#honestly this title is rife with possibilities

[shrinkthisviolet]

'hope is a weapon (you are trained to wield)' for the fake fic ask game please?

Everyone always spoke of hope like a fragile thing—an easy, natural thing. But Barry knew that wasn’t true. Hope wasn’t fragile, it wasn’t easy, and it was a choice more often than it was natural. And as he sat here, chained to the ceiling in a cell so damp and dark… Barry’s was starting to fade.

This would be a canon-compliant character study of Barry while he’s imprisoned by Zoom! He’s a hero who thrives on hope, who’s driven by it…but being in a situation like that, I can’t imagine it was easy for him to keep it. So, how does Barry hold on to hope when he feels the most hopeless? This fic, if written, would explore that (more than the show did) :D

(Alternatively, that would make a great title for Morgan in such a situation 👀 but since that’s not solidified yet, I didn’t want to over-promise)

send me a title for a fake fic, and I’ll write a fake summary!

[saltpepperbeard]

"no but why the FUCK was he left chained up in the sun like that. unacceptable." plz?

Oh hello hello! Thank you, darling <3 lol SO-

This is one of the wips that I only have roughly drawn up, but basically, I just wanted to write Stede coming back on deck after placating the crew/taking a moment to breathe/addressing his face/doing whatever else it was that he was doing and finding Ed chained up in the sun. And obviously, finding that incredibly unacceptable and subsequently convincing someone (probably Frenchie) to help him get Ed out of that.

I think I've seen similar "missing scenes" fics from that particular period--I want to say from Miles and Atticus? BUT I DEFINITELY WANT TO JOIN THE MIX BECAUSE HSLKDJS LIKE!!!

Stede didn't want the crew to even banish Ed because "that wasn't them," so I cannot imagine him finding that sort of treatment acceptable either. And I wanted to write him trying to compromise with the crew, like..."If he's to be banished, then he gets to rest first in my quarters" type deal. And one of the quotes I had drafted up from him was like "Trust me when I say I don't want anyone getting hurt, but that includes him as well." And then of course trying to offer tender, loving care for Ed even though he'd still be grouchy about it.

Honestly, the fourth episode is RIFE with missing scene possibilities shdjlssdkl, so it's just all something that's making my brain go 👁👁

Send me a title from this wip list and I'll talk about it! <3

[emerald-amidst-gold]

Writing Tag Game

Thank you so much for the tag @noire-pandora! <3

Time to show people just how much of a baby I am in the fanfic world~! >:3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

A total of ten! Mainly because I lump drabbles together for easy access!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

....273502 words so far. :3 I like words. Words are good. Words are friends. 

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Emerald Eyes Amidst Golden Vows (the very first rendition!) - 48 kudos

Emerald Eyes Amidst Golden Vows - Bound Brighter - 24 kudos

A Dragon’s Hope - 15 kudos

Dragon Drabbles - 13 kudos

Poetry of Wolves - 11 kudos

(Honestly, the progression of style change in each of these fics is terrifying to me. I look back on the last one, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god.’ X’D) 

4. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do, on occasion, respond! Though I may use a lot of words while writing, when it comes to communication? I suck. XD But, I do get extremely, extremely excited whenever I see a comment in my inbox, and I do go back and re-read them when I’m feeling down about my writing! I usually respond when a person asks questions, but I try to read them as rhetoric since I don’t want to spoil too much! X3 So, to everyone who has left me comments on my fics: THANK YOU. I do really appreciate and adore them. :3

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Many of my short fics (those ranging from one to two chapters) all end relatively happy. I like angst, but I also enjoy making characters that are usually somber and stressed a little lighter. :3 If we want to get technical, then the first several chapters of my main fic all have rather angsty endings because the beginning of Fane’s journey is...heh. It’s not easy, and it’s not supposed to be. 

Although, now that I look, a very old fic of mine called ‘A Dragon’s Guilt’ has a rather angsty ending. Basically, Solas’ frescoes in the rotunda send Fane into a momentary spiral, and it was me playing with Adamant possibilities before he was ‘set in stone’. Panic attacks and mixed memories galore! :D

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

*rifes through my fics* Uhhhh... All of them? :3 Okay, okay! No, if I had to choose it would have to be...one of the short stories in ‘Dragon Drabbles’. It’s a four part story (and my first hand at smut >:3) that’s titled ‘Existence is Not a Sin’. It starts off angsty, but by the end it’s so sweet, so sickeningly sweet that I’m like, “...How did I write this?” X’D ...I’m actually thinking of re-writing a lot of my previous fics just to see if I’ve improved with writing! :D

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I do not write crossovers, but I’m open to the idea! Sadly, my brain hyperfixates on one thing at time, so my imagination is limited. X’D

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I haven’t, and I’m very grateful that I haven’t. To be honest, when I started writing and posting, I expected to get hate (prepare for the worst, you know?) because I was doing something that wasn’t really the ‘norm’ for a lot of people. After all, people are entitled to their own interpretations and mine some times don’t link up with someone else’s. I understand that, and I respect that, but some people...don’t offer the same courtesy. All I’ll say is, if you don’t enjoy my content, don’t read it. We’re all adults, so shrug your shoulders, say, “Not for me”, and move on. Just know that if you do leave a hate comment, you will receive no reply, no fuel. So, don’t waste your time and don’t waste mine. Simple as that. I’m here to share and make people smile, not argue. :3

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have. Once, and I for the life of me can’t figure out how to do it again. X’D I’m very into soft intimacy; gestures and actions that speak a thousand words. Close positions (missionary, straddling, etc.) and a lot of eye contact with some healthy crying in the mix. *winks* I’m kind of inching towards a theme of ‘body worship’ when it comes to Fane and Solas because those two.. *sighs* They really need to shown that they are beautiful people; inside and out.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have not. Thank God. XD All I’ll say is this though, you steal my fic, my son and claim them as your own? *gets close to the screen* I will track you down and demand a talk. Don’t steal other’s hard work. Don’t. Writing is not easy, and it takes weeks, months, years for authors to pump out their inspiration, so don’t steal that labor just because you want to say you could. Same goes for drawings and pieces of art. Don’t.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven’t! English is my first language, but I understand some French! :D 

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I haven’t, but the idea is intriguing to me sometimes! I’m just a tad unreliable due to how my mood ebbs and flows. I have very long dry spells. X’D

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Solavellan! >:D While I write solely M!Lavellan/Solas, I do support all genders and orientations for the ship! Because I didn’t get into the ship because of what I saw, it’s what it meant to me. 

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

*side eyes my main fic* LISTEN. It’s coming! I swear. I’m just having intense writer’s block with my main fic, and I’m not sure why. That’s why I’ve been messing with prompts and drabbles. X’D There’s also my modernAU, too.. *sweats* TIIIIIME! WHERE ARE YOU?!

What are your writing strengths?

Describing emotions. I like emotions. Emotions are nice. :3

What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue. Mainly because Fane...doesn’t speak much at the beginning of his journey. He’s very curt, short, so I have hard time incorporating other’s reactions to him. I’m getting better though, I think! :D

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’m for it! Sometimes that little splash of altering dialect can draw someone in and establish a connection! Language connects us, and it’s never too late to try and learn so as to reach out to another! :D

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age, my beloved~ 

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

A short story of mine called ‘Blood in the Snow’. It was one of my very first fics and it was the first time I was like, ‘This Lavellan is my muse. I can do so much with him.’ It was just so fun to write a vulnerable moment for Fane, but still keep him locked up. ...It was also where I went, ‘Oh. This is Solavellan Hell. I wasn’t meant to go there, but I DID.’ X’D

Tagging: @oxygenforthewicked @little-lightning-lavellan @dreadfutures @the-dreadful-canine @rosella-writes @aymayzing @drag-on-age @varric-tethras-editor and anyone else that’d like to play! (no pressure, of course! <3)

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Reviewcaps: The Dinner/Battle of the Bands “It’s You”

Hello all you happy people! And i’m almost to the finish line.  6 months (subtracting the ones where there were no new episodes) worth of weekly coverage and with next week i’ll have completed my second full season of reivews of a show as they came out, and my first full season of amphibia. If you’d like to see season 1 it’s up high on my stretch goals at 45 with reviews of Disney movies based on shows (The Proud Family, Recess and Kim Possible), Gravity Falls and more along the way if your curious. Check it out HERE. I’m also doing exclusive reviews eveyr month now with the coasional one thrown in randomly so check that out. New period starts in a week so please join before then.

So naturally with the big finale and all the tensions in amphibia close to reaching a boil next week, this week’s a bit more low key. Still not unimportant, with some massively good character work and in fact The Dinner is easily one of my faviorites of the season, but still nothing to move the plot too far forward. Just some nice character stuff to help inch us towards the climax next week. The calm before my heart is stillbeatingly ripped out of my chest. Which I will grant the show, having my heart ripped out Mola Ram style by some combination of Brenda Song and Keith David is how I wanted to go, i’m just not ready yet. So while I steel myself for the utter heartbreak of next week, I have my throughts on this weeks episodes under the cut!

The Dinner: 

I did tip my hand a bit by saying this was one of my faviorties of the season.. and I stand by that. This one was excellent. It was rife with tension while still somehow being a fun breather episode before hell arrives. 

As the title suggest the Plantars are having Grime and Sasha over for a fancy dinner, followed by games and such. Only Annearcy are happy about this though, Marcy still not getting quite how bad Sasha has gotten during her stay here and Anne hoping she has changed.  The Plantars, Sprig in paticular, still resent them for the whole toad tower fiasco, which is fair. You don’t forget someone trying to murder you over night, let alone your whole town. Hop Pop is using Frobo as the Grill by the way which is just visually fucktacular I gotta admit. He does get some more use these episodes, being used as a Grill here and as the fog machine and Polly’ sminon next episode. Good work boy. That’s my robot frog soldier builder whatever you are. 

Sasha and Grime are likewise not enthused. Sasha isn’t because her friends expect her to “Ugh” change and grow and stuff and isn’t happy about it and is confident she can return to rulling over them once her plan is done. Dude.. that’s not how a healthy throuple works. Or a healthy anything. Grime is more worried about her blowing it with her anger and control issues, but feels. this is VITAL to convincing the plantars to trust them long enough for their plan to go off. He even demands she remove her sword and all her knives... and she has a lot of them. Evne in her boot “How do you even walk?” Good question grime. 

My answer?

So what follows is about 8 minutes of the most hilariously awkward dinner since that time Micheal Scott decided to have a dinner party even though his relationship was horribly crumbling, as everyone but Anne and Marcy shoves their foot in their mouth at some point or makes some sort of screw up. Oh and Polly I guess she’s more content to just watch the show. Seriously i’m not usually a fan of cringe comedy.. but the series makes it work here as our heroes attempt to interact with thier old eneimeis and vice versa. 

For starters we have our guests arrvial, where Grime and Sasha both look objectively terrifying before things cool down. Then we have dinner itself where both Hop Pop and Grime prove to be the racist kind of grandpa as Grime asks what frogs they subjigated to get these turnips and Hop Pop makes an awkward lightbulb joke about Toads that Grime finds hilarious but everyone else was rightfully afraid would get the old man gutted by the other more violent old man. I imagine this happened a lot on the Lost Light once Megatron took over co captiancy. You just don’t fight a guy for a good hundered years without being nervous he’s going to blast you to fucking pieces. 

Sprig dosen’t help before all this by taking a seat next to anne and marcy specifically to piss her off, and out of all of them is the most openly hostile to her. Given Anne’s his best friend and Sasha did a LOT of emotional damage to her.. yeah fair enough. 

Things only esclate when it comes to frog pictionary. Suprisingly Hop Pop gets Grime’s Drawins and Sasha gets his, with both her and sprig trading escalating barbs and her barely containing her rage when Anne calls her on it since unlike her, Sprig has a reason to still be upset with her. This reaches a breaking point when Sasha attempts things, trying to desperatly win her friends back with the old times now they have their ownt imes apart.. only for Sprig to accidnetlay mock Sasha’s near sucicide,s aying she “slipped”.. granted I do think he geninely just can’t forgive her.. but it’s very clear she did not.. she let herself go to save them, and he’s just as in denial about it as Sasha and just as much a dick about it. 

Sasha flips out at him, and gets penalized for talking which only pisses her off MORE and understandably so. Anne leaps to the plantar’s defense but honestly.. both sides are understandabliy angry here. The Plantars are right to still not trust her after everything especially since she hasn’t outright apologized to them and her and Grime’s general response to the incident is “One Time!”... which works for say, taking the last slice of pizza without asking or slamming their face in a car door, but not so much “Trying to murder all of you for personal and stupid reasons.”. But at the same time Sprig DID cross the line really bad when she saved his fucking life. It dosen’t automaitcally erase the bad things she did but it dosen’t give him lisence to mock her. WHile I get he’s 10 and dosen’t get it was part suicide, he still is blantaly ignoring her trying to do something selfless because he can’t admit there’s any good in Sasha. Sasha is not a GREAT person.. but there IS good in her. She just has to WANT to seek that out instead of her inherent seflishness and need for control and Anne and Marcy are absolutely right for trying to help her instead of just slamming the door in her face. 

But soon eveyroen gets distracted by the cake which floods the room with molten lava. Hop Pop assumes it was some sort of trick.. but hilariously turns out no, Grime really was trying to be nice. That’s just how this works and it’s delcious once it hardens.. assuming you survivie the hornets, with fighting them being the best part of it. And yes hornets shoot out of the cake. Are you suprised at this point? They also paralize grime leaving our heroes without the one person among them who knows what their doing. 

SO our heroines are forced to fight some hornets, with Sasha trying to take lead.. only for Anne to do so and succeed at it, figuring out that while weapons can’t pierce them their own stingers might and having Marcy use her crossbow to launch the stinger in grime at them, and then has Sasha distract the rest to take them out. 

So our heroines reconcile with Sasha admitting she might not want to change and Anne admitting that’s okay.. she just has to accept things have changed with THEM and that her friends HAVE. And genuinely or not Sasha agrees to that, while Grime is bummed he missed the party and the lava hardens into chocolate, with eveyrone enjoying some cake and dead insects. As you do

Final Thoughts on The Dinner: As I said, this is one of the best episodes of the season> The tension is paltable, and it dosen’t fully resolve it, rightly as we still have one final season to go for that. More than that.. it’s hilarious. All the jokes land, and there were far too many to get into here. 

Battle of the Bands:

Now this is a classic breather episode, our last chance to rest and get all slice of lifey before things go up in flames next week. 

With the town all nervous because of Sasha and Grime’s presence, Mayor Toadstool decides to spin the wheel of fun to decide on an activity. I can’t remember if this is a new thing or not but I loves it. It lands on Battle of the Bands so the girls decide to get their old band Sasha and the Sharks back together. As for the rest of the cast, Hop Pop and Sprig join a Jug band and Grime has his own musical domination to plot out, so that just leaves us with the thropule, Poly and Frobo for an episode. 

The group have fun... until Anne unveils her heartfelt song based on her time here. Well okay only Sasha isn’t having fun and quickly tries to take over, as you’d expect and Anne pushes back as you’d expect. Sasha takes her ball and goes home as.. you get it by now> The plot here is not very complex or unique.

But as with all the Sasha episodes this season including the last one, we get a deeper sense of her character. Here she outright admits she dosen’t know what to do when she’s not in control. She needs to be in charge of the situation. It also explains why unlike Marcy and Anne she didn’t change for the better: Her need for control shuts out any possiblity of self reflection and thus self improvment. Self Improvment, and I know this from experince, requires you to admit your flaws and face them. It’s something I can admit to struggling with as I fall back into old patterns often. Admitting flaws would be admitting a loss of Control and Sasha.. can’t. She honestly can’t. 

Of all people i’ts TOADIE who convinces her sometimes i’ts better to let someone else take the lead and that it’s better to support the ones you love than subjugate them. Granted Toadie himself is too far in the opposite direction, but he makes a valid point.. something I never thought i’d say. Sometimes you just have to let someone do what they want.. and watching her two girlfriends perform up on stage.

I also will say I love a good talent show, battle of the bands what have you episode. One of my faviorite movies, True Stories, climaxes in one. 

And yes that was John Goodman and yes he does indeed sing...

Seriously watch this movie. It’s fucking amazing. And yes that was the Talking Heads David Byrne, he wrote this movie and there’s two talking heads songs in it. Watch it. 

Point is we get a great one, paticuarlly chuck. 

He grows SINGIN tulips just a fun one.. but i’ts that finale with the girls that really makes it with Sasha realizing that them being HAPPY is better than her being in control..and they didn’t grow PAST HER or leave her behind just because they grew.. they simply should be free to be themselves. And that maybe trying to conquer a country just to do that ain’t right. IT’s really sweet

So she runs in to do the guitar solo, and its aweosme and they only don’t win because it turns out Grime is fucking MAJESTIC on a harp. But Sasha finally grows a bit admitting that having fun is what mattered... 

And it’s abotu to burst as Mayor Toadstool, in a show of how far he’s come, points out Anne is leaving soon and Anne gives a heartfelt goodbye to everyone.. that said.... someone clearly has other plans.. and for once i’ts NOT Sasha. 

There’s nothing but foreshadowing in that face. That’s a face that says “Uh.. about that”. And again SASHA is showing emotinal vunerablity and hapiness.. but it’s Marcy, whose pretty open emotiionally whose visably worried and clearly knows Andrias has other plans.. other plans he talked her into. Gratned he probably didn’t tell her said plans involve The Watcher with a Thousand Eyes, but she still KNOWS she’s plottingthings.. and know’s she’s about to betray the people closest to her. 

Before we move on though those outfits ar esharp. Just damn. Especially Sasha’s punk look. The songs this episode are also both excellent and I had no idea Brenda Song and Anna Akana could sking like that. God damn. 

So with Anne leaving for home she gets one last group photo. It’s majestic and we’re out. 

Final Thoughts: This one is pretty good. Not a lot to talk about outside of Sasha but a really fun episode that both moves her foward and moves us toward the finale. ANd it’s nice to see the three just happy together... before the hell that’s about to arrive. 

Next Week: War Were Declared, our heroes prepare to fight bravely against the hoard of toads... and both Sasha and Marcy come to the crossroads of destiny Tommorow ON This Blog:

So it’s up to Jean Grey and Emma Frost to go in and sort it out.. and then fight off the full might of an alien empire. No pressure. 

Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure

[halothenthehorns]

TLTNL- WILL AND WON’T

Sirius took the book from James and idled a bit before starting. Torn between wanting to get back to Harry already and yet not wanting to just as much, for they'd find nothing more but depression if the way he was acting now was anything to go by. Yet all these extras just kept delaying it more than anything. Finally he took a deep breath and just jumped in, the dragging silence was worse than anything.

Harry Potter was snoring loudly.

Then Sirius comically snorted, grinningly lovingly at his godson who was blushing just slightly, but finally. Just being back to chatting about him for even one second had them all smiling at something again!

He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had finally fallen asleep with one side of his face pressed against the cold windowpane, his glasses askew and his mouth wide open.

"I hope that was a very fascinating cat," James chuckled.

"Oh, that wasn't what I was watching," Harry corrected, the smile slipping away at once into an uneasy frown. His headmaster hadn't left a very good impression on his family because of his last year, and he wasn't looking forward to their reaction of him showing up again so soon. So for now he feigned ignorance of anything else just for a few more seconds of peace.

The misty fog his breath had left on the window sparkled in the orange glare of the streetlamp outside, and the artificial light drained his face of all color, so that he looked ghostly beneath his shock of untidy black hair.

Lily made a noise of distaste for that description, she'd had far to many details already of how that could have come true.

  The room was strewn with various possessions and a good smattering of rubbish. Owl feathers, apple cores, and sweet wrappers littered the floor, a number of spellbooks lay higgledy-piggledy among the tangled robes on his bed, and a mess of newspapers sat in a puddle of light on his desk.

"I mean, you can't even really blame him," Sirius smirked at Lily's eye roll. "He's had people cleaning up after him all his life."

"The exact excuse he uses to never clean up his mess at home," Remus tragically bemoaned, waving him quickly on before he could go into a detailed account about how it wasn't really a mess until you couldn't see the floor anymore.

The headline of one blared:

HARRY POTTER: THE CHOSEN ONE?

Sirius' face flipped to agitation at once. Harry had more than enough press in his life, so of course he just had to mock what was clearly making his pup uncomfortable. "Yes, because the Boy Who Lived wasn't memorable enough! Let's brand him with another title!"

"I'm surprised they didn't call it the Boy Who Lived to be the Chosen One." Remus quietly snarked.

"That's a mouthful even for them." James heard anyways and poked them along.

Lily sighed heavily, but tried her best to get them to keep going. If they were already going to be like this just over the title of the article, they were going to be here for awhile.

Rumors continue to fly about the mysterious recent disturbance at the Ministry of Magic, during which He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was sighted once more.

"We're not allowed to talk about it, don't ask me anything," said one agitated Obliviator, who refused to give his name as he left the Ministry last night.

Nevertheless, highly placed sources within the Ministry have confirmed that the disturbance centered on the fabled Hall of Prophecy.

Harry shivered heavily for just the name of that place again, honestly still wishing he could go back and erase the whole place from his mind all over again. For a moment his only solace was the reassurance he tried to grasp at least he'd never have to go in there again.

Then Sirius gave him a comforting nudge and refused to let his own voice crack, and Harry had to come back to here and remember he did have more to take comfort in. So he put on a smile again and insisted waving Sirius on like he really was getting over it so easily.

The others didn't buy it, but could no more force Harry to admit that than let him harm himself remembering anything before he should.

Though Ministry spokes wizards have hitherto refused even to confirm the existence of such a place, a growing number of the Wizarding community believe that the Death Eaters now serving sentences in Azkaban for trespass and attempted theft were attempting to steal a prophecy. The nature of that prophecy is unknown, although speculation is rife that it concerns Harry Potter, the only person ever known to have survived the Killing Curse, and who is also known to have been at the Ministry on the night in question.

Harry grumbled a bit about how he wished they'd been smart enough to piece this all together a year ago, while Sirius just scoffed but pointed out, "only makes them seem stupider the longer they take to catch up to us."

"And I didn't think it was possible for them to be going any slower before all this," James agreed.

Some are going so far as to call Potter "the Chosen One," believing that the prophecy names him as the only one who will be able to rid us of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

"That is quite a leap," Lily snapped.

"A true one," Harry reminded in a less biting tone. He regretted the words the moment they came out, tensing and avoiding all eyes, not wanting to go anywhere near that conversation again. To his relief they didn't force him to, his parents just brushed him reassuringly while waving Sirius on.

The current whereabouts of the prophecy, if it exists, are unknown, although (ctd. page2, column 5)

A second newspaper lay beside the first. This one bore the headline:

SCRIMGEOUR SUCCEEDS FUDGE

"Why on earth was the first part of this necessary if we're getting all of this information again anyways?" Remus groused.

"Since when do you complain about learning more," Sirius demanded.

"When you're the one giving it," Remus snipped back.

"Oh well then be my guest," Sirius mocked, trying to pass the book to him, but Remus smacked him instead.

Most of this front page was taken up with a large black-and-white picture of a man with a lionlike mane of thick hair and a rather ravaged face. The picture was moving â€" the man was waving at the ceiling.

Rufus Scrimgeour, previously Head of the Auror office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, has succeeded Cornelius Fudge as Minister of Magic. The appointment has largely been greeted with enthusiasm by the Wizarding community, though rumors of a rift between the new Minister and Albus Dumbledore, newly reinstated Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, surfaced within hours of Scrimgeour taking office.

"Can't be any worse than what Fudge was going through," James said blandly.

Scrimgeour's representatives admitted that he had met with Dumbledore at once upon taking possession of the top job, but refused to comment on the topics under discussion. Albus Dumbledore is known to (ctd. page 3, column 2)

Sirius made a face at that particular bit being cut off, so supplied himself, "known to cause misery and hope all at the same time, truly a gift of a man we've never had before-"

He ducked this time and used the book as a shield as Moony made to smack him again, then pouted at his grumpy friend who'd been refusing to play along all day. Prongs was being of no more help and he was going to have an aneurysm if he couldn't get some proper laughing in before lunch!

To the left of this paper sat another, which had been folded so that a story bearing the title ministry guarantees students' safety was visible.

Newly appointed Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, spoke today of the tough new measures taken by his Ministry to ensure the safety of students returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this autumn.

James mock yawned and even Lily couldn't pretend much enthusiasm for this. They'd never feared the safety of their school before they found out what all Harry went through, and didn't have much hope this Scrimgeour would clear it up any better than Dumbledore's lack-less attempts.

"For obvious reasons, the Ministry will not be going into detail about its stringent new security plans," said the Minister, although an insider confirmed that measures include defensive spells and charms, a complex array of countercurses, and a small task force of Aurors dedicated solely to the protection of Hogwarts School.

"Well the Aurors are new," Sirius pointed out happily, wondering if at least Harry would get a treat out of that. He hadn't mentioned it for a while, but as far as they knew he still wanted to be one.

"Though I'm blasted what enchantments they think they've added that haven't already been inlaid in the school already," Remus rolled his eyes.

Most seem reassured by the new Minister's tough stand on student safety. Said Mrs. Augusta Longbottom, 'My grandson, Neville' a good friend of Harry Potter's, incidentally, who fought the Death Eaters alongside him at the Ministry in June and-

Sirius was as glad as anyone that had been cut off. He adored Neville and now respected him as highly as he would with Ron and Hermione for all he'd done, but that coming from Augusta, especially after the way she'd spoken back in St. Mungo's, felt more like bragging than the praise he deserved for those feats.

Not to mention the increasing amount of times this had been mentioned already still made Harry look likely to be sick again any moment. They hadn't expected it to never be spoken of again, but clearly repetition wasn't helping Harry to move past that memory.

But the rest of this story was obscured by the large birdcage standing on top of it. Inside it was a magnificent snowy owl. Her amber eyes surveyed the room imperiously, her head swiveling occasionally to gaze at her snoring master. Once or twice she clicked her beak impatiently, but Harry was too deeply asleep to hear her.

A large trunk stood in the very middle of the room. Its lid was open; it looked expectant; yet it was almost empty but for a residue of old underwear, sweets, empty ink bottles, and broken quills that coated the very bottom. Nearby, on the floor, lay a purple leaflet emblazoned with the words:

-ISSUED ON BEHALF OF-

The Ministry of Magic

PROTECTING YOUR HOME AND FAMILY AGAINST DARK FORCES

"I wonder if those were kept in storage all these years or something," James sighed heavily. His infant enjoyed gumming on the bright pamphlet now, and it had been quite something his elder counterpart had never had to be anywhere nearer to it. Now that was as gone as surely as all his baby teeth.

The Wizarding community is currently under threat from an organization calling itself the Death Eaters. Observing the following simple security guidelines will help protect you, your family, and your home from attack.

1. You are advised not to leave the house alone.

2. Particular care should be taken during the hours of darkness. Wherever possible,

arrange to complete journeys before night has fallen.

3. Review the security arrangements around your house, making sure that all family members are aware of emergency measures such as Shield and Disillusionment Charms, and, in the case of underage family members, Side-Along-Apparition.

Harry frowned uneasily at this one like he had all those summers ago. Now with someone to ask, he glanced at his mum, but his mind was on another. "Are Muggle-borns allowed to use magic to put those up then?"

Lily hesitated too long in answering, which was answer enough before she tried to explain, "yes and no. We were still told not to use magic, but if we contacted the Ministry they would come over and place some up if requested. My parents allowed it, but I know some who never invested in the idea and...paid for it." She finished softly.

Harry tensed uneasily as he glanced out the window. He'd never felt safe at the Dursleys, but that was for a wholly other reason than his inability to do magic there. It occurred to him for the first time though, if Hermione had been attacked while she was at home, her parents were defenseless. What must that feel like, to be the sole person, the child having to protect your parents? It scared him to think about, but could come up with no honest solution either, you couldn't force the parents to just accept someone coming into their life from another world even if your child was in it, all in the name of a protection they didn't even understand.

4. Agree on security questions with close friends and family so as to detect Death Eaters masquerading as others by use of the Polyjuice Potion (see page 2).

5. Should you feel that a family member, colleague, friend, or neighbor is acting in a strange manner, contact the Magical Law Enforcement Squad at once. They may have been put under the Imperius Curse (see page 4).

6. Should the Dark Mark appear over any dwelling place or other building, DO NOT ENTER, but contact the Auror office immediately.

7. Unconfirmed sightings suggest that the Death Eaters may now be using Inferi (see page 10). Any sighting of an Inferius, or encounter with same, should be reported to the Ministry IMMEDIATELY.

Harry heard this in the same detached way he had read it the first time in the Dursleys house. While all straight forward advice, he couldn't feel any real fear, or safety, or whatever that pamphlet was suppose to impress upon him. With no one in his life at the time and only a bitter reminder of something he no longer had an option for in a secure home, he'd cast it aside after only briefly scanning the information.

In here felt no better, only a bitter reminder of something he hadn't even been able to dream about at the time.

Lily watched his mood continue to spiral down, and clinging to anything to keep his mind in here she asked, "Harry, whose nickname did you hear first?"

Distracted by the odd question, he looked over at her but easily cast his mind back to the first conversation he'd heard with the four of them. "Er, Padfoot. Him and Remus were snipping while you two were talking to me." It worked at once, he smiled again. At the time the soft brush of warmth for hearing those names, seeing these faces and voices again had all been far too muddled with everything else going on. Now he could look back on that moment with a clarity he never would have believed possible.

"Works as well as any other security question we could ask," James chuckled for his wife. He knew she was doing it to keep him involved in the here and now, but it was rather a mute point considering they couldn't leave the premises for the time being.

"What about yours?" Harry asked curiously.

"We each have one for each other," Lily began happily, though Sirius cut her off in mock outrage-

"It would defeat the point of sharing them though!"

Lily rolled her eyes while Sirius grinned at Harry who was laughing just a bit at his godfathers antics again. He honestly would have told Harry if he'd asked again, but now he was waiting patiently for Sirius to keep going so he knew he could bring this up later.

Harry grunted in his sleep and his face slid down the window an inch or so, making his glasses still more lopsided, but he did not wake up. An alarm clock, repaired by Harry several years ago, ticked loudly on the sill, showing one minute to eleven. Beside it, held in place by Harry's relaxed hand, was a piece of parchment covered in thin, slanting writing. Harry had read this letter so often since its arrival three days ago that although it had been delivered in a tightly furled scroll, it now lay quite flat.

Dear Harry,

If it is convenient to you, I shall call at number four, Privet Drive this coming Friday at eleven p.m. to escort you to the Burrow, where you have been invited to spend the remainder of your school holidays.

Sirius scrutinized that, thought again about the description of the handwriting, and said in a flat, cold voice, "Dumbledore eh?"

Harry uneasily nodded his agreement, tense and waiting now for a new row of insults to come the headmasters way. With everything else that had gone on that night, Harry just had not been able to hold onto the same anger of blaming what had happened to Sirius on anyone but him. He knew they disagreed, they blamed the leader of the Order as much as Snape for trying to insist Sirius stay shut up, for not telling everything to him and Harry in the first place.

To his immense relief though, Sirius kept going without further comment. Whatever they were chewing on in regards to this, there was just no point shooting it at anyone in here, when their real target was still at Hogwarts and waiting for all of this to finish.

If you are agreeable, I should also be glad of your assistance in a matter to which I hope to attend on the way to the Burrow. I shall explain this more fully when I see you.

Kindly send your answer by return of this owl. Hoping to see you this Friday,

I am, yours most sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

"Sounds, fun," James struggled to say with some lightheartedness. He'd admit he was curious what Dumbledore was up to, but already this wasn't starting off well. Dumbledore was clearly using Harry for something. Again.

"Hey, he's actually the one escorting you out of that place though!" Sirius did say cheerfully. "I think some good finally came of something, and he's not trying to keep you there all summer!"

"For once," Lily grumbled. It had taken the man six years what the Weasleys had done for him in his second, but she supposed she'd have to take what she could get here.

Though he already knew it by heart, Harry had been stealing glances at this message every few minutes since seven o'clock that evening, when he had first taken up his position beside his bedroom window, which had a reasonable view of both ends of Privet Drive. He knew it was pointless to keep rereading Dumbledore's words; Harry had sent back his "yes" with the delivering owl, as requested, and all he could do now was wait: Either Dumbledore was going to come, or he was not.

"I can't imagine why he wouldn't," Remus muttered, "it's not as if he's disappointed him lately or anything."

Sirius gave him a sideways look for that, but remarkably held his tongue and instead kept himself going rather than forcing Moony to address that right now.

But Harry had not packed. It just seemed too good to be true that he was going to be rescued from the Dursleys after a mere fortnight of their company.

"Miracles happen," Lily drawled.

"No, no, the miracle would be if he hadn't had to go back at all," Sirius happily corrected.

"I take what I can get," she snapped.

He could not shrug off the feeling that something was going to go wrong, his reply to Dumbledore's letter might have gone astray; Dumbledore could be prevented from collecting him; the letter might turn out not to be from Dumbledore at all, but a trick or joke or trap.

"I like that you listed trap last," James nodded, "obviously it's the least concerning option."

"Technically a trick and a joke are the same thing, so it was only fifty fifty," Sirius said fairly.

"Don't be so crude Padfoot," James wagged his finger at him. "Undermining the intricacies between a prank, a ploy, a ruse-"

"Keep going, or he will for an hour," Remus grumbled while Harry and Lily watched with honest fascination to see how long he could go.

Sirius took their distraction to hiss at him, "if you don't lighten up I'm going to use Lumos Maximus on what little of your brain is left."

Remus just raised a brow, unimpressed, while Sirius let Prongs keep going until he started making up words just to prove his point.

Harry had not been able to face packing and then being let down and having to unpack again. The only gesture he had made to the possibility of a journey was to shut his snowy owl, Hedwig, safely in her cage.

The minute hand on the alarm clock reached the number twelve and, at that precise moment, the street-lamp outside the window went out.

"The magic of timing," Lily giggled. Didn't need to worry about traffic when you could apparate.

Harry awoke as though the sudden darkness were an alarm. Hastily straightening his glasses and unsticking his cheek from the glass, he pressed his nose against the window instead and squinted down at the pavement. A tall figure in a long, billowing cloak was walking up the garden path.

Harry jumped up as though he had received an electric shock, knocked over his chair, and started snatching anything and everything within reach from the floor and throwing it into the trunk. Even as he lobbed a set of robes, two spellbooks, and a packet of crisps across the room,

"Can't forget the snack for the road!" Sirius laughed outright.

"Sirius, you're just describing the way you pack, so I don't know what you find so funny," James snickered along as well.

"I can admit to my flaws, if I had any. This is much faster than whatever that nonsense folding is," Sirius stated with his nose in the air.

the doorbell rang. Downstairs in the living room his Uncle Vernon shouted is surprise who would be here this time of night.

"Darn, and here I was hoping the hour would have them in bed," Lily grumbled.

No one disagreed with her. It was finally happening, someone even closer to Harry than Mr. Weasley was on the premises, could give these Dursleys a piece of their mind...and the stale taste in their mouth it was anyone but Sirius would linger until they got out.

Harry froze with a brass telescope in one hand and a pair of trainers in the other. He had completely forgotten to warn the Dursleys that Dumbledore might be coming.

Remus couldn't help an involuntary snort at that. This could be more than they'd initially thought for this reaction alone. Lets see Vernon try to stand his ground against Dumbledore. The only person this could be funnier for was Voldemort himself, and that led to far more complications than payback, so this was honestly the better option.

Feeling both panicky and close to laughter,

"A feeling I wish you'd have more," James sighed, that was perfectly reminiscent of how it felt to pull off a prank.

Harry ran down the stairs two at a time, coming to an abrupt halt several steps from the bottom, as long experience had taught him to remain out of arm's reach of his uncle whenever possible.

Harry flinched, though not for the reminder of that. He just hated watching the expressions it caused in those around him, that terrifying murderous look as they recalled why exactly this was. He still wished they'd never found out about that, but instead he forced himself not to rub at his neck and just told, "to be fair, most any person learns that after the first five seconds."

The joke gave Sirius a surprised snicker at least, though his voice was no less venomously laced as he kept going.

There in the doorway stood a tall, thin man with waist-length silver hair and beard. Half- moon spectacles were perched on his crooked nose, and he was wearing a long black traveling cloak and a pointed hat. Vernon Dursley, whose mustache was quite as bushy as Dumbledore's, though black, and who was wearing a puce dressing gown, was staring at the visitor as though he could not believe his tiny eyes.

"It is a sight to behold," James grudgingly tried for a laugh at these circumstances.

Then Dumbledore judged by his look of stunned disbelief Harry had not in fact warned of this, but he assumed he was graciously invited inside anyways. It was unwise to linger on doorsteps in these troubled times.

"Or just rude, but take your pick," Lily sniffed.

Dumbledore stepped inside and Vernon still seemed to thunderstruck to react, even when Dumbledore spoke of his long absence from here, but mentioned the agapanthus were flourishing.

"Of all the things to notice while dumping a child on a front porch, the flowers would stick out!" Sirius harshly snapped, making even himself wince for a comment no one needed reminding of.

Vernon Dursley said nothing at all. Harry did not doubt that speech would return to him, and soon, the vein pulsing in his uncles temple was reaching danger point, but something about Dumbledore seemed to have robbed him temporarily of breath.

"If it were permanent I may even start to like him again," Remus grumbled.

It might have been the blatant wizardishness of his appearance, but it might, too, have been that even Uncle Vernon could sense that here was a man whom it would be very difficult to bully.

"I'd say a combination of both, but that implies far more sense than those three could put together," Lily snipped.

Then Dumbledore caught sight of Harry and greeted him with an excellent.

These words seemed to rouse Uncle Vernon. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, any man who could look at Harry and say "excellent" was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye.

"Considering he can't see eye to eye with anything more than the deranged female version of himself he calls a sister, this isn't surprising," James agreed.

He began he didn't mean to be rude, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable.

"And he even blatantly contradicts himself, again." Sirius huffed, wishing he'd kept a tally of how many times he'd done so, but at this point it would be redundant, he didn't need more reason to hate this idiot.

Dumbledore finished for him that rudeness often occurred even by accident, and it was best not to say anything.

Sirius couldn't help it this time and full out laughed. He knew his friends resented Dumbledore for the way he'd treated Harry, and himself, last year, but even while being an arrogant old man he'd done something only Moody had previously done, shut up Vernon!

The kitchen door had opened, and there stood Harry's aunt, wearing rubber gloves and a housecoat over her nightdress, clearly halfway through her usual pre-bedtime wipe-down of all the kitchen surfaces.

Her rather horsey face registered nothing but shock.

Dumbledore introduced himself when Vernon failed to.

"He didn't introduce himself to Vernon," James pointed out with mischief finally lighting his eyes again. He couldn't believe Dumbledore and the Dursleys were causing it, but he always had tried to find fun in the bleakest of places. "He'd just stepped over the doorway and told Vernon to shut his trap, not that I'm arguing the point."

While reminding they had corresponded. Harry thought this an odd way of reminding Aunt Petunia that he had once sent her an exploding letter, but Aunt Petunia did not challenge the term.

"I'm honestly still blasted at that," Lily said harshly. Of the many things wrong with Harry's fifth year, that was at least in the top five.

Dudley had that moment peered round the living room door. His large, blond head rising out of the stripy collar of his pajamas looked oddly disembodied, his mouth gaping in astonishment. Dumbledore waited a moment or two, apparently to see whether any of the Dursleys were going to say anything, but as the silence stretched on he smiled.

He presumed he was invited into their sitting room.

"No," James said flatly, honestly he wouldn't be doing any such thing to Dumbledore right now. He had far to many things needing to be shouted for a place like his living room.

Dudley scrambled out of the way as Dumbledore passed him. Harry, still clutching the telescope and trainers,

"A conversation starter at least," Sirius' smile grew as he did wonder why Dumbledore was choosing to linger and make a show of this.

jumped the last few stairs and followed Dumbledore, who had settled himself in the armchair nearest the fire and was taking in the surroundings with an expression of benign interest. He looked quite extraordinarily out of place.

Harry asked weren't they leaving?

Dumbledore agreed that was soon on the agenda, but they needed to attend to something first best not done in the open. So they were too trespass on his aunt and uncles hospitality just a little longer.

"Catch up with the Order?" Lily demanded, this being the only thing they could think of, and not at all missing the fact that if this were true, something had come of last year if Dumbledore was really, finally, going to be so open with him. They wouldn't deny they'd prefer it to be done anywhere but there, but they'd take what they could get right now.

Vernon demanded he would, would he?

Dumbledore simply said yes, he shall.

Remus still couldn't help making an agitated face no matter how much he tried to hide it, refusing to admit what he'd been thinking even as the thought lingered in his head. 'A man after my own heart.'

He drew his wand so rapidly that Harry barely saw it; with a casual flick, the sofa zoomed forward and knocked the knees out from under all three of the Dursleys so that they collapsed upon it in a heap. Another flick of the wand and the sofa zoomed back to its original position.

Sirius read all of this with an increasing smile, he wasn't going to deny anymore he was starting to enjoy this. Watching the Dursleys be flicked around their own house, and Harry wasn't even going to get in trouble for it! The Ministry would have been informed of this going on by Dumbledore himself most likely. His only thought now was how far could they go with this.

As he replaced his wand in his pocket, Harry saw that his hand was blackened and shriveled; it looked as though his flesh had been burned away.

Sirius at once felt his nose crinkle up in disgust, but it did nothing to hide the flash of concern. It sounded impossible in his head Dumbledore would get anything resembling an injury, let alone one that would leave some kind of mark.

He looked around in concern when Harry started muttering to himself, never a good sign.

James had already noticed and was already babbling at top speed about how even wizards didn't have a magical cure for everything, though he was confident it wasn't anything the man couldn't shake off. Even while holding a flare of hate for the man, he seemed able to push that aside instantly to help his son with the worry for that same person. Harry in no way looked convinced, but smiled anyways for the attempt even if his eyes lingered with that fear.

Harry tried to ask what had happened to his hand, but Dumbledore simply said he'd explain later.

"Oh, well apparently we still haven't quite gotten over that nasty habit of not explaining everything," James snapped.

Lily sighed, not arguing the point aloud, but thought her husband was just looking to pick a fight now. Not every aspect of Dumbledore's life, such as injuries, were of their concern.

He instead turned back to Vernon and told evidence suggested refreshments coming would be optimistic to the point of foolishness.

"Evidence used to suggest honesty was your strongest point, but that was foolish as well," Remus muttered.

A third twitch of the wand, and a dusty bottle and five glasses appeared in midair. The bottle tipped and poured a generous measure of honey-colored liquid into each of the glasses, which then floated to each person in the room. He told this was Madam Rosmerta's finest oak-matured mead, while Harry took a sip.

Lily made a little face at her son drinking, though sixteen wasn't an unreasonable age, for a moment she almost wished her biggest concern was her child acting like a teenager and slipping into the liquor cabinet from time to time.

He had never tasted anything like it before, but enjoyed it immensely.

"As you well should, Rosmerta can make a man go broke buying that from her," Sirius grinned.

"Trust him, he's tried," Remus rolled his eyes.

"You certainly don't try to stop me," Sirius challenged, his eyes gleaming at finally getting a normal response from Moony.

"I'd be a hypocrite if I did, considering how often I nick a glass," he shrugged without remorse.

"Aha! You admit it!" Sirius cheered with triumph.

"I never denied it, you just never asked," Remus huffed. Sirius frowned at him now, his moment of fun clearly having passed as quickly as it had come for Remus was refusing to play along anymore, so Sirius kept going with his own little huffs.

The Dursleys, after quick, scared looks at one another, tried to ignore their glasses completely, a difficult feat, as they were nudging them gently on the sides of their heads.

At least that got a collective snort of laughter, all of them having imagined hitting them upside the head with something far heavier than a drink, but it was a start.

Harry could not suppress a suspicion that Dumbledore was rather enjoying himself.

"At least someone is," Sirius said good-naturedly.

Finally Dumbledore turn to Harry and explained the Order had located Sirius' will this past week, and its contents were relatively simple, he'd left everything to his godson.

Then Sirius felt like his throat had been clogged shut and he couldn't remember how to breathe for it. This was the opposite of what he was going for, more depressing reminders! Even he couldn't find a way to put a spin on this to make it in any way funny!

Then what he'd said really ran through his head, and he did release a childishly rude giggle.

Lily quickly brushed her hair out of her face, cleared her throat loudly while she shifted next to James, purposely brushing against him to keep his attention while snipping at him, "just what was so funny about that?"

"My inheritance, my mums precious Black house and heirlooms, all going to a halfblood. The only thing to make it better would be giving it all to Moony, or you Lils."

Lily rolled her eyes even as she'd expected the answer, while Harry shook his stinging eyes and forced them to focus back in confusion of that. Why hadn't anything been left to Remus? Then he really considered this, and recalled some earlier statements from them how Remus wasn't even supposed to be here right now, nor allowed to adopt Harry, or any child. Was it really possible werewolves were so forced outside their own laws they weren't even allowed such a thing as possessions left by the dead? After all he'd heard, Harry believed it.

James still couldn't bring himself to join in this, he couldn't look at Sirius or anyone or he'd break down again for this future hanging over his brothers life. Not to mention Dumbledore nor anyone had ever said what became of his things. The vault of gold Harry had now was not the only thing in the Potters line, was it really too much to ask who now owned his parents house? This one? Aside from the cloak, Harry still had more from Sirius than him, and even when they were in the same boat now, or well, afterlife, Sirius was still managing to give more to him.

Sirius didn't press the issue onto anyone else, but he certainly hoped Harry got to the Weasleys soon now, or even another cutaway chapter to anyone else who wouldn't mention him for once!

This should leave matters straightforward. A reasonable amount of gold had been added to his vault, as well as all of Sirius' possessions should fall to Harry-

Vernon interrupted to demand his godfather was dead?

"Timing," Lily snarled in disgust at anyone so blatantly stating this, as if it hadn't been done enough already today. She didn't know how Sirius had managed to say that with a straight face, she and James had only gotten through it on constricted confidence it wasn't yet true. He tried to brush right past it like he did all things Vermin, related...or Vernon, same thing.

Dumbledore answered a simple yes.

"I would have given him a one word answer as well, but it wouldn't have been that," James snapped.

"Don't be daft Prongs, the only single word you ever use is for a spell, and even then you flourish those for show," Sirius happily corrected.

James made a face at him and actually looked to give a colorful response back, just for the simple bliss he still could and would hold onto that as long as possible, before Remus snapped, "I'm surprised you two never read a dictionary for all the words you use, but we don't need to hear every one of them now!"

James made an annoyed, slightly confused face at him as if just noticing for the first time what a mood Moony was really in, but Sirius had no want to test it right now when he still had to get back to something so unpleasant so kept going anyways.

He did not ask Harry why he had not confided in the Dursleys.

Lily stopped eyeing Remus and went back to the despicable and never ending thoughts for these circumstances going on. Dumbledore himself had admitted last year how aware he was of the situation going on there and still they got more evidence how little he cared!

Then continued as if uninterrupted this should also mean Harry was in possession of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The problem was-

"That is indeed a problem," Sirius couldn't help making his own disgruntled face at that. "I never wanted Harry stepping back into that place even while I was in it, now I don't want to even think of him being on the same block as it!"

Harry tensed and shifted with unease for this particular comment. Everything in him wanted to agree with Sirius, but at the same time the words wouldn't come out. He never wanted to be near that place again, but the idea saddened him the same as if he was never allowed in this home again. Home...such a strange word choice, he just couldn't imagine it ever applying to such a grim house, and was sure it was simply his mind slipping up with something else.

Again he was interrupted by Vernon greedily demanding he'd been left a house?

"Actually, I take it back," Sirius said at once, his eyes narrowing maliciously. "If giving it to Harry in any way leads to Vernon stepping in and never stepping back out, I'll arrange this myself-" he stopped with a hiss of pain and glared at Moony.

"Do I need to point out why that was in poor taste," he hissed for his ear while the other three winced and pretended like they hadn't heard him anyways.

"Is this what's got you so round the bind? I'm not going to stop saying whatever I please thank you."

When Remus just made a face and turned away muttering about nonsense, Sirius realized he hadn't guessed right and kept going without almost anyone noticing for a moment, which was lucky with the next few lines.

This time he was ignored, and Harry supplied they could keep using it as headquarters, he never wanted back in that place again where Sirius had once prowled, so desperate to escape.

Dumbledore thanked him for the generosity, but explained they had temporarily vacated the premises.

"Of course the only good that place has ever got would be taken away," he muttered purely for himself.

Harry asked why, both of them ignoring the Dursleys predicament of the glasses now rapping the Dursleys over the head and sloshing the drink everywhere.

That got a surprised snicker out of everyone, leaving at least Sirius pleased one thing could still make them smile during all this constant black depression.

As Sirius was the last, than tradition would instead have it go to the next available pureblood in the line.

A vivid image of the shrieking, spitting portrait of Sirius's mother that hung in the hall of number twelve, Grimmauld Place flashed into Harry's mind.

"I'm almost saddened he knows the place so well," James said in disgust.

He agreed that didn't surprise him, and Dumbledore supplied this meant Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Would be a touch more fitting than it ever was on me," Sirius shrugged without any real care.

"The only thing she should have is a cell, not anything you once did." Harry snapped at once.

Sirius eyed him but chose not to argue the point, thinking he was far too worked up about it.

Without realizing what he was doing, Harry sprang to his feet; the telescope and trainers in his lap rolled across the floor. Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius's killer, inherit his house?

Dumbledore agreed it would not be helpful to the Orders cause, but there was a very simple test to now know who it truly was in ownership.

Sirius paused to scratch at his ear, but he couldn't really think of one. He supposed there was some blood magic to be worked, he vaguely recalled something of the like going on with house-elf ownership and quarrels about that in the past of who it should go to when the eldest chose otherwise. However, the very idea of Harry drawing blood for anything only reminded him of more pink, and far from it being worth that waste of space, he skipped on and hoped Dumbledore literally meant the word simple, for once.

Before he could explain, Vernon interrupted again to get these off!

Harry looked around; all three of the Dursleys were cowering with their arms over their heads as their glasses bounced up and down on their skulls, their contents flying everywhere.

"That, is the best mental imagery, I've heard all day." James declared at once.

"Wasn't much contest," Remus rolled his eyes.

The other four gave a lighthearted laugh in agreement anyways, it just wasn't as satisfying as Sirius arriving and cursing them all where they sat, or even Dumbledore doing more than sloshing some drink on them with cups.

Dumbledore did indeed vanish them after pointing out it would have been better manners to drink it.

Lily shook her head, politely incredulous at Dumbledore's incredulous politeness.

It looked as though Uncle Vernon was bursting with any number of unpleasant retorts, but he merely shrank back into the cushions with Aunt Petunia and Dudley and said nothing, keeping his small piggy eyes on Dumbledore's wand.

Then he turned back and flicked his wand for a fifth time.

"Why is it keeping count?" James randomly muttered.

"For the Dursleys benefit I'm sure," Harry gave a slight smile, knowing he'd seen them flinch uneasily every time.

There was a loud crack, and a house-elf appeared, with a snout for a nose, giant bat's ears, and enormous bloodshot eyes, crouching on the Dursleys' shag carpet and covered in grimy rags.

Sirius' face drained of blood, while his mind consumed with a shocking amount of hatred he thought he could only feel for a rat. It seemed to extend to the thing that got him killed as well. The others may blame Dumbledore holding information over Harry's head leading to it, but Sirius couldn't forget the kicker, or what he'd like to be kicking! That no good, infested vermin who'd done everything his whole life to treat him as if he were lower than the filth cleaning their floors!

"Sirius?" Remus spoke softly, the first time this morning he'd really come back to himself as he leaned towards him in concern, grabbing for his shoulder, but Sirius shook it off just as quickly. He no more wanted to linger on that wretch than he did the veil, none of it mattered, least of all the soon to be headless elf.

Aunt Petunia let out a hair-raising shriek; nothing this filthy had entered her house in living memory. Dudley drew his large, bare, pink feet off the floor and sat with them raised almost above his head, as though he thought the creature might run up his pajama trousers, and Vernon bellowed what was that?

The twisted expression upon his godfathers face could never be described as a smile, but the pleasure was certainly there Kreacher was getting some use in scaring the Dursleys for a moment at least.

Dumbledore pointed out if Harry owned the house, than he also owned Kreacher.

Kreacher was clearly none to happy about this, stamping his feet, and shouting he won't, won't, won't, go into the Potter brats care! He wanted his new mistress! He wanted miss Bellatrix!

Lily had half a mind to get up herself and smack Sirius for the tone he was using. She still wished he'd understand he'd never helped the situation by showing nothing but cruelty to his elf, but it would do no more good than blame the way Snape treated Harry on his godfather. The elf was his own actions and was as responsible for them as the Potions teacher was for abusing his students. She like the others wished more than anything Sirius would release the elf now and avoid all future problems with this.

Harry at once protested he didn't want him!

Harry rubbed painfully at his ear, Sirius shouting that with increasing volume was starting to hurt, so he shot a question that occurred to him instead. "How was Dumbledore keeping him away? If Elf's have their own magic and can apparate, or I assume disapparate from wherever they want."

"Oh there are still ways of blocking them," Sirius viciously explained, and Harry instantly regretted asking as it only seemed to fuel his desire to be stamping on the elves head right now. "Magical blockers, outsmarting the little blighter which isn't hard, Merlin just knocking him unconscious or poisoning him or-"

"Alright Sirius," Lily snapped, "I don't need to hear the entire list!"

He scowled at her but kept going simply because he actually didn't want to linger on all the things he'd considered doing in his past which were suddenly a far more real threat to that things life.

Dumbledore reminded to turn him away would send him to Bellatrix just as fast, with the knowledge of all the Order.

Harry stared at Dumbledore. He knew that Kreacher could not be permitted to go and live with Bellatrix Lestrange, but the idea of owning him, of having responsibility for the creature that had betrayed Sirius, was repugnant.

"Responsibility isn't the right word," James snapped. "Just tell him not to set foot outside that place again until his dying day, which hopefully will come soon enough anyways! Problem solved, you never have to see the scum again."

Dumbledore prompted Harry to give him an order, and if he complied, than the matter was settled. If not, they'd have to find other methods to keep him from his new and rightful mistress.

Through all of this Kreacher's shoutings had only gotten louder, so Harry said the only thing that came to mind, shut up!

Sirius' satisfied little smirk was the closest thing he was going to get to congratulating Harry for that right now, he certainly wouldn't have been so kind with this test.

It looked for a moment as though Kreacher was going to choke. He grabbed his throat, his mouth still working furiously, his eyes bulging. After a few seconds of frantic gulping, he threw himself face forward onto the carpet (Aunt Petunia whimpered) and beat the floor with his hands and feet, giving himself over to a violent, but entirely silent, tantrum.

"Well, we can no longer say Sirius doesn't think ahead," Remus tried in vain for a joking tone even if his face was too pale to pull it off.

Sirius did give him a real smile for the attempt anyways even as he mock pouted for the jab.

Cheerful now, Dumbledore said that settled it all.

Harry asked if he had to keep him with him?

"Malfoy didn't keep Dobby on his heels," Sirius rolled his eyes for Harry's random question.

"I certainly didn't want him at the Dursleys place, as if I needed another reason to loath it," Harry reminded, thinking more along the lines Kreacher would have to relocate to wherever he called home, no matter how loosely.

Sirius nodded that made it a fair question then.

Dumbledore gave the idea to have him working in the schools kitchens, where the other elves could help keep an eye on him.

"Yes, because there's not enough slave labor going on in there, another was really needed," Lily couldn't help but scoff at that, honestly thinking that's more what Hermione would say so felt like somebody should.

Harry however frowned and demanded, "Dumbledore couldn't have suggested that for Sirius? Have him out of the house to begin with?"*

Sirius opened, then closed his mouth. It wasn't ideal, and still left the house-elf open to much vulnerability without someone keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't spread something he wasn't supposed to, but if this had been done at the beginning there would have been little to nothing to start with! He had no good answer for Harry, none of them did.

Harry agreed to this at once and instructed the house-elf to do as such. Kreacher, who was now lying flat on his back with his arms and legs in the air, gave Harry one upside-down look of deepest loathing and, with another loud crack, vanished.

"You didn't even order him not to seek out Bellatrix, or otherwise do much of anything," Sirius frowned in unease at once. "You're leaving that thing far to loose after what you now know he can do."

Harry winced at this overlap, but Lily pacified, "I'm sure whatever Dumbledore was doing before to keep him away from Bellatrix he's continuing now. It may not be permanent and he'd have Harry go back and enforce it later, but it worked for a fortnight, it should last them a while longer."

Sirius was honestly just disappointed Harry hadn't clothed the thing and be done with it, but as that would only circle them back to the problem with the Order he chose to let it all go instead and hopefully move on.

All that was left now was the matter of Buckbeak.

Here he actually sobered, for the first time realizing he'd had something in his care. It was as if someone were telling him what was being done to his owl Buggle when he went to Azkaban. He'd somehow grown distantly fond of Buckbeak and he'd never even met him yet.

Hagrid had been looking after him, but if Harry wished other arrangements-

He perked up all over again, a lighthearted chuckle escaping a throat he wouldn't have thought possible a moment ago. At least Hagrid got something out of this!

Harry at once said that was perfect.

"I am wondering now why that wasn't done anyways," James ruffled up his hair at such a simple explanation. "It's not like the Ministry was going to swing back by and accuse him of having the same hippogriff that had gotten away so many years ago."

"I'm sure I kept him around for a quick get away," Sirius shrugged, not liking the idea of how long he probably went without a wand on the run, and had probably still been afraid of being unable to apparete so Buckbeak was just an extra security for it at the time.

They had rechristened him to be Witherwings just in case, but no one should ever suspect a thing about the hippogriff to die those years ago was the same now.**

"I'm sure that makes him completely invisible to them," Lily couldn't help a giggle.

Now, was his trunk all packed?

Harry muttered err, eyeing his fallen shoe and telescope.

"That means yes, I just have to finish up one or two things," Sirius lightly interpreted.

"Like the rest of it," James snorted.

Harry ran off to finish this, but came back to find Dumbledore was still waiting in the sitting room. So he reluctantly came back and found Dumbledore waiting for him to finish by addressing the Dursleys that Harry would come of age in a years time.

Petunia spoke up for the first time he would not, he was a month younger than Dudley who didn't turn eighteen until the year after next.

"What does that have to do with anything?" James asked. He'd just thought Petunia had completely forgotten how old Harry was, which was honestly a likely answer.

"Muggles are considered of age at eighteen," Lily shrugged.

James looked baffled at what he saw as a random number but didn't press her for more.

Dumbledore corrected wizards were of age at seventeen, and ignoring Vernon's mutters of preposterous.

"I would too," Sirius nodded.

"Honestly, a year is so preposterous?" Remus rolled his eyes.

Harry, whom Lord Voldemort has already attempted to kill on a number of occasions,

Sirius made an agitated noise at just how casually that was said.

was still in danger from Voldemort, though the protection invoked fifteen years ago when he'd been left here would be broken at that age.

Sirius finished through gritted teeth, the hate curling tight in his chest never having left since the moment he'd heard that and still somehow convinced if they could just fix that one thing it would all be worth it!

Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together.

They had not done as asked, had never treated Harry as their own. He'd known nothing but cruelty and neglect at their hands.

James twisted violently in his seat for the reminder, his will prepared to launch him back at that door right then to continue retribution for that, but this time Harry was there, more sure of himself than ever to keep them close to him while he still could. He scooted close to his dad and nudged him with a small smile he didn't really feel, but it worked. For all the reminder it was that had happened to Harry, looking at him was just as much a reminder he shouldn't leave him now.

The best that could be said was that he had not suffered the same damage as the boy between them now.

Both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon looked around instinctively, as though expecting to see someone other than Dudley squeezed between them.

Lily scoffed in more disgusted disbelief than she would have thought possible. She really just couldn't believe anyone was so daft before she was forcefully hearing about them.

Vernon furiously tried to protest they'd never done anything against their Dudders,

"Yes, because that was the accusation you should defend," Remus snarled none to quietly even if he did try to keep that one under his breath.

but Dumbledore raised his finger for silence, a silence which fell as though he had struck Uncle Vernon dumb.

He continued the magic keeping him safe would end when he turned seventeen, but he asked that he remain back here until then.

Lily was already fuming by the time Sirius got to that, and couldn't stop herself all but shouting, "Ask? Since when has he had to ask before? He's been forced back whether he wanted it or not! If you hadn't told him they'd have no reason to think otherwise until he was eighteen and could finally kick him out themselves!"

Harry did the same for her, wrapping a gentle arm around her in a hug. She merely patted his arm but refused to really let herself be comforted while this monster of a sister was permitted to act dumb about this.

James had agreed with every word, and wanted more than anything to add on this magic protecting Harry seemed more confusing the more he heard of it. Why would the protection end when he turned of age? Couldn't it simply be reset so long as he was living with Petunia he would remain safe? Not that he in any way wanted that, but if Dumbledore were there the moment it happened and reset it up again, his son would remain safer for just that little bit longer until they came up with a true plan to rid Voldemort once and for all. Apparently though it just vanished once he was an adult, which wasn't unbelievable as the age broke many spells upon one such as the trace, but he had more questions about this that no one was around to give an answer to.

None of the Dursleys said anything. Dudley was frowning slightly, as though he was still trying to work out when he had ever been mistreated.

"Honestly the fact that he even has brain cells he hasn't eaten is the miracle," Remus said dryly.

Uncle Vernon looked as though he had something stuck in his throat; Aunt Petunia, however, was oddly flushed.

So was Lily still, though the comparison between the two had never been less obvious.

He finished with a polite until they met again, the Dursleys looked as though that moment could wait forever as far as they were concerned,

Harry cocked his head to the side with a nasty frown in place, though he was sure that was simply because he was wishing it had happened again and it was likely Dumbledore had simply never gone back.

and after tipping his hat, swept from the room.

Harry waved goodbye and hauled his things to the curb, where Dumbledore asked he extract his cloak before vanishing the lot to the Burrow so as not to cumbersome them on their further outings tonight.

Harry made sure to duck low so his headmaster couldn't see the mess of his trunk as he did this.

Sirius did make a little 'pfft' noise, erasing some tension back in the room as he not so subtly laughed at how little anyone cared about that.

When he had stuffed it into an inside pocket of his jacket, Dumbledore waved his wand and the trunk, cage, and Hedwig vanished. He told Harry they were now going to step out into the flighty temptress of adventure.

He finished with a greatly attempted curious tone, but even he couldn't deny he wasn't looking forward to whatever he was passing along to Harry. Dumbledore's idea of an adventure very likely wasn't the same as theirs.

HPHPHPHP

Random note, I keep wanting to have James call Harry buckaroo. I've been fighting off this compulsion for ages and even catch myself doing it and deleting it in a few drafts, but you all know for a fact if this had been based in America Harry absolutely would have been called that! Or is that just a Southern thing...

*I feel like there were a bunch of points where characters just casually drop ideas that could have done so much good in the last book but are never mentioned again!

**Why didn't Sirius just use polyjuice potion, Transfiguration, or any number of things to leave Grimmauld place at his leisure, or go adopt Harry, or anything? I never brought it up in fic because I don't have a good answer. Hell, they just gave Buckbeak a new name and no one ever bats an eye. All Sirius would have to do was pick a new name, change his hair color and make his nose a little longer and so long as he didn't do anything to draw attention to himself again, I sincerely doubt anyone would have given it notice ever again. I still don't get why he didn't go to school with Harry last year as Padfoot. There was almost no reason for him to be locked in that house except a headcanon I have that will be revealed in the seventh book, but that's at the end, and this was on my mind now, so please discuss!

[fy-enhypen]

“I want to sing and dance for many people” - Jake

JAKE set the following goals for his 20s: to show a more mature version of himself to everyone watching him and to become someone the younger members can turn to when in need of help. You have finally debuted.

JAKE: Our debut seems like yesterday, but time flew by because we had a jam-packed schedule from day one. All I think about these days is working hard.

How was the preparation for your debut?

JAKE: I had to work harder than the others because I’ve only been a trainee for nine months. I didn’t want to lag behind. Once we debut, our dance performances have to be perfectly synchronized, and there are fancams too, so everyone can tell whether we’re good or not. I thought a lot about my dancing and singing because I wanted to show everyone that I made progress during the two months of preparation for our debut.

You ranked first in the producers’ evaluation for the first time with “Flicker” on I-LAND. It must have felt special performing it again on the DEBUT SHOW. What did you want to emphasize during your solo shot on stage?

JAKE: HEESEUNG performed the first part of “Flicker” really well on I-LAND. So I asked him for advice and thought a lot about the gestures, expressions, and choreography to find my own style. Whenever I raised my eyebrows or slightly lifted my head, I made sure to put on more relaxed expressions and vibes. I think the relaxed expressions and gestures are what make a performance stand out, so I try to make my gestures look as relaxed as possible.

How do you practice those gestures?

JAKE: In fact, the gestures I do on stage are often different from when I practice them in front of the mirror. The gestures come out naturally under the stage lighting, with the vibe, and in my costumes. I never even thought about flapping the jacket lapel when I was practicing because I didn’t have the jacket on during practice, but it came out naturally on stage.

Then was your impression of a puppy at the end of the performance of “10 Months” also improvised?

JAKE: I love puppies, and I take it as a compliment when people tell me I look like a puppy. “10 Months” is about a 10-month-old puppy, so I thought the impression would go well with the song. (laughs) I did it on the spot, but I thought a little bit about how I should do it before I went on stage.

JAKE: Watching performance videos help me the most since I haven’t had much stage experience yet. There have been so many idol group performances with diverse concepts. Because I watch so many of them, I’ve become more mindful of the concepts when thinking about performances, and I try to copy the expressions of the idols that staged those performances. I watch the videos of YEONJUN from TOMORROW X TOGETHER to pick up the playful expressions. I want to look like I’m enjoying the performance, but also cute at the same time.

You must have tried to look natural and cool when you were filming the “Given-Taken” music video, too.

JAKE: It was changed on the set of the music video during filming, but made my hands relaxed while filming. I like the relaxed look. V from BTS gives me a lot of inspiration because he is so good at that and because he looks awesome. I want to be like him. That’s my goal. (laughs)

In your first close-up scene from the “Given-Taken” music video, you stand face-to-face with JAY. You two look great in the music video, but it might have been awkward since you are so close.

JAKE: It was very awkward. I couldn’t hold in my laughter to the point where I wanted to apologize to the director, so I actually looked a little bit to the side instead. I couldn’t help but laugh when I looked at his face. (laughs) We filmed without making eye contact or looking at each other’s faces. You know how we appear on the music video one by one? We also filmed many scenes where we face sideways, but I think they were taken out because we laughed so much.

You are not a big fan of scary things, but the “Given-Taken” music video was filmed in the forest late at night.

JAKE: I’m not that afraid of ghosts. I’m more afraid of people than ghosts, and I think I’m more scared of horror movies about people than ghosts.

You seemed terrified of bugs, though. (laughs)

JAKE: Wow. I have so many bad memories of bugs. I’ve had enough of giant bugs when I lived in Australia. (laughs)

It looked like there were a lot of bugs when you were filming the music video. It must have been difficult to focus.

JAKE: I really hate bugs, but I put up with it because we had to film. I thought I shouldn’t look scared because the director and many other staff members were waiting.

What did you think the music video was about when you were shooting it?

JAKE: It’s not easy to analyze “Given-Taken,” and I think it has a deep meaning. I think the song describes the determination or fear we have as we enter the new world after I-LAND, so I tried to be mindful of that when filming the music video. I didn’t want my gestures to suggest that the song can only be interpreted in one way. I wanted to leave room for interpretation for the fans. It wasn’t easy because it was my first time filming a music video, but I did my best.

The parts you sing in “Given-Taken” have many high notes. How did you practice singing?

JAKE: From the day after our debut was decided, I’ve been recording every single day, and I think that helped a lot. I was able to hear my voice from an objective point of view, and I thought I needed to change the way I vocalize. Even when I speak, I tend to be breathy, so my voice sounds a bit weak when I’m singing. I asked the producer how I could resonate, project, and sound more solid, and I learned a lot. I also tried to look for solutions on my own.

Your narration signaled the beginning of the team ENHYPEN. What did you want to express through the narration?

JAKE: I believe narrations should be able to draw people in. They should tie the whole album together. The title song “Given-Taken” is dark, and I thought it adequately described the fear and complicated feelings that arise when heading toward a new world so that’s the feel I tried to express.

It must have been difficult since it was your first time recording a narration.

JAKE: The producers and I worked really hard, and the members would tell me that I went into the studio with lots of energy and then came out looking exhausted. (laughs) It was my first time narrating, and there were many parts that were just my voice without any background music. There were so many things I had to be mindful of, like how to bring out the right emotion. So I would set a heavy tone in the studio with no lights on, and brought up a lot of different thoughts. You usually stand when you’re recording, but I sat down sometimes because it took so long. But I think my narration in the first trailer turned out pretty well because I did it after I got some practice from recording the Intro and Outro.

Your Australian accent from the narration received a lot of attention. What was it like living in Australia?

JAKE: Life in Australia was the definition of a chill life. I would get off school at three, and I didn’t have many things to do. The pace of life in Australia is slower, and you have a lot of time to think. So I found the Korean culture very different, with everything being done so quickly. I liked being busy and having a routine while living as a trainee for nine months in Korea, but these days, I sometimes miss the relaxed atmosphere of Australia. (laughs)

I heard you became a trainee after passing the global audition with the odds of 500:1.

JAKE: I found that out when I watched the show. Until the morning of the audition , I still debated whether to go or not. But my dad suggested we give it a shot, so I went without thinking too much about it and I sang Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself.”

Were there any challenges to adapting to life as a trainee?

JAKE: Honestly speaking, I never knew it would be that hard. (laughs) It was okay on the days when I had lessons, but when I didn’t, I didn’t know what I should be doing all day long. But I prepared for the monthly performance tests, got lessons, and became more interested in dancing and singing. I think that’s when I started making a lot of progress.

You also got a lot of attention on I-LAND for consistently making progress.

JAKE: I spend a lot of time thinking about the feedback I receive, and I think I was able to make progress because I focused on fixing my problems. I try to think that if I keep thinking about ways to improve my performance, I’ll be able to perform better next time. And whenever I’m rehearsing or performing on stage, I don’t worry too much about it, and I try not to. I’m going to be on many different stages from now. I try to enjoy myself because I think I make fewer mistakes throughout the performance when I’m truly having fun. When I moved to Korea from Australia, I had to transfer to a Korean school, and that along with becoming a trainee was completely new to me, so it wasn’t easy at first. But once I got used to my life as a trainee, it was fine.

Moving to Korea to become a trainee must have been a big decision.

JAKE: I made the bold choice to leave behind a lot of things in Australia to come here. My parents and I were very concerned because the path of a trainee is rife with uncertainties that can disappear all of a sudden. But when I get hooked on something, I have to see it through to the end. I think about it all day and become obsessive. (laughs) Ever since I started dreaming of becoming an idol, my goal was to debut no matter what. So even when people told me that being a trainee will be difficult, I thought of it as a step toward my dream.

ENHYPEN must hold a special meaning for you.

JAKE: Enhypen will be a part of me for the rest of my life, and I really think of the members as family. You know, BTS is famous for their strong teamwork and a tight-knit relationship, and it shows in their videos. We want to follow their example.

You said that you get along with SUNGHOON very well because you’re the same MBTI type and have a lot in common.

JAKE: We depend on each other a lot. We have so much in common, and he has even more things on his mind. When we were choosing our in-ear monitors, he thought it over for three more days (laughs). It’s interesting because he often reminds me of myself before my personality changed. We share the same blood type and MBTI type. So when he is concerned about something, I often tell him what I would have wanted to hear if I had been in his situation.

The members born in 2002 will enter your 20s very soon.

JAKE: This year has been very hectic for me, moving to Korea and becoming a trainee, and the next thing I know, I’m almost an adult. Honestly, I don’t have big expectations and haven’t given much thought about it, but I’m happy that I’m becoming an adult with the members who were born in 2002, like me.

What do you want your 20s to be like?

JAKE: Above all, I’m an artist now, and I feel a sense of anxiety and tension about the fact that many people are watching me. So I’m determined to show a more mature version of myself. I’m 19, which means I’m the second oldest member of the team. Many of the members are younger than me, but they seem to think I’m cute, and honestly speaking, I don’t think I’m acting like an older member either (laughs). So I want to become close to them, and be someone they can turn to when they’re feeling down.

Then as a member of ENHYPEN, what kind of artist do you want to be?

JAKE: I was an ordinary teenager until a year ago, and even now, I don’t think I’m very different from other people. I just think of myself as a performer and a musician. So I want to sing and dance for many people.

There are fans out there who love your performance and music.

JAKE: This is still very new to me, and honestly, I’m so grateful and I don’t think this feeling will ever go away. (laughs) It’s my first time having fans, and I’m absolutely overwhelmed. It was my birthday a while ago, and I’ve never received so many congratulations from so many people. I was really grateful. I was all alone in the practice studio on my last birthday, calling and texting my family, but this year, I was so happy to see not only my family but so many fans rooting for me and sending me love.

It’s a shame you can’t meet them in person right now.

JAKE: Like I said, I dreamed of becoming an idol watching idol group performances, and I dreamed of going on stage at a concert and screaming and shouting with the fans. I don’t know when that’ll be, but when I finally get to perform in front of our fans, I think I’ll be unimaginably happy.

[theshatteredrose]

Relic Keepers: Awakening of the Red Lily (Chapter 1) - Original Fiction

Title: Relic Keepers: Awakening of the Red Lily

Summary: A 1000 years after an apocalyptic event called the Bombardment, humanity have learnt how to harness the power of mana. Silverleaf Military Academy is a learning centre for Indigo Children, those who have the ability to use Mana. And they are divided into two classes; the Elites, who’s skills make them superior on the battlefield. And Passives, who’s skills do not belong outside of the Academy. Supposedly. Eishirou is classed as a Passive. He is also a Chronicler. Gathering lost information, finding relics, learning about the far-flung distant past is what he does. And he enjoys it. However, his life changes when he gets called out to his first expedition in the field with his new roommate, Zayne – a powerfully protective Elite!

Genres: Young adult, suspense, action, adventure, treasure hunt, scifi fantasy, romance, slow burn romance, gay romance

Notes: Ok, here it is. M y first attempt at an original novel! A little nervous to be honest, but I’ll try my best to be entertaining! I’ll also try my best to keep the chapters under 3k for easier reading. But, you know, things happen. Now, this will be a very long project and I will attempt to maintain weekly updates. I do hope you'll give this story a chance. And I hope you'll enjoy reading~

Ao3 | Wattpad | Inkitt | FictionPress

Chapter 1:

Eishirou huffed a tired sigh to remove an annoying strand of brown hair from his eyes. His eyes, normally a honey brown, were no doubt darken and possibly even bloodshot from staring at a bright computer screen for a few long hours.

He enjoyed his role as a Researcher and Chronicler. But staring at data for hours on end certainly got boring really quickly.

“Eishirou? You’re still here?”

Looking up from his work screen, Eishirou glanced over at his fellow Chronicler and friend.

Reddish brown hair and vivid emerald green eyes. Misaki. He was a good guy, friendly and considerate. Protective. He did have an intimidating glare of death, though. Guy knew how to scare the shit out of newbies, that was for sure. And some of the veterans, too.

“Yeah, but not for much longer, I hope,” Eishirou replied as he returned back to his work screen. “Someone was reported to have messed around with a few archives. I’m just making sure they didn’t actually mess with the data.”

Eishirou didn’t need to look over at Misaki to know that his usual friendly smile had turned into a deep frown. “Someone hacked the data? Do you know who?”

“Nope. Just that someone did.”

“I see,” Misaki murmured. “I will find out then.”

Eishirou wasn’t able to suppress an amused snort when he heard Misaki’s footsteps move away. He felt sorry for them, whoever they were. For a few seconds at least. Messing with the data was a bit no-no.

The information he was inspecting was basic, but needed to be preserved regardless. It was information he had seen all before. He knew it by heart, honestly. So, he would be able to get through it all quickly.

The prestigious Silverleaf Academy, a military university where students possessing mana-infused abilities came to train. It was located in Araluen, a Sanctuary City. Set in the middle of an island, surrounded by a large stone wall. And that was located ten miles from the shore of a vastly inhabitable continent. A continent that was reportedly to have once been as Australia. A place they now referred to as Main Land.

"Be sure to book now for the 1022nd Anniversary of the Bombardment!" the large plasma advertising board on the other side of the information centre robotically sounded, momentarily distracting Eishirou from his work.

Oh, was it that time of the year again?

The Bombardment was the name for an era in time, over a thousand years ago, where several asteroids impacted the earth within minutes of each other. Several large cities were wiped clean from the surface. Millions of lives where taken. Many more to follow in the apocalyptic aftermath. Life as those who knew it back then was irreversibly changed.

Of course, they didn't have the exact time or date when the Bombardment had occurred. Information from that era was largely lost and destroyed. And the information they had uncovered mostly contradicted itself. It was difficult to tell between all the fake propaganda and the truth. Not to mention that ruins seemed to date back further than a thousand years. Ancient. No mentioning of them in any form of text or data.

The common consensus was that the Bombardment happened over a thousand years ago. And had brought modern civilisation to its knees.

It also brought the use and discovery of mana.

The scientific community all agreed on one thing; if humanity had not discovered mana and found a way to harness it, then humanity would have been destroyed, too.

By using mana and infusing it within their inventions, they were able to rebuild society. Restructured cities. Learn how to live off the land. Learning how to harness mana within the human body.

The mana itself was largely a mystery. It was a source of energy. Mostly invisible until it was condensed and concentrated, which would then be presented in a glowing light.

However, the scientific community was divided in regards to where said mana came from. The asteroids? Or were rich mana deposits hidden within the Earth the entire time and it took a cataclysmic impact to reveal them?

There were a lot of…discussions about that topic. And certain scientists would often times get violent and confrontational.

Eishirou didn’t have a preference either way. Far as he knew, both scenarios were likely. And did it really make that much of a difference where Mana came from a thousand years ago? It wasn’t going to affect your average Joe’s way of life.

Those born after the Bombardment were often referred as Indigo Children. They were born with the innate ability to use Mana. And they fell into two categories; Elites and Passives.

Some form of discrimination was still rife amongst the Indigo Children. Elites verses and Passives. Elites are those born with battling abilities. Creating swords or other miscellaneous weapons out of mana. They were the ones who fight against the creatures known simply as ShadowDwellers.

ShadowDwellers were, simply put, abominations. Deformed creatures that also possessed the ability to use Mana. Again, the scientific community was divided with where they came from. Again, the asteroids? Or deep within the Earth itself? Some even believed that they were once humans themselves, mutated by mana in some way.

Silverleaf Academy had several Elite Squadrons that ensured the safety of students and residents alike.

Eishirou was a Passive Indigo Child. He didn’t fight in battles. Though, he could enter the battlefield if necessary. Only as a Medic, however. He possessed no fighting skills whatsoever. What skills he did possess was useful for research and archaeology.

He was a bit of an oddity, if one went by the Academy Hierarchy. He was a Chronicler, someone who dealt with gathering information and ensuring its safety for future generations. So, many Elites would refer to them as Paper-Pushers.

But he was also a Medic. And according to the Hierarchy, he was off-limits. No harm was to come to medics, no matter what. Anyone who dared to harm a medic deserved severe punishment.

So, Eishirou was both a nobody and someone of immunity.

In short, the Academy Hierarchy was stupid.

Chroniclers and Information Gatherers were important, however. The ‘modern’ civilisations from a thousand years ago seemed to have believed that they were the pinnacle of evolution. And they possessed all the information that there was to be known.

And yet, many of the ruins that have been discovered date back potentially millions of years. Civilisations deep underground and within the seas. Places and locations that were believed to have been impossible during ‘modern’ civilisation.

Either they were completely arrogant. Or completely ignorant.

A mixture of both, perhaps.

Scientists of today refuse to make the same mistake. They wish to document everything, no matter how controversial or ‘wrong’ that information appeared to be. Fact over fiction. Truth over lies.

Well, the document seemed perfectly intact. Done! He was a free man.

A buzzing sound from his communicator, however, stopped him dead in his tracks. Typical.

With a drawn-out groan, Eishirou slumped back into his chair and picked up his communicator. He didn’t need to see who was ringing him to know who it was. “Prof, you’re slipping. I didn’t even get my butt out of the chair this time.”

The hologram scene of Professor Chryses chortled. “I’ll try harder next time.”

As long as he didn’t catch him in the shower again. If he did, Eishirou was just going to ignore it. No matter how many times he rang.

“Let me guess; you got an assignment?” Eishirou asked.

The middle-aged man on the other side of the communicator nodded. With his dark sun-burned skin and deep wrinkles around his eyes, he was your typical off-the-grid researcher. The best at the Academy, to be completely frank. And he was Eishirou’s mentor.

“That’s right. And you’re coming with me.”

That surprised Eishirou. The only field research experience he had was helping in the restoration of relics and runestones that Jacob and his fellow researchers had discovered. He hadn’t been away from the city before.

“Really? Where to? Are we heading for Main Land?”

Jacob shook his head. “No. A small but tropically dense island thirty miles from here. It should be a rather short assignment. A damaged stone tablet was discovered.”

Ah, that was why he wanted him to join him. That, and he was old enough to start gaining some field experience. “And you need my expertise?”

“Correct,” Jacob smiled. “See you in an hour. Elite Team 3 will be meeting us at the Hanger 12.”

“Elites?” Eishirou repeated in a surprised tone.

“ShadowDwellers had been reported in the area,” Jacob explained simply.

Ah, that explained a lot. Though, there seemed to be an increase in ShadowDweller sightings and occurrences lately. He briefly wondered why that was.

“Right, see you in a bit,” Eishirou returned before he ended the call.

Well, no point dawdling now.

Eishirou grabbed his shoulder bag from the floor of his work desk and stood up. The small door which encapsulated him at his desk slid open noiselessly, allowing him to step out onto the stairs.

“You’re heading out again?” a feminine voice practically whined at him.

He turned to look over at another Chronicler. Long purple hair, dark pink eyes, quite fragile in appearance. Lyvia. She worked full-time within the Communication centre. Her frail body prevented her from joining field missions.

“The ol’ slave driver wants me to join him on an assignment,” Eishirou explained. “A short one, he claims. But we all know what that means.”

Lyvia’s pout quickly transformed into a smile and she nodded. “I heard Elites. Which team?”

“Team 3.”

“Oh!” her expression brightened unexpectedly. “I heard they got a new member. Ernesta practically forced him to join.”

That sounded like something Ernesta would do. She was very mild-mannered, peaceful in some ways. But she was terrifying when angry. Oooh, boy, Eishirou never wanted to get on her bad side.

“You might get to meet him,” Lyvia continued before she gave a telling giggle. “He’s supposedly cute.”

Eishirou rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sure to let you know.”

He bid his fellow Chroniclers farewell as he turned and walked up the pathway toward the exit. He walked past the main Observation Deck and out through the automatic sliding doors. He noted that the Observation Deck was empty. Which was usually a good thing. Nothing untoward was occurring throughout the Academy and city. Whenever the Communicator Commander was there, it meant trouble was about to go down.

Eishirou hadn’t had the pleasure of being on duty when Professor Jalen, or Communications Commander, started barking orders. He was a Chronicler, but he dealt more with the field work. Often aiding Professor Chryses. He only ever used his Chronicler privileges when he needed some classified information. Or just information in general.

He had the ability to access any information at any given time. It was easier within the Communication Centre, but anywhere he could get access to the internet, he could get the information he wanted.

The buzzing of his communicator pulled Eishirou from his thoughts once more. When he pulled it out of his pocket, he half expected to see that it was the Jacob again. Instead he was surprised to see it was his dorm superintendent.

“Katsuto, what’s up?” Eishirou asked as the hologram of a man with a stern expression flickered into view.

“Just informing you that you have a new roommate,” Katsuto stated in his usual brisk and stern manner.

He stopped dead in his tracks. Wait, roommate?

“What roommate?” Eishirou immediately asked. “No one said anything about me getting a roommate!”

Katsuto barely even blinked at his response. “You do now. He’s waiting for you. Play nice.”

“W-wait a minute-!” Eishirou spluttered. But it was useless. Katsuto finished the call on his end and Eishirou was left staring at the screen of his communicator.

He sighed loudly as his shoulders slumped forward in defeat. Asshole. Could have at least warned him a few days in advance. He knew he was to get a new roommate one day, after his old roommate had unfortunately taken ill and had to move to a dorm closer to the medical wing.

But that was beside the point. A bit of common courtesy from Katsuto wouldn’t have gone astray! And he didn’t even mention the guy’s name!

Ugh…

He uttered another sigh and kept walking. Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. He had an assignment to skip off to, anyway. He couldn’t play host for very long. Even so, he hoped the guy was easy to get along with.

After a few minutes of walking, he finally reached the door to his room. He took a minute to gather his composure before he used his key card to open the door. And he stepped inside.

His gaze immediately flickered over to the bed located on the left side of the room. And yup, there was someone there.

He appeared to have been going through his luggage. Tall guy, a couple of heads taller than Eishirou was. So…over six feet. With floppy dark blue hair. His eyes appeared purple. His skin was a light tan. Perhaps it was natural, or it meant that he had spent quite a lot of time outside.

No matter.

“Ah, you’re my new roommate,” Eishirou greeted, gaining the new guy’s attention.

The guy turned in his direction and gave him a thankfully friendly looking smile. “That’s me. You must be Eishirou.”

The door slid closed behind him as Eishirou moved into the room. “And that’s me.”

“The name’s Zayne.”

As Eishirou shook the other guy’s hand in greeting, he noted that he had an Elite emblem on his jacket. He had to fight the urge to do a double-take. Wait, an Elite? Why would an Elite be rooming with a Passive? Especially as Passive like him?

Although, he was…kinda cute, he had to admit. He had the body of an Elite; subtle muscles, sleek form, straight back, and oozing with confidence. Hoped he retained that friendliness after learning that Eishirou was a paper-pusher.

“Sorry, can’t stay long to chat,” Zayne suddenly stated with a wry grin. “First day here and I’m already on an assignment.”

“Doesn’t take long, unfortunately,” Eishirou returned with an empathetic tone. Before he, too, grinned. “I have one, too. Where you headed?”

“Hanger 12 for now.”

Wait…

“Ah, what Elite team, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Team 3,” Zayne answered quickly, completely unbothered that Eishirou knew he was an elite without asking.

So, he was the new guy on Elite Team 3? Eishirou wasn’t entirely sure what to feel about that. Some Elite’s don’t like the prospect of acting like bodyguards to Passives.

Well, one way to find out.

“Well…looks like you’re escorting me there,” Eishirou commented, earning himself a confused tilt of the head from Zayne. “I’m a Passive. And you’re going to be acting as a bodyguard for this assignment.”

[aiyassalt]

Honestly, I greatly dislike Sansa (both her book and show counterparts), but there are times when I read pro-Sansa posts and theories, I feel pity for her.

No, not because I think the show “butchered” her. As mega-ringsandthings-world pointed out, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Sansa to become what she is in S8. GRRM created her to be the black sheep of the family who clashes and causes trouble for other family members. This is the same girl who snitched on her dad to the woman who ordered her wolf killed so that she can get Joffrey’s dick hand in marriage and become Queen. This is the same girl who dismissed Jory’s death because his replacement is much more handsome. This is the same girl who is currently in on the plan to slowly poison her epileptic and orphaned cousin and covers up the truth about his mother’s death so that she can get the Vale. So, it’s totally possible for Sansa grow from an extremely spoiled, self-centered snobby brat who throws family members and allies under a bus for power and prestige to a manipulative yet gullible, traumatized, bitter, self-centered woman who screws over family members and allies for power.

No, I feel pity for Sansa because, out of her own universe, in fandom, she has few people in her corner. The only people who seem to appreciate her for what she is are only a handful of Sansa stans and Sansa haters/critics like me. Like many fans have brilliantly pointed out, many Sansa stans’ investment in Sansa has less to do with them genuinely finding her character and/or storyline interesting, but more so that she serves as a self-insert and they project traits and storylines they find desirable for her.  For all her fans’ claims of how they love her so much because she’s so feminine, non-magical, and not a physical badass (of course, annoying “subtle” digs at Jon, Arya, and Dany), the posts that incorrectly summarize Sansa’s traits, fanfics that have Sansa wielding a sword, bows and arrows, the posts theorizing that she will receive/warg Nymeria or Dany’s dragons, raise Arya’s or Dany’s kids, become the YMBQ and posts by Sansa stans getting pouty that not everyone think Sansa’s destined to become the next ruler of the North, Queen of the 7K, and/or YMBQ prove opposite. I would dare to say that Sansa stans dislike, nay, hate canon!Sansa and her actual storyline. And quite frankly, I don’t blame them.

Sansa’s not one of the Main Five; she’s just a main character. She’s also supposed to be the female equivalent of the Everyman character who serves as a window for the readers into how the courtly culture of this medieval fantasy-esque setting is rife with corruption and cruelty hiding beneath the thin and glittery veneer of courtly values and luxury. Her arc has nothing to do with rulership and leadership. Her beginning chapters cement her as a thoughtless, self-centered, vain, classist brat with low pockets of empathy for anyone who isn’t attractive and/or highborn and disturbingly parallels with young!Cersei’s beginnings. She isn’t super intelligent, observant, kind, or clever, especially compared to other characters. She’s easily one of the most conformist and classist characters in the series and doesn’t give much thought as to how she will improve her life and the lives of others. She’s incredibly passive and her passiveness becomes more apparent compared to other characters. Her accomplishments are unremarkable and look even more so compared to what other characters (especially to the Main Five) achieve. Romance-wise, her love life looks rather dismal and far from the stuff of wish-fulfillment for many Sansa stans who think like AGOT!Sansa. None of the male characters she interacts with (Joffery, Sandor, Tyrion, Littlefinger, Sweetrobin, Harry, etc) exactly fit the mold of the Prince Charming trope in terms of looks and/or personality meanwhile other female characters seem to get “better pickings” of potential male love interests. Hell, even in the sphere of beauty standards, Sansa’s good looks don’t make her exactly unique. Also, the books clearly and frequently subvert the Beauty Is Never Tarnished trope and have many formerly beautiful women temporarily or permanently lose their looks. So, there might be chance that Sansa might undergo an event that slightly or greatly disfigures her. Finally, regarding acquisition of power, again, what Sansa gets, and how she acquires it will pale in comparison to what other characters. Contrary to the show, Sansa is not going to become Queen of the North. If Sansa does acquire a title, it will most likely be Lady of the Vale and it will be through killing/endangering her epileptic cousin. Jon, Dany and/or Arya, on the other hand, will likely play integral roles in the War for the Dawn, contenders for Kingship/Queenship of the North or the Iron Throne, and will gain their power through charisma, dedication, sheer will and determination, compassion, and hard work.

So yeah, I can see how and why many Sansa stans go out of their way to take anything and everything from other characters to give to their so-called “favorite”. I can see why they insist on pro-Sansa revisionist spins that erase Sansa’s flaws as well as any responsibility, agency, and blame she owns for any wrongs she commits. Sansa is not at all an easy or likable character to root for.

And yet, despite all that I said…it’s completely fine that she is all those things. Yes, I, someone who greatly dislikes Sansa, is saying this. There’s nothing wrong with Sansa starting off as a passive, classist, and snobby bully with little empathy and not much intelligence and she becomes…well, less of a bully at least.  It’s completely fine her arc has nothing to do with ruling or leading and is all about her just learning to be less shallow and appreciate what she initially had. It’s completely fine she doesn’t end up as Queen of the North or the Seven Kingdoms, doesn’t take Cersei down, doesn’t end up with fAegon, etc. There’s nothing wrong (other than the child poisoning deal…) with Sansa acquiring the Vale. It’s a rich region and its culture is more suitable to Sansa’s personality, tastes, and arc.

What I find frustrating and saddening is that Sansa fans have no problem finger-wagging at Dany, Arya, and Jon fans how it’s fine and even “beautiful” if our faves don’t get happy endings or enjoy perks typical of their fairy tale archetypes. Yet these same Sansa fans seem to empathically refuse to apply the same thinking to their own fave and (again, based on their actions) seem to desperately wish Sansa was something more than a snobby and classist rich mean girl with no magical abilities, charisma, or a big heart full of empathy and compassion. This might be just my thinking, but if you truly like and appreciate a character, then you would not feel the need to bash other characters to prop her/him/they up only to turn around blatantly steal other traits and storylines from the characters you bash because truthfully, you find fave’s personality traits and their arc grating and unsatisfactory.

So, that’s what I mean when I say I feel occasional pity for Sansa: because she has very few fans who genuinely like and appreciate her. Hell, I even feel more pity for Sansa when I think about her fans because I suspect a lot of her so-called “fans” will turn on her if none of their theories and headcanons are validated. I can only imagine what will happen if Sansa dies and never takes Cersei and/or Dany down or is never crowned QiTN or simply becomes Lady of the Vale. Or she ends up with the “wrong” guy or ends up single or with a random noble who isn’t as high-ranking and/or handsome as they would like.

[nochiquinn]

undeadwood episode 2: undead nightmare

okay, kiddo got sick halfway through critrole so I gotta finish THAT later

let's see if I can get through this or if I'm gonna have to watch it on my phone, too

NOPE phone twitch it is

snake-like snake pit

matt's magic hair

this doesn't sound rife with possible disaster

"did you distract a man in the middle of a gunfight?" "....shut up."

arabella and fogg disappear from existence

it's the filth

minis!!

ZAMBIES

marisha: give me thE MAGIC

that's just daylight. you're just casting daylight.

YE

they hung out with taliesin before this. residual eldritch energy.

man I just watched an LP of Erica, I don't need more ladies with nosebleeds

"pourin for JAYZUS" anjali I love you

FIREBALL

"please work please work pleASE WORK" - fogg, probably

depth perception is a bitch

FRY SQUINT AT REVEREND

clayton why are you so bad at everything you're supposed to be good at

when you lie really good on your resume and get the job

red dead redemption undead douchebag

"if he kills the sexy sheriff I'm gonna be so upset"

GOD DAMN MY SUBURBAN PARENTS

Homer Into The Hedge

GET THEE AWAY FROM ME SATANNNNNN

"I'm ready, lord" don't call brian that, it'll go to his head

"I'm so sorry. ...not really." ivan

matt take your glove off

DEGLOVE TO ROLL

brian's hair is escaping

"like ernest goes to camp" THAT'S a reference

POP-POP

I never got magic Jesus powers

there are three kinds of people

them were zambies

undead witch sister

"separately" HMM

(I will not roll this into a mccree/symmetra ship)

werewolf husband

marisha

...where's the head. I feel like the head shouldn't wait until morning

clayton be nice

do not keep the damn head in your room overnight

roll for awake

does. does fogg not sleep.

reverend you have satan powers

someone's gonna get shot knocking on doors

matt's suppressed laugh

hHHhusbAnd

they did the closeups just for travis' face

I don't know if I don't trust him or if Arabella is using him as an excuse to be in deadwood and he's just weird (maybe about his wife's death?)

brian: you cannot evade the question

do not eat breakfast with the head

kermit?

secret's in the sauce

honestly this voice is amazing

sashay away

that is an incredibly overwrought sentence matt

"hey fogg. shut up."

"for the CHURCH"

"you wouldn't be the first shepherd to fuck a sheep" briAN

"a RUSE"

she's a vampire

kick it open

what does he knoooow

"clayton stop being dramatic"

"alchemy" 👀

what happened to the sister

(what was the sister's NAME)

miriam is just so good at moving in and out of these spaces

oh, miriam's a dealer

tr avis

is joanie dead

oh good, just high as fuck

khary started this joke and he's gonna carry it all the way down the field

"vigor check" matt

music wyd

ha, "using him to be in deadwood"

THAT WAS NOT A GOOD THING ARABELLA

necromancer??

khary stop dying

"I have faith. I have no assurance."

clayton stop that

"fuck you guys"

that was the absolute best way of phrasing that

"new pants who dis"

anyone seen The Mist

"there you are" whomst

u ok brian

rip the reverend

arabella

"the raptureeee"

THIS ISN'T HORRIFICALLY CREEPY

travis stop TOUCHING THINGS

don't like it

"I don't like this game right now"

reverend: I am having a BAD DAY

Ringleader of the Dead is a pretty boss title lbr

matt suspicious squinting at travis

lore drop LORE DROP

magic runs on pain

anti-fog field

he has Actual Faith and it's weird satan magic

D.C.

OH he was - yeah what khary said

HEY DOC FOUND YOUR HAT

travis whatcha lookin at

ivan's gm voice makes me instinctively nervous

"is there anything else you'd like to know" "FUCK YES THERE IS"

bar is whispers!

annabelle is a different show

yeahhhh fog science

frankly she's lucky they didn't burn her in that case

props!

oh god for a split second I thought the wood thump was from inside the coffin

WELP fuck

[tothedarkdarkseas]

For fanfic writer ask meme: E, J, K, M, P(for any fic or all your fics), R, T, X, and Y. (If that's too many questions, then you can split the answer into multiple posts. Also, no need to answer if you already answered these questions before.)

Thank you so much! I’ll put these below a cut just to account for the length, and I pray Tumblr works like it’s supposed to this evening! I appreciate you having an interest!

E: What character do you identify with most?  Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well?

I really do not identify with Gorillaz characters and thank god for it, or most characters I tend to prefer! Haha, I know that might sound a bit strange, but I can think of very few characters I’d call “my favorite” that I also felt were a reflection of myself in a major way. Of course that isn’t implying that representation isn’t important, but just speaking for my own personal relationship to media– I live with myself all the time, I like people who live very different lives! Having said that, of the characters I write (all two, possibly three of ‘em) I’d say I identify with some of Stu’s worst qualities over anything else: being unambitious but craving reward, self-centered yet lacking in a concrete sense of self, dumb about mostly everything, overcompensating (to be fair, this is Murdoc as well) and so on. Despite picking fun at him I definitely have an affection for an unlikable guy like Stu, I do have sympathy for being sorta pathetic because I feel like I can access that.

J:  What’s your favorite fanfic trope?  Have you written it?

Hmm! That’s hard to say! At the risk of being an absolute knob, I don’t tend to be a fan of tropes, or at least what I think is meant here by “fanfic tropes” like uhh… the heat goes out and we have to share a bed, or that kind of thing? Is that what this means, the sort of repeated setups for fics? There’s of course a place for everything so I’ve got no real beef with more innocuous stuff, but I wouldn’t say I ever pick to read something because it’s got a “classic” trope. I’m definitely rife with tropes in the broader sense though, I’m rife with things I like and clearly just repeat, haha. I do not smoke pot, but I have a real affinity for characters who do, and this is evidenced by having like… half my stories feature that, haha. If a scene where two characters creep up to being intimate via sharing a joint/bowl/bong counts, that’s definitely a trope I’ve done and would probably do again.

K:  Do you have a guilty pleasures in fic (reading or writing)?

Does the above count? I’d certainly call myself self-indulgent, haha, I like what I like and I don’t stray very far from it. I think unsatisfying or incompatible intimacy is really interesting and I honestly never get tired of reading or writing that. (Er, as much as I “don’t get tired” of writing anything, which is not saying much as I’m very bad and undisciplined.)

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with?  Did it turn into a story?

The only AU I’ve written is Coffin Dancer, which is a story set in the early 1900s about Murdoc being a reanimated corpse and Stu being a gravedigger who buries/exhumes him. Sexy, I know, nothing hotter than… long paragraphs about digging. I think the occult element makes that one a bit weirder than anything else I’ve come up with. I’ve kind of entertained other AU ideas but they tend to be a lot more mundane, to be frank I just really like the characters as they are and I don’t want to change their dynamic too much. As a joke I once suggested something about a riverboat casino (Stu working there, Murdoc trying to pull a money laundering scam via currency exchange, potentially convincing Stu to go in on the scam with him) and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still think about it sometimes and question how to make it work, haha. I think it might be fun to do an AU again, but I think there’s just too much of a gap between what I’d want to do or be capable of doing, and what people actually want to read.

P:  Where did you find the most inspiration for your story ?

Oh gosh, this makes it sound so important and I feel like the biggest jag going to pretend I’ve made anything that great or with particularly impressive roots, haha. A couple came from prompts, so that’s a fairly straightforward answer.

I first began planning Coffin Dancer because I was playing Graveyard Keeper on Steam at the time, haha. If you load up this game, you’ll quickly see there is next to no plot and it is simply a crafting sim. I just sorta… liked the setting, I guess? It is the 1900s and it does follow a graveyard keeper! Following that, I decided it would be a story about Murdoc’s skin turning from tan to green as it does in canon, but giving it a bit of a morbid tint, as opposed to the vague canon handwaves of Murdoc being “immortal” with no clear explanation of what that means.

Ampersands was mostly inspired by me being a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and thinking it’d be fun to show a dynamic similar to Angelus/Drusilla/Spike, but heavily reworked to fit our characters. The first scene I imagined was the shoelace-tying one which has some resemblance to a shot of Angelus knelt at Spike’s feet while still mocking him, and that ended up being the very last scene I wrote (and probably one of the weaker ones.)

On Oysters and Black Water was actually the story that required the least research from me, as I already had an interest in oyster filtration and oyster reef restoration. By no means am I an expert nor is this story a genuinely educated look at this process (I am Genuinely Educated on zero things) but I definitely knew when planning a PB story that I wanted oysters to be used for a filtration system on the island, just as a little nod to something I find neat!

R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

This really puts me at risk of sounding knobbish, so to start with: I’m not really a writer. Fanfiction writer is already not the most impressive title, but even that I feel is a little generous for me. I’ve written things, but I struggle far too much and have too little dedication to pretend it’s something I feel “cut from the same cloth” as these folks to do. The writers I admire have “influenced” me in the sense that I’ve wished I could write that way, and I’ve probably/definitely ripped them off.

Some will find this laughable, but I’m a fan of Joey Comeau’s writing style. I’ve enjoyed every book he’s published, in particular the short novels Malagash and Lockpick Pornography, and especially his… err, non-novel collection of cover letters Overqualified. (I think I’ve read Overqualified more than anything else on my bookshelf, but this is saying very very little as you can sit down and read it in about 30 minutes.) The darkly comedic way he presents these ideas, how he’ll expand on these very offbeat details and veer so far from the topic, then take sudden sharp turns into something uncomfortable is just enjoyable to me.

Also somewhat cliched now, but Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn is a beautiful book to me. Beagle’s writing style is ideal for the fantasy setting, the poetry in his prose does not tip over the “purple” line for me (but I’ve always been unclear where the line is, obviously) and I’d really… feel like I’d accomplished something if I could say anything half as powerful as this book.

Shirley Jackson, (famously) the author of The Lottery and (less famously) We Have Always Lived in the Castle springs to mind as well. The latter in particular has a gothic tone, an at times strange sentence structure and an unreliable POV, which probably influenced Coffin Dancer stylistically and everything else I’ve done in perspective/structure.

But as far as influences, nothing more directly influenced me than @elapsed-spiral‘s writing and characterization. Old drum I’ve beat before, but it’s simply the truth. I would not have tried to write fanfiction again (after… many, many years) if I hadn’t found Danni’s stories and felt that excitement of reading something truly special. Now, it’s important to note that Danni is British so they’ll come out in hives if I praise them too much, but sincerely nothing in recent years has made me feel a “passion” for reading or writing like Yearz did. The oneshots Fairy Vale and Beside the Sea also deserve special mention for just being goddamn phenomenally good character studies. “Influence on your writing” could be misleading, in the sense that Danni’s biggest strengths (namely Being Funny, Being Realistic and Knowing What You Are Talking About) are among my biggest weaknesses, and I don’t feel that stylistically we’re all that similar; on the flipside though, I think so much of my “improvement” is really owed to Danni, aaaand I don’t think you’d ever look at something I’ve written and miss the fact that it’s ripping off Yearz in one way or another.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

Ahaha, alright, this jogs my memory and I do remember stepping on eggshells to answer this before! I mentioned above that I’m just not a big fan of tropes in general, but that means nothing as I don’t… have good taste. I never have. Famously bad taste over here. I don’t have any interest in raining on anyone’s fun or policing fan content, but I think we’re all perfectly fine just co-existing without feeling obligated to anything. More than anything else, in Gorillaz specifically I’d say there are some portrayals of their relationship that I find a little dodgy and I tend to avoid, but I recognize full well that many people may feel the same way about me! I also just like the characters to be compelling and to be themselves, whatever your version of them is. Of course my characterization is bonkers and mostly made-up and I have no expectation that someone else’s should resemble mine, but even if we have different ideas, I don’t like to feel you can slot them out and anyone else in? Which is why standard tropes like “coffeeshop” or “fake dating” don’t tend to be my favorite. Oh, I’m also a fuddy-duddy and I don’t love the nicknames, haha.

X: How would you categorize your fanfic reading?  Are you a voracious reader?  Do you carefully pick and choose?  Something in between?

I’m not a very big reader these days! I’d like to offer you a good excuse here, but I’m just picky, truth be told.

Y: What are your thoughts on your personal satisfaction with something you’ve written vs. the popularity of your stories?  Do you tend to be most satisfied with your most popular stories?  

In total honesty, it takes all of about a month to become completely unsatisfied with anything I’ve written. That’s not like, a plea for sympathy, it’s just being objective. I write comparatively little and comparatively slow, so whatever growth that may happen is still pretty limited and it’s a little disheartening, even if it’s also my own fault for having poor discipline. I would not call any of my stories “good,” at best “good for what they are.” There are definitely some I wished did better, I wished with a stupid amount of sincerity would hit some magical validating number that would Suddenly Mean It Was Good… but after a little distance, I can always understand why they wouldn’t.

Hoooowever, some are undeniably worse than others. Based on both hits and kudos, my most popular story is my first one (I Couldn’t Feel, So I Would Touch) and this is truly baffling as it’s garbage. I mean, with no exaggeration I just think this is bad writing through and through, it’s truly just the worst thing I’ve written over the age of 20. I hoped I’d get this question purely because of this, haha, I feel such shame every time I see this story at the top of my statistics page. If we consider that to be the “most popular,” no, I do not tend to be most satisfied with the most popular story. We could define that differently though; for example, I think the story that got the most notes here and I received spectacular fanart on (a thing I just… can’t believe can happen, how nice is that?) was Oysters, and at a time I did consider that my favorite, I was incredibly proud of it when I posted, and even if I’ve grown exhausted by my overwriting too much to read it again I do still rate it pretty favorably compared to the others. So it depends on what constitutes popular! But if we’re just talking hits and kudos, sadly my stats page puts some of the worst stuff at the top.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 15 - 11

15. Ieva Zasimauskaitė - “When we’re old” Lithuania 2018

[2018 Review here]

~wen wir owld HOOOOOOOOOOOO~

So close to the endgame it’s time to open all of the emotional registers. Much like Hovi, I did not expect to love Ieva as much as I do, however unlike Hovi I had already fully embraced Ieva and “When we’re old” long before rehearsals started.

And for good reason because Ieva fucking disarms me every time without fail. She herself is of course a hilarious, relatably weirdo indie girl, this time in the guise of a Born Again Hindu who ~FELT A COSMIC PRESENCE~ on the stage with her. 😍 Telling the true story of how she overcame depression by falling in love with her hubby. Flanked by holograms that project Ieva’s life dream: to be happy and grow old with the love of her life. All my hopeless romantic triggers are activated by this song. ALL OF THEM.

People are generally divided on Ieva’s voice, but um hello welcome to BorisBubbles. I ranked Nina Kralic and Jana Burcheska hellow-high. I LOVE Ieva’s husky, nasal, ovine, falsetto whine of a voice. It makes “When we’re old” for me. Ieva injects so much vulnerability and authenticity into a song that whenever she performs it, all I can do is sit in silence, tears welling up in my eyes, bleating along with the WHAOHHHHHs. Time truly stands still during “When we’re old” and I’m speechless.

________________________________________________________________

14. Conchita Wurst - “Rise like a phoenix” Austria 2014

You can be damn’ sure the highest ranked powerballad on this list is “Rise like a phoenix”. It isn’t as much as a song as it is an INSTITUTION. 

Which is why, symbollically, “Phoenix” is a very important winner. It’s a plight for overcoming hate, for overcoming bullying, from being yourself in the face and of adversity and rising from the ashes reborn, reinvented, reinvigorated. Its presentation is provocative, yet secondary, putting vocals and song on the foreground. It is rooted in the political zeitgeist of its winners, like most modern winners, obviously, 

however, ask yourself this:

Would “Phoenix” have won if it hadn’t been a great performance of a great song? 

I don’t think it would have. Take away the powerful composition and leave just the politically correct message, and you get Bilal Hassani. Take away the beard and you have, well, a really good song bond theme by a talented vocalist, that probably would’ve finished top ten, if not top five in most years. 

It’s easy to get distracted by Tom’s stick because a “Bearded drag queen” provides a lot of cognitive dissonance, which I personally love because it forces me to think, keeping my mind sharp. The use of a gimmick does NOT cheapen the talent on display here, however. Tom’s delivery of the song is flawless, hitting every note, delivering both ‘feminine’ nuturing comfort and ‘masculine’ strength to his glorious song. He even throws in some small nuggets of fierceness, providing levity, reminding us of Conchita’s drag queen roots

The act is cut from the same professional cloth; it is maybe a tad provocative, but at it’s core it remains dignified and classy, maintaining a moral high ground that instantly sheds a bad light on any hater. You may pull her down, but she’s gonna FLYYYYY.

Conchita Wurst is the best winner of this decade, period. No winning performance is as ironclad, vocally, musically or stagingwise as hers. No other winner has shown as much raw performance talent as she has. No winner has been able to make such a statement while at their core maintaining a high-quality musical standard. No winner has been such a champion of those whose voices are trampled for being different. To use Conchita’s own words after she won: “WE ARE UNITY. AND *WE* ARE UNSTOPPABLE.” 

________________________________________________________________

13. Zlata Ognevich - “Gravity” Ukraine 2013

This is the last female fronted act from 2013, you know what that means: EPIC ENTRANCE TIME 😍

What a beautiful dreamscape. I felt bad ranking Elina Nechayeva in a fairly low 39th place, but honestly, “Gravity” vibes very similarly and does the same things a lot better: Breathtakingly regal woman, a mirage of near-divine grace, stunning visual effects... SIGN ME UP ALREADY. At the core we of course find Zlata, the winner of the Best Human Award in 2013. Zlata’s backstage bits were rife with personality facts that instantly endeared her to me. A praraphrased selection from her infinitely quotable interview gold: ”I PRACTICE BIG VOICE BY HOLDING BREATH UNDERWATER”; “I COME FROM PLACE IT’S CALLED CRIMEA, IS LARGE ::reads from online dictionary:: PEN...EEN...SYOO..LA(?) WITH BIG MOUNTAIN AND LARGE SEA ^_^”; “I LOVE UNICORN IS FAVOURITE ANIMAL”. GODDESS. 😍

Fortunately her overpoweringly loud, yet disarmingly weird personality is also omnipresent during her big screen performance. “Gravity” is a mirage of Disney mojo and Zlata absolutely fucking hits it like A SHTRIKE OF DUNDAR

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a song that is legit quotable at every interval? There is not a single line in “Gravity” that doesn’t bring out the bedroom karaoke: “IMMA LIIIKA BADDERFLYYYYY.” “NOTHING COMES FROM PRIDE, -*HAYLALE*” “NOW I FEEL NO FEEEEE-AAAAAAR.“

And I’m not even done because Gravity ALSO features an excellent backing choir (the male backing vocalist is incredible). It’s just a perfect example of world music, conjuring three minutes of pure, unicorn-endorsed magic. IMMA LIIIKE A BADDERFLYYYYY. 🦋

________________________________________________________________

12. Juliana Pasha - “It’s all about you” Albania 2010

YUARDAWAN 😀 YUGIMMEDATSAMTINANEED 😀 ITZMI 😀 ENDAMFOLIN 😀

We are at #12, which means we’re at that Olympian milestone where every entity ranked is a fucking supernatural force. In Juliana’s case a forced of pure, unfiltered, streechy harpism. 😍 It is so weird to think that she was the first of Albania’s now iconic ‘Shrieking Boss Hag” archetype because it feels like a alliance older than time, sealed and styled in cuneiform onto a shard of Sumerian pottery, blessed by the Annunaki and then embedded into the muddy banks of the Euphrates. 

Anyway, Juliana earned my HEART once she greeted us with her uncanny-valleyesque diction and cheshire-catesque leering, all YUARDAWAN! and proceeded to throw everything, both vocally and facialexpressionly, into the mix, in ascending degrees of deafening loudness. 😍

With a criminally addictive electronic schlager song too boot! One which, like Zlata features an INCREDIBLE supporting cast in a bangin’ gospel choir, as well as a very generous dollop of ❤ ELECTRONIC VIOLA REALNESS ❤

One of the fave musicians of NaziPope, btw. “It’s all about you” is such a Triumpf of the Shrill. 😍

Anyway, this high quality list of ingredients make for a very replayable ride that never spoils or grows stale, no matter how often I listen to it. Which is actually a lot. I’ve looped “It’s all about you” at countless occasions since 2010, making it perhaps the song on this list that I have to the MOST often. (Or second most because there IS a song I still have to rank that may challenge Juliana for that title.) If that ain’t a hallmark for quality, I don’t know what is. 

________________________________________________________________

11. Koza Mostra ft. Agathonas Iakovidis - “Alcohol is free” Greece 2013

Has life been letting you down? Have you been struck by a financial crisis? Do you no longer know how to continue living. Fear not, because :cracks knuckles: we are about to embark on a MASTERCLASS of unabashed drunken REVELRY:

Um a small disclaimer though. This song has a really really, really, REALLY irresponsible title. DO NOT at any circumstance use alcohol as a coping mechanism, engage in drunk driving or other activities under influence that you may life to regret later, if you live to regret it later. Also don’t drink if you’re underage. Also also, alcohol can cause obesity and cardio-vascular arrest. and cancer, possibly. Drink, but do so RESPONSIBLY. 

HOWEVER, what if this song is... a PSA???😈 An Anti-Crisis PSA that is, lol. A group of folk hipsters literally PARTYING AWAY the misery of the financial crisis in a delightfully self-deprecating fashion is just the pinacle of fun for me and Koza Mostra fucking ROLL with it. Watching them dart out in all wind directions, interacting with each other gives me LIFE.

It’s exactly that sort of industriousness which sets “Alcohol is free” apart from other party songs. There is a LOT of randomness going on in the background and it gives you ZERO time to process all of it, making every rewatch an easter egg hunt.

This approach to staging usually doesn’t work, but here it is actually very intelligent and I’ll explain why: The act places a lot of focus on Agathonas (which it should because he’s the lead singer despite his featured status), but by the same token offers constant distraction by all the Koza Mostra shenanigans in the background...  In other words, it’s an act that forces your attention away from the main event by confusing your senses, requesting all of you concentration keep up with everything that’s going on... which is actually a brilliantly accurate simulation of how 'being drunk’ works.

(btw if you listen closely you can hear the sound of Agathonas tapping his skull lol <3)

So the next time you listen to this song, pour yourself a drink (ONE drink!) sit back and embark on a Waldo-esque hunt to see how many beautiful nuggets you can find hidden in that splendid act, as the upbeat sirtaki madness fills your head with cloudy thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, Koza Mostra have WON the Eurovision Fun Contest. 

EVERYONE RISE AND APPLAUD THE  10 BEST ENTRIES IN THIS DECADE:

From now on, I’ll only include maximum 2 songs per update :o

And in this update we finally say goodbye to Greece, Albania, Ukraine, Austria and Lithuania. Read my thoughts on them, below:

LITHUANIA

Lithuania was hands down the worst country in the 00s and look at their chart now. They are slowly getting their shit together and it shows. Keep on going, darlings!!

AUSTRIA

God Austria are so boring. At least they occasionally provide us with a great entry here or there, but they’re so inconsistent in their entertainment. 2 great - 6 okay - 1 terrible is NOT a great ratio by any means. 

UKRAINE

ALBANIA

Albania are very hit-or-miss, but I really like their presence in Eurovision actually. Like Georgia they entries are so left-field that they are always *interesting* even when they’re not good. Except “Fairytale”. Fuck “Fairytale”.

GREECE

Fuck this decade was ROUGH for Greece. They are a shattered nation and if you think this chart is bad, let me remind you that their best result in the past five contests is 19th place. Same in fact, as San Marino’s highest and lower than the highest placements of Albania, Montenegro, Slovenia, UK, Ireland, North Macedonia,...

[migleefulmoments]

Debunking ahead: Tinhats historically believe Darren was FreePavarotti (mleigh69*tumblr*com/post/126280604185/why-do-people-think-darren-is-free-pavarotti). He isn't. Dominic Tracy (nee Barnes) stated the account was owned by a fan in Boston (www*masslive*com/television/2011/03/glee_exclusive_dominic_barnes*html) which was followed-up by an interview with with said Boston fan who owns it (www*masslive*com/television/2011/03/glee_exclusive_mr_boston_speak*html). As usual, tinhats bleat it was PR.

Ooohhh I love this....this is tooo delicious.   

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akf-ighting asked:Why do people think Darren is Free Pavarotti?

@mleight69: 

There are quite a few reasons - some screen captured - others not

but all seem to lead to the same conclusion - despite PR attempts to “prove” it otherwise

the truth is hard to hide when it doesn’t want to be hidden

This was a fun exchange that pav jumped in on:

THIS ONE IS A PERSONAL FAVORITE:

if the above doesn’t scream Darren’s voice to you - nothing will.

And there was a third tweet from a female friend (can’t recall who) who told him to watch which account he was tweeting from and called him “birdbrain”

This was an interesting post:

on December 10th, there were three consecutive tweets. I have all three in my phone saved. 11:10: @DarrenCriss I was gonna hop in the shower but then I decided to do jumping jacks in there instead. and then at 11:15: @DarrenCriss I was gonna hop in a cab but I realized there was no room in there for it. Plus I had nowhere to go. Sorry cab driver please let me out. and THEN, at 11:21: @FreePavarotti I was gonna hop to it but decided to walk instead. 3 MPH. So, basically, Darren mixed up accounts. (Tweets from FreePavarotti generally have #FreePav at the end.) The tweet was promptly deleted, so very few people have proof that it happened, but I do. it proved that Darren runs @FreePavarotti. LINK

I have seen screencaps of the tweet that Pav sent out the night of Chris’ 21st bad when they were on tour

Pav was drunk - or acting drunk - both are possible - the tweet was deleted

like the others that pointed too specifically to who was in charge of the account

I believe it is both Chris and Darren - but mostly Darren

The timing of events and information known - a lot not possible without some inside info

Many are in Darren’s playful and mischievous voice (with a possible assist from Chris at many)

And honestly - WHY would anyone work so hard to cover up something that was just a random fan having fun?!   LINK

Another incidence of PR overkill - that only proves the opposite to be true -they seem to have mastered this maneuver - don’t you think?!

Free pav continues to favorite things time and again

and frequently they are INTERESTING choices for sure!

Choose for yourself - but coincidences are only coincidences SO MANY TIMES

time will tell

************************************************************************

(X)

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'Glee' exclusive: Mr. Boston speaks about FreePavarotti Twitter 

 Updated Mar 25, 2019; Posted Mar 31, 2011 Comment0sharesBy

Samantha Stephens, The Republican

Who would have thought that a bird could cause such a commotion?Pavarotti might have only appeared on a couple episodes of Glee but Kurt Hummel's (Chris Colfer) pet warbler stole the attention and devotion of thousands of Glee fans.

With a popular Twitter account, which currently has 9,483 followers, Pavarotti kept fans entertained with witty status updates about his caretaker, the Warblers, Kurt's budding relationship with Blaine (Darren Criss), and his own budding romance with Warbler Luke Edgemon.

As the account became popular, speculation over who ran the account swept the internet. Most fans agreed that it had to be a member of the Glee cast. But disparities on whether the account was operated by a Warbler, Darren Criss, or a joint-effort was a topic of debate for many.

When I started what I referred to as my “Wild Warbler Week”, in which I had the pleasure of chatting with three of the Warbler boys, I decided to try to get to the bottom of this mystery.

I was prepared to listen to the standard "he's a bird!" reply that had always been given when anyone attempted to solve this conundrum. But, lo and behold, I received the information on the first attempt thanks to Dominic Barnes.

We may never know the mysterious Mr. Boston’s true identity, he refused to answer any personal questions, but he offered an exclusive interview in which he revealed some of the magic (or should I say glitter?) behind the famous Twitter account.

When did you start the account? Where did the idea come from? The account began on December 1, 2010. It was the day after Pavarotti appeared on the show, I think. I started watching Glee when the Warblers first appeared, which was a couple weeks prior. I've done joke Twitters before in a different context, and it was a lot of fun. The initial idea was to start a campaign to "free Pavarotti", hence the username, while retweeting information about the Beelzebubs and bullying, to keep it in context. When I started tweeting, though, doing the character seemed like a more fun, accessible way to put that stuff out there.

Where did you get the ideas for the status updates? Do you have a favorite status or one that is particularly memorable? I had two different characters in mind for Pavarotti; one was the actor, an actual bird on set, totally infatuated with his own success and enamored with his fellow Warblers. He's the one who actually acts like a bird. The other was the bird in the show. That Pavarotti was meant to be a little more like a miniature Kurt; he overplays the "gay", gets excited about hanging out with Blaine, loves to sing to himself, and pretends to be well-educated about things like fashion, history, and music, while in reality he's just tossing his sassy feathers around, saying please, look at me, don't let me get lost, I'm bright yellow, I want to be important! Ha ha.

The other factor in updating the Twitter was relevancy; What's a hot topic in the world (Libya; Japan)?, Is there something I can do to stick with the gay/bullying theme (Trevor Project; transgender boy actor bird; It Gets Better)?, and What's up with my caretakers and how can I redirect some followers to them (Warblers; Bubs; Glee)?

I don't think I have a favorite. There are over 800 tweets on the account, you know! Every time I got to say "I'm not Someone Famous, because I'm a bird," that was awesome. Bird puns, too. Bird titles. Bird anything, really.

Did you ever expect it to become such a phenomenon within the Glee fandom? Not in a million years! I didn't even expect it to catch the eye of people in the show - and while I made some fun tweets, Pavarotti's popularity is due entirely to the Warblers & co. If it weren't for some of the guys being great sports, playing along, and pretending that Pavarotti was the real bird they worked with, this conversation we're having would be even more absurd. The Darren Criss conspiracy theory is also to blame.

Could you elaborate on the Darren Criss conspiracy for people who might not be familiar with it? I once dueled a tiger upon the harsh wastelands of Kentucky, but as soon as I managed to subdue this creature, it tweeted that I was actually Darren Criss to the World Wide Web. Its approximately three and a half million followers were fooled instantly and a thousand of them became personally invested. In order to preserve my secret identity and continue to oppose Professor Zoom and Magneto in their dastardly schemes, I played along until the time was rife to take revenge.

You said you had two ideas for how to maintain the Pavarotti Twitter, how did you decide between the two ideas? I used both Pavarotti - the bird and the actor. Some people picked up on this right away. It's not necessary in order to read it, though. The plan to use it as a "freedom campaign" was nixed almost immediately, because doing the character tweets was too much fun. And also because I couldn't come up with a neat little logo to save my life.

A huge part of the Twitter account was dedicated to the relationship between Luke Edgemon and Pavarotti. How did that get started and will you and Luke remain in touch? Luke was the first Warbler to tweet at FreePavarotti as though he were the real deal - he said "Pleasure working with you today!" and that was the beginning of my credibility. The romantic tweets just happened. Truly the age-old story of a canary and a boy falling in love. We will! At least, I hope so. We still text through private messages.

Pav had a lot of status updates about "Klaine" - do you think he's smiling from Bird Heaven now that they're finally (unofficially) together? What are your personal opinions on that storyline? I think Pavarotti loved both of the boys, as well as the rest of the Warblers. He did his best to chirp it up with Kurt, and Blaine was a real pal. I don't think he would have much of an opinion on the relationship itself, aside from what it does to Blaine and the Pips' set-list. Personally, it's important to have a gay relationship on primetime T.V., even if it's as silly as any other hookup on Glee. The "Brittana" excites me more, to be honest! People need to see that - LGBT intolerance is heading the way of dodo birds, shell suits, and separate drinking fountains, so we better darn well get a more and more positive presence in the media with each passing day.

Who has a stronger love: Pav and Luke or Kurt and Blaine? Love is the most powerful force in the universe; it's not a spectator sport. Be careful with that!

You mentioned one of the themes you wanted to touch upon with the Pav account was the bullying issue. What are your thoughts about the Kurt/Karofsky storyline and the possibility for Karosky's redemption? I'm not really qualified to talk about this! But here goes: I do like to think that anyone can find redemption, especially somebody who's lost and lashing out like Karofsky. The locker room kiss scene turns my stomach, and getting Kurt out of that entire environment was definitely the right thing to do. I'm sure Karofsky will "see the light", for lack of a better term. It's been set since that Superbowl number. I just don't know how much divine vengeance is too much - his remorse alone isn't really enough to make up for what he's done, but taking a crowbar to the guy's head would be overkill! Glee will, with any luck, find a happy medium and a happy ending for him. He and guys like him could use a little hope.

How difficult has it been to keep the secret, especially when so many people assumed the account was run by a Warbler or member of the cast? A fair number of folks on the human plane have known about the account from the start. I'm grateful that none of them have spoiled the fun. I   experience a mixture of guilt and glee when accused of being a member of the cast; I figured if anybody in the inner sanctum of Glee minded, I'd get in trouble, or someone would clear the air, so I'm guessing anybody on Glee who's heard of me gets just as much satisfaction out of toying with the emotions of Twitter as I do. Splendid. I don't need these five minutes of fame attached to my face; having this game on the internet was fun enough.

What did you think the reaction would be when it was revealed that you weren't a member of the Glee cast? I was surprised that the Warblers were surprised - I thought they were all just playing along! I figured Darren Criss would laugh to himself. You know, everybody's different - I knew some people would be disappointed, some people would be really amused, and some would still insist I'm a member of the cast.

Do you keep in touch with anyone from the cast of Glee? I could just tell you "no," but that's not very mysterious. I have a feeling folks would be skeptical, too. How about...my buddies are my secret, and the poor cast of Glee and I can continue to try to live our lives as ordinary people, connection or no connection.

Were you a fan of the show before you started the Twitter? If so, what was your favorite episode or cover? Nope! I'd never seen it before the Warblers appeared. But since then I've ended up with the box set of the first season, and I've seen some of it. I loved the episode with the mattress commercial. I like Teenage Dream a lot. I also liked Forget You and Vogue.

Who is your favorite Glee character? Puck. He appeals to my sensibilities. He's a cool dude with a lot to prove. He gets some great lines. He's just great. He can be both a bully and a kicked puppy.

When and how did you find out that Pav was going to die in "Original Songs"? I found out when people started tweeting me asking if it was true. That's how I learned a lot of things; I don't read the news blogs, and I don't really talk to people on the inside - well, I wouldn't be so rude as to ask for deets on spoilers all the time if I did, although I shot off a couple of excited messages to Warblers when I discovered "my" days were numbered. I toyed with the hearts of my followers, and as soon as I was informed that the death was actually going to happen, I began to plot my own demise.

On Glee, Kurt assumes Pavarotti dies from a stroke. Is that what really happened? How did you decide what the final tweet would be? Pavarotti either died of a stroke or of a glitter overdose. There was no time for an autopsy, in between singing and making out, so the world may never know. I had the final few days' worth of tweets saved on my phone weeks in advance. Pavarotti died while chirping out a tune; that's the way he wanted to live, so that's the way he had to go. The song seemed relevant.

Do you approve of the bedazzled coffin Pav was laid to rest in? It's beautiful. A glittery little box for his glittery little spirit.

There was about a week between Pav's death and the funeral. Where was he hanging out in the meantime? Kurt probably kept him in a well-decorated mini-fridge. Or maybe they used a slingshot to send him out into space at relativistic speed, so that he'd land back on Earth without decaying too much.Assuming that's where Pav is, what's Bird Heaven like?I'm not dead or a bird, so I couldn't tell you!

Are you or will you troll again? I'm glad that someone detailed for me exactly what the parameters of trolling are last night.I have had other Twitter accounts in the past; none taken as seriously as this one, and nowhere near the follower account this one generated. I have a new joke character Twitter account going, with a smaller following and a more casually fun tweeting schedule. It has been mistaken as an official Twitter in its franchise once or twice, too, but that impression was almost immediately dispelled by the followers and context. I don't plan on ever publicly linking them to each other, or my future endeavors.

Is the new Twitter account Glee, Darren Criss, or Starkid related? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? (X)

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So there you go...another cc trope, forever stricken from the masterpost!  

[pengiesama]

The Real Library of Alexandria Was the Friends We Made Along the Way (Fic, TOZ/TOB, school AU)

Title: The Real Library of Alexandria Was the Friends We Made Along the Way Series: Tales of Zestiria / Tales of Berseria Pairing: Gen Characters: Laphicet, Mikleo, Sorey, Velvet

Summary: Phi crusades against two Bigger Kids making noise in the library. He winds up discovering some common ground, and becomes leader of the nerdiest gang this side of the hemisphere.

Link: AO3

This was written for After School Heroes ( @ashtaleszine ); a Tales Of zine focusing on school AUs!

The zine's purchase period is now over, but you can check out some of the other fic and art from the zine in the links below.

ASH's Tumblr: http://ashtaleszine.tumblr.com/ ASH's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashtaleszine/

Read on Tumblr!

“…I’m not saying that you’re wrong. I’m just saying that you’re vastly misinformed.”

“So, really, you’re saying I’m wrong.”

“No, I’m saying that you’re misinformed, and that your flair for the dramatic has led you to an incorrect interpretation of our sources…”

Phi did not mind listening to debates on topics that interested him. And this one did -- he’d always liked Ancient History and was happy to hear someone discussing it with such knowledge and passion. His own class at school was currently covering the period, but...well. When all they were expected to do was to be able to name city-states and list off a handful of gods, trying to engage his classmates in discussions was an exercise in futility. Even his teacher wasn’t much better. Such was the struggle of being ten years old and maybe a bit too well-read.

No, no, the topic wasn’t the issue, nor was the debate. There was just a time and place for this kind of thing, and the public library after school fit neither of those items. There also was a need for one’s indoor voice. Phi peeped over the top of his book, scowling. His baleful stare, full of judgement and righteous fury, went entirely unnoticed. This wasn’t really that surprising, as Phi was halfway across the reading room and half-buried under a pile of heavy books at his table. He thought of clearing his throat in an accusatory tone, but the idea of making a peep in the library was anathema to the very core of his being. Sure, this section of the library was deserted except for Phi and the debaters, but...but it was the principle of the thing, and that principle was what set man apart from beast.

The two intrepid historians were wearing uniforms from a high school across town. Their status as Bigger Kids gave Phi some pause in confronting them. But with the library’s honor to defend, could he ever forgive himself if he let cowardice win? Phi thought briefly about how his babysitter Velvet might handle the issue, then paled, and stopped thinking about it, because it was kind of scary.

“—Sorey, your arguments show a level of understanding that I’d expect from someone whose historical knowledge came from half-remembered edutainment cartoons from ten years ago, not from someone who I thought knew better,” said the white-haired boy wearily.

“Look, Mikleo, I know that attributing the destruction of the Library of Alexandria to a single catastrophic event ignores other things that led to its decline—”

“And leads to more public disinformation about a section of history that’s already rife with it.”

“—but,” said the brown-haired boy (the other boy, Mikleo, had called him Sorey), pressing on. “Even if there were other events which led to its eventual decline, dissolution, destruction, etcetera, what I’m saying is that the most important and impactful of these incidents was it being set ablaze in the Siege. Aurelian’s attack on the city and the destruction of the Serapeum are drops in the bucket in comparison, when the bulk of the collection was already lost at that point!”

“But they were still important events in its final decline, no matter what your little fanfic daydreams of travelling back in time with a magic firetruck to play hero! And all this assumes that the Library even was damaged in the Siege, considering that accounts of the time are contradictory.”

“Ancient accounts from any ancient historian worth their salt all agree that the library was damaged by Caesar’s short-sighted shenanigans! And it’s not a magic firetruck. It’s—”

“Yes, yes, it’s powered by advanced technology made possible by a time loop that hinges on the hero saving the Library from being burned. You act as though I don’t pay attention when I edit your work. But if you really want to be taken seriously, you have to address the other aspects of its decline that can’t be solved by a firetruck falling from the sky.”

Sorey squinted at the ceiling in thought. “...the firetruck could fall from the sky onto Aurelian.”

“Then you’re getting into further divergent history when a Roman Emperor gets killed like a wicked witch from the Land of Oz. And there’s still the Serapeum to consider.”

“The firetruck could fall on Theophilus too.”

Mikleo appeared to be dumbstruck by this statement for a brief moment, then nearly flipped the table in rage.

“You can’t solve every tragic historical event by dropping firetrucks on it!” he all but shrieked.

“It’s called poetic irony!” Sorey shouted back. “And it’s art!”

Phi agreed with both boys on their more intellectual points, and neither of them on their thoughts about art and literature. More importantly, he also agreed with them on the importance of preserving cultural institutions, which meant that he was duty-bound to intervene in this fight before they destroyed this library too. Luckily, he knew the Dewey Decimal System like the back of his hand, and quickly collected a volume of text that might be able to smother the flames of this debate before they spiraled out of control.

Phi marched over to the older boys’ table, and – taking a page out of Velvet’s book on confrontations – slammed the volume down as hard as he could onto the wooden surface. But, as he was still a polite boy, he was sure to scream “excuse me” while he did so.

The two older boys stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, as the bang and scream reverbed off the library’s walls. Taking the opportunity for their undivided attention, Phi opened the book he’d brought over to the appropriate page and tapped a heading.

“Ptolemy VIII’s mass purges of Alexandrian intellectuals who opposed his seizure of the Egyptian throne, and the accompanying political turmoil in the Ptolemaic dynasty at the time, weakened the Library considerably,” Phi began, confidently. “This sent the Library into decline, well before Caesar’s invasion over a century later.”

The shock and confusion melted away from Sorey’s face. He reflected quietly on Phi’s thesis and gave an embarrassed little smile.

“...I guess I really did kind of get hung up on the dramatic events, huh?” he said sheepishly. “Man, with all the craziness going on during that period, it’s kind of a surprise the Library didn’t get set on fire sooner…”

“I don’t think there are enough time-travelling firetrucks in the world to drop on all the troublemakers back then,” Mikleo agreed. “But I’m guilty too, of only looking post-Siege, and at the Roman side of things.”

“And you’re both guilty of yelling in the library,” Phi added. “I could hear you all the way over there.

He pointed accusingly towards his table, which was still piled high with books. The two boys looked abashed.

“I’m so sorry,” Mikleo said. “We...we didn’t see you over there.”

Admittedly, from this table, it was quite hard to see where he’d been sitting, buried behind the books. Sorey, for his part, was already on his way over to Phi’s table. He looked over some of the volumes, interest clear on his face.

“Wow...no wonder you schooled us on this. I’ve been meaning to read some of these!”

“Well, don’t start with that one,” Phi said, gesturing to the volume in Sorey’s hand. “You’re not going to understand it without some background knowledge...”

When the time came for Phi to leave, he had lectured both boys quite thoroughly on history – and what’s more, he had quite completely forgiven them for their sins. Despite their...eccentricities, Sorey and Mikleo were very knowledgeable on ancient topics from around the world, and treated Phi as their equal -- not just some novelty to be humored and “corrected” on topics he knew like the back of his hand. They promised to be here again tomorrow, to talk more, and...and Sorey had talked about making an Ancient History Club, for the three of them, and that would just be too cool…

“It sounds like you had fun,” Velvet observed, after Phi had breathlessly explained to her all the above. “Give me your hand until we’re done crossing the street.”

Idly, Velvet wondered whether she should go through the trouble of inspecting these two new friends of Phi’s – and by “inspecting”, she meant putting the fear of god into them, and by the fear of god, she meant the fear of her.

Phi dutifully grabbed Velvet’s good hand and continued. “We’ll have official meetings once a week and unofficial get-togethers on the other days of the week, except Tuesdays, when Sorey has Track club and Mikleo goes to Home Ec club, but that day I think I can go to the library anyway and just plan our activities for the rest of the week…”

…but, honestly, they seemed like they were a perfect fit for Phi already. Velvet walked with him, hand in hand, and decided to hold off. At least for now.

[rebelsofshield]

Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 5/8/19

This Saturday was both May the Fourth (Star Wars Day!) and Free Comic Book Day. This not only means we got an extra (free!) Star Wars book this week, but both Marvel and IDW provided strong showings for their own comics taking place in the galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars Adventures Free Comic Book Day 2019 written by Cavan Scott and art by Derek Charm

Free Comic Book Day books are often a bit of a mixed bag. There is an unfortunate tendency for some publishers to release comics that function more as glorified advertisements for their product than a comic in their own sense. While at the end of the day the product is, well, free, the spirit of the event should always be about making comics feel welcoming and fun to new, especially young, readers. Luckily, IDW’s showing this year is a colorful delight and a great comic to share with Star Wars fans young and old.

I was more than a little surprised to open up this book and find Crater and Lina stalking their way through Darth Vader’s castle on Mustafar. Any return to Tales from Vader’s Castle is welcome in my book, but I hardly expected Cavan Scott and Derek Charm to return us to this delightfully creepy miniseries so soon. Derek Charm’s art in Vader’s Castle was easily his best work on Star Wars to date and seeing him return to these vibrant colors and creative layouts is a visual treat.

The issue picks up between chapters four and five of the original book and finds Lina telling Crater about a failed job conducted by Han Solo and Chewbacca in their early years of smuggling. Unlike the original series, Charm remains to do the art for both the frame story and the “tale” in question. It gives the comic a sense of visual consistency, and I will never turn my nose up at more Derek Charm, but combined with the story’s more playful tone, the creepy atmosphere of the original source material is lost. Despite the framing and similar color palette, this story as a whole feels more in tune with a regular installment of Star Wars Adventures than with Tales form Vader’s Castle. For a Free Comic Book Day title this is a more than welcome decision, but it begs the question of why tie this title into the Halloween mini-series to begin with.

Regardless, it’s really hard to find much to complain about for a free comic, especially one as fun and visually striking as this. It makes for a joyful read and keeps the spirit of the biggest day in comics intact and thriving.

Score: B+

 Star Wars Adventures #21 written by Cavan Scott and Shane McCarthy and art by Derek Charm and Nicoletta Baldari

Two Cavan Scott and Derek Charm collaborations in one week is a delight in and of itself. It also helps here that their headlining team up of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker makes for one of the best stories that Adventures has delivered in recent months.

Tasked by Leia with organizing a key supply exchange with a picky alien merchant, Han and Luke find themselves on the planet of Rion in the Outer Rim. While Luke has the mission on his mind, Han can’t help but pass up taking part in a local swoop race. The catch? Renting a vehicle for the race costs half of the crew’s money for their deal. The twist? The other racers are intent on cashing in on a bounty on Han’s head.

What follows is an incredibly fun chase story that sees Han trying to win a race with not only the rebellion but his own freedom on the line and Luke trying his best to assist from the sidelines. It makes for a high stakes set piece for our characters and allows both of our central heroes plenty of opportunities to shine. Scott keeps finding clever ways to complicate the race and force Luke and Han to think on their feet and Charm illustrates it all with a clear sense of energy and style. It’s hard to believe the whole thing comes in at just twelve pages.

Shane McCarthy and Nicoletta Baldari’s secondary story about an unassuming Chandra-Fan named Kabe’s heist of important Imperial supplies is less flashy but just as fun. Baldari’s visual storytelling here is a standout and Kabe comes across as a strong personality without ever speaking a line of dialogue. She speaks through emoji-like images and just as often through well drawn body language and facial expressions. There’s also a certain undeniable charm to seeing her outwit and out maneuver trained Imperial soldiers with ease.

Score: A-

 Star Wars Age of Rebellion: Boba Fett #1 written by Greg Pak and art by Marc Laming

Honestly, I’m more than a little shocked at the lack of Boba Fett in Marvel’s publishing line. After how prominent the armored bounty hunter was in Legends continuity, it only seemed natural that we would eventually get a Boba Fett miniseries or even ongoing. However, coming up on year fives of the Marvel Star Wars license, Boba has barely even guest starred since the first arc of Jason Aaron’s run on Star Wars back in 2015. Luckily, fans are sure to get all that they want out of “Hunter’s Heart,” the latest story form Age of Rebellion.

It’s clear that we are in for something special when a wordless Boba Fett rides a robotic horse into town looking for fresh bounties. Writer Greg Pak frames Boba as an almost entirely mute character, keeping him as a mysterious and deadly source of on high justice. Pak’s story of Boba hunting down another hunter gone rogue feels like an old fashioned Western with an added Star Wars flare for the dramatic and spectacular. Pak keeps Boba’s wordlessness as a source of tension and crafts him into a capable enigma whose actions reveal more about the man beneath the mask than words ever could.

The real star here proves to be Marc Laming’s outstanding pencils. Laming is clearly proud of his work here as evidenced by his Twitter teases for this issue going back months and he should be. Incredible work clearly went into the craft of this issue and the result is frequently stunning. Laming’s pencils are dependably detailed and dynamic and the results here are just as great. Combined with Neeraj Menon’s pitch perfect coloring, “Hunter’s Heart” is a visual feast from the formerly mentioned robotic horse, to burning villages, to the strange mushroom like foliage, and even to Boba himself.

If you are a fan of Boba Fett you owe it to yourself to grab an issue of this stellar comic as soon as possible. I mean, Boba on a robot horse. That should really be all you need.

Score: A

Star Wars Doctor Aphra #32 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Wilton Santos and Caspar Wijngaard

It’s a new day for Doctor Aphra. Freed from her ties to the Empire, the rebellion, or psychopathic droids, the good doctor finally returns what she is best at: robbing ancient tombs for her own profit.

Simon Spurrier returns Aphra back to basics with the closest thing this series has had to a breather in close to twenty issues. While there is still plenty of “space Indiana Jones” action to go around, Spurrier slows down the pace for an issue that is more about theme and character. Fittingly, Spurrier calls back to the series’ start in more ways than one. While Kieron Gillen opened up Doctor Aphra with a story about the relationship between the titular anti-hero and her obsessive archaeologist father, Spurrier takes a similar route and explores Aphra’s perhaps even more complicated maternal issues.

It turns out that neither side of Aphra’s parenting was really all that cut out for the job. While her father is an easily distracted dreamer, her mother proves to be cold and pragmatic and together they form a picture of just the sort of woman that Aphra would grow to be. Thematically, Spurrier builds off this to pair Aphra with former Milvayne runaway, Vulaada. Giving Aphra a new sidekick to bounce off now that the usual suspects have shuffled off their mortal coils or disappeared to parts unknown is a welcome decision and seeing how Aphra handles working with and looking after a much younger woman is rife for the sort of wild storytelling we’ve come to expect from this series. Spurrier closes the issue out with a welcome return that is sure to leave fans buzzing and opens up for what should be an exciting arc.

Unfortunately, visually, “Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon” proves to be a disappointment. Between Kev Walker and Emilio Laiso, Doctor Aphra has had some stellar art teams in the past and while a new visual team is welcome, the results here aren’t as strong as one would hope. “Doctor Aphra #32″ splits the visuals by time period with Caspar Wijngaard and Stephane Paitreau handling the story’s flashbacks to Aphra’s childhood and Wilton Santos and Chris O’Halloran bringing to life the contemporary adventures. Of the two Wijngaard and Paitreau prove the most successful with striking pencils and character designs that capture the emotional intimacy of the scripting well. Santos and O’Halloran on the other hand struggle. Between Santos’s awkward eyes and uninspired environments and O’Halloran’s often ineffective or hollow coloring choices, it’s hard not to feel a little let down by the look of this issue, especially when tasked with bringing to life a trap laden alien tomb.

Score: B

[sserpicko]

Which witch show is which?

The arrival of a new trio of Charmed ones and a certain enchanting teen proves that witchy offerings on the big and small screen are no longer relegated to Halloween, or even the month of October. And it’s not hard to see why tales about powerful women fighting persecution through magic resonate so much right now. But with five witch-centered series currently airing or streaming —including the OpenTV web series Brujos and an upcoming Chicago-based show titled Brujas—The A.V. Club decided it was time to take a closer look. Here, we help our readers determine who at least glanced at the Book Of Shadows before conjuring up a story.

The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina (Netflix)

Which witch is this? Honestly, the Satanic Temple had a point when they said CAOS gave Satanists a bad name. Although the Spellman family and their fellow witches and warlocks worship the goat-headed god Baphomet—first conceived by French artist and occultist Éliphas Lévi in 1856, and frequently used as the symbolic incarnation of Satan—the Satanic Church of the Night’s brand of magic has very little in common with the actual Left-Hand Path, as practitioners of so-called “black magic” prefer to call their belief systems. Neither of the major Satanic groups, The Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, believe in Satan as a literal deity, for one. (There are a few theistic Satanists out there who do believe in an actual devil, but not in great enough numbers to be statistically significant.) And even if they did, they don’t believe in forcing anyone, let alone minors, to join up. They’re all about free will.

The show’s frequent name-checking of ingredients, tools, and deities frequently utilized in real spellcraft, as well as its use of concepts like astral projection and familiars as plot devices, are similarly loose—some might even say nonsensical, from a magical point of view—in their interpretations. If anything, the coven’s ritual cannibalism and practice of signing their names in the Devil’s book are more akin to the rhetoric of witch hunters in early modern Europe, who fed the public salacious (and baseless) tales of midnight orgies and shapeshifting witches in order to justify burning rebellious women at the stake. Of course, there’s not a lot of dramatic tension in an organization whose first guiding principle is “one should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason,” so it makes sense that the writers of CAOS would take some liberties when designing the show’s fictional witches. But if you’re a fan of the show and meet a real-life Satanist, don’t worry—the most dangerous thing about them is likely to be a libertarian streak. [Katie Rife]

Charmed (The CW)

Which witch is this? There are three in Jennie Snyder Urman’s Charmed reboot: sisters Macy (Madeleine Mantock), Mel (Melonie Diaz), and Maggie (Sarah Jeffery), who discover they’re witches after their mom dies. Their magical abilities have been slightly tweaked; what was once Phoebe’s (original cast member Alyssa Milano) premonition is now Maggie’s telepathy. They’re still strongest when they’re working together, so the Power Of Three remains intact (aww).

But where, exactly, do those powers come from? Well, in its original iteration, Charmed was informed by general Wiccan tenets, e.g., spell-casting, potions, the use of familiars, etc. The Halliwell sisters—played by Milano, Shannen Doherty, and Holly Marie Combs—even had a Book Of Shadows, a similar copy of which was bequeathed to 2018’s Charmed ones. For the most part, the reboot has followed the same path, despite having a male witch in their writers room and the fact that the main characters (if not all of the cast) are Latinx. Season one hasn’t explored brujería much at all, even though there’s a long and rich history of it in Latin America. But the fourth episode, “Exorcise Your Demons,” introduced a bit of Santería, a syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion that draws from Catholicism and Yoruba beliefs, to the world of the Vaughn-Vera siblings. (The incantation was even in Spanish.) But Charmed is still leaving a whole lot of culture untapped while cobbling together a fairly generic form of witchcraft. We mean, if Starz’s Vida can feature a limpia de huevo, Charmed could have a barrida or two. Okay, so maybe that’s more curanderismo than anything, but the fact that we’ve already cited several Latin American-originating practices here proves there’s a lot more where that season-one spell came from. (Incidentally, Vida creator Tanya Saracho is developing a series about Afro-Latinx witches called Brujas). [Danette Chavez]

A Discovery Of Witches (Sundance Now/AMC Shudder)

Which witch is this? The source material for A Discovery Of Witches is Deborah Harkness’ historical-fantasy novel of the same name, which was in turn inspired by Harkness’ work as a historian and her decades-long private research into magic and the occult. The spell-casters on this Sundance Now series are a special brew—they’re informed as much by Harkness’ studies of “the transition from the superstitious Middle Ages to the rational, science-loving Enlightenment” as they are the occult. Dr. Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) is a very powerful, very undisciplined witch who’d much rather get tenure at Oxford than join a coven, but soon destiny—and a dreamy vampire played by Matthew Goode—come calling.

Though there aren’t many fun incantations a la Harry Potter, A Discovery Of Witches does touch on alchemy, which once seemed like magic. Much of the story in the first season centers on Ashmole 782, a book that’s more myth than manuscript. As our colleagues at io9 demonstrate, Ashmole 782 doesn’t actually exist, but the works of 17th-century alchemist and astronomer Elias Ashmole do. Harkness really did her homework, drawing inspiration from medieval alchemy, which was full of all kinds of fantastic occurrences and creatures (possibly even including vampires, though probably not ones as hot as Matthew Clairmont). [Danette Chavez]

Legacies (The CW)

Which witch is this? In short, the “just for funsies” kind. In this spinoff of a spinoff of The CW’s long-running supernatural teen series The Vampire Diaries, witchcraft and magic are heritable conditions. That means that you can chant in all the esoteric languages and draw all the arcane symbols you want, but if the blood of ancient magicians doesn’t flow through your veins, you’ll never be able to develop psychokinesis, manipulate time, read minds, or do any of the other cool tricks that the witches on the show can do. That puts Legacies, about a supernatural high school for witches, vampires, and werewolves, closer to Harry Potter or X-Men than any religious form of witchcraft. (The school’s called the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted, for goodness’ sake.)

As for what these witches actually believe, vague gestures are made towards a pagan nature religion akin to Wicca: “I was a witch like you … we believe in the natural order of things,” an undead witch tells the biological daughters she’s never met (don’t ask) in one episode. That being said, the actual mechanics of the spells performed on screen are more reminiscent of the alchemical and theological systems of hermetic magic than Wiccan goddess-worship. Not that it really matters in the context of the show, whose characters spend a lot more time discussing who has a crush on whom than the philosophical underpinnings of the duality between “light” and “dark” magic.

Siempre Bruja (Netflix)

Which witch is this? Caracól Television’s Siempre Bruja, which was inspired by Isidora Chacón’s novel, Yo, Bruja, centers on a time-traveling witch named Carmen (Angely Gaviria). When we first meet her, Carmen is a slave in 17th century Cartagena, who’s on trial for being a witch. She’s condemned to death, but as the flames grow around her at the stake, she begins to chant. Suddenly, she washes ashore in Cartagena some 300 years in the future, where she’s in only slightly less danger. Siempre Bruja is part Buffy The Vampire Slayer, part Outlander—there’s plenty of teen drama mixed in with the time jumps.

Though it’s not referred to by name (at least, not in the first half of season one), there are plenty of clues that suggest Carmen and the other witches in the story are followers of Santería, which has a long history in Colombia. She chants in Lucumí, a variation of Yoruba that’s used as the spiritual language of Santería. (In fact, “Lucumí” can also be used as a synonym for the belief system itself.) Carmen also acts as a curandera, using plants to heal wounds in the past and present. She’s also able to communicate with ghosts, and spiritism is a huge part of Santería.

Source: tv.avclub.com

by Danette Chavez and Katie Rife

[exaltatuss]

“... You have arrived, as I have expected.” She spoke, the two guests she had invited personally over to share an audience with. After all, she had gave this a thorough thought, and she have finally, after careful consideration, and weighing of the possible outcomes, she had made up her mind.

“I think the three of us deserve this much needed talk.”

“A talk that which you have since eluded up to this point.” One of her esteemed guests for the evening spoke. “Otherwise, my paradoxical existence wouldn’t have been made to exist. After all, you and I both know that my existence have been made possible due to your vehement rejection of your your past actions, the condemnation of oneself. Surely you should have expected that something like this could have possibly happened.”

“Ah, so it is about that, huh?” The first before them spoke. “Honestly, I do not give a rat’s ass about what you do, or what your decision would be. As far as I am concerned, I no longer wield that title, anymore, regardless of the transition between dream cycles. It is now tied to you, and you alone. It is yours to bear from the previous dream cycle, today, the next dream cycle, and the next after that.” She had to chuckle, however. The fact that the other had went through such lengths to make sure all three of them would meet eye to eye just for this moment alone was quite the amusement to her.

“And yet, for the better part of this dream cycle, you ran, actively eluded and played blind, pretending that you have finally separated yourself from the title that you wrestled from me. It is for understandable reasons, but really, escapism can only lead you so far.”

“... Hm.” She simply listened. Part of her seeing the amusement in this, the other part taking into consideration into what they have said. To her left, the predecessor of her title. The one who used to hold such titular position, until she wrestled it away from her from the previous dream cycle, thus beginning her spiral of further atrocities that she had committed.

And to her right, a reflection. A reflection of hers in her younger days, specifically of the previous dream cycle. Before the changes. Before the path she took. Before the atrocities. An existence made possible due to the resulting phenomenon that now is a recurring force anywhere and everywhere at any given moment, all due to her vehement rejection and condemnation of who she was in the previous dream cycle, to the point that not only did she forget that for all the blasphemies and ruination she had wrought upon others back then, she had done some equally good things, but she only ever really remembered what she had done wrong.

“I am aware.” She finally spoke. “I am aware that what I have been doing all this time was running away from the shadow I myself have cast. I am aware that I have indeed done nothing but condemn and vilify myself for the better half of this dream cycle. I am aware that I have been denying myself of my own purpose due to such.”

Of course, it was on light of recent events, a visit from someone, and a few exchange of words that made her realize such.

And not just simple realization, no. It was both realization, and understanding of what she had realized.

“That is why I sought for the audience of you both. To show you two that I am done running away. That I am done wallowing in my own conscience. Because by the end of the day, the only path we all would have to take... is forward. Whether the path I have taken has been rife with atrocities, it is my current self that would define me. Not the actions I have done in the past.”

“Ha. You finally have the answer you sought for.” Said she. “As stated, it took you long enough. Oh so long, that I was unsure that you’d ever find the answer you were looking for, and end up wallowing in your own deeply carved regrets and self-pity.”

“I shall hand you over the title you once had in the past, then. Only then it would be official. After all, I gained physical manifestation out of all the things you have done that you wanted to throw away.” She explained. “However, you have to prove yourself if you are indeed ready to officially take your own mantle back.”

“I know where this is going.” The other spoke. “In other words, you would have to prove yourself via one. Simple. Thing.” Thus, she began pull something out from the belongings she had brought along with her. Something the other before her know far too well, both in sight, scent, and most especially, taste.

“You would have to partake.”

“...” Of course, she knows far too well what the other meant by ‘partake’. She had to take that core from her hand, and devour it. Consume it, until there is nothing left to guzzle down on.

Something she did her best to not do again in this dream cycle.

Of course, there were several moments where the craving had hit her, where the desire to wolf down and devour others and their respective hearts, or cores, would resurface, but she did her best to stifle herself from doing so.

After all, she was not afraid of doing so again when needed and absolutely necessary, no. She was afraid of the addiction that would bring to her once more. The toxicity of wanting to consume others more. The illustrious, savory taste of their flesh and their cores giving her that high once again.

That is what she is afraid of. To repeat the atrocities she had worked so painstakingly hard to stop.

But now, she’s older in mind, wiser, even. Surely this time, it would be different?

No. It will definitely be different now.

All she had to do is to trust herself. To put faith that she had indeed changed now.

Thus, this would be a test of such self-trust, a leap of faith for herself alone.

Her hand would then reach over to the core that was offered to her. One that looks so pristine, so pure. She can sense that the power teeming from it was really not noteworthy, and would do very little on adding up to her own level of power... But its all in the symbolism.

Its role here, is nothing but a ceremonial purpose. A testament and proof that she’s ready to take her mantle once again, this time bearing more wisdom and control than she used to.

Mouth watering over the pangs of craving, she would open wide, and bite down on the core in her hands, her teeth clamping down on its surface, as she sunk down, and did as what her predecessor had told her to do. To partake.

She chewed upon the core, wolfed down every possible traces of it, a quake of euphoric, nostalgic bliss coursing through her body.

“...” Gulping down the final traces of the core that used to be on her hand, her eyes now flashed a more vibrant red, almost saying as if she had found her own drive once more. “Its taste... Exquisite.”

Of course, her hypersensitive sense of taste can take in all the minute detail of her morsel, whatever it may be.

The acceptance of who she is, and her purpose, while still keeping sight of all her efforts and changes to be better... Yes... That is something she can do.

“I am ready to don my title back.”

“Hmph. Very well.” The reflection of her past spoke, concluding tonight’s private ceremony between them. “With our predecessor as witness, and the power vested upon myself, your past’s reflection, you are now once more whole.”

“... Reunite in fullness, and relish in your totality... Demiurge.”