to deal with, what with Crowley finding himself wishing he were kissing Aziraphale instead of whatever else he's doing at any given moment.

But it's more than that, because Crowley wants more than that!

And sure, yes, he's always 'wanted more' with Aziraphale. Of course he has. But that, too, had been abstract.

Not anymore.

Oh, no, not anymore. There is nothing theoretical about the way Crowley feels when he's been kissing Aziraphale for too many minutes. It's like he's on fire, deep inside. Like he wants to press every inch of himself onto every inch of Aziraphale and sink right in. It's so visceral that it's almost like it's already happening.

He can imagine it so much more clearly now than he ever could before. It's no longer just, "oh, wouldn't it be nice to have sexual relations with my darling angel, I just wonder what that would be like!" No, these days it's more like, "oh that would be good. That would be sooooo good. It would feel exactly like this, but more intense, and closer and better and more, and then I'd come all over him and it would be sooooo goooooood, oh God'', etc, etc, etc.

Crowley thinks that Aziraphale might want him that way, too. He's not sure, but he knows his angel pretty well. He's getting a vibe, he thinks. And he tries to wait him out, see if he brings it up first…

Until one afternoon, snogging just inside the front door after closing the shop early, Crowley steps directly into Aziraphale's space without thinking. Just wanting to get as close as he possibly can.

And the feeling of their hips making contact for the first time, the way Crowley is 75% sure that he can feel a bulge in front of Aziraphale's trousers and 99% sure that Aziraphale can feel his own… Crowley closes his eyes and groans. Presses his forehead to Aziraphale's, takes a deep breath, and then reluctantly pulls away until they're no longer touching.

"Why on Earth are you stopping now?" Aziraphale asks in annoyance as he opens his eyes.

"We need to talk about sex, angel," Crowley says simply.

"Oh. Oh!" Aziraphale says, eyes widening before he squints a little in confusion. "Are you quite sure?"

"Oh, well, if you're not interested, we don't have to-"

"No, it's not that! I'm very- definitely- um, quite interested. I suppose I just thought you were the 'getting down to business' type. Is there much to talk about?"

Crowley frowns at Aziraphale, even as a fond smile grows on his lips. Silly angel.

"Yeah, you know, it might be a good idea. Communication, right? Honesty and openness and so forth? Making sure we're on the same page?" Crowley reminds him with amusement.

Really, after all the misunderstandings and mishaps they've had over the millenia, you'd think that by now Aziraphale might have bought a clue that they need to talk more, not less. Especially about things that are this important.

"Of course, yes, you're right," Aziraphale agrees easily, bowing his head in concession. "Obviously. Do go on."

"Right, so, here we go," Crowley begins. "First thing's first. Do you want to have sex?"

"Yes," Aziraphale answers dutifully.

"With me?"

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, exasperated. "There's communication, and then there's redundancy to the point of idiocy, you know."

continue reading Honesty Era on AO3 (6k, explicit, no warnings)

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens fic #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands fic #crowley/aziraphale #aziraphale/crowley #aziracrow

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greenthena · 1 year ago

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Miracle Blocked

I've seen a thing floating around (this is the thing, if you're curios https://www.tumblr.com/postsforposting/734273604991221760/im-fixating-on-the-tarot-suggestion-but-a-little?source=share) that suggests that Furfur's miracle blocker contains Tarot numbers. They're contained in the serial number on the miracle blocker punch card.

Here be the Tarot numbers: 13-79 78-12-11-1

I'm fixating on the Tarot suggestion, but a little miffed because a Tarot deck typically has 78, not 79 cards. You can add an extra card to personalize your deck but it's not always done. So I'm just gonna go with it. I am drunk. The self-control has been turned off. I just like occult divination, baby! Hail Satan, and all that jazz.

In the Tarot deck, the first 22 cards, called the Major Arcana, have numbers assigned to them. The rest of the deck is not numbered. So I'm just going to ignore 78 and 79, and consider them to be the Clue that points us to the Tarot rather than direction to any specific cards.

Here are the Tarot numbers again: 13-79 78-12-11-1

13- Death

79- Unknown

78- Unknown

12- Hanged Man

11- Justice

1- The Magician

A very simple way to do a Tarot reading is to draw three cards and place them in a row. From left to right the cards reflect self, situation, and obstacles. However, since the numbers appear on a Miracle Blocker from Hell, I'm going to flip the order because Hell is subversive. (Just go with me on this--flipped cards have different meanings in Tarot, so reversing order to get a more coherent reading is not all that strange.) Here's what we get.

Self: Magician and Justice (1, 11)

Situation: The Hanged Man (12)

Obstacle: Death (13)

Now let's read those cards.

Self - The Magician and Justice: Since this Tarot reading relates to two characters, it's reasonable that there are two cards identified with "Self." I think it's pretty clear that we're meant to read Aziraphale as The Magician, meaning Crowley is Justice. Holy Shit, I love this.

The Magician is viewed as being both resourceful and mercurial. At first, I found it a little difficult to view Aziraphale as mercurial, since the angel is notoriously stuck in his ways. But, Aziraphale is also a grade-A liar and manipulator who has bluffed both to the Archangel Gabriel and to God Herself. So, yah. Clever like Hermes in a very unobtrusive way, and similarly underestimated.

Justice is the *mwah* perfect card for Crowley because he simply offers choices. Now go with me here because we're going to have to transpose the symbolism of this card, but I promise it works so well! Justice (a Libra, just like the earth!) is pictured in the Rider Waite deck as a king holding out two hands. In one hand he holds a sword, in the other weighted scales. He symbolizes justice through balance. Like Crowley, he lets you chose your own karma. Whereas other demons might try to tempt you in the wrong direction, Crowley is really all about free will. He just wants to make sure you're aware of all your options. He shows you what is available in both hands and lets you take your pick.

Visually, I find these very interesting, because they both contain elements of both characters. Aziraphale is the magician, as in literally the one on stage with the fancy hat and starry cloak. But on the card, his robe is belted with a snake, which is literally Crowley, and he's wearing a surcoat in red, which is Crowley's color. Justice is wearing a red robe (Crowley), but carries a sword, which we certainly associate with Aziraphale.

Situation - The Hanged Man: The Hanged Man stands for sacrifice and surrender. He's literally hung upside down, but his face is calm and passive. He's accepted the position in which he finds himself. It's a reminder that we might find what we're looking for when we embrace equanimity and view our situation from a new perspective.

Just visually, the Rider Waite Hanged Man has elements of both our angel and our demon. He's wearing sky blue, a color we associate with Aziraphale, and vibrant red, a color we associate with Crowley. Additionally, the character has a halo, which is religious iconography for angels, and is hanging from a tree draped in vines, which represent a garden, the place where Crowley (Crawley) and Aziraphale first met (yes, angel!Crowley met Azirpahle before the beginning but that encounter is too much to unpack at the moment.)

The bullet catch trick that Crowley and Aziraphale are about to perform in this scene is all about surrender. Aziraphale surrenders his fate to Crowley, trusting that the demon is not going to discorporate him in the process of performing the magic trick. Crowley has surrendered his will in this situation (he would very much like NOT to be pointing a rifle at his best friend) in order to allow Aziraphale to act out his fantasy of being a professional magician.

Furthermore, the whole evening has been about the two of them reassessing their relationship. It's their first meeting in 80 years--they've not seen each other since the Holy Water Incident the left them both emotionally eviscerated (Crowley slept for literal decades and Aziraphale learned the gavotte. Need I say more?) They're renegotiating the parameters of their relationship as they figure out the new dynamics for the future. This evening in 1941 is, in every way, looking at their relationship from a new perspective and figuring out how to move forward.

Obstacle - Death: Even though it looks like a scary and negative card, Death is, by far, my favorite draw in the Tarot deck. Death signifies new beginnings that can only happen once the old ways have been put to rest. Death is not only a key player in the Good Omens universe, it's also the Tarot card that symbolizes transformation and rebirth. When presented as a challenge or obstacle, we typically read this as meaning the transformation is available if you're willing to take a leap of faith.

Death as the obstacle is a challenge for the Ineffable Idiots to move beyond their previous dynamics and open themselves to what could be. We see them rise to this challenge throughout the 1941 flashback: Crowley and Aziraphale mutually saving one another in the church bombing, Crowley accepting his role in the bullet catch trick, Aziraphale admitting that their relationship is more than enemies that fraternize ("That's what friends are for.") If they accept this challenge, to put aside the old ways, their relationship is ready to transform into something different. And it does! 1941 is a huge turning point for these two.

The only visual element of this card I'm going to address is the heraldic flag that Death carries: a field of black emblazoned with the inverted White Rose of York. Time for theology and history, bitches. In Catholic dogma, the White Rose of York is a symbol for the purity of the Virgin Mary. But inverting the symbol, we subvert the meaning to make the statement that innocence has been lost. I associate this very strongly with Crowley's fall. He is not that angel anymore because he has experienced more than sheltered innocence. Crowley's fall was a kind of deflowering that Heaven deems as wicked. But even given the chance, Crowley wouldn't revert to his angelic status because that's not who is is anymore. The White Rose of York also suggests the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars fought for control of the throne of England in the 15th(?) century. The white rose symbolizes the House of York, while the red rose symbolizes the House of Lancaster. (The two roses would later be symbolically joined as the Tudor Rose.) Civil war between two houses fighting for dominion sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Heaven and Hell's idea of the perfect Armageddon.

Overall, I'm not hell-bent that these numbers have to represent a Tarot reading, but if they do, this is how I would read the cards. I personally see lots of little nods to the Tarot sprinkled throughout the 1941 flashback. I'm interested to hear other people's interpretations.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #tarot #occult #divination #death is the best card in the deck

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minervas-hand · 6 months ago

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Ineffable May Day 12: Clue

Day 12 for @blairamok's Ineffable May 2024

AO3 link here

[S2 Ep 2. Aziraphale talks to Jim after flashback to end of Book of Job (Companion to Owls minisode).]

Aziraphale floated back out of the bonds of memory. "Crowley- "

But Jim's voice answered. "He... went away." Aziraphale turned. "While you were thinking."

He didn't blame Crowley. That had been a very difficult day, defying both Heaven and Hell. Hearing the Voice again. And yet it was the demon who had comforted him, after. After he had to lie to Gabriel, to God, to preserve what they had done. What Crowley had done.

The right thing.

The Gabriel of memory clashed with the corporation standing before him. Anger flowed through his form. "You know, you really used to be...awful. I mean, so awful."

He thought of Gabriel's extraordinary indifference to human suffering, to human culture, to human anything. They had been commanded to honour and love God's younger children. He didn't know if he could think of a single angel of his acquaintance who actually did.

And that snaked too closely to another angel whose love for Creation had brought him only dire calamity. Yet he was the one who hid kids in crows and children in pots.

There simply was no comparison.

Jim looked perplexed. "Am I awful now?"

He should be reassuring, but he just couldn't. He was too upset. "I don't know."

And Crowley had been so upset at the thought of harbouring Gabriel. Because of what Gabriel had done to him, when Crowley was him.

"I hope not."

And Jim smiled, he actually smiled. Like this was all just tickety-boo. "Oh. Good."

He stared, unable to shake his frown as he watched Jim wander off among the shelves. It was like he had - well, all the goodness of the original angels. Before the Fall. The quirky habits, the open enthusiasm, untempered by fear of reprisal. Asking questions...

A beloved face beaming with delight against the backdrop of stars...

He firmly shut the door on that image.

Gabriel, of course, hadn't Fallen - after a 6000 years acquaintance with an actual demon, he could tell. But all that had made him the Supreme Archangel was simply - erased. Leaving a sweet, if childishly annoying, entity in his place.

And if he had to admit it, already more a person than Gabriel had ever been.

What had happened? And did he want to find out? Did he want Gabriel back, really?

But how could he not know? What if what happened to Gabriel could happen again - to any of them?

He picked up the record Maggie had given him. A mysterious Clue.

He went out to find Crowley.

#angel you've always known which side is the right one #gah season 3 can't come soon enough #ineffable may 2024 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #good omens fanfic #good omens fic #good omens

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dream-in-fall · 4 months ago

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My theory about Maggie and Nina

The fan community has noticed that Maggie and Nina's relationship parallels that of Aziraphale and Crowley. After a while, many agreed that Maggie mirrors Crowley, and Nina mirrors Azi. I've watched the series a thousand times and made my observations.

First of all, I think Maggie and Nina are the metaphorical souls of Aziraphale and Crowley - anima. The anima is the female part of the soul or psyche, the source of feeling and mood. And a conductor between a man's consciousness and his subconscious. So, I think Maggie is Aziraphale's anima. Here are my arguments. The store where Maggie works is called the "the small back room." It belongs to Aziraphale. There is always a "closed" sign on the door of Azi's store, but someone always comes to him. Maggie's door is always "open", but only Azi comes to her. I'm sure this store is a metaphor for the part of his subconscious where his inner female part lives. She is very kind and gentle, always ready to help and understand. She looks like Crowley in some external attributes, for example, she wears bright clothes, often changes outfits (almost every episode she has a new outfit). The place behind the counter where she spends most of her time looks like an old-fashioned car, like Crowley's (only this is a cute version of it. And this car is not going anywhere. It's like pieces of objects in dreams or in paintings by Salvador Dali). And what unites Aziraphale and Crowley is their love of music. That's why Maggie works in a record store. If you look closely, you can see jewelry on Maggie's neck. It's a heart with an eye inside, a snake biting its tail with a bird inside (a nightingale?) and a ring (an engagement ring?). Maggie is a complex and deep image that unites Aziraphale and Crowley into a single female loving image.

Maggie bluntly tells Aziraphale that she loves Nina. She gives him the record (clue) to finding love. And Azi is in fact making a pilgrimage to the place where the miracle of love happened. After this trip, his behavior towards Crowley changes a little and he becomes more courageous. Unfortunately, well-known events will not allow these things to develop.

Nina. So why is Nina not the prototype of Aziraphale, despite the fact that she is in a difficult relationship. I will say that Crowley is also in a difficult relationship. With Heaven, with Hell and Aziraphale himself. Aziraphale doesn't spare Crowley's feelings.

"We're not friends!"

"I don't even like you!"

"You're a demon - you're lying!"

"Come and help me with a naked archangel, and if you don't like something, you liberty to go!"

"I want to perform on stage - shoot me in the face! You're a demon, so you've shot people a hundred times!"

"I'll take your beauty car, and you look after the archangel you hate!"

I think Crowley has heard enough of this kind of nonsense in the last 6,000 years. Yes, as viewers we don't pay attention to it, because Aziraphale is cute and handsome. And it's served up like a comedy. But something tells me that such words often hurt Crowley. When Crowley talks to Nina alone for the first time, he asks her about Maggie. Nina makes a whole nervous speech about how they're not friends. This is very similar to how Crowley would express all the accumulated offensive words said to him by Aziraphale. Later, Maggie and Nina talk in the rain. Nina says, "Of course I'm not your type." Maggie replies that Nina is wrong, Maggie likes her. Nina looks incredulous - it is clear that she is pleasantly surprised. When Shax tells Aziraphale that he's not Crowley's type, Azi has a sarcastic "Of course" look on his face. He knows for sure Crowley likes him. By the way, in Wikipedia, the name Lindsay is of Scottish origin and means swamp (in very short). In the second private conversation, Nina asks Crowley: what exactly is the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale? Just because Crowley is stunned doesn't mean he suddenly realized his love. He has known this for a long time. Songs from his repertoire pointed this out to us (such things reveal the inner world and motivations of the characters). I think Crowley is taken aback by how obvious and visible this relationship is from the outside. That you can talk about them so simply and casually. And that they can really be real. Here's my theory about Maggie and Nina. Through them, we were able to learn a lot about our heroes in one way or another.

#good omens #tv shows #good omens theories #fan theory #maggie and nina

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ofpineapplesanddawns · 2 years ago

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I’m meant to be packing because I’m moving out of my apartment in a month, but I want to write soft alien content between Androidzira and Crowlien.

This takes place a bit further into their time together on the ship after everything that happened and after Crowley returned as a hybrid human/xenomorph. At this point, Aziraphale has given up and just decided to call them Crowley (which makes them happy).

Warning: mentioned body horror (again, keeping hybrid Crowley vague cause I still don’t know how I want them to look), mentioned injuries

On with the fic!

Aziraphale frowned as he looked at the wires under the panel. “I... don’t know where the problem is in this mess.”

Some of the lights on the USS Mayfield were acting up, and Aziraphale decided to see if he could just fix them all in one go rather than individually. However, from what Crowley, gosh, that was still weird to refer to the creature as, had pointed out, this was the only location to be able to do so for this part of the ship. Too bad Crowley couldn’t talk, they’d be able to tell Aziraphale what to do. He really should just have Crowley do this instead.

Then again, the alien couldn’t exactly do the job himself anyway, considering their new, longer, clawed hands made it rather difficult for them to do delicate tasks anyway.

He looked up at Crowley, who was tilting their head, as if trying to figure out where the problem was. Aziraphale had to wonder if their mind still knew how to do this. Yes, they had originally been the chief science officer, but Crowley had, when human, spent a lot of time as a mechanic and engineer so they could learn how ships worked, just in case. And because that was the sort of thing Crowley had been interested in.

“See anything?” Aziraphale asked and watched as Crowley put a finger into the mess and gently, carefully tapped at something. It was clearly a very burnt out fuse, just as they suspected.

“Guess you were right.” Aziraphale joked, even though he had been the one to suggest it, but Crowley had insisted on it being the problem. He dug through the bag of supplies he had brought, finding the fuse that Crowley had shown him to take.

Crowley made a questioning gurgle as they watched Aziraphale remove the fuse without the use of gloves for protection. “I’m fine.” Aziraphale replied. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.”

This didn’t exactly make things better, the questioning sounds more worried. “Ah, right. You... you didn’t- you weren’t here when I found out the truth.”

Of course not, Aziraphale had been left alone at that point, with just Bentley the cat. Crowley had been gone for five days before Aziraphale had gotten hurt and found out that he himself wasn’t quite as human as he had always thought. Really, it seemed so hypocritical of himself to have doubted Crowley’s humanity after their return.

He still remembered the deep gash to his leg, where instead of blood, he had found a white liquid instead. A clear sign of the truth. It didn’t take long for Aziraphale to look into his history, finding out that he was actually an android, having been sent on this mission to investigate the damn xenomorph nest, but clearly something must have happened to make him go against the mission.

Well, aside from the fact that he had no clue he was meant to do this, who the hell hides that from an android when making them forget they were an android?

“You see,” Aziraphale said as he set aside the burnt out fuse then activated a clip-on torch to continue working in the now-dark hallway, “after... after what happened, I was wandering around, trying to fix the systems so I could call for help. But I got hurt, the ship rocked or something, and I sliced open my leg on some broken debris.”

He grabbed the new fuse and set it in, the lights blinked on over their heads, and seemed to be working just fine once more. He turned off the torch and pulled up the pant leg of his flight suit. There was a smelted line along his leg, showing the repair that Aziraphale had done for himself. Crowley got down onto their hands and knees to get a better look.

Aziraphale shivered at the cold touch of a claw, part of him was happy that in his repairs he hadn’t shut off his ability to sense touch and sensations. “I’m not human, Crowley.”

Crowley looked up at him, acid yellow eyes looking at him with what had to be surprise. “I know, I didn’t know this fact myself, not until I dug into my files, finding things hidden away. I was sent by HQ for this mission because I was... gullible enough, I guess. The only one who knew was Gabriel, which might explain why he was so weird about things before his... well... you know.”

Crowley shifted and moved to sit down, it was always so odd to see them trying to do such human-like actions, even with their gangly new form, and the tail. Aziraphale sat down in front of them and held out his hands, showing more repairs he had done to the synthetic skin. “I’ve been doing a lot of work to fix the ship since everything, to finally leave this place. It’s a lot of work, and it causes some injuries, but I guess my longevity as a non-organic being might allow for me to have this thing moving back home in a few years. I just... hope that I’m still in one piece by then.”

He tried to sound amused by this, but it was a worry. His whole world had been turned upside down again when he saw that white fluid, it was just another terror on his mind, even after everything.

He blinked, watching as Crowley took his hands in their own, there was such a stark contrast between them, and yet there was a comfort in the familiar action of holding them. He looked up at the other’s face, it was hard for Crowley to show emotions, but he could see it, there, a soft need to comfort Aziraphale. A silent ‘You’ve got me, I’ll help you’.

It was things like this that really had Aziraphale believing that this hybrid had to be his Crowley, his dear, dear flash bastard. He felt his throat tighten, and he nodded. “Thank you, dear. For, uh, for showing me where the problem was and... and for this.” He gently squeezed his fingers around Crowley’s longer ones, bringing one hand up to kiss as the back of it.

Crowley made a strange trill, and he wondered if that was a positive noise, it certainly seemed so.

I wonder how much of Crowley’s mind is still intact. Probably a lot. At least anything centered around the positives in their life (Aziraphale, Bentley, the tiny herb garden human Crowley had hidden in their quarters on the ship...)

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #anthony j crowley #ineffable husbands #john's drabbles #crowlien au

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krakensdottir · 1 year ago

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This is, I think, the biggest obstacle in their relationship from Aziraphale's end. Crowley's obviously got a massive case of denial and difficulting expressing emotions other than anger and a slew of other baggage, but one thing he does seem to be pretty good at figuring out is what Aziraphale wants. You know, rescue, attention, stain removal... and the preservation of the books without Az even mentioning it, that's a huge clue. They don't have the same priorities, but Crowley at least knows what Aziraphale's priorities are.

But Aziraphale, I think, has a pretty poor idea of what Crowley wants. Another scene that makes this obvious is the Ball. People have said that the Ball was for Crowley. Well, kind of. It was about Crowley. But it was for Aziraphale, really. He's arranging the sort of romantic affair he wants. It's not what Crowley would want. If not for the interruption, I'm sure he would have played along, and been happy to indulge, but it wouldn't have been his first choice.

This is not to say that Aziraphale doesn't know Crowley at all. He's definitely picked up on some of the things he likes. ('Rescuing me makes him so happy.' Doesn't it just!) But he has a tendency to project himself onto people, and onto Crowley especially. He struggles to see other points of view in general, I think. Obliviousness is his superpower.

Of course it certainly doesn't help that Crowley rarely if ever expresses his own needs or wants. He's got to be the cool guy, after all. Doesn't really need anything. He's fine. Of course he's not fine, but you have to tell Aziraphale things like that. Aziraphale cannot take a hint. And Crowley damn well knows that. He'd have to be very open and direct if he needed something from him, and he does not do that, ever. He channels himself into giving Aziraphale what he wants instead of addressing his own issues, because he totally has a handle on those. (Sure you do, Crowley.)

The one thing Aziraphale has figured out about what Crowley needs, though, is that he's lonely. He's dead right about that. Lonely, and purposeless, and sometimes bummed about it. The problem is, Az then projects his own needs onto finding the solution. He wants validation from Heaven. He wants to feel like he's really serving God again. He wants back in the system, he just wants the system to be better. That would be lovely, wouldn't it? Just perfect.

And so he tries to give Crowley that. Just like the Ball, he gives Crowley what HE would want. And this time, that is a fatal error. Because with the Ball, again, it was just kind of not Crowley's thing, but barring demonic invasion, he could've rolled with it. Returning to Heaven, though, is a painful offer. It actively appalls Crowley. He recoils like he's been slapped. He'd have rather been slapped. It's why that scene hurts so much to watch. Aziraphale is being incredibly sweet to him, trying so hard to make him happy... and it's the worst thing he could possibly do to him. God, it's awful. It's amazing. This conflict could not have been better engineered, because both of them are so valid here. They're just fundamentally different people who want fundamentally different things. Aziraphale misread the room, as he is wont to do, but more fatally than usual. Crowley reacts poorly, as he is wont to do, and this time no apology dance will fix it.

(And god yes to everything about Crowley not letting himself get attached and effectively perpetuating his own loneliness. So true. It's been a safety mechanism for most of his existence as a demon, but it's something he will absolutely have to push through now, because Aziraphale can't be his only lifeline. He's got to have purpose. He's got to let himself care about the things he's always struggled - and failed - to not care about. Feeding peas to ducks and escorting the guests to safety was a start. I'd love to see that continue.)

Aziraphale as a natural collectivist and Crowley as a natural individualist raise their beautiful heads once again!

Aziraphale's huge mistake during the Final Fifteen is, obviously, as we've rehashed a lot, assuming Crowley would accept being reappointed as an angel. This isn't out of a lack of love for Crowley as a demon. It's because Aziraphale's first instinct when he's anxious is to look toward validation from a collective of some sort...and the Metatron has just reminded him of what Heaven could "offer" as that collective. A way to do good! Safety! Openness! He doesn't consider how Crowley will feel about this in large part because thinking individualistically doesn't come naturally to him; he's so busy thinking about the joy of Belonging that he doesn't consider how much Crowley values being outside the system - indeed, that it's an essential part of him.

Crowley's mistake, I think, is arguing that it can be very literally "just the two of us." Of course they can be a couple! Aziraphale wants that. He's happy with Crowley as his most unique, enduring, intimate connection. But just as Crowley's individuality is essential to him, Aziraphale is always going to need some cause to serve, somewhere to belong. That's who he is. And he loves Crowley so much that he wants, with utter desperation, for the two of them to belong in the same place, with the same people.

As I've said before, Aziraphale's sense of individuality is growing. He wants to be an individual, not just a faceless, passionless drone in a group of other drones. I think ultimately the reason he loves Crowley so much is that's the gift Crowley's given him - the safety to explore that thing he wants so badly. He needs, I hope, to reframe himself as "belonging" to Earth, rather than to Heaven.

And Crowley does not actually want to be isolated, adrift in the universe with just one other person. He wants to put down roots. He wants to belong somewhere. I think if you had to choose a reason why he loves Aziraphale, that would be it: Crowley can feel belonging with Aziraphale, and Aziraphale also gives him opportunities to connect with others - with humans, specifically - in ways that would ordinarily never be permitted for an agent of Hell. However, he's afraid to make his connection to Earth's community irrevocable, and his fear has always been entirely reasonable, both because it puts his and Aziraphale's safety at risk and because it's heartbreaking to watch what humans do to themselves and each other ("Humans. You don't let yourself get too attached."). He'll have to overcome those fears not because they're so wrong, but just because they're in the way of what he wants.

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belphgr · 2 years ago

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Day 32 + 33 | 15.3.2023 +16.3.2023

WC: 702

Prompt: Inspired by that one Bob’s Burgers scene.

Yuu goes by he/they pronouns

Alice goes by she/her

Yuu turned left and right, looked up and down and still didn’t have a clue where his friends from Twisted Wonderland had gone. Not to mention the airport was incredibly crowded at this time of year, navigating through the hoards of people- saying sorry every 10 seconds for accidentally bumping into several people as he was rushing was getting tiring.

Ugh, they knew it would be a bad idea to bring a bunch of his friends to a ‘field trip’, but Crowley insisted. Thank goodness Yuki funded the trip, else he’d be living with debt over his head for the next 20 years or more. They were just about to give up and rest for a minute before they saw Alice walking towards them.

“Did you find them?” she asked, slightly out of breath from running around. Yuu’s grateful she’s here to help, it makes things a lot easier.

They sigh, “No, sorry. I told them to stay put.”

“Apparently they don’t like you enough to listen. Why are you even friends with them, they’re horrible,” she mumbled. Yuu blinked. Alice could tell she meant to say that in her head, but he couldn’t just brush it off.

“You don’t like them?” They understand, in a way. Their friends can be… difficult.

She looks shocked for a moment, before finally admitting it. Albeit angrily.

“No, I don’t! You try so hard for them every moment you’re around them, and they don’t show they appreciate it at all and they never get along and they get into fights all the time- leaving you to clean up the mess and make everyone apologise. It drives me insane! You deserve better because you’re like- the bestest friend anyone could ever ask for and they don’t value that.”

She was panting slightly by the end of it, she had clearly been holding this outburst for a while.

Yuu was honestly a bit confused. Yes, his friends could be tiring but he had never felt unappreciated. Before they were finally able to go home- the feeling of loneliness stemmed from thinking that they were never going to see their family again.

Their friends showed they cared in subtle ways. Ace acting like he didn’t want his food and giving it to Yuu so they could eat more. Jamil making their favourite food even if all the other dishes weren’t remotely the same. Azul letting them do homework and fall asleep at Monstro Lounge, giving them a discount that he claims he gives to other customers as a favour. None of them showed with words because god forbid anyone here is honest about their feelings, but they proved that they really did care.

But he also understands Alice’s frustration. She needed to be told things outright to believe it- there was no beating around the bush with her. You had to tell her straight to her face to show her you were being honest. Yuu respects it, there’s little to no miscommunication with her and it’s easy to talk seriously. So he knew he had to be straightforward.

“You don’t like my friends.”

“No, I don’t.”

“That’s fine. They can be pretty hard to love at times-”

“Love?!–”

“Let me finish, Alice.” He paused, and she ceased what she was going to say. “Yeah, they can be pretty hard to love at times, but I do anyway. And I know it doesn’t seem like they do much for me in front of a lot of people, but they show they care in their own way. In private, y’know?”

“I know that everyone shows their affection differently, but you just-” she sighs exasperatedly. “You always seem so tired around them.”

“I always look tired.”

“But it’s different than your usual tired.”

“I’ve just been pretty busy.”

“Because of them?”

“Yes, okay. They do keep me busy sometimes, but I was talking about school and moving for the most part.”

She still didn’t look very convinced, but she knew there was no fighting against it.

“...If they do ever get to the point where they become emotionally draining, I’ll leave, okay? And I promise I’ll tell you.”

“I… well, alright. I’ll hold you up to that.”

Yuu smiles. “Thanks, Alice.”

#writing #yuu #twisted wonderland #haikyuu #alice

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sonkitty · 5 months ago

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The Sideburns Scheme Post #73

(For reference: The Sideburns Scheme)

Crowley, Good Omens 2, Episode 5, The Ball, furniture

...

Sideburns Check

The sideburns are long, as expected by this point when Crowley is around Gabriel.

They are in the longest-length category, which also happens around Gabriel.

Given how things go from this point onward, my theory is that Crowley is actively drawing out his own demonic energy in this scene to start shifting the street into his supernatural zone.

The sideburns will shorten after this scene, but they will still be longer than they were during the ball invitations and let this supernatural zone take shape.

And I say, "theory," because technically I am guessing, but I am reasonably sure of this theory. A lot of factors are in play throughout Earthly Objects and the shared home loan that build into this zone existing. As a reminder, there were the 3 scenes of Crowley with his car in the street from episodes 1 and 2. They are clues about this zone.

...

Brighter Red Streak Check

The more saturated red streak of hair can be found in some cuts.

...

Hairstyle Changes

The top hair swoops more upward and tilts to the right. The earlier curls from preceding scenes are no longer where they were.

...

Earthly Objects

(For reference: Earthly Objects | The Ball Invitations Checklist)

This scene has many sets, along with a touch for The Sunglasses Trick I will talk about in more detail later.

The sets might be fully chained together, with the sunglasses touch in between, but I was not able to fully compute it myself, especially once Gabriel sat down on the bed again and had a pillow visibly behind him.

In any case, this scene is loaded with earthly object touches and dialogue points.

If my calculations are right, Gabriel earns himself a solo set first with the clicker of the lamp, the light on him from that lamp, and sitting on the bed.

Then Crowley earns himself a solo set with the wine bottle, the wine glass, and having a miracle touch on the lamp when he says, "Let there be light."

I have never been able to clearly confirm for myself if a smile counts as an earthly object touch, but this scene might be it. The timing and pacing of my own play here suggests Gabriel's smile is a point, or a point from an altered enough touch on the bed. The point is the first for their first interaction set. Crowley's "Hello, Gabriel," does feel like an ominous closing two points of this first interaction set.

More happens with names, questions, and touches.

They lead up to Crowley removing his sunglasses. I will cover that particular touch further down.

Then there are still more names, touches, and questions.

It's probably worth checking in with the ball invitations checklist, given the context of the scene within the Sideburns Scheme and after the invitations were done.

Crowley has plenty of earthly object touches, so there isn't one in particular I will be looking for. He's touching the wine glass and the wine bottle. The door frame is probably a threshold he is allowed to touch because of his earthly object touches.

He has a touch on the rug with a visible step forward when he pulls out the chair. He sits on the chair. He touches the chair when he sits further back and tells Gabriel to jump out the window. He touches the chair again when asking Gabriel what he is.

He touches yet another chair when asking Gabriel questions in trying to help Gabriel remember things.

For a self-skin-contact touch, it is very very difficult to find, in my experience anyway.

Not only that, it is actually part of the touch on The Sunglasses Trick, which is part of a Threshold Trick. Crowley crosses his index and middle fingers when removing the sunglasses.

Due to the shadows, if he's actually avoiding having them touch, then his ring finger shifted upward enough to be touched by the tip of the index finger.

For a self-clothing touch, Crowley is touching his left hand on his left leg before crossing his legs.

For a self-mouth touch, Crowley clicks his tongue after he says, "No, Jim. Oh," and before he says, "Well, Mr. Fell doesn't remember it either."

For pockets, there are plenty, but if there is one that stands out more than the others, it's one with Crowley having his left arm akimbo. Through that, he makes a pocket with his left arm, left hand, and jacket torso while touching the chair and asking Gabriel, "Well, if you're really not him, what are you?"

Crowley makes yet another pocket with his right arm later in the scene when he's lowering himself and touching the other chair.

There are two crosses. One cross is the one Crowley does for his sunglasses touch. Another cross happens where Crowley is shown to actively cross his legs while sitting. It happens when he tells Gabriel to jump out the window.

Crowley's shadow can be found most easily when he pulls out the first chair.

Crowley's reflection can be found when he stands up from the first chair. There is a nearby mirror on the wall. It doesn't look like he checks his sideburn length, but it's certainly feasible if he just makes sure his eyes glance that way.

For reflections in Crowley's sunglasses, the curtains on the windows are the main reflection to be found after Crowley enters the room and before he sits down.

The scene starts with Gabriel earning a solo set by not talking.

Crowley's starting solo set does include talking with, "Let there be light."

Otherwise, much of the scene is them talking to each other.

They look at each other with Crowley even going so far as to remove his sunglasses. Aziraphale isn't with them to see the touch either.

There is something going on with sides views and these two as well.

Instead of going by Crowley being on Aziraphale's left, things seem to be based on who is on which side of the camera's view.

In the earlier part of the scene, Gabriel is the one on the camera's right. Crowley is the one the camera's left.

Once Gabriel returns to sitting on the bed, they have switched. Crowley ends up on the camera's right, and Gabriel ends up on the camera's left.

In looking to see if Gabriel ever has an illusionary touch over Crowley, there does look to be his right hand over Crowley's right thigh when Gabriel stands up from the bed.

I assume Crowley is doing things beyond what I'll be able to fully grasp, but he visibly crossed two thresholds to enter this room. He touched the inside part of a door frame. He eventually positions himself lower than Gabriel when encouraging Gabriel to try and remember anyway while Crowley is touching a chair. Crowley crosses past a threshold as he is about to leave, ensures a touch with his left thumb joint on his jacket, and then he re-enters the room to offer hot chocolate.

By having Gabriel ready himself to jump out the window, that ensures humans are shown on screen sometime during this scene. The outside does not look like a supernatural zone is forming yet due to the number of humans visible. While the fog isn't setting in yet either, that fog might be from the demons who will be arriving soon. Crowley's car is never on camera.

...

Now it's time to talk about the touch on The Sunglasses Trick.

Here is a GIF:

This touch is the third of the three Singles that become a Triple.

For the Overhead Lights, it looks like the Belt Head gets one early when Crowley is between door thresholds, and this Overhead Light is actually to Crowley's right. Since his fingers are crossed during the touch, I suspect that's why he has one of these lights to his right. Then for the actual head, the Overhead Light is the lion lamp where ensured that it would be on with his own power from the miracle touch with, "Let there be light." The lamp light is above Crowley's left ear and to his left once he sits down.

Catching that Crowley crosses his middle finger under his index finger is really difficult. I only noticed it because way back when trying to see if I could figure out pockets with the Threshold Tricks, I found that they did so. Because of this crossing, the middle finger is the finger that has the actual touch to the sunglasses end piece with the thumb.

This move with this cross here suggests that the crosses with the touches are supposed to have more power to them.

There were three crosses for the miracle to hide Gabriel. One cross was Nina and Maggie crossing paths with their signs before Crowley recalled the lightning back to him. Another cross was Crowley crossing his actual hands when he said, "humanity" before the miracle. The third cross was after the miracle with the Tied Hands when Crowley stood up on the chair. The scene following the one with the miracle showed the alarms went off in Heaven.

Crowley isn't aiming to set alarms off this time, but he is aiming to do something quite substantial with his power because this scene is initiating the supernatural shift. The other two hisses were with Crowley's right hand. This one is with Crowley's left hand. A lot of things in this story hint to Crowley's left being important and the stronger side of his own power, such as the Overhead Lights he receives. He used his left hand for a sunglasses touch before the miracle to hide Gabriel.

Another surprising find in this touch is that Crowley's left thumb tip is hidden by the index finger in the movement.

So, this touch here has a hiss, a cross, the left hand in use, and a hidden thumb tip where sunglasses are still switched to Door Mode, when Crowley's drawing out his demonic energy to manage his supernatural zone.

Interestingly, the lighting favors Crowley's right for this touch. That helps emphasize his long right sideburn and snake tattoo.

The left hand does create two pockets with itself in the touch. Another pocket exists between Crowley's face, shoulder, left hand, and side of the sunglasses.

While Crowley's actual left thumb tip is hidden, the tassel tips (thumb tips) of his Tied Hands do appear in a pocket Crowley makes with his body and the bottom of the screen when he sits down. It's in a cut with Crowley's back to the camera. He just finished saying, "oh very clearly," and is saying, "the look on your face" in the dialogue.

The sunglasses are what make each touch different. The sunglasses used here are the second set of present day sunglasses Crowley uses.

The demonic hiss Crowley makes is what they all have in common.

Each of these touches also has Crowley holding an earthly object during the touch. This time, he is holding a glass of wine in his right hand.

As an audience player who knows what to look for, I'm saying here and now, in this scene, it is time to merge these three Singles so that they can be switched to become the Triple of The Sunglasses Trick.

As for what I am looking for, it is a primary Single, a primary Double, and a primary Triple. This particular Trick has a special trait of being layered, and this switch is part of what makes that layering happen.

...

The Tied Hands are shown to have a shadow cast over Crowley's left leg before he tells Gabriel to jump out the window.

The tassels swing in a subtle way when Crowley is standing over Gabriel, after Gabriel sits down on the bed again.

There are certain points when a tie tassel, which is a thumb for the Tied Hands, brushes against the snake belt, which is the Belt Head.

When Crowley moves to stand up after touching the second chair, the Tied Hands retie. There is a tie clasp striking a lapel edge. The watch's face is visible. Crowley's left thumb CMC joint visibly brushes up against the back of his jacket as he starts to exit through the door frame. He turns around and has an extended finger to "make a point."

...

Story Commentary

Crowley basically goes into Demon Mode for this scene, and I suspect he does so on purpose for the shift of the street into his supernatural zone.

The music has a hint of foreboding when Crowley arrives. The subtitles include "drunkenly" when he first talks. There's an underlying menace in his entire demeanor from the start. He forces a light on with, "Let there be light." I already covered the numerous things happening with his touch on the sunglasses in the Earthly Objects section.

The story provides a notable view of Crowley's long right sideburn when he is seated, before, during, and shortly after that hiss. His eyes are fierce, and his voice grows increasingly fierce too.

The simple words "Did Not Care For it" are capitalized in the subtitles. They sound like a threat even though he's not threatening to do anything. He calmly tells Gabriel to jump out the window.

It all seems to settle down once he realizes Gabriel's obeying him without question.

Speaking of, Gabriel obeying him without question hints to the possible rank meaning the sideburns have when it comes to Crowley being with other angels.

As things tend to go in other fictional works, it's worth checking for any eye contact involved with the command. In other fictional works, powerful supernatural or magical beings can sometimes compel other characters through eye contact and verbal commands.

Crowley's looking away from Gabriel at the beginning of the command. Near the end of the command, Crowley is almost making eye contact again, but Gabriel himself is already starting to look to his left and follow Crowley's gaze. Their eyes probably do meet and make contact in that process.

That could be a layered realization Crowley is having when he watches Gabriel getting ready to jump. I think this layered realization is only a vague possibility.

...

In this scene, Crowley refers to the appearance swap he had in season 1 with Aziraphale. Season 2 actually already had appearance swaps involving Gabriel in episode 1. Gabriel himself was a fake Crowley leaving the private room. Then Aziraphale being the fake Crowley walking past a cardboard box hinted Gabriel was originally there with a different scene involving the cardboard box that has been removed from the story.

Gabriel, at some point, already knew about the appearance swap and has since forgotten it due to his current amnesia.

If the Metatron is reading the story in the book that is Earthly Objects or the book that is the Book of Life, and something like that probably is happening, this piece of information is going to attract his attention.

Crowley, by all appearances, is making a significant mistake by letting this information slip.

That is going to have consequences.

The thing to keep in mind is that this story lies and has certainly shown that Crowley uses deception as a strategy.

Crowley is implied to be drunk on his entrance, but he is sober enough to look at Gabriel about to jump out a window and stop him. There's also the great care Crowley put in that touch on the sunglasses with the crossed fingers.

Crossed fingers themselves are known to mean a person is lying in many contexts, by the way.

Plus, Crowley is making deliberate moves to get that supernatural zone in place.

The main way to find that it's intentional from him and not from the Metatron is all the touches he's been doing through the ball invitations, his own invitation, and this scene.

Did he let it slip on purpose? I wouldn't think so, but the actions he is taking are going to lead to getting the Metatron into the book that is the story, eventually. In the Final Fifteen, Crowley and Aziraphale will take advantage of the mistakes the Metatron makes for the Earthly Objects game.

Also, if the Metatron does have something against alcohol and if Crowley has an awareness of that factor, he is smiling just before he takes a drink that the camera cuts away from. That happens shortly before Crowley brings up the appearance swap from season 1.

Technically, he didn't say there was an appearance swap either. He only vaguely mentions he was "there" when Aziraphale and Gabriel last met.

...

When Gabriel compares himself to a house, Crowley is skeptical at first but seems to find the idea relatable when Gabriel says. "...and the house can sort of tell where the things used to be."

That part Crowley understands, so it hints to his own potential memory issues in the past. He acknowledges a similar feeling when saying he knows it hurts to remember but encourages Gabriel to do it anyway.

Instead of showing pain like the first time Crowley hissed at him, Gabriel has a realization that his memory isn't with him.

Crowley automatically thinks to ask where it is, and Gabriel is surprised to find he has an answer.

Crowley looks confused by the answers, but he keeps questioning. Gabriel answers what he can and mentions the matchbox we will see in the upcoming Muriel scene.

The part about the institutional problem sounds like a legitimate memory of Gabriel's despite so much of Gabriel being in the fly. The fly itself has not been shown to be around since Crowley remarked, "Well observed," in episode 3.

While Crowley has tapped into Gabriel's memory twice already while having long sideburns, this instance does not have Gabriel with purple eyes or another voice mixed with his own.

Crowley's remark about "Looking at where the furniture isn't" is a clue about how to approach this deceptive story.

Broadly, I initially took it to be about earthly objects. As in, the earthly objects are the furniture of Earth so look at them and where they are lacking.

After studying the story further, I then took it to mean it was more about looking at earthly objects when things were and were not touched.

More specifically after months of play, to me, this remark is a clue about Aziraphale's invisible chair in the coffee shop in episode 1. That leads to showing how much Aziraphale's back avoids the backs of chairs or a seat may lack a back altogether with him.

...

Crowley offers to make Gabriel hot chocolate. Of note in this offer is that nothing in the draft of the story we have been given has shown that Crowley knows Gabriel likes hot chocolate before this point. The first hot chocolate scene involved Aziraphale giving it to Gabriel, and we never saw Aziraphale tell Crowley about this interaction. The second hot chocolate scene was Gabriel alone in his room. Crowley had not arrived at the bookshop yet. In the scenes showing both Crowley and Gabriel during episode 3, the subject of hot chocolate was not in them.

So, somewhere along the way from something we have not seen, Crowley learned Gabriel likes hot chocolate.

...

If this scene has an intended scene to match it, or mirror it, then I think it's the scene for hiding Gabriel with the miracle because of the left hand with the sunglasses touch and the crosses involved.

...

It's not lost me on me that a cross is a very common symbol for Jesus Christ and his death through crucifixion on a cross.

...

While Crowley certainly acts like he means it about Aziraphale being his only friend, I think Crowley's friends with Muriel. I don't know the exact mechanics at work on that, but his bookend scenes with Muriel and their expert pocket use together suggests to me that they are friends. If they aren't friends, then I still think they have a deep trust in each other.

...

Muriel

(For reference: Bookend Buddies - Crowley and Muriel (Part 2))

Much of the below is based on information in the first of the two links above.

The scene I've been covering in this post is a front bookend of the last Matchbox Muriel scene. It also includes mention of an actual matchbox.

Finally, we are back to our ominous borderline evil matchbox itself with Matchbox Muriel Scene #3. Rule of Three! This scene further manages to act as a back bookend to the last touch of the Singles that became a Triple of The Sunglasses Trick. In this matchbox scene, the subtitles say "intense music" and it is intense. The matchbox is given immediate focus to introduce the scene.

The intensity settles. Muriel is giving their report to Michael and Uriel with no Saraqael around.

In this report, Muriel says Crowley's name, including calling him, "Mr. Crowley," and describes Crowley as Aziraphale's "grumpy friend." Well, Crowley was grumpy when Muriel first saw him yes, but most of the time we saw them together, he was not grumpy. In fact, he was rather friendly. Muriel is also shown to be unaware that Crowley is a demon. When they say Aziraphale's "Mr. Fell" name, Uriel gives Muriel a look that makes Muriel definitely not say Crowley's name—not even partially.

Michael is not interested in this business of being bothered about Crowley's name usage.

Aside from Aziraphale, Shax, and any character involved in the 1941 minisode, the story itself seems to have some rather strict rules on who can say Crowley's name and when. If I remember right, Muriel never says Crowley's name again.

We, the audience, were never shown anyone giving Muriel Crowley's name before that point either. In addition to that, mysterious music plays while the angels stop in confusion as they grasp at the assistant they can't quite remember. The matchbox is not easily seen during all of this time, but we know we saw it first with the intense music.

We never saw Muriel see or speak to an assistant, Gabriel going by Jim, in the scenes given. Muriel's memory and the story's memory do not match with what we have been told is happening. And some possibly evil matchbox is making that happen...maybe. That thing gives off "trying to get back to its master" evil ring vibes towards Crowley. It's creepy.

Or maybe since this story encourages word play with its silly game, the matchbox "has the hots" for Crowley.

Well, as noted in a previous post, I honestly think the matchbox is the Book of Life in disguise, whether it is especially interested in or threatening to Crowley, or not.

The back bookend to this Muriel scene is Crowley actually giving Gabriel hot chocolate.

We will be seeing plenty of Muriel for this later part of the story, starting later on in this episode when the supernatural zone is active.

...

That's it for this post. Sometimes I edit my posts, FYI.

...

Main post:

The Sideburns Scheme

#crowley #david tennant #good omens 2 #good omens #good omens s2 #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #good omens analysis #good omens crowley #crowley good omens #good omens clues #good omens theory #good omens theories #good omens speculation #good omens gabriel #crowley sideburns #good omens 2 the sunglasses trick #good omens 2 muriel

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sonkitty · 7 months ago

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I can't explain all the rainbows, but I have plenty to say on that first one in the post—eventually. I'm in a series about Crowley's hair but comment on the story, and that one is so important. I haven't reached that one yet and am really looking forward to when I do.

For now, I'll say that it's one of the findable rainbows in The Pocket Trick. Each touch has one to find, but this one is the "official" rainbow for that Threshold Trick.

It is so important, that I named the Pocket Frame Touch Point of the touch where it appears as my guess for what is The Clue in the episode that's not the record.

Very specifically, this exact video frame here:

Anyone curious can find out about what I a have to say on the touch in general here:

The Pocket Trick - Triple Part 2

...

I excused The Perfect Entrance Trick for not having an official rainbow since the Rainbow Connection in The Pocket Trick hadn't started yet when it was done.

The official rainbow for The Bigger Thresholds Trick can be found when the light goes up as Crowley changes appearance:

The Sunglasses Trick doesn't get a rainbow. Instead, it gets a reflection of white light on its last touch.

The official rainbow for The Door Trick is in the first front-facing shot of Crowley.

There's something very strange and probably amazing happening with rainbows in The Window Trick, resulting in its official rainbow.

The findable rainbows of The Pocket Trick are unusually easy compared to so much else going on. Their ease is a clue about a much more difficult Rainbow Connection mechanic.

I wrote about it in this series of posts:

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection (1, 2, 3, 4)

Before I was obsessed with David Tennant as Crowley, I was obsessed with Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. So, in my desperate attempt to solve something in The Pocket Trick because it was so ridiculously hard, I decided to try and figure out the Rainbow Connection. I had no idea what I was in for, even already knowing how difficult The Pocket Trick was up to that point.

It gets really intense trying to solve the puzzle because you have to realize that what's happening is the connection was probably set to go up instead of down through a skip to Purple and back to hit Yellow twice and "The Metatron makes mistakes". The Metatron inadvertently sets things back on track with deflection, redirection, and disconnection. If you don't already know, part of what makes The Pocket Trick so hard is the requirement to use your imagination with assorted word play.

So, that ends up with the game actually having some hidden messages. My favorite is "The tie strands are connected to the hands because they are Crowley's Tied Hands." I suspect Neil Gaiman's favorite is "Here goes nothing." ("Nothing lasts forever." "Here goes nothing.")

The result is so sweet. They keep and maintain their Rainbow Connection at Green thanks to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The Green is from the plants in Crowley's car and the shadows of the green leaves on Aziraphale's coat. The Green represents Earth and their shared love for Earth. It's how Earth is still with them in the closing credits and represents their connection.

Rainbows for Crowley and Our Car, S2E2.

Similar to Rainbows for Aziraphale and Visiting Archangels, the larger rainbow in the foreground begins with Violet instead of Red. It is a lower camera angle this time, also further away, so the double rainbow in the background against the bookshop front wall near the left pillar is barely there. The rainbow in the foreground really pops once in-front of the Bentley.

Seeing them everywhere now, I whisper-gasp-squeak, "rainbow lens flare!", having in the last week, spotted them in American Gods and Fallout. But they are the "usual" Red through Violet rainbows (maybe a hint of Magenta before Red in the Fallout screenshot. Also amazed to learn that the colours for some rainbows appear in reverse order - I always thought Red to be the largest ring on the outside!).

But the two foreground rainbows showing up for Aziraphale and Crowley on Whickber St in episode two are unique, starting with Violet for the outermost band of colour, instead of appearing after Blue on the inside - almost 100% certain of that, especially when comparing to St Jame's Park in episode one (reused shot from Season One, but the rainbow flares were added for Season Two).

Crowley's rainbow in episode three however, seems to be the usual red-through-violet, I'm not entirely sure. What do you think?

It was his rainstorm & rainbow after all. Crowley's choice perhaps?

Whereas God would be the creator of the two rainbows on Whickber St in episode two. Could it be an extra special apology following the unseen event(s) of episode one?

Might it count as one of the things Crowley is referring to when he says, "well, lots of things are wrong right now" and something being "wrong" could include anything out of the ordinary, e.g. the colours of the Rainbow being slightly out of order.

Tiny 'regular' rainbows are visible on Uriel and Saraqael in Heaven, episode six:

And finally, just look at the rainbow arc (colours reversed) and then a very faint full-circle rainbow (also reversed) appearing to the left of Aziraphale's Halo:

I'm not entirely certain for these last two pictures either, but IF these rainbows also begin with Violet (from the smallest/inside ring out), then FOR NOW I want to conclude that they are exclusively for Crowley and Aziraphale.

(to clarify, that's at least the two rainbows - The first, when Aziraphale returns from the record shop to greet the Archangels; second, Crowley approaching Aziraphale and Bentley outside market stalls - in the foreground appearing on Whickber St for episode two, but I want to believe that it also includes the rainbows made by Aziraphale's Halo in episode six.)

Re-bloggers with image enhancing skills, please come to the rescue. <3

#good omens analysis #rainbows #good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #good omens season 2 #good omens theories #good omens theory #good omens meta #good omens 2 threshold tricks

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tickledpink31 · 3 years ago

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Epics of Ink & Light Chapter 3: Lost Girl

Summary: In which the way home is farther than Minako thought.

My Instagram Read on Ao3 Read on Wattpad

A quick reference for Minako's outfit under her ceremonial robes.

Prepare for a very long chapter and a lot of POV switching.

When you see an asterisk (*), there will information about a topic that appears within the story and will be explained in the author's notes at the end of the chapter.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Minako ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Ignorance was torture and never bliss to Minako. There was another wave of pain in her body that knocked her down to her knees. She was sick with apprehension. Literally. Up until now, she’s been trying to crush down her negativity, but it all came pouring out. She cried out her frustrations even though she knew she’s not allowed to for the sake of her health.

Crowley pulled her up from the floor after she collapsed. He jumped back once he got a good look at her horrid state.

“Ms. Nezumi… your face.” Crowley’s voice was low, opposite to the dramatics he displayed during the ceremony.

“I-I know. That’s why I have to get back home.” Minako sniffled. She was used to this kind of reaction whenever people see the black, vein-like markings take shape. The curse marks quickly spreading to her pale cheeks and burning her skin.

“But the Mirror said that it does not exist. Where exactly do you live?” Crowley politely offered her a hanky for her tears.

“I… I live in a city called London, it's in England. B-but I remember being at my school last… It’s in Scotland," said Minako, dabbing away the tears and ruined mascara from her face.

“I know where all of my students came from, but I know not of the places you speak of,” Crowley admitted. "However, we do have a vast amount of knowledge in our library. We may be able to find information about your home there."

He led her out of the chamber and into the dim corridors of the school, giving her a little time to compose herself. The library was not too far. Inside, it was filled with towering shelves, but what was most odd to her was that some of the books weren’t even on the shelves. A couple of books were suspended in the air. Back at Hogwarts, floating books usually meant that someone, most likely Kento, was pulling a prank.

Minako took care to dodge the floating books that drifted by her head. Crowley motioned over a set of books and maps from the shelves with a wave of his key-shaped staff that set themselves down on a table. One book remained hovering and flipped itself open for reading.

“Have a seat,” said Crowley.

Crowley kept questioning her every few seconds, hanging on the tiniest clues they could find on England or Scotland. They’ve been at this for who knows how long. The shelves were nearly stripped bare and not a single speck of ink spelled out her home in the maps or even in history. She’s leafed through every atlas. All of them were filled with names she didn’t recognize and shapes of land not found on Earth. At the very least, she knew where this school was located: the Sage’s Island apparently.

“Utterly useless.” Crowley tossed the final book onto the table in frustration. “Not a single word of your country is written in our texts. At this point, I'm convinced that you're truly not where you say you're from.” Crowley's voice gradually lowered and he looked dead in the eyes.

Minako was tempted to use some biting sarcasm on this man, but she needed help from him. You'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar. “Forgive me, but I don't see the benefit of lying about my home.” She clenched and unclenched her fists under the table.

Crowley stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There is a possibility that you might have come from another world. A different reality.”

Minako's stomach churned. “Considering what I've been studying, it's a valid theory.” Hogwarts had a small curriculum that taught them timelines and different worlds. The destruction of all Time-Turners, however, made it difficult to expand those studies.

“You're oddly calm about this, Ms. Nezumi.”

“Trust me, I'm not. This is just my face.”

“Do you have any identification on you? It looks as though you're empty handed.”

“Unfortunately, I only have the clothes on my back and my wand. My wallet and phone are elsewhere.” Damn the Ministry of Magic for not letting her use extension charms on her space buns.

Crowley lightly pressed two clawed fingers on his temple to massage it. “Tonight is just one disaster after another. I can't just let you, someone with no knowledge of our world, stay here. But I cannot just leave a helpless child to fend for herself in the streets either. I am gracious after all!”

Helpless child?

“I can work here to earn my keep. Do you have any quarters for the staff?” she begged. She would take the tiniest room if she had to.

Crowley’s face brightened. “That's right! We have an unused building on the campus. A dorm of your own that can be livable once you clean it up.” Crowley smiled brightly at the idea. “As long as you're here, you can work while I look for a way to get you home. My graciousness knows no bounds! Truly I'm an example for all educators.”

Minako perked up, ignoring that last arrogant remark. A house to herself was even better. “Thank you.”

“Oh and one more thing,” said Crowley. “Would you care to explain those black markings on your skin?”

Minako hesitated. Their interactions with each so far only warranted a scarce amount of trust. A blood curse wasn’t just something people would say about themselves casually with the kind of stigma it carries. However, her potion wasn’t with her right now, and only God knows how long she’ll stick around here. He has to know about her curse.

“How do I put this…” Minako pondered for a second on how to break the news. “I have this blood curse that makes me sick when I’m deeply upset. I need a magical source of light as a treatment, but a potion is more effective. At the moment, I don't have it with me, but I know the recipe by heart to make it myself.” She omitted the fact that it made her powers erratic, afraid of and unwilling to be forced to fend for herself on the streets. It didn’t matter how gracious the Headmaster claimed himself to be.

Crowley was silent for a good minute before speaking again. “This is… concerning to hear.”

Minako quietly sucked in a breath. She was prepared for him to revoke her right to stay.

He didn’t. “If that is true, then I’ll have Professor Crewel see to it then. Now, let’s head to the dormitory.”

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

The old dorm was a short walk away from the school castle. Crowley had Minako cling on to the crook of his arm as they went down the trail. The gloomy clouds blocking the light of the moon had Minako hastily reaching for her wand and casting lumos so that the tip of her wand could act as a torch. In the darkness, the curse was at its strongest should her mood turn sour at some point.

“There's no need for a light. The path is still clear even in the dark,” Crowley reassured her.

“I happen to hate the dark,” she said. Minako shivered when a breeze blew by. “It’s awfully cold for this time of the year..”

"It is September, Autumn is nigh."

“What?” It can't be. “Yesterday it was June! Are you telling me that I missed a whole summer?”

The Headmaster gave her a double take. “The things you are telling are getting more and more troubling. Could it be that time moves differently in your world? Or maybe it's amnesia while coming all the way here.”

“Neither of those sound comforting, sir.”

“Now, now. Stress does not do good for your health.” He got her to stop by an iron fence. “We're here, you can rest easy.”

Uphill, there was a dormitory as promised—dilapidated and marked with gravestones on the expanse of land. Looking at it took her back in time to her first trip to Hogsmeade where she accidentally stumbled upon the Shrieking Shack, a place that not even the Hogwarts Ghosts would dare enter. Unlike the Shrieking Shack, this place had a way in. She could only hope that her adequate skills in Charms would be enough to fix this ramshackle of a building for her to “rest easy” more or less.

“How charming.” Minako knew that she was in no position to complain. Grimmauld Place had the same unwelcomeness as this dorm that can be seen and felt; she can vouch for that having lived there for four years.

“Isn't it? Why don't we take a look?” The rusty iron gate made a grating squeak when Crowley pushed it open, the hinges looking ready to give up and collapse as much as the building was.

The closer they got, the creaks and settling became louder. Minako swore she heard laughter echoing throughout the area making her hesitant to follow Crowley up the steps.

She found the Headmaster fumbling through rotting potted plants until he found a key. He unlocked the door (that was somehow still intact) and cheerfully welcomed her inside the sitting room. Dust fell from the ceiling like snow, broken furniture was scattered all about, and cobwebs decorated every corner of the room. This was going to take more magic than Minako thought.

“Well… I have a charm or two for this,” she said in an attempt to comfort herself.

“Splendid! Don't use too much magic, we wouldn't want you to overblot,” said Crowley. “Don't go wandering around the campus either. I'm heading back to the library to do more research.”

“Got it.” Minako wasn't sure what he meant by overblot and at this point, she was too afraid to ask.

“Ta-ta!” The door shut behind Crowley and the house shook with a creak.

At that, Minako was nimble on her feet to repair the house before the roof collapsed on her. First things first was tossing balls of light from the tip of her wand into the chandelier. Somehow, it made the place look less dreadful apart from rotting walls.

Next was checking every nook and cranny for infestations then casting scourgify to cast out the roaches. She found some cleaning supplies tucked away in a closet then used the same spell to put the brushes and mops to work.

The mending charm was somewhat harder. While Kento and Alexis would have fixed the whole place in seconds, Minako had to walk from room to room saying "Reparo!" twice or even five times for the spell to work. Sometimes, a couple of items were missing a few pieces, so they couldn’t be repaired to their full extent.

When she was done, her clothes were beginning to feel annoyingly warm. She threw her hooded cloak on the sofa and started to unbutton the top of her under robe. She found her favourite white blouse and waistcoat underneath so she tossed her under robe away too, feeling cooler. The ceremonial pants and boots were kept on, but at least she can walk around tomorrow in casual clothes.

Lights on? Check. Pests gone? Check. Running water? Check. A bed to sleep in? Check.

As she passed by the mirror in the master bedroom, Minako thought she saw a pair of glowing dots in the glass. A trick of the light or a ghost, perhaps? There was no one behind her though. She had to backtrack to look at the mirror just to see if she was hallucinating.

Peering at her reflection once more, she met a glowing pair of dots again.

What in the world? She blinked once then twice.

Her eyes weren’t brown anymore. They were turquoise!

Deep breaths. Don’t let the curse consume you. Don’t panic too much.

“It’s okay, Minako. This isn’t the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you,” she told herself calmly, although a part of her wanted to freak at the change. “Look on the bright side: it’s a nice colour.” It’s not like it was uncommon around here. Despite being half-hidden by their hoods, she was still able to catch glimpses of the uniquely-coloured hair and eyes of the students. She just hoped that this wasn’t a bad sign.

The first crash of thunder pulled her out of her thoughts. Good thing she closed up all of the holes in the roof.

There was a sudden slam of a door downstairs “Eek! My ears are going out!”

Ah, she had a feeling that he would be back.

Minako raced down the stairs and unsurprisingly found Grim in the sitting room. He was now collarless, soaked, and the bluebell flames of his ears were low. He had zipped inside the house uninvitedly then proceeded to clumsily land by Minako's feet.

“Hello again,” was all she could say as she helped him up. Waving her wand repetitively, a jet of warm air blew from the tip to dry him off, taking care to not blow out his ears.

Grim didn't take too kindly to that, however. “I don't need your help!” he hissed at her. “How'd you get a dorm all to yourself? That's not fair!”

“This is a temporary dorm. I'm only here to work until I find a way back home.”

“Work? Are you serious?” Grim snickered. “That's hilarious! You're a magician but you're not even a student!” He began to cackle like a madman.

“I don’t want to hear that from someone who isn’t even allowed on the school grounds.”

That shut him up.

“What am I going to do with you?” Minako pondered. “It's against my code to harm magical creatures… well, unless it's an act of self-defence and you did try to burn me to a crisp. You might try it again then I’ll have to boot you out of my dorm.”

“You can't just throw me out!”

“Sure I can. I have banishing charms.”

Grim was none too pleased with that. She heard him growl as he stood on his hind paws scraping the wooden floor when his toes curled in.

Tears pricked his eyes. “I was meant to be here, you know! That Mirror doesn't know talent when it sees it.” he huffed and crossed his arms over his pudgy torso.

Minako had never felt so conflicted over her feelings towards a creature. She was always known as an animal lover. It was never like this with other magical creatures, probably because they couldn't talk, therefore they couldn't be smart-mouthed with her.

“By the way, why do you want to get into this school?” Minako asked him.

“Why? Because I'm a genius magician destined for greatness!” Grim was suddenly in a better mood with his chest puffed out.

Minako was familiar with that feeling of wanting to be a part of a magical school. For so long she was jealous that her sister, Flor, was the first to go to Hogwarts. Whenever her sister came back home, Minako would nag her endlessly to get her to tell her about school and made attempts to take her sister's wand to cast some spells of her own (Flor always caught her in the act). Later on, she would commit the same offences to Kento and Alexis once they started school. In short, she acted like an envious brat. Did her siblings ever feel this exhausted with her then as she does with Grim now?

Her wish came true eventually on her eleventh birthday. Grim, though, never got what he wanted. The little beast was an obnoxious tosser, a wretch like she once was, but he had the ambition to keep trying to get into the school no matter what. As a Slytherin, Minako admired that.

“I see.”

Mid-conversation, the lights went out. Minako was prepared to cast lumos again, but then the chandelier dropped down from the ceiling. Grim yelped and jumped high enough to cling on to her shirt.

A laugh echoed throughout the house. “Aww, I missed.”

“It's been so long since we've had a guest over,” said a second voice full of mirth.

Then a third voice. “Want to join us in the afterlife? There's no suffering when you're a ghost!”

“No thank you! No thank you!” Grim dug his claws further into Minako's shoulders and shut his eyes tight.

“Ouch! Don't scratch me!”

Before their eyes three ghosts in top hats and capes emerged from the darkness, circling around them like vultures with glee. There was a small and stout ghost, a larger chubby ghost, and the last was a skeletally thin ghost.

Minako snorted. These were the school ghosts? The ghosts she was used to seeing were hyperrealistic and riddled with scars of their deaths (a severed head being one good example). And these ghosts…

“You look like marshmallows! How adorable!” she cooed. “I'm so sorry that we invaded your home. We need a place to stay, please.” She fluttered her eyes in order to appear convincingly innocent.

The ghosts slowed down from their circling, their mischievous expressions disappearing. They stopped in their tracks to give each other quick glances, looking unsure about how to react.

Finally, the thin one spoke up. “Uh, welcome to our humble abode, miss…”

“I'm Minako. This little guy is Grim.” She pried a quivering Grim off of her chest.

“Don't tell them my name!”

“Grim, be nice.”

The chubbiest of the trio came up to her with a friendly smile. “The name's Phineas.”*

“Ezra.”* The thin one tipped his hat.

“Gus,”* said the short ghost.

Hook, line, and sinker.

“Huh, I thought this was going to be fun. She didn't even flinch when she saw us,” Ezra whispered to his partners as they huddled into a corner.

“She even fixed the house in such a short time. I hope she doesn't overblot,” said Phineas.

Grim was still weeping and shaking.

Minako patted his back, cradling him like a baby. "There, there. The scary ghosts won't hurt you, sweetheart." Grim was so adorable without his inflated ego. He was so soft and warm too.

“I wasn't scared!” Grim sniffed. “Are we really going to stay with them?”

“Yes. It was their house first and besides, we can handle them. I've made friends with lots of ghosts at my old school." Particularly, the teenage ghosts like a good portion of the Fallen Fifty and Myrtle Warren. The best part of having ghost friends was that none of them would get hurt if her blood curse decides to act up.

She set Grim down and bemoaned at how the chandelier managed to break through the floor as well. “Reparo. Reparo, damn it.” Waving her wand a few more times, the chandelier and debris finally elevated itself to the ceiling then mended itself back together along with the floor.

“You can do all that?” Grim gave her a look of disbelief.

“I see that the Mirror of Darkness was right about you, Ms. Nezumi. You've managed to repair the house all by yourself.”

Minako jumped out of her skin upon realizing that Crowley had entered the dorm. How long has he been standing there?

“When did you get in?” she asked.

“Just now. I forgot to tell you about the poltergeists that reside here, but I see you've handled that problem. If only you were an actual student,” Crowley said. “Oh, Ms. Nezumi, what happened to your eyes?”

“So I wasn’t hallucinating, they really did change colour. Do you have an explanation for this?”

“I was hoping that you might be able to explain that to me. Could it be some kind of symptom from your curse?” Crowley leaned down to her height to get a closer look at her.

Minako gulped. “I hope not. My eyes have never done that before.” But then again, her curse did act up not too long ago.

He handed her two glass tupperwares, one containing soup and the other scrambled eggs. “Calm down, we don’t know that for sure. Here, I brought you some supper and some breakfast for tomorrow."

“Um, there isn't any meat in that food, is there?” asked Minako.

“Not a meat eater? Not to worry, the ghosts make their vichyssoise purely vegetarian,” said Crowley.

“No meat? That's boring. Got a can of tuna instead?” Grim butted in.

“You!” Crowley pointed an accusing finger at him. “What are you doing back here?”

Grim yelped and cowered behind Minako's legs. Before Crowley could make a move to grab him, she stopped him.

“Hold on a minute. He helped me with the ghosts,” she said.

“I did?”

“He did?” Phineas uttered out dumbly then Ezra nudged his arm. “I mean he did!”

“Surely our gracious principal wouldn't thank Grim for that by throwing him out just like that.” Getting a fairly good grasp on his character, Minako knew that poking Crowley’s ego should do the trick.

“I-I am gracious. I am gracious,” the Headmaster chanted under his breath in an attempt to reassure himself. “But a monster—”

“He wants to go to this school.”

Crowley was as stubborn as she was. “I had no idea that you could be so persistent. So you've managed to tame a monster along with three ghosts, you say? What kind of experience do you have with beasts?”

“Lots. I love animals, especially the magical ones,” Minako replied.

“Heh! It's no wonder you can tolerate the raccoon to some degree.” Gus floated by her. “You probably don't have the heart to use that banishing charm that I heard you talk about.”

“I'm not a raccoon! Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Crowley ignored them. “Tell me more about your experiences.”

And she did. Minako told him all about her magizoology training and her feats in Care for Magical Creatures. Somehow, she had gone off track by info-dumping facts about dragons and mooncalves that Crowley had to put her blabbering to a halt.

“Alright, alright. Since the uproar of the Entrance Ceremony, I thought I saw something special in you. So much power within a little girl, I had the suspicion that you might have the makings of a beast tamer.”

“That… sounds pretty cool. So about Grim, can he stay? Please!”

“Well…” Crowley hesitated.

“Pretty please?” The trio of ghosts chorused, leaning in closer to the Headmaster.

“Away with you three!” Crowley shooed them off. He sighed in defeat. “Fine. You may keep him around, but a monster and a teenager cannot just stay here for free.”

“Damn it! So close.” Grim pouted.

“That's kind of racist. Or is it speciesist?” Minako muttered.

“Listen to what I have to say. Ms. Nezumi, you said that you will work for me, so here is my proposition.” Crowley chuckled a bit at the end with mischief gleaming in his yellow eyes.

Oh god. Minako didn't like the sound of that. “Don't turn me into a prostitute, please.” She briefly wondered about the law system in this world and hoped that it would work in her favour.

“Pull your head out of the gutter, child!” the Headmaster squawked. “I just need the both of you to do maintenance and odd jobs around the campus. That way you can earn your keep to pay for your daily needs like food and clothes as well as give you permission to stay on school grounds. What with your magic, Ms. Nezumi, it's safe to say that you would make an excellent handywoman.”

Minako let out a sigh of relief. “I can do that. Thank you, sir.”

Crowley continued. “While you're here, the library will be available to you to do more research to help you get back to your world, after you've finished all your tasks. Aren't I gracious?”

“I'm not some janitor! I want to be a student here and wear that fancy uniform!” Grim whined.

“If you hate it so much, I can just toss you out.” Crowley's smile directed at Grim grew a bit forced.

Grim squeaked with fright then his shoulders dropped in defeat. “Fine, I'll do it.”

“Understood,” said Minako.

Crowley clapped his hands together with finality. “Wonderful! Your work starts tomorrow, so do not disappoint me. And Ms. Nezumi, please make sure that monster is under control. Good night.” With that he left.

“Well, Grim, let's eat before the soup gets cold. I'm starving.” Minako turned to the ghosts. “Thank you again, you three.”

“Aw shucks.” Phineas blushed. (Ghosts can blush?)

“It was no problem,” said Gus.

Minako gently nudged Grim. “Grim, say thank you.”

Begrudgingly, Grim mumbled, “Thanks, I guess.”

“Was that so hard, Grimmy-boy?” Ezra teased him.

Having cleaned the kitchen earlier, Minako knew where all of the plates and bowls were stored so that she could set the table. She ate her fill with Grim, cleaned the dishes, and soon decided that it was quite late. Her day starts early tomorrow all with the cleaning she would have to do.

“There's an alarm clock on the cabinet in the master bedroom. It rings every morning at six,” said Gus.

“That's perfect.” Minako was grateful for the allies she made tonight.

That was where Minako and Grim both decided to sleep for the night. She was so worn out that she didn't bother to tell him that the other rooms were available.

“I hope you don't mind, but I need a nightlight,” she told Grim. His ear fire was too dim to comfort her.

“Whatever.” Grim yawned.

“Lumos.”

She just wanted to light the bedside lamp, but the trio of ghosts howled with fright at her spell before they were forcibly cast out of the bedroom.

Oh right, that spell repels ghosts too. That’s why they took down the chandelier.

“Sorry, I forgot that it does that!”

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Despite the stress of being in another world, Minako's night was not fraught with nightmares. It was nice to be at peace for the night until she woke up with an alarm blaring in her ear and a face full of Grim. She was suffocating under his weight, so she thoughtlessly shoved him off.

Grim stirred from his sleep with a yowl. “Hey, I'm sleeping here!”

“On my face?”

The ghost trio burst in. “Wake up sleepy-heads!”

Grim hissed and pounced off of the bed. "I need breakfast," he grumbled.

Minako took a good, hard look at herself in the mirror again. Her eyes were back to normal. She checked her neck, arms, and legs. No curse marks were found.

Due to the dormitory's design being stuck somewhere in the early twentieth century, she and Grim could only take baths and not showers. The plumbing produced clean water thankfully, but it was freezing and she had yet to master the heating charm without scalding herself.

Minako slipped on her clothes, her boots, and most importantly, her wand holster. With a quick “crinus muto” charm, her hair fixed itself to create the usual half-up twin buns style.

Downstairs, Crowley was waiting for them. He greeted them with, “Good morning! I hope you slept well.”

“That stupid alarm clock woke me up and she shoved me off the bed,” said Grim.

“You were suffocating me,” argued Minako.

“Settle down, you two. There will be no quarrelling tolerated, especially on your first day,” the Headmaster scolded them. “Today, I would like you to clean Main Street from the main gate to the library and perhaps. You may use the cafeteria for lunch.”

“Yes sir.”

“And Ms. Nezumi, I am entrusting you to keep an eye on Grim so that he doesn't run amok like last night.”

“I'll do my best.”

The two were left to eat their breakfast before work. Grim was poking his eggs with dissatisfaction about being delegated to a janitor.

“I don't want to clean. I want to attend class and learn to cast cool spells!”

“I hate to tell you this, but magic school is a lot harder than you think, Grim. It's not all fun and games.” As much as she loved magic, Minako has had her fair share of burnouts being one of the top students.

“Maybe in your world,” Grim grumbled.

Minako doubted that. “If you really want to learn something, we can go to the library after we're done cleaning.”

“But that's boring!”

After finishing up their breakfast, they gathered up the cleaning supplies and headed down to Main Street. Minako had one of the brooms enchanted to walk beside them.

“Do you think we can get more brooms and use your magic to clean everything?” asked Grim.

Minako shook her head. “I can't. I don't have the skills yet to focus my attention on more than one broom. I brought more brooms for us so that we could have three sweepers rather than two.”

“Tsk. Some powerful magician.”

“Witch,” she corrected, “and I'm going to choose to ignore that.”

Main Street was certainly a sight to behold. It had seven statues lined up on both sides on the bricked path, four on one side and three on the other. They were all crisp and clean as if they were never touched by bad weather or bad people.

“Wow,” Minako whispered under breath.

Even Grim was amazed. “Cool! Hey, what's with these statues?”

“I wouldn't know. I'm not from here.” Minako casually flicked her wand to get the broom to start sweeping the leaves off the street by itself and she got to sweeping the pavement manually too.

Grim padded over to a statue of an elegant, rotund woman in a gown with a heart-shaped sceptre in hand. From the crown atop the lady's head, one could tell that she was definitely a royal, likely a queen and not a princess.

“Who's this snobby-looking granny?”

Minako tutted at Grim's insensitivity. “Don't be rude.” She stepped closer to get a good view of the statue.

Words were engraved at the podiums where each statue stood and she made out the words, “The Queen of Hearts,” on the stone.

Last night, Riddle spoke about the Queen of Hearts like she was some idol to be revered. Now that she thought about it, Crowley called this world “Twisted Wonderland.” Almost everybody back in her world knows what the old story entails: a girl named Alice falls down a rabbit hole and is transported to the fantastical world of Wonderland.

“Am I Alice?” she asked herself.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Hold on, don't you two know about the Queen of Hearts?” a stranger had inserted himself into the conversation.

The voice got their heads to turn to lock eyes with a boy she recognized from the ceremony. He was one of the first years, the one with messy hair and a mischievous grin. There was a change in his appearance other than his uniform; now there was a red heart mark painted over his left eye and he was wearing a seemingly friendly smile.

What was his name? It slipped from her mind, but she remembered to be cautious if she ever saw him again.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Ace ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Well, well, well. Look at what we have here.

Ace Trappola was not expecting to run into that mystery girl and the raccoon-cat thing from the Entrance Ceremony again. Judging by their cleaning supplies, he had to take a guess that the Headmaster put them up to become janitors. Hilarious!

Those little freaks that had him wheezing last night with some much needed chaos after that boring ceremony. Well, it was funny until that cocky little raccoon nearly burnt him to a crisp, thinking that he'll still be accepted into the school.

He crept closer to them and… was that broom sweeping the street by itself? It was quite fast at sweeping the leaves off of the pavement, and it was getting attention from the students passing by. It was that girl's magic, no doubt.

It almost wasn’t fair seeing the broom easily do half of her work for her. He thought back to a time when he was a kid attempting and failing to do something similar to get his chores done. His grandma caught him in the act and proceeded to lecture him for hours about not using his magic too much because he’ll build up blot.

Then he heard the furball asking about the statue of the Queen of Hearts, and all he could think was how ripe these two were for having a little bit of fun. He still had some time before class to milk the circumstances for what it's worth.

Putting on his best smile, he asked, “Hold on, don't you two know about the Queen of Hearts?”

Heads turned to him in surprise.

“Queen of Hearts?” the raccoon echoed back. “Nope. Doesn't ring a bell.”

Ace's lips nearly twitched into a smirk as he swallowed the urge to snort at the monster's stupidity. Who doesn't know the Queen of Hearts? He was willing to bet that these two didn't know about the rest of the Great Seven either.

“Really?” Ace's grin grew wider. “Long ago, she ruled over the Rose Maze. Everything and everyone was to fall under the subjugation of her laws down from the march of the Card Soldiers to the colour of the rose bushes. Anyone who disobeyed her would get their head chopped clean off.”

The monster flinched out of fear. “That's terrifying!” he whimpered.

“I think it's pretty cool. Well, you can't expect people to listen to a queen who's nice all the time,” Ace laughed.

“Strict rules and punishments aren't always an effective way to rule,” the girl spoke. Up until now, she was practically silent.

Ace wasn't sure how to respond to that. Yeah, it was true the discipline wasn't always a good leading strategy, but there was something that was awfully biting with the way she phrased that.

He made a quick assessment of her. She looked to be sixteen like all the freshmen were. Judging from her accent, she was likely raised in the Rose Kingdom like himself, but her physical features told him that her ethnicity might also be from around here in the Sage's Island.* Her stature was rather tiny as well, a normal trait of anyone with Sage Islander blood.

“Well, the Queen sounds scary, but I guess strong leaders are better,” the monster said. “Who are you, anyway?”

“The name's Ace. I'm a freshie.” Ace smiled brighter at them and held out his leather clad hand.

The girl looked at his hand with hesitance, but then shook it with unease.

Shy, huh? Ace thought. Then he looked up into her eyes and felt the frosty scrutiny in her gaze. Does she know?

The monster got up on his hind paws and posed with his front paws on hips. “I'm Grim and my destiny is to become the greatest magician. And this dummy is Minako, my henchwoman—ow!”

The girl—Minako—kneeled down and delivered a hard chop to Grim's head.

Ace resisted the urge to snicker. One, this cat-raccoon thing must be delusional to think that he'll become a great magician. Two, a good whack on the head was what he deserved. He didn't think Minako was the type to become Grim's henchwoman, at least not willingly. These two turned out to be more entertaining than he thought.

“What was that for?” Grim was grasping head in pain.

“We have a job to do, we'll learn about the statues later.” Minako handed Grim a scrub brush.

Ace wanted to keep them around a bit longer. “Minako, huh? Your name sounds pretty odd.”

“It's not that odd.” She continued with the cold disposition.

Grim turned to look at the statue of the King of Beasts, a stone lion perched on a rock with pride. “Hey, Ace. Tell me about the lion with the scar. Is he famous too?”

Ah, just what Ace suspected, Grim really didn't know anything about the Great Seven. “He sure is. The King of Beasts was actually not born to be king at first, but he managed to claim the throne through hard work and his cunning mind.”

Then Grim pointed to the Sea Witch's statue, a plump cecaelia with a contract in hand. “And the octopus lady?”

Ace went on to explain who the Sea Witch was and how she made a living granting wishes for unfortunate merfolk. Whether it was for looks, finding love, or just about anything, she would make it come true for a price.

He moved on to the next statue to tell them about the Sorcerer of the Sands who stood stiff and serious holding his menacing snake-like staff. He was a vizier that served a foolish sultan and caught a peasant pretending to be a prince trying to deceive the princess. Eventually, he obtained a magic lamp that made him a powerful sorcerer.

Next, was the Beautiful Queen holding her trademark poison apple. One look and even a monster like Grim had to agree that she was a sight for sore eyes. Everyday, the Queen would ask her magic mirror about her ranking in terms of beauty, and her efforts were something to be admired whenever she would fall behind from being number one. She would risk life and limb to regain her spot as the fairest of the fair. Not only that, she was adept at making various poisons.

Then there was the frightful figure of the fiery Lord of the Underworld, a god that ruled over the dead and never took a day off from his daunting tasks. He ended up winning over the most fearsome monsters to ever tread the Underworld like Cerberus, the Hydra, even the Titans, who created his army.

Finally, they came to the last statue of the horned Witch of Thorns from Magic Mountains who was perhaps the most powerful and noble among the Seven. Her magic was something beyond this world, but she excelled at curses the most. She can summon lightning, cover an entire nation with thorns, and she can even transform into a dragon.

By the end of that brief history lesson, Grim was starry-eyed. “They all sound so cool!”

Ace glanced at Minako to see her reaction. He'd been watching her every now and then just to see if she was living under rock like Grim was. He caught her half-listening as she was cleaning the street and following them closely. Her expression had changed slightly to what looked like curiosity and maybe even confusion. So, she really didn't know.

“Yeah, they are pretty cool,” Ace said, “unlike a certain raccoon.”

Grim froze at the sudden jab, his blue eyes were wide open.

As for Ace, he couldn't hold it back anymore, so all of his laughter came pouring out. “You two! You're the ones who went crazy at the ceremony! Do you know how hard it was to not lose it last night?” Oh, his stomach ached.

“Rude!” Grim seethed.

Minako didn’t react much other than clicking her tongue. A much blander response than what Ace wanted, but he still kept laughing.

“I can’t believe…” Piles of laughter. “...you two were forced to become janitors.” He took deep breaths and his laughter slowed so he could talk. “Then I find out that you’re so stupid that you don’t know the Great Seven! Go back to preschool before you go to college, alright.”

“Hey, henchwoman, knock him out with one of your spells or something!”

“Let’s leave. We don’t want to get in trouble.” Minako's hand was clenched around her wand sheathed in its holster. That meant he was getting to her.

“Scared?” Ace goaded her on.

“No, I just don’t think you’re worth my time,” Minako responded in a manner that was calm but bitingly cold. “You should get to your classes before I go back on that and sew your mouth shut.”

Ace snarled. Not worth her time? She wasn't cute at all!

“What? I'm not just letting him get away with that!” Sucking in a deep breath, Grim spat out a trail of electric blue fire across the pavement.

“Grim, don't!” Minako made a move to catch Grim by his tail, but the monster zoomed off and spat a wave of fire on the pavement.

Ace jumped back in surprise, narrowly avoiding the trail that licked his shoes. “Watch where you're aiming!”

“I'll light that mop you call hair on fire!”

“Light my hair on fire? I'll turn you into a toy poodle!”

Grim let out growl as he released the next trail of inferno, this time Ace was prepared to fight back. He took out his pen from his breast pocket with his magic surging from the ruby crystal attached to it and blasted the fire into nothing with a gust of cool wind. A smug grin etched onto his face upon seeing Grim cry out in frustration.

A blue light suddenly whizzed past Ace's face. He turned to see that Minako had her wand out.

“Stop that!” she shouted.

“Hey, is that fight over there?”

“Heck yeah! Go get 'em!”

Crap. Ace had forgotten about the other students. He had to finish this quickly. Seeing another burst of flames was headed his way, he summoned the wind again to veer it away from its path.

Then suddenly, he saw the enchanted broom from earlier fly towards Grim and push the monster to the ground. Ace wanted to laugh at that, but then the wind was knocked out of him when Minako pinned him to the ground with another broom. For someone so small, he didn't think she had the strength to do that.

“I told you to stop!” Minako was on top of him and staring him down with the first sign of emotion that wasn't so icy for once, in fact she was burning with rage. And her eyes... Ace was sure that they were brown before and not turquoise.

“Ah! The statue!” somebody cried.

Ace can still hear a loud crackling sound somewhere, which meant that the fire hadn't been put out at all. With the mutual feeling of dread, he and Minako looked up only to find the Queen of Hearts statue engulfed in blue flames.

Minako got up from the pavement and was quick to react. “Aqua eructo!” Her wand sprayed a jet of water to douse the fire, but it was too late.

No, no, no! "The statue's been charred!" Ace's hands flew up to his hair. He was in so much shit.

Grim got up from the ground and tried to pin the blame on him. “This is your fault! You should have just let yourself get fried instead!”

“What idiot would let himself get lit on fire?” Ace snapped back.

“That is enough!” The booming voice of Headmaster Crowley made everyone on Main Street freeze. He cracked his whip, flogging both Ace and Grim on the arms.

Ace hissed at the stinging pain lingering on his arm. Should a principal be allowed to keep something like that?

“Not the Lash of Love again!” cried Grim.

Ace inwardly cringed at the name. What kind of principal was this guy? He was pretty sure that Crowley was violating a couple of laws with that whip.

Crowley stomped over them. "I thought I told you to not cause anymore trouble, but then you go and scorch the Queen of Hearts! You two could be expelled for this."

Ace winced. “No. Don't do that please!” What would his parents say? He can't get expelled on the first day of school. He just can't! This wasn’t his fault.

Grim, like the coward he was, jumped into Minako's arms for comfort at the mention of expulsion. Now, Crowley directed his attention to her.

Minako's shoulders were tense and her head was bowed, looking more solemn than Ace had seen all morning. “I'm sorry,” she said before Crowley could say anything.

The apology resulted in a softer tone but still a stern scolding from the Headmaster. “This isn't how you supervise Grim. I thought that you could have done better.”

Crowley turned back to Ace. "You, what's your name and grade?"

“Ace Trappola, first year,” he answered sheepishly.

“Then Trappola, Grim, and Nezumi,” Crowley started. “If you don't want to be expelled, I want the three of you to clean a hundred windows around campus without the use of magic!”

“It's his fault! He was making fun of us!” Grim protested.

“That's not fair!” Ace said. If anything it was Grim's fire that burnt the statue.

“It most definitely is, Trappola. After school, you are all to meet in the cafeteria, understand?”

“Fine,” Ace sighed in defeat.

“This is the worst,” said Grim.

Crowley ordered him to hurry over to his next class leaving Ace in a sour mood. There was no way he was cleaning a hundred windows. Two other people are doing the job, so what's the harm in not showing up later?

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Minako ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Minako was happy to see Ace leave, but she dreaded seeing him again for their punishment. She was right to be cautious about him. There was a heavy weight in her chest from the distress that both he and Grim had caused her from their altercation. She got angry and she didn't even have her potion with her! How stupid can she be? Dark energy was swelling up in her system, urging her to purge it out.

“Hey, henchwoman, you don't look too good.”

Minako ignored him. “Headmaster, do you happen to have a girl's restroom?” she asked, her voice shaky.

"Ms. Nezumi? Are you feeling alright?" Crowley's arms extended out to her as if he was waiting on her to suddenly collapse.

“I feel sick. My curse is acting up again.” As discreetly as she could, Minako rolled up her sleeve to show him the dark veins spreading on her arm that twisted like tree branches.

"W-what curse? What’s that on your arm?" Grim stammered.

Minako took a deep breath. “I just need to calm down in private before this gets out of hand.”

"Right, follow me."

They managed to make it inside the school building somehow before her magic could wreak havoc. Then in the women's restroom where Crowley hastily ushered her into, the mirror on the vanity had cracked in the corner under her power. Hopefully, Crowley wouldn’t make her pay for that.

Facing her reflection, she found that the black veins had already spread to her neck and that her eyes had changed back to the turquoise colour from the previous night. Her skin was so pale that it made the marks pop out more. Was it possible that someone had noticed her cursed state on the way here?

Harsh coughs began to leave her mouth making her desperately reach for paper towels from the dispenser. She tried to expel as much of the curse's physical remnants that the flare-up had left. Removing the towel from her mouth, she inspected the black ink streaked with bright red blood. She crumpled it up and threw it away in the bin. For now, she would just have to wait until her darkened veins have gone away.

“Lumos maxima.” The tip of her wand shined brightly and slowly, it repelled the marks on her skin.

There were different types of blood curses: some turn you into monsters and some leave you frail, but either way you die early (or, in some people’s cases, you lose your humanity). She doubted that she would ever make it to her thirties. What with all of those times she lost control of her emotions. For all she knew, she could already be dead and this was just a long dream as she navigated through the afterlife.

Crowley may have given her shelter even with the knowledge of her curse, but how long until he decides that she was too much of a threat to the school? She might end up homeless with no way home. Rumours about her could spread and no one would be willing to approach her, let alone help her.

No, don't think like that. It will only get worse. Minako refused to cry. She took deep breaths and filled her mind with happier thoughts. Without her potion or the skill to cast the patronus charm, all she had was lumos to get it to disappear. It was a longer solution, but it was the only solution. She couldn't take looking at the black veins stubbornly remaining on her skin or how the curse was painfully draining her energy away anymore.

There was a knock on the door and Crowley's muffled voice came from the other side. “Ms. Nezumi, you've been in there for a while. Are you still alive?”

Checking the mirror one last time, Minako found that the black marks had lessened and can be easily hidden now. “Coming,” she said, finally walking out of the loo.

It was surprising to see that Crowley was still waiting after quite a while. She would have thought that the Headmaster had a pile of work to do that was more important than to look after one person.

And Grim? He was waiting too when Minako would sooner believe that he would get bored and wander off. Instead, he stayed put and sat by the restroom door with his big blue eyes close to tears. Seeing Grim’s concern for her lifted her spirits up a bit.

“Perhaps, it was careless of me to not ask you more about your curse,” Crowley said.

Unexpectedly, Grim climbed into Minako's arms. “Careless? My henchwoman could have died because of you!”

Technically, Grim was partly responsible for her flare up too.

“So, your curse is triggered whenever you feel upset?” Crowley asked.

“Whenever I'm too upset. I'm safe if my feelings are not that strong,” Minako corrected.

“You said that you require a medicinal potion to help reduce the effects?”

“That and magical light.” Then Minako remembered something. “Oh! That reminds me, I wrote down the recipe last night.” She reached into her pocket for an old piece of parchment that the ghosts found for her. “I'm just worried though that I might not have the ingredients in this world.”

“Crewel can take care of this, you have nothing to worry about. Aren't I gracious?” Crowley beamed as he took the parchment off of her hands.

Stop it with the gracious thing, please. Minako groaned inwardly.

The bell rang and Crowley perked up. "The both of you should get something to eat now. Remember to meet after school for your punishment."

Crowley had given them enough money for lunch and a bit more to buy essentials from the school shop. The cafeteria was starting to fill with chatter with the students pushing their way through the doors. Unlike the Great Hall at Hogwarts, the tables were shorter in length and more in quantity. The students here tended to mix with different houses, but at Hogwarts, the students mostly sat at their respective tables unless they were invited by another house to sit with them.

The cafeteria was almost as big as the Great Hall if it weren't for the lower ceiling. Speaking of the ceiling, the chandelier was rather pretty, mimicking the look of a tree in a forest. The globes of light on the branches looked like fireflies or even fairies.

“Hey, you won't have time to get the best food if you keep gawking at the ceiling like that.”

That voice sure didn't sound like Grim. Minako looked back down to her level and met the white-haired boy from last night greeting her with his ever cheerful expression along with a friend standing behind him.

Minako tried to remember his name. “Hey… um, Kalim?”

“Yeah! I'm so glad that you're still here,” said Kalim. No longer in his ceremonial robes, Kalim was sporting some kind of looser version of the school uniform—a cream-coloured cardigan rather than a black blazer, his scarlet waistcoat unbuttoned, and a matching white-and-gold half turban wrapped around his head.

“Oh, I'm not a student here. We're just janitors for now.” Minako motioned to her own clothes to show him that it was not the school uniform.

“That's too bad. I think you're great at magic.”

“Oh, those spells? They’re not that impressive.”

“Wait a second, aren't you the one who made it rain last night?” asked Grim.

“You were the one that burnt his rear. Say you’re sorry,” Minako shot back.

“Don't worry about it. In hindsight, it was actually kind of funny.” Kalim laughed reassuringly.

“Kalim, please, it's on my head if you'd been seriously hurt. I knew I should have gone with you to the ceremony,” Kalim's friend said with exasperation.

“Oh, Minako, this is my vice dorm leader, Jamil. Jamil, this is Minako. She's the one who saved me last night.”

Jamil appeared to have a more serious air to him, standing stiff like a bodyguard for Kalim. His skin was dark like his long hair, a perfect contrast to Kalim's white hair. Some of the locks in his ponytail were neatly braided and decorated with gold coins. Minako noticed too that Jamil's uniform was somewhat loose. Under his uniform blazer, he donned a red-and-black hoodie in place of the standard dress shirt and waistcoat.

“It's nice to meet you. This is Grim,” Minako greeted him warmly while she tried to get a read on him at the same time. On the surface, Jamil carried himself with the same kind of irritation that her sister often did, but there was something calculating in his steely eyes as well.

“It's good to meet you too." Ironically, Jamil sounded indifferent when he said that. "Kalim, we need to get in line now.”

Minako and Grim joined the two collecting their trays and standing in front of the serving line where the kitchen ghosts operated. She scanned the options that were within her budget and satisfied her dietary restrictions.

“Are there any vegetarian options?” asked Minako.

“Try some of our veggie curry,” one ghost offered cheerfully.

Was it just her, or do all of the ghosts only have three standard looks? This ghost looked exactly like Phineas but with a different voice.

“Get me some of that curry with pork cutlet, henchwoman!” Grim demanded.

“You're not really his henchwoman, are you?” asked Kalim.

“No, he's just delusional.”

“Hey!”

“By the way, how do I pay him? I’m not familiar with using madols,” asked Minako.

After Jamil gave her a quick tutorial on how to use the money, Kalim made her and Grim sit with them on the same table. Her mouth was already watering at the smell of the curry and rice on her tray. She took her first bite, the spices all blending together nicely like an authentic curry that didn't use powder. Those ghosts knew how to cook.

Grim practically inhaled his food and Minako grew worried for her wallet with his gluttonous behaviour. She would need to restrain him if it ever came to that point.

Kalim was looking at her. “What's that thing on your chin?”

Minako's hand went to wipe her chin and she glanced at it to examine the offending stain. To her horror it was a drop of ink from her curse.

“Uh, it's ink. I draw a lot,” she half-lied. She adjusted her collar to hide her neck in case there was any marks that hadn't disappeared yet.

Grim gave her a look of confusion, but thankfully stayed quiet.

“So you're an artist? That's cool. I'm not that good at drawing, but I’m in a band and Jamil's a great dancer,” said Kalim.

“Why don't you tell her about yourself more and less about me?”

“Ah, sorry, Jamil. But you really are a good dancer.”

There was something one-sided about the dynamic of these two; Jamil was constantly annoyed with Kalim despite being his friend. Did he not think they were friends? Maybe he was just the type that preferred to bury his own emotions. He has been acting secretive this whole time, which was fine by Minako, though it did make her question their relationship.

“It would've been nice if you got sorted into Scarabia. Jamil's cooking is amazing and we throw lots of parties at our dorm. Say, how much do you know about the Sorcerer of the Sands?”

“Not much, but I know… enough.” Minako bitterly recalled the altercation with Ace. “I'm not from here, so I've never heard about the Great Seven until this morning.”

Kalim was speechless and Jamil even looked up from his plate with astonishment.

“That's impossible. How could you not know about the Great Seven? It's practically the first thing everyone learns about,” Jamil said with disbelief.

“Well, Grim's from around here and he didn't know about the Great Seven either.”

“Don't remind me!” Grim hissed.

“Monsters don't really go to school, so it's understandable that Grim doesn't know,” Jamil explained.

Kalim was more amazed than shocked. “Wow, your country must be really far away. I thought you were just a local on the island. Where did you come from?”

Should she tell him? Kalim was incredibly kind to her so far, but that sure doesn't mean she should say anything. Was it a good idea to hide the fact that she came from another world?

The ringing of the bell stopped her from saying anything.

Jamil got up with his tray. “We better go. Kalim needs to get to his classes if he wants to make up for last year.”

“I'm coming. It was nice seeing you again.” Kalim also stood up from seat and waved goodbye.

Well, I guess we should go buy some supplies now.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

The owner of the school shop, Sam, was an eccentric and cheery fellow. The man’s stark, white skeletal markings on his dark skin and the rib pattern on his waistcoat caught Minako’s attention immediately. There was a charm to his spooky aesthetic, and it was probably Sam's charisma that made it work so well.

When she and Grim entered Mr. S's Mystery Shop, Sam had popped out of nowhere, tipping the patchy top hat that sat on his dark dreads to greet them. “Welcome, my lost little demons. The name’s Sam. Anything I can do for you two, today?” His Southern accent was pleasant to hear.

Grim jumped out of his skin. "Where did you come from?"

“Sorry about that. Interested in a couple of dreamcatchers? How about some grimoires?”

“Do you happen to sell any food and clothes that come in a small size? I'm on a budget of a hundred madol.” Minako wondered about the variety of this man’s shop.

“Hey, I know you. You're the girl that the Headmaster took in. Say, if you're looking for jobs, I could use a delivery girl.”

“Thanks, I’ll think about it.”

Minako gathered two sets of clothes (interesting that he sold lady’s underwear when he ran a shop at a boys school), instant food, and sanitary products. She brought it over to the checkout where Sam was already pushing in the buttons on the cash register.

What Minako found around the shop was unbelievable. Sam really did sell a variety of things, but he mainly advertised for his shady artefacts that reminded her of the antiques sold in Borgin and Burkes at Knockturn Alley. It was filled to the brim with potentially cursed objects and voodoo trinkets that she had hard time seeing any modern essentials that were sold here.

Minako stared at the shelves full of books and potions behind Sam as she waited for him to finish checking out her items. She was somehow entranced by his shadow as she caught it not matching the shopkeeper’s movements. She thought it was a trick of her eye, but then the shadow peered over Sam’s shoulder to count the money she gave him.

There was a second shadow on the wall, this time without a physical body to match it, running its finger along the spines of the books. Minako counted a third on the ceiling and a fourth on the floor.

“What are you staring at?” Grim’s voice took her out of her stupor.

“The shadows.”

Sam stopped counting the money. “You can see them?”

“Uh… yes. Friends of yours?” Minako asked.

“They sure are! My friends from the other side.” Sam leaned towards her to whisper, “But you shouldn’t trust them so easily. They ain’t always honest.”

One shadow playfully smacked Sam at the back of his head, nearly knocking his top hat off.

It was a joke, but Minako decided that she would take his word for it. “Okay then.” She grabbed the shopping bag off of the counter. “We better go. Thanks, Sam.”

“But I want to hang out more!” said Grim.

“Another time.” Minako pulled him out the door.

“Come again soon!” said Sam as they left the shop.

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº Sam ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

That girl was a little weird. People don’t normally see his shadow companions messing around in his shop, but the Headmaster did say there was something special about her magic.

As soon as the girl and her cat left, one shadow tapped Sam on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. He was sure that his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head from what he just heard.

“That little girl is covered in blot?”

◐ ━━━━━ ºoº ━━━━━ ◑

Author's Notes:

*Phineas, Ezra, and Gus are the names of the Hitchhiking Ghosts trio from Disney's Haunted Mansion Ride. I named them based on how close each ghost was on physical appearance. I'm pretty sure someone else has used these names to name the Ramshackle Ghosts but oh well.

*There was a headcanon I found on Tumblr stating that the Rose Kingdom is the equivalent of the UK or at least England and that the Sage's Island (where NRC is located) is the equivalent of Japan. Minako being born and raised a British-Asian girl, Ace made the assumption that she was from the Rose Kingdom with a Sage's Islander background.

Also, I originally wanted to insert a gag that Minako uses her space buns as a purse and can fit just about anything in there. Some of you may know it if you've been following me for awhile. I decided to leave it out because it didn't match the tone that I wanted.

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