#and nicko mid laugh like

[davemurrayy]

Lads!!!

[lovelyisadora]

Oh also,,, favourite time of day for any characters,,,,, also favourite/least favourite weather

marcia: she loves loves loves sunrises. she doesn’t even have to wake up early to see them because she never sleeps! as for weather, she hates thunderstorms so so much.

septimus: he loves dusk. whenever he couldn’t sleep in the young army he’d watch the stars. now he stays up late on purpose and watches them with beetle, jenna, and hot chocolate. these sleepover nights, as marcia calls them, are always his favorite. they steal every pillow and blanket from her apartment and lay together in the wizard tower courtyard, laughing and pointing out constellations and making up stories. he doesn’t like rain because in the young army, rain meant getting sick, and getting sick meant death.

jenna: she also loves dusk! there were many nights as a child where she stayed up late to watch the stars through the window. she doesn’t like fog because you can’t see anything in fog, and who knows what’s in there.

silas: he doesn’t have a favorite time of day but he absolutely has a least favorite weather: snow. nothing good ever seems to happen in the snow. it was snowing when he thought septimus died. it was snowing when alther died. he’d count finding jenna as the one good thing to happen in the snow, but the queen’s death is the only reason he found her there.

nicko: he likes mid-mornings when the sun is bright and it’s not yet blistering hot. It’s the perfect time to be outside. he doesn’t like rain much, but he doesn’t necessarily have a least favorite weather.

milo: there’s nothing better than a sunset on the water, but he likes sunrises too. he didn’t have a least favorite weather until he saw what thunderstorms did to marcia.

beetle: he likes golden afternoons! In his favorite secluded spot in the manuscriptorium, there’s a great window that lets in the light. in golden afternoons it’s the perfect place to sneak away for a much needed nap. scribing is hard work! if he had to pick a least favorite weather, it would be rain too.

[jemej3m]

leisuring

directly caused by by @mini-minish​‘s andrew in jenna marble’s leisuring suit, i present to you this:

a stupid short fic where andrew is jenna and neil is julien

(based loosely on her videos i want to be tall, i try hot glue crafts, cooking vegan thanksgiving food, giving my boyfriend acrylic nails and how many balloons does it take to lift my dog off the floor and maybe a few others)

*

Andrew frowned at the video. He almost ignored it: He ignored a lot of things on the internet, except for the video suggestions that truly stuck with him. And Neil’s texts.

Even then, sometimes he found himself so lost that spiral that was the internet that even Neil didn’t draw him out.

He’d seen shit like this all over the place already: Shane Dawson, all those pathetic beauty gurus, where edits brought their best (worst?) moments all together for a ten minute long shitshow.

And here was Andrew’s ten minute long shit show. Appropriately titled “andrew and neil annoying each other for ten minutes straight”, it was posted by some random person. Nicko. Weird.

Andrew almost didn’t click on it. Almost.

Then he did, and it unfolded like this:

*

“Andrew,” Neil said, exasperated. “What are you doing.”

Andrew was sat in a dark corner of the house, playing the electronic keyboard. It had a choral overlay, like a church choir was humming along to him. He said: “I want to be tall.”

Neil snorted. “Neither of us have grown since sixth grade.”

He played another chord. “I want to grow a whole eight inches, Neil.”

Neil arched an eyebrow, holding the camera in front of his chest. Andrew looked up at him instead. “You want to grow a whole eight inches.”

“Then I will be average height.” He played his third and final chord. “I want to be tall.”

Neil sighed. “Fine. Come on.”

*

cut screen

[andrew and neil annoying each other for ten minutes straight]

*

“Neil.” Andrew leaned into the study, where Neil was curled into a ball with a hood drawn over his head. He probably had woken up at six-am to go for a jog and hadn’t bothered to shower since, considering Neil was disgusting and nothing Andrew did would ever change that.

Neil looked up from the computer screen and immediately frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that.”

Andrew thought he was looking pretty dead-pan. Fuck Neil for being able to see right through him. “How would you feel - ”

Neil put his head in his hands. “Give me the sweet release of death already.”

“- about me giving you a full set of acrylic nails.”

Neil’s head dropped to the desktop with a loud bang.

*

“Neil.” Andrew snapped. “Neil. Quit that. You’re making a mess.”

“It’s fine.” Neil grinned, flipping a glass bowl and snatching it mid-air with his hand. The camera zoomed into Andrew’s eye twitching, every time Neil threw and caught that infernal bowl. “It’s fine. What’s wrong? Everything’s fine.”

“I fucking hate you.” Andrew growled.

*

“How many times did we have to go back to Party City to get these balloons?” Andrew wondered aloud.

“Six times.” Neil informed him, looking at how his cat (Sir, not King - King was way too hyperactive) was relaxing about three metres above the ground. She was suspended with seventy-two helium balloons, because Andrew wanted to know how many balloons it took to lift their small cat.

“She’s sleeping, ‘Drew.” Neil murmured grinning behind his hand. “Oh my god, she’s so relaxed. She’s sleeping.”

“It’s because King can’t reach her, and thus, can’t taunt her or wake her up.” Andrew looked at the dozens of balloons that now filled their living room with satisfaction. “It’ll be her safe space.”

Neil slung his arm around Andrew’s shoulders, still filming as their cat spun meaninglessly through the air.

*

“Ow!” Neil hissed, inspecting his now inch-and-a-half long acrylic nails. “Ow. What the fuck. What the fuck!”

“Calm down.” Andrew berated him, finishing the acrylic on his second last nail. “You’re being a wuss.”

“I want these off, now.” Neil moaned.

“Well, I don’t have pure acetone, so we’ll see if we can get them off at all.”

“Wait, what?” Neil yelped, glaring at Andrew. He widened his eyes. “What?”

*

“I’m going to give you a Brazilian Blowout.” Andrew menacingly waved his hairdryer around. “You’ll look like you’re compensating for a lack of an emo-phase in your teenage years.”

Neil grinned up at him from where he was sitting. “You never moved on from that phase, did you?”

Andrew almost stabbed him with the hairbrush. “I’m compensating for you.”

Neil settled into the chair. “Do what you want. Just don’t bring the FBI running.”

Andrew snorted.

*

Andrew walked out from the corridor in eight-inch heels, hair sprayed upright.

“Oh, damn.” Neil said, softly, looking at the leather boots and purple trousers that were tight around his thighs.

“Keep it in your pants, Josten.” Andrew said snipily. “Eyes are up here.”

“Don’t worry,” Neil grinned, craning his neck up to look at him. “That orange jacket is really turning me off.”

*

Andrew stared dead into the camera with a hat made out of hot glue to his head. The camera zoomed in. He slowly help up a different piece of hot glue.

“See, Five-Minute-Crafts? I can create random shit out of hot glue, too.”

It read fuck you.

*

“Neil, that’s too much cinnamon.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Neil.”

“Yes?”

“I fucking hate you.”

*

“I’m angry.” Andrew said.

“Well, no shit.” Neil remarked. “You just spent six hours making a chair out of jeans, with nothing but staples to put it together.” He threaded his fingers through Andrew’s hair as his boyfriend looked up at him in misery. “It’s completely rational.”

*

“Should we bring her down?” Neil whispered. Sir hadn’t woken up from where she was napping, mid-air.

“Why are you whispering.” Andrew said flatly.

“She’s asleep. Don’t wanna be rude.”

“It’s a cat floating in midair. Somehow, I don’t think it cares.”

*

Andrew slowly turned his face towards Neil as he glittered with rhinestones. He’d never felt more itchy in his life, and he’d put on a hundred layers of fake eyelashes once.

“Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass,” Andrew winked at him and Neil grinned. “Smash.”

*

Neil stabbed a banana with his terrifyingly long nails and grinned at Andrew as disgusting banana goop got stuck under his nails. Andrew wanted to retch.

Then he bent down and tried to feed it from the cats, and Andrew hated his boyfriend so much.

*

“Are you satisfied, now?” Neil looked up at Andrew, who was a little unsteady in these eight-inch boots. His head hurt with the amount of hairspray they’d used to stand his hair up, even though his hair wasn’t even that long.

“This is now my permanent state.” Andrew replied.

Neil rolled his eyes.

*

“Guess who’s man isn’t here to be the idiot?” Andrew pointed at himself. “My man. Guess who’s going to compensate for Neil’s idiocy by dyeing his hair bright red?” He pointed at himself. “This bitch.”

*

“Neil.” Andrew said, voice on the absolute edge of losing it. Neil fucking threw a piece of cannoli dough into the deep fryer, getting hot oil everywhere. “If you’re going to go and be a tornado all through the kitchen, then fucking tornado your way out to the living room.”

Neil coughed in his ear on purpose, and Andrew grabbed him by the sleeve.

“Aw,” Neil was laughing too hard to be taking Andrew serious. “You’re no fun!”

Andrew shoved him onto the couch. “Stay there till the deep fryer is off.”

*

Andrew gazed out the window. “The sun has set since I started doing this.” He then turned, gazing straight into the camera. “The sun’s setting on the opportunity for me to do something with my life.

*

Sir lazed on the chair that Andrew sat beside, reading out the mean comments that the internet had spared her. She was the ‘dead’ one, an old cat who barely moved or even blinked, whilst King was the more challenged one, to say the least.

“Oh, look.” Andrew said icily. “It’s a comment from Allison Reynolds herself. Keep talking up your cats, Reynolds. We all know they can’t manage anything more than purely aesthetic function, just like yourself.”

Neil whistled lowly. “Not sure your best friend would appreciate you calling her girlfriend a trophy wife.”

“Is that not what Reynolds is?” Andrew snorted. “My mistake.”

*

Neil made kissy noises. “You lookin’ like a snack.”

Andrew brandished a kitchen knife. “Say that again, I dare you.”

Neil just grinned and mouthed love you.

*

cut screen

[thx for watching]

*

Andrew slapped his laptop closed.

“Neil,” He called over his shoulder. “I’m quitting Youtube.”

His boyfriend leaned over the back of the couch to loop his arms around Andrew’s shoulders and press kisses to his cheeks. “Uhuh. Because I’ve never heard you say that before.”

Andrew grumbled, grabbing Neil by the arms and throwing him over the back of the couch. He partially landed in Andrew’s lap.

“I’ve been jiu-jitsed!” Neil rolled off the couch with a melodramatic thud. “It’s all over. Tell my father I love him!”

“He’s dead and you hate him.” Andrew said flatly. Neil grinned up at him.

“You know me so well.” He sunk into the couch beside Andrew, curling into a ball against his side. “Will you show me this video of us?”

Andrew sighed, opening his laptop. He let himself droop his head down to Neil’s shoulder, somewhat nuzzling into the familiar scent of his shirt.

He’d quit another day.

*

thx for readin lmao

[septimus-heap]

So based off of the post @wendronwitch made, here is the promised List Of Stuff

So this is going to be as canon compliant as it can be, so there’s going to be an age gap between marcia and silas and it’s going to be 4 years because he had I believe 1 child when marcia was 17 and he left to go into the forest at the age of 20 so I’m saying he was 21 when he quit his apprenticeship

Basically his official age in magyk is 45? I believe? And marcia would have been like mid 30s maybe so I’m just making them closer in age

Also I hc marcia as trans so there’s that to take into account with this. Like it would work if she wasn’t but like. It’s there now.

They met at school and marcia was like 6 and silas was 10

Silas was trying to do homework and struggling to read it and this group of kids was laughing at him and this tiny child just runs up and yells at them to stop it and they laugh because what is this baby going to do? And then the baby gives one of them a bloody nose and the rest of them run away because holy shit

(the tiny child was marcia, btw in case you couldn’t tell)

Anyway, Silas is like ???? thank you? Why’d you do that?

And tiny marcia just says she doesn’t like bullies and asks if he needs help with the reading of his homework

That’s how they meet, and they become sort-of friends then

A while after that, silas overhears a group of kids (possibly the same ones from before) talking shit about tiny marcia (either something racist or something like “he dresses like a girl” but more offensive (and she is a girl but they don’t know that))

He straight up knocks one of them out and decides that this is his baby brother now

They’re the type of friends who’s main method of communication is insults, but also if one of them is feeling bad they can be like. Really good at cheering them up.

He’s the first person she comes out to and he doesn’t understand at first but he goes home and asks literally every family member he has and looks through a million books and goes to her the next day and asks if she’d rather he call her by a different name then maybe a few days later he awkwardly gives her money for a dress or whatever because he really doesn’t know what he’s doing but he’s trying

He doesn’t exactly become a massive advocate for trans rights but if you purposely misgender someone, he will not hesitate to fuck you up

Side note: he/the heaps in general taught her basically all the magyk she knew before she met althere

When silas gets the apprenticeship it’s like *pained smile* yeah congrats

When she leaves her parents house it’s a spontaneous thing and didn’t have any plans for what to do after, so she goes to the heaps

Literally days later she moves into her own apartment

When silas gets back from the forest with sarah she’s happy for him but also if her and sarah are within hearing distance of each other they WILL argue and that’s just facts

He tells her that he’s planning on quitting his apprenticeship and also tells alther that she would be a brilliant apprentice

She accidentally teaches simon his first swear word and disappears before sarah gets back from wherever, leaving a panicked silas heap to try and get simon to unlearn that word (or at least to never say it in front of sarah)

When the queen is killed she already knows that she’s taking jenna to the heaps’

She goes straight to silas because she knows he’s in the forest and she tells him what happened then she gives him jenna and they go back to his

They get there just as the midwife is running out and they go in and sarah is practically unconscious and there’s a lot of crying and panic and rushed explanations

Baby jenna being there is pretty awkward at that moment but they take her in anyway and everything plays out mostly the same as in canon

Marcia is like...almost an aunt? Like she’s at the heaps’ a lot more than she would be if she wasn’t friends with silas and the heap kids call her marcia instead of madam marcia and her relationship with silas is like a sibling relationship

Anyway, jenna is totally fine about going with her in magyk and they don’t bother to hide her because a) that was a terrible idea to start with and b) everyone knows that marcia and silas are friends and it wouldn’t be the first time she’s given one of the kids a tour of the wizard tower

Nicko and silas come with them from the start and jenna gets her present literally as soon as they get to the wizard tower and deal with Boy 412

Again, it's the same from here to the boat and then the only difference is basically just that silas and nicko and jenna are teasing her for being seasick and Boy 412 feels even more left out and scared than before because they all know each other, Help

Everything else goes very much the same, just with a slightly more polite marcia

Right up until they get the letter from “silas” and they all know it’s not from him so they wait and marcia wants to go anyway because he could be in trouble! But they sit around for maybe a few weeks longer than they do in canon but eventually marcia just goes anyway and there’s less guards than there were in canon because they just thought that she probably wasn’t coming

The fact there’s less guards means she has a chance to run

She can’t do a transport back to Aunt Zelda's so she just hides until she gets her breath back but then immediately gets attacked and like. They’re not surprising her this time, so the fight goes on for longer and she loses BADLY

Like she gets really beat up and ends up in Dungeon Number 1

Idk what’s different after this

I have ideas for Flyte but like. If anyone wants to hear that then just say, but I’m not going to put that here yet.

[brother-aldred]

Having Blair beside him made Red less scared about taking off and landing in aeroplanes now, though the brief bout of turbulence made him feel a little queasy. Once they had landed in Orlando airport and the plane got to the arrivals gates, they got up and grabbed their carry on luggage before making their way to the main exit.

“Excuse me? Are you Aldred?” A female cabin crew member asked the redhead. Red nodded before she explained that Bruce wanted to see him, and Blair before they left. They were then taken to the cockpit and waited when the flight attendant knocked on the door. “Come in!” Aldred heard Bruce say. Despite having already met him, Red was bricking it again as he entered the compartment.

“Ahh, hello again!” Bruce smiled, shaking the redheads hand. “So, this is your husband you mentioned earlier?” the shorter Male asked, smiling at Blair. “Aye he is.” Aldred blushed. “Well both of you are incredibly handsome young men and I hope the both of you have a wonderful life with each other, and a fantastic honeymoon.” Bruce smiled. Aldred blushed again at his compliment, and thanked him.

Just before they were about to leave, Red couldn’t help but admit to Bruce about the dark patch a few years back. “As you know, i mentioned about going through a... rough patch a few years ago. Well... back in mid 2017, I was going through a bout of depression. I have no idea why, or what brought this on, but it actually got to the point where I....” Aldred started before sighing deeply.

“..... I wanted to... end my life. On the day of me contemplating it, I was really torn up about it because part of me wanted to just get on with it whilst the other half was like ‘whoah, hold on a sec! What the fuck?!’, sort of thing, all whilst I was listening to some Iron Maiden. Now... during my delirium, I actually imagined you, Janick, Steve, Ade, Dave and Nicko all trying to stop me.”

“It was what the imaginary version of you had said that made me stop completely and decided to keep me going. What imaginary you had said will always stay with me and is what has kept me going through my.... wobbles. You said: ‘I know it’s hard, but you need to fight this. Look, if I, Bruce Dickinson, can beat cancer, you can beat this...’” Aldred concluded, trying so hard not to break down in front of not only his husband, but his idol and the co-pilot.

What he wasn’t expecting was Bruce to walk over and give him a embracing hug. “Hey, it’s ok.” the older man cooed, stroking his back as Aldred cried. “Look at me Aldred..... what imaginary me said is true. It is fucking hard, fighting a battle you don’t know if you can win, but... if you’re determined enough to live, then you should use that as your strength. You have a beautiful husband by your side now and soon enough you’ll probably have little kids, that’s if you want them.... and having that gives you another reason to fight and to live.” Bruce explained, as he pulled away and held onto the redhead’s arms.

“Now.... Go and enjoy your honeymoon, and remember, as Eric Idle once sang: ‘always look on the bright side of life’, haha.” Bruce chuckled, before Aldred whistled the little tune and laughed.

Closed starter

[footyplusau]

From the archives: Emma Quayle’s award-winning report ‘A street named desire’

In November 2008, Emma Quayle wrote a piece on three young draft hopefuls, who grew up playing together in the same street in Perth’s eastern suburbs. Throughout challenging childhoods, football had been their guiding force, and a welcome ally of the strong, single mothers who raised them.

The story won the Grant Hattam Trophy in 2009, which is awarded to the creator of the best piece of football journalism from the players’ perspective. Here is that story.

Back in the day: Michael Walters, Nic Naitanui and Chris Yarran. Photo: Mal Fairclough

Chris Yarran and Michael Walters are in Nic Naitanui’s living room, sitting squeezed into a two-seater couch. They are trying to remember the first time they met, and it’s hard; they can’t remember not knowing each other.

Chris can still see Nic’s big afro hairstyle, and recall the day he jumped onto the PA system at primary school and called a Melbourne Cup. Michael can remember how quiet Chris used to be, how he never used to speak until someone spoke to him, and Nic can’t remember Michael being anything but a chatty, cheeky, energetic kid. “Look at him!” he laughs, pointing at a junior basketball photo in which Walters leans towards the camera with a big, goofy grin. Walters doesn’t even bother objecting, or even just rolling his eyes: there’s another photo, on another wall, where he’s hamming it up even more.

Mothers and sons: Michael Walters with Martha, Chris Yarran with Debbie and Nic Naitanui with Atetha, in 2008. Photo: Mal Fairclough

Walters was the first to move into Bushby Street – a long, wide road in Midvale, in Perth’s outer-eastern suburbs – and nobody ever called him Michael. As a baby, he travelled from Perth to Adelaide with his parents and big brother, to see his father’s family for the first time. As the train rattled along, and the sky turned dark outside, he refused to fall asleep, so his father made up a lullaby, calling him “my son son”. It caught on: his brother, Colin, wouldn’t let anyone call him anything but “Son Son” after he did, finally, drift off to sleep. These days, he’ll settle for Sonny as well.

Walters was four when “Nicko” Naitanui moved in, six houses down the street, his fraternal twin brother Mark in tow. Next door to them was Yarran, who was living with his mother at her parents’ place.

The 17-year-old has lived in many houses and in many streets over the years; at times, he wasn’t entirely sure where he would be sleeping the next night. But Bushby was the street Yarran kept coming back to, and Midvale the suburb that most felt like home. The three boys started primary school together and – except for a few years when Yarran moved an hour away to Northam, still dropping by some weekends – they have lived within a few minutes of each other. The draft will make their long-shared dream come true, but separate them for the first real time in their lives.

Football connected the boys, from the very start. Yarran can remember the three of them clumping down the bitumen road together, to the oval at the end of it, already wearing their footy boots. They would drag a bin out onto the road in front of Nicko’s place, lining it up alongside a mail box, a tree and a concrete pole – cheap, easy goal posts. Between the Naitanuis’ cousins, Yarran’s cousins, Walters’ brother and the other kids in their street, there would be up to 30 boys on the road at once, tackling each other to the asphalt, scampering to the side when a car tore past, scoring bonus points for hitting the bin or the tree, and never craving company. “All you had to do if you were bored,” said Naitanui, “was go and knock next door.”

Nic Naitanui, Chris Yarran and Michael Walters back in Bushby Street in 2008. Photo: Mal Fairclough

Yarran was the kid who always hit the target; the one with the sharp, instinctive skills.

He only ever wanted to be one thing: an AFL footballer. “Son Son” was the little one, who went to bed each night with his footy and would scurry around after the bigger, older kids, all energy. At school, Naitanui could do anything he turned either his mind or body to: he was the class accountant, counting the money when his class went off on excursions, and winning almost everything on athletics day. His mother, Atetha, thought he would end up becoming a basketballer; he started kicking the football only because the other kids did, and it was actually the least of his talents.”

I was just a skinny kid and I couldn’t even kick properly.

I’m still struggling now with it,” he said, smiling. “But most of the kids in Midvale, that’s just how we played. We didn’t really practice or train all our skills like some other kids, we just ran around on the street. We’d have little scratch matches, four on four, and all we did was play.”

Still, he could tell even then that Yarran’s plans were sensible ones. “You just knew,” he said.”

Some kids are just better than the rest. Chris was the best one of us all.”

Life hasn’t exactly been easy, for the boys or those around them. Naitanui’s parents, Atetha and Bola, moved to Sydney almost 19 years ago, from the Fijian village near Suva where Nic’s older brother and sister still live. He has never lived there himself, but when he goes there, each year, he feels at home. His parents moved away because they wanted opportunity, said Atetha, but the twins were just one when Bola found out he had cancer and only a few months to live.

Alone, Atetha moved the boys to Perth, simply because she had a brother there and wasn’t sure where else she should go. She still sometimes wonders how she made it through, how she kept from collapsing, but she knows her boys kept her going, that they gave her no choice. “If I’d given up … ” she said, pausing. “I couldn’t give up.”

Atetha, who married again three years ago, always resisted signing on for a pension – she never wanted to be given anything and she always wanted to work, even if it meant things were a little bit trickier to pay for. For the past 14 years she has worked for Homewest, helping to find housing for homeless people in the eastern suburbs and working with some of the kids who grew up playing kickto- kick with her own boys. Some seem too embarrassed to look her in the eye.”

It’s like the kids here are in hiding, they turn the other way when they see that I am coming,” she said. “I say to Nic and Mark always, when you see these boys, talk to them, don’t even think they have been in jail. It’s sad, it’s very sad. Some of these young indigenous boys that played with my boys, I thought that they were going to make it. They had so much talent, so much skill. But drugs and bashings and assaults … that’s the way of life here. That’s how these kids survive.”

As he was growing up, Walters knew that his mum and dad struggled some months to pay the rent; that even filling the petrol tank to take him to a training session was sometimes a stretch. “It wasn’t something you ever really thought about,” he said. “You just sort of knew, that we had it a bit harder than most people.”

He can only ever remember being a happy child, although this year has been a wrenching one. Walters’ parents separated earlier this year and his father, Mick, moved home to Adelaide.

He came back to Perth mid-year, but left again in September, two days before Walters played for the Swan Districts under-19 team in a grand final. His grandfather flew straight from Adelaide to watch him play, but Walters was emotional, deflated and, said his mother, Martha, forced for the first time to reassess his biggest idol.

“It was devastating. It really hurt ‘Son Son’ and it’s been a real struggle for all of us,” she said. “He looked up to his father, I think ‘Son Son’ really just wanted to make dad proud, and thought what he was doing was the right way to do that. He’s an emotional boy, he’s a fiery boy – the only time he isn’t fiery is when he’s playing on the football field – but he’s worked through it now.

“He knows he has some exciting times coming up and that he has a lot of support and that a lot of people love him. He loves dad, but dad has to be put at the back for a while, and that’s hard.”

It’s something Yarran had to grapple with a lot longer back. He was eight when his father, Malcolm, was jailed; he still sees him, and talks to him on the phone, and his most vivid memories are of walking home with him from footy training, hand-in-hand. He can’t remember feeling ashamed of where his dad was, and will be for a while yet, but when other kids asked him about it, he didn’t want to talk.

“I just took it as life, as the way life goes,” he said. “I never said much about it and it’s still hard now, to think about it. But I just think of the good times with him, and I saw my mum and how she didn’t let it bring her down. She didn’t want it in my head, she wanted me to feel proud. With where I am, I sort of owe it to her. She’s the one who kept me playing football.”

Yarran had a grandfather willing to take him wherever he had to be, any time. He had neighbours willing to chip in with petrol money when they could. He had footy – and there was never a choice to skip training, he said, because Naitanui would be banging on his door, telling him to hurry.

But more than anything, he had his mother, Deb, who didn’t want any of her five children – Chris is the youngest – to carry someone else’s burden. Even if it meant she had to, or felt that she did. “It was hard but I adjusted. I had to,” she said. “If I was to let things slip, I think the whole family would have fallen apart. I just stayed strong and did the best I could. I always said to Chris, never feel ashamed of where dad is, you have to go and live your own life.”

As he grew up, Naitanui began to notice newspaper articles saying Midvale had the highest break-in rate in Perth. Men would return home to Bushby Street after stints in jail and while he was conscious of where they had been, he couldn’t quite reconcile that with with how happy and safe he had always seemed to feel. Later, he had friends go off to jail; like Atetha, he’d grown up thinking they were the ones who had the best chance to go far.

“It’s kind of sad to see and to even think, that you’ve got mates and they’re locked up now. But you see them, some of them get out of jail, and they seem so happy for you. Even as a kid, you knew it was a tough place we lived in, that people were in trouble with the police, but they were always good to you. They were always looking out for you.”

More recently, all three boys have felt keenly that people judge other people according to their post code. Two years ago, Naitanui had no reason to believe he could play in the AFL; when he made the under-16 West Australian squad, he told the coaches he didn’t want to play. His reluctance was internal; he didn’t think he was good enough. But after he was talked into taking his place in the under-16 team and met other, more fortunate kids who also assumed he wouldn’t get there, his mind began to change.

“You’d meet kids who go to private schools, and they sort of looked down on you and asked where you were from and laughed at you,” he said. “Looking back, I know it was a bad place we came from, but we didn’t know any different, we just knew it as home. Some other kids thought they were better and I think that gave me a desire to make it even more, to show it doesn’t matter where you come from, that you can still do as well as any other kid can.”

Yarran agrees. “It’s sort of good for the community,” he said. “I reckon we could help a bit, with where we are now.”

Yesterday, in Perth, three mothers and their teenage sons had lunch together. It was a kind of farewell; their last chance to spend time together before “Son Son”, Nicko and Chris are potentially drafted to three different teams, to three different states. They felt apprehensive, but, more than anything, excited. They wished they had thought to take some photos back in the Bushby Street days, to have somehow known what was going to happen – but then again, why would they have? “They were just three little boys, whoever would have thought that this was where they would be?” said Atetha, proud of what the boys have overcome and achieved, but equally proud of herself, Martha and Deb. “We didn’t do too bad, did we?”

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