#the baby boy bit was like a short version of that one interview he had but i was just happy to hear him say it in person LOL 😭

[batbabydamian]

Met Joshua Williamson at NYCC during one of his signings! He said of all the characters he wants to protect the most at DC, it would be Damian because that’s his “baby boy” 🥺 Said he’s tired of people hurting Damian since he’s already gone through so much his whole life.

Asked him 2 questions!

What accent does Damian have?

Others have asked him but he doesn’t want to say, because he wants people to talk about it! He mentioned Damian has only lived in America for 4 years, and would naturally have an accent.

Who decided on Damian’s new hair?

Simone - Joshua said he didn’t notice it at first and then he was like “UMMM IT KINDA LOOKS LIKE TIM…”

He let it go because he thought about how Tim has had different hairstyles, and Damian is young and still growing.

[itzsana-kiddingmenow]

Day 20: Relentless

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ ☽◯☾⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ ☽◯☾

𝖑𝖊𝖊: Minho

𝖑𝖊𝖗s: Changbin and Chan

𝖙𝖜: a little short, inspired by that one interview where minho didn’t wanna talk and looked rlly sad, and chan and changbin looked upset about it.

𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙: @someone-who-loves-kpop-saranghae @dandyboyseungmo @leeknowstan33 @vale-143@wereallgonnadieonedaybutnottoday

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“Step out! We are Stray Kids!” The group chanted on cue. 

Chan started reading out comments, starting the interview. 

All the members had a great time in conversing with the fans, however Lee Know sat quietly, probably a little shy. 

Minho answered his comments with short answers, making sure to add a curt smile to the end of his answers. 

Changbin stared at the older, shocked at the contrast of his loving hyung to this…quiet imposter. 

Chan also seemed visibly upset at this version of his cat dad baby.

Jisung read out a question that made everyone laugh, and made Lee Know maybe a teensy bit nervous. 

“‘Why is Lino so sad? Someone cheer him up please!’” Everyone turned their head to the mentioned member, smiling at him in an awkward attempt to cheer him up. 

Minho just stared at them back, boba eyes wide and blinking. 

Changbin and Channie certainly didn’t like that. 

Later, Changbin asked Minho to switch seats, so he ended up behind the older. 

He claimed it was to make him look taller, which the cat to look at him teasingly, and Changbin’s pride took a good hit.

Lee Know obliged to make the younger more comfortable, which Binnie appreciated. 

However, later on, Changbin whispered into Minho’s ear. 

“You know, you should probably talk. Right now.”

Minho glanced at the dwaekki curiously, to which he side eyed the older threateningly. 

Lee Know continued to be quiet. 

Soon enough, Binnie had had enough. He glanced at Chan. 

Both of them smirked teasingly at the cat dad, who was completely unaware of the events that were about to take place. 

“Hey STAYs. Wanna cheer Lino up with us?” Chan asked innocently, swinging his head around to look at the younger. 

Minho stared, confused. Until he saw Chris’s fingers wiggling. 

His eyes widened as he shook his head back and front, glancing at the camera.

Too late. 

Changbin yanked Lee Know’s arms up from behind him, eliciting a loud squeal from the boy. 

Chan absolutely went at it, digging into the bunny’s sides and loving the loud scream he let out.

Minho didn’t even try to hold in his laughter, he knew it was fruitless and honestly, very draining to try. 

Changbin grinned as heart comments came flooding into the chat, and all the other members cooed lovingly at their bewildered bunny, who’s face was getting redder by the second. 

Lee Know stomped his foot into the ground, a wide smile on his face as Chan’s fingers made their way into his armpits, one of Binnie’s hands walking up and down his torso. 

“NAHAHAHA! TUHUHURN OHOHOFF THEHEHE LIHIHAHAHA-” Poor Minho couldn’t even continue his sentence as Chan dug into the inner thighs of the dancer. 

Hyunjin and Jisung handled one leg each, holding them apart as Chan’s fingers attacked the sensitive skin. 

“NOOOO!” Lino screeched as more uncontrollable laughter pours out of his mouth.

The two pairs of hands were relentless, and Minho could feel tears welling up.

No way was he crying in front of the camera. It was the last shard of his dignity. 

So he gave in.

“FINE! FAHAHAHANINE! IHIHILL TAHAHALK! STOHOHOP TIHIHICKLING MEHEHE!”

Changbin released the older’s arms, scribbling at the exposed armpit one last time, squealing when Minho retorted to the attack by poking his belly button. 

Minho wipes his face before starting to talk, and all the members listened, giggling as they thought of the internet’s reaction to the heartwarming moment.

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i hope you enjoyed this fic! have a spooky october! ✨🎃

[foliejpg]

sage @puppyboymikeyway submitted a bunch of fob asks from this post so here ya go <3 putting it under a read more bc its a novel 😭

tttyg

dead on arrival: which of andy's haircuts is your favorite?

honestly i liked when he had the short bob and it was straight. he looked more like a lesbian then than usual

grand theft autumn: which was the first fall out boy song you heard and liked?

actually its this song 😭 i remember hearing it in a hot topic when i was around 15-16 and going home to look up the lyrics on my computer, then listening to every album straight through from tttyg to srar straight through in order lol srar had just come out

saturday: best concert you've attended?

my first fob show is special to me bc i got m&g tickets, so is the albany show this past march bc i got to meet them again with my boyfriend and a bunch of friends<333 but the best concert that the artist has put on i mean. i have to come clean i am a bit of a swiftie and the eras tour was crazy 😭 and fenway last year during tourdust because patrick did wams during the medley just for me<333 that's My Song

the pros and cons of breathing: do you own any fall out boy albums on cd or vinyl?

yes! here's a picture because there's a lot 💀 not pictured is the we didn't start the fire 7" because its so tiny i didn't see it until after i took the picture lmao

grenade jumper: trohmania or bass spin?

i gotta go with the bass spin sorry joe<3

the patron saints of liars and fakes: last big regret?

i wish i went to the madison square garden show in march but i couldn't afford the tickets</3

cork tree

our lawyer: worst fob rumor you've heard?

i can't really think of one? all i can think of is that one interview where patrick says the worst one he heard was that he was actually 31 and not 21

nobody puts baby in the corner: favorite 80's film?

who framed roger rabbit, clue, and that's all i can think of 😭 i'm not a big movie person

sixteen candles: favorite fob mv?

young and menace, america's suitehearts, hmlag, dance dance

the music or the misery: favorite bonus track?

from now on we are enemies and my heart is the worst kind of weapon, but i like the acoustic version of the latter way more<3

my heart is the worst kind of weapon: last time you said something you regretted?

bro i can't think of anything i don't listen to myself talk 💀

ioh

this ain't a scene, its an arms race: patrick in cardigans or patrick in sweaters?

SWEATERS lemme see that fabric stretch

thnks fr th mmrs: best memory?

i have no idea lmao when i met fob idk i have a really bad memory

don't you know who i think i am?: which high school stereotype would you describe yourself with?

is "snot nosed know it all who thinks she's better than everyone else but is just sheltered and bratty" a stereotype

fame < infamy: do you like black cards?

i'm a fake fan i've never listened 💀 bebe is a queen though

folie

lullabye: opinion on 'elisa stans?'

i don't know what that means these asks are from 2018 but everyone should leave fob's family alone <3

27: favorite instrument

BASS. i love bass guitar i need to feel it in my chest

w.a.m.s. which job would you prefer, waiter/actress/model/singer?

singer bc i enjoy singing and used to be good at it lol i can't act and food service freaks me out i don't want to be responsible for other people's food and also modeling just seems awful 💀

west coast smoker: favorite 80's band?

i love the smiths and joy division bc i'm a basic emo<3

srar

where did the party go: bass lines or guitar solos?

bass lines a million times over!!!! plus sometimes guitar solos make my ears ring 😅

death valley: who would you most like to be greeted by in the afterlife?

idk my cat kayla she passed when i was like 6 she was a good girl or my cat china (my mom named her 💀) she was a good girl too. lots of good girls here

abap

irresistible: which mv was your favorite?

the original one with the basketball game they're so goofy lmao

the kids aren't alright: if you could send a message to yourself five years ago, what would it say?

run for the fucking hills girl!!!!!!!

jet pack blues: which was your favorite fall out boy era?

this one because they're all happy and healthy and living their best lives, having lots of fun on stage and being weird and interacting with fans again<333

novocaine: cause of your last time in the hospital?

uhhhhh i can't remember the last time i was in the hospital lmao

favorite record: do you collect cds or vinyls?

both! i have a lot of both lol

mania

young and menace: are you excited for the future of fall out boy?

of course<3 i hope whatever they do next is satisfying creatively for them because i would rather wait a few years for new music than have them go back to working themselves to the bone and exhausting themselves so i'm sure whatever comes next will be worth the wait, stardust certainly was<3

champion: what's your proudest moment as a fan of them?

i don't knowwww i really like the little corner of the internet i'm in with some friends and mutuals and i get a lot of asks/msgs from ppl so i like that i've made a comfy little space for ppl to talk about fob<3 does that count lol idk i'm also proud of them for like. still doing what they're doing at their age those crusty old men

wilson: if you could purchase one thing being advertised in the wilson video, what would it be?

WORKING MALE MOUTH

sunshine riptide: if you could say one thing to the band, what would it be?

i would say thank you for making art and i would also corner pete and maKe him tell me about the pool ball strike at the beginning of disloyal order he can't get away with this anymore

WHOOOO BOY okay thanks for sending all those i hope you enjoy this essay<3

[popentertainmentconcertreviews]

Peter Frampton – The Met – Philadelphia, PA – September 19, 2024

When you have recorded what could arguably be called the most iconic live album in rock history, you really have to bring it when you hit the concert stage. Considering that Frampton Comes Alive is now 48 years old, and in recent years, the singer/guitarist has been plagued by physical issues, you would be forgiven for assuming that Peter Frampton may have lost a step.

You would be wrong.

Oh, sure, due to his dealing with inclusion body myositis (IBM) – an autoimmune disease that affects his muscles, particularly his legs, but also his fingers – the once spry rock guitarist had to come on stage with a cane and had to sit through the complete set. (Frampton’s band also sat throughout the show, in solidarity with their leader.)

However, even if he isn’t physically up to doing some of the heavy lifting that he once did as a performer, his talent as an artist has barely dimmed. His vocals are still as crystal clear and ringing as they ever were. And despite the slight lack of strength in his fingers, his guitar work was still spot on. (In an interview about his condition, Frampton acknowledged that while he may not always have the raw power he once had, luckily his fingers still know what to do.)

If you closed your eyes and just listened to the music, you’d think you were back in the 1970s.

Also, his personality as a host and showman is still top notch, with Frampton regularly engaging the audience, good-heartedly joking about his condition and showing his determination to beat it. You could tell from his upbeat stage presence why the tour is named “The Positively Thankful Tour.”

He was particularly engaged because he said that Philadelphia has always been a favorite tour stop for him, ever since he played in front of the largest crowd of his career at the old JFK Stadium – a double bill of Frampton and Yes performed for a packed audience of 120,000 Philadelphians in June of 1976.

The crowd at The Met on this night may have been a bit smaller (the 3,500-seat venue seemed pretty full), but they were no less enthusiastic.

Frampton set things off on a good foot with a sizzle reel of vintage Frampton video, followed by his early jangle-rock slammer “Day in the Sun.” He followed this up with rocking versions of slightly lesser-known fan favorites such as “Lying,” “Lines on My Face” and a version of his Humble Pie song “Shine On.”

It didn’t take all that long for the hits to come out, though, as the crowd went wild when Frampton said, “All right, take it away, boys” and started playing the iconic acoustic chords and talk-box opening of his first huge hit, “Show Me the Way.” This led to a group of sweet ballads, with the folk-reggae tinged “The Crying Clown” and the short instrumental “Nassau” leading into another one of his biggest hits, the gorgeous love song “Baby I Love Your Way.”

He followed it up with a surprisingly shredding instrumental cover of Ray Charles’ classic “Georgia On My Mind,” a sweet ballad which took on a new toughness in this power chord-based reinterpretation. Later in the show, Frampton and his band did a similar, mostly instrumental reinvention of Soundgarden’s power ballad “Black Hole Sun,” which also rocked like a mother. (On this second one, Frampton used his talk box to sing the final chorus.)

Another huge ballad from his past – and one that had been sidelined for a long time – was “I’m In You.” “I don’t usually do this one. I haven’t done it in many years,” Frampton explained, “but it actually was the biggest hit I ever had.” It’s a shame that Frampton has avoided this stunning ballad, although I sort of get the fact that he may have complicated feelings about it. His record label at the time pressured him to follow up Frampton Comes Alive before he was ready and while this song may have been huge, the album it accompanied was considered a disappointment and stopped the forward momentum of his superstardom. Still, it was nice to hear the song again.

Then he closed out the main set with a slamming 17-minute version of his rock classic “Do You Feel Like We Do.”

For the encore, he returned to the Humble Pie playbook for with “Four Day Creep” – on which he allowed his band to take the lead – and “I Don’t Need No Doctor.” Then he closed out on a fun, light-hearted cover of The Dave Clark Five’s “Glad All Over.”

Frampton played and sang for about two-and-a-half hours, and it still felt way too short. (Some dude in the men’s room after the show claimed that Frampton had played 45 minutes longer than on any other stop this tour, but who knows who that guy was and how he would possibly know this. The setlist seemed to be pretty consistent with the other shows.)

Either way, it’s good to see that almost five decades later, Frampton still comes alive.

Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: September 22, 2024.

Photos by Jim Rinaldi © 2024. All rights reserved.

[marvelmaniac715]

I tried to write this fic months ago but it didn’t quite turn out right, so this is my first rewrite of a scrapped concept. It’s a human!Seed au. Once I saw a human Bride of Chucky fanfic on AO3, but I forgot the name.

Long story short, Chucky was never shot, he’s fine. He escaped and started a relationship with Karen Barclay, didn’t like Andy and tried to kill him a few times, eventually found Tiffany again and Bride happened slightly differently. Tiffany met up with Chucky about nine months before the events of that film and they… created Glen and Glenda. She had one of those pregnancies where you genuinely don’t realise you’re pregnant up until the labour, and when she gave birth, she was concussed due to getting knocked out by Jade instead of killed. When she woke up, the babies were gone and she’d been taken to prison along with Chucky. Six years later and the twins are ready to meet their parents! 

I feel it’s important to describe how the twins look. They’re both pale and lanky, with short dark curly hair and blue eyes. Glenda has a blonde streak in her hair that she got from her mother, and both twins have a birth mark on their wrists that I’m pretending they got from Chucky for the sake of this au (my version of the ‘Made in Japan’ stamp). They look virtually identical, same haircut, same clothes, but Glenda clips her hair back on the left side. Don’t worry, they’re both British still, Psychs realised who’s kids they were and decided to keep them as part of a freak show he runs.

This is part one of my (first!!!) multi chapter fic, I’ll update about once or twice a week :).

————————————————————-

They didn’t know much about themselves. They knew they were orphans, they were told that every day by their master. They knew that they were twins, because they were billed as ‘The Freakish Gemini Twins’ for the show. 

They didn’t know their names. He hadn’t bothered to give them any. So they were Boy and Girl respectively. But they preferred to call each other ‘Twin’, because that’s what they were, and nobody could take that part of their identities away from them.

They knew that they had strange, dark dreams that they couldn’t understand. But Girl loved these dreams and was always thrilled when she woke up. It was Boy who screamed at each destructive act and got yelled at by the master for disturbing his sleep.

They knew that their living situation wasn’t normal. Boy and Girl lived in a small room that was locked from the outside with no windows. They slept curled up on an air mattress, as close as they were in the womb. Their only entertainment in this drab landscape was a small, semi-broken television set that they were allowed to watch if they had been good.

Girl and Boy had been working double time to earn television privileges this month, because it was nearly their birthday. They knew not to expect presents, but if they had television and a bit of food, they would be happy.

The television was playing right now. Some sort of behind the scenes film show. Boy and Girl didn’t understand what they were watching, because they’d had so little exposure to the outside world. From what they understood, it was an ‘interview’.

Girl nearly changed the channel to find their favourite cartoon, but Boy stopped her when he caught sight of the people being interviewed.

It was a man and a woman. The woman was blonde and had a tattoo of a heart on her right breast. She was looking very bored and annoyed at the end of a long couch, glaring at the man sitting next to her. Her hair was almost the same colour as Girl’s blonde streak, but because the woman wasn’t there in person, they couldn’t compare. But the man made the twins’ hearts stop.

He was tall and lanky, with long dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Boy and Girl looked each other and wordlessly agreed that they had to know more. So they sat on their mattress together, transfixed.

“So Mr Ray-‘

‘Call me Chucky, Mr Ray was my father.”

“…Okay, Chucky, can you explain to the viewers your role in this movie?”

The man smirked and took a drag from his cigarette before sitting up from his relaxed position and addressing the woman interviewing him.

“Well y’see, this movie’s based on my life, and I refused to give the studio the rights unless I was involved and paid. I’m essentially a producer, and I’m getting a cameo. Personally I think I should play myself, but I’m sure Brad’ll do a great job.”

The other woman on the couch sighed and coughed pointedly. The interviewer gave her an apologetic glance and turned to face her.

“Miss Valentine, is it true that this movie is the reason you were both let out of prison?”

The woman (Miss Valentine, apparently) rolled her eyes and crosses her arms in disappointment.

“I was hoping you’d ask a question that was actually aimed at me, like, how do I feel about Jennifer Tilly playing me. Side note, she’s my favourite actress and I feel honoured that she took the role. But yes, the producers were desperate to make this movie, and Chucky said that he’d only let them do it if we were let out on bail. He would’ve sued ‘em otherwise.”

The man (Chucky) let out a laugh. Boy and Girl jumped, it was slightly unsettling.

“Yeah. I’ve got, let’s say a pretty cutthroat lawyer.”

Miss Valentine nudged him with her elbow and snorted.

“You would, without a doubt, defend yourself in court, am I right?”

The pair laughed. The interviewer looked slightly unsettled and tried to get them back on topic.

“And this movie’s coming out next Fall?”

Chucky nodded.

“Yup, just in time for Halloween. My message to any viewers, please go watch it, and buy merchandise, cause Tiff and I get a 5% cut of any profits. We worked out a really good deal with the studio.” 

The interviewer nodded towards the camera, smiling with relief, probably because she could leave.

“That’s all from me, back to you in the studio, Phil.”

Chucky raised his arm to wave goodbye as Miss Valentine (Tiff?) waved her fingers in a bored fashion.

“Fuck you very much.”

Boy and Girl gasped. On his arm… the twins looked at their own wrists. It was the exact same birth mark. Then there was the physical resemblance, the fact that their master had always said that their parents were criminals. These people had been to prison. Could it be? Were these people their parents?

As they dwelled on this thought, the door slammed open. It was the master, carrying two squirming rats in his hands. He looked mad. This wouldn’t be a pleasant encounter, the twins could tell. But he’d left the door open. All it took was a quick glance at each other for a plan to be formed.

“You were shit today. We’re losing our audience, you just aren’t scary anymore.”

That had been a deliberate plan to annoy him, because Boy and Girl had hoped that by appealing to the crowds, they’d call the police and they’d be free. But it was backfiring now. The last time they weren’t scary, they’d been forced to break each other’s arms, and they loathed hurting each other, they sobbed the entire time they’d had to do it. What would they be forced to do to these rats?

“You need to tap into your killer instincts. It’s in your blood, you’re just refusing because of ‘morals’ or whatever. Kill these rats and you might get fed today.”

It was all on Girl now. She stepped forward with a confident smirk and held out her arms. Before swiftly grabbing Psychs’ arms and pinning them behind his back, rats still in hand. Then, with a swiftly aimed kick to the legs, he was on the floor. Girl grabbed Boy’s hands and they ran.

They didn’t stop running until the only home they’d ever known was a small dot upon the horizon. The twins were out of breath, but they didn’t slow down, even if the danger was far behind them. They found a delivery truck and climbed inside an empty box after writing ‘Hollywood’ on the address label and sticking a stamp on it.

In a matter of days, they had arrived at their destination. They’d made a plan inside the box, trying to think of the best way to introduce themselves to their parents. Eventually, it was decided that Boy would meet them first, he was the more outgoing of the two, Girl tended to be more introverted, she rarely spoke. But Boy understood her perfectly, because he knew his sister as well as he knew himself.

After a few hours, Girl would come in from where she would be standing guard outside to prevent security guards separating them from their parents. They’d done all they could to get to this point, now all they could do was hope that these people were their parents and that they’d like them.

With a few deep breaths and a hand squeeze for luck, the twins pushed open the lid of the box and smiled nervously at each other. It was time.

[autumnboyd17]

I wanted to post my thoughts somewhere but didn't know where. So it sat in my notes app until I remembered I had this account.

When tackling a subject like immortality where do I even begin?

Vampires have existed for as long has humans have been able to spread stories. Every culture has some sort of undead being that needs to feed off a humans life force in some essence to survive. Some cultures it was your soul, sucking bit by bit until there was nothing left. For others it was quite literally a human life, the vampire needing to kill and eat to survive like any other predator, in this sense vampires and zombies are the same. Recently the term, energy vampires has risen to popularity, the phrase is used for people draining to talk to. But most notably and persistently, it's blood.

I have held a fascination with vampires for as long as I can remember.

My mom used to go all out on decorations for Christmas and Halloween. Scared that it'd be afraid of them, she introduced me to the decorations as toys or friends. We had a very short cardboard cut out of Dracula and it became my favorite. I carried it around everywhere, my parents referred to him as my first boyfriend. Now he sits on top of my shelves, he's beat to hell but I love him. My mom showed me a movie made in 1987 called, The Lost Boys. Of course she covered my eyes during that one weird awkward sex scene, and I was too young to understand any of the jokes. Spoiler, but I called the twist that Max was the head vampire even after they lead you to believe otherwise. My mom thought I was so smart. Later in the car I asked my mom if vampires were real. She of course said no, and when that answer disappointed me, she told me some people to pretended to be vampires, sharpening their teeth and drinking animal or each others blood, but they can't live off that alone. I think her information was supposed to disgust me but id be lying if I said I hadn't looked into cosmetic teeth sharpening a few times. When I was 7 I spent the night at a friend's house and we watched this "new" movie called Twilight. Growing up, my mom would rent seasons of True Blood from Blockbuster, I knew it was about vampires but I wasn't allowed to watch that one. At some point I was shown Interview with a Vampire. That movie is what introduced me to Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, a song I've loved dearly ever since. Despite my fond memories of vampires, werewolves and zombies where my favorites till I got older and into my emo phase. Then, finally, vampires were cool.

I never had a stable friend group as a kid, it changed around every year. My grandpa passed when I was 10, my dad left when I was 11. The only 2 constants I felt like I had were my Mom and our dog Hause. The first 4 months of 2020 took both of them along with the rug under me.

One night when I was sad and on the hunt for nostalgia, I found The Lost Boys. I pirated it to my lap top and watched it for the first time since my mom passed. Its like I could hear her saying prominent lines and fun facts about the actors and the location the movie takes place, Santa Carla. Its a fictional version of Santa Cruz, the board walk and the beaches my parents used to take me too as a baby are all shown in the opening to the movie while a cover of The Door's People are Strange played. Its like I can't watch it without her. And for that its my favorite movie. Watching it as an adult made it loose a bit of child-like wonder, I understand all the jokes now, and I have small crushes on the characters Michael and Star, and my eyes are no longer covered during their awkwardsex scene, though I wish they were. Regardless, my point of view has changed, but still, I remember exactly what it was like in the beginning. Change is sad, but its beautiful.

Since my mom passed I've had a big fear of watching everyone I love die before me. Most people laugh it off but seriously, I don't know if I'd be able to handle losing someone so close again, and since my solution hasn't been to not let anyone get close, its obviously been to die before them. I've attempted suicide over it. So, the idea that someone can be there with you forever. The concept that someone can love you for lifetimes. That consistency, the "always and forever" of it. Its beautiful.

I'm crazy but hypothetically, if I could find a vampire to love me I could get close and never have to even think about taking my own life early just so I'd never have to grieve a day over them. That hypothetical is what keeps me hooked and coming back. Not the sparkles or the teeth. Undying love. Thats the beauty of it.

I do think there's a beauty in death too. The same way there's beauty in birth. We all live, we all die, and when you can't count on the vampires because they don't exist, its the only consistency we really have. Thats all we get. I don't know what happens after death, but I imagine it's peaceful. You just let go of the weight of life and die. No more pain. No more anxiety. No more joy. Just sweet nothing. I hope that when I leave my final breath here I get to join my mom somewhere nice. And maybe everyone else I lose along the way, though I still hope its not many. However, I can't rely on this, there's no certainty in what happens after death, only death.

I'm sure you probably think I'd never even want to think about being a vampire after that. But I would really love that!! It would be so cool to watch humanity grow and learn and progress. Their downfalls and how they rise. I would learn everything I could as a vampire. I would go to college over and over again. Majoring in, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, History, English. I would probably need to get a better understanding on science too eventhough it's always been my least favorite subject. I would learn and learn and learn and never worry about running out of time because I'd have all the time in the world. I think at some point though, I'd cut my time as a vampire short. One day I'd wake up and decide I've learned enough to satisfy me, see enough to fulfill me, and stand in the sun one last time.

I think I'd make a good vampire. I'm already a night owl, I'm typing this up at 12:30 am. I don't mind blood. Its really only the fear of people I love dying that holds me back. I could turn everyone I love in to vampires as well, but not everyone I love would want to be a vampire. I'd never be able to live with myself if I selfishly forced eternity on someone who didn't want it.

I think the choice to become a vampire, has all the same pros and cons as choosing to live life as is. I'm going to watch people I care about die, but I also get to witness humanity change and grow every day. I burn in the sun, and I learn as I go along. Accidents can happen, or I can choose to end life early. If you take out the factor of never growing old, the hard choices are the same.

Then you remember, there is no choice to be a vampire or not. The only choice I get is if I want to keep on living. I do. I do want to keep living because dying of old age is the closest I'll ever get to being able to see eternity. And that sounds sick as fuck.

Ultimately, I have my mom to thank for my love of vampires. She's the one who introduced me to the idea as a small child, and her death drove the final nail into the coffin of my obsession. Yes that pun was intended please laugh. I just kinda wish that I could share my thoughts and excitement about vampires with her. Maybe one day, 80 years from now, I'll decide I've learned enough to satisfy me, see enough to fulfill me, I'll leave my final breath here, let go of the weight of life and die. Hopefully I get to join my mom somewhere nice and tell her all about what it was like to almost live for eternity.

[ballorawan740]

SCP Scenarios: When their kids swear at them (REQUESTED)

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Requested by: @Astro_KeySimp

WARNING: Swearing (sorta)

Ok so I kinda made the reader into the child since don't remember if you wanted the reader to be a child or not, so if it wasn't to your liking, then I'm sorry, but I can make a separate version on where the reader isn't the child

It kinda became more of the SCPs and doctors being dads than their reaction to their kids swearing

SCP 073 (Cain)

Cain was walking around with you since you were bored and there wasn't anything to do

Being unaware of what some of the staff were saying, ye went over to grab you some food for later in case you got hungry

Once you both went back, he watched you play with some Legos and was talking as if it was your Lego friends talking to you

Cain looked away for just 10 seconds and heard you shout out "Wow! He said that her baby's such a bi-" which shocked him as he heard it

Cain looked around and made sure that nobody was around the room and was somewhat surprised that you was the one saying this

Being a good dad he is, Cain explained to you carefuly that you shouldn't say that word because it's bad

And being a sweet shy child, you obliged and stopped saying the word

Til this day, Cain had no idea about where and who you've heard the word from and is very much more self-aware

SCP 076-2 (Abel)

Abel is that type of dad who would teach you all the bad words and encourages you to say them

It's the researchers who had to teach you top not to say those words

One time, Dr Glass came in to examine you and had rewarded you as usual since you were so cooperative

You drew a picture of you and Abel talking in a garden with bright coloured flowers

Simon asked if he could see your drawing and saw that the conversation you and your dad had was those of swearing

This surprised Simon since you knew so many at such a young age but wasn't totally shocked since he knew that you were Abel's child

And knowing him, he wouldn't teach you to be nice, so Simon took the job as a mother hen and taught you to not use those words around people

SCP 999 (Tickle Monster)

Ok, so I'll keep this SCP short since I, again, don't know what I should write for this adorable, squicky, neon-orange, bubby blob

Another SCP who doesn't cuss

This adorable squishy boi here was about to have a heart attack when he heard you swear fir the first time

He had to ask you worryingly where you heard that phrase and you just said some guy wearing a white jacket

999 sighed knowing that you'll grow and couldn't do anything to stop it

He did, however, mention that you should try and avoid saying those things to anyone and that they'd most likely have a heart attack since you were his child and you won the genetic lottery for being the cutest and outgoing child in the world

The only other person who knew of this was Dr Glass (sucks to be him ngl, he do be a mother to everyone) and he had to help poor 999 with teaching you better words

SCP 682 (Hard to Destroy Reptile)

YAY! Another SCP who would teach their kid to swear

682 has such a dirty mouth like 076 and would 100% teach you all the words he knows

Similarly to what happened with Abel, you were taken for an interview with Dr Sophia Light since she was assigned to you

She's such a sweet and kind doctor to be around and would teach you anything and everything you would probably need to know all the while keeping an eye on you in case you become overly aggressive like 682

You were just eating some sweets Lights had given you for good behaviour and overheard some researchers swear

Remembering what your dad had taught you, you just repeated those curse words while clapping at your achievement

This had shocked Sophia and that researcher since you were known to be a moderately shy and quiet child who normally wouldn't say those things despite being 682's child

Sophia had to ask if you understood the meaning of those words and shook your head as an indicator for no

She had to carefully find her words and told you to never speak of those words again and took you back to 682's cell

You went and hugged your dad and told him that you learnt from the doctor that those curse words were bad and neither of you should say them

682 had a headache after that

SCP 049 (Plague Doctor)

I have a hard time thinking that 049 would teach his child to cuss and would avoid swearing in front of them at all cost

Like, he barely swears anyways but he wants to stay classy and sassy for his innocent child

Just like the other day, his kiddo, you, was curious about the whole surgery thingy he does on the dead bodies, so you asked him to teach you and so he did (like the good father we nevah had)

So you learnt some new, yet difficult, words (cuz we all have a nonexistent pea-sized brain) and somehow, you managed to fit in a curse word

This did surprise 049 as he had remembered that he didn't teach you those foul words

He had to give you a talk about using such words and you teared up since you thought that people used them to express their affection to others

Unsurprisingly, 049 took his sweet time looking for the guy who 'taught' you this and wanted to use him as a case study for your future lessons

SCP 035 (Possessive Mask)

Another parent with such an amazing influence on children

035 would teach and enable you to use swearing as a form of expression

So you were free to say whatever you want as long as they aren't directed to our mask here, especially if it's in a negative way

Otherwise, you'd be punished (No not like that! He'll just ground you from your favourite TV show/movie)

The researchers were surprised, not about you swearing, but how you use them through expression

Except for this poor guy who was new to the foundation and bumped into you by accident

This rookie found himself listening to you cursing like a sailor (maybe not that much but more or less on the same level as Samuel L Jackson)

Word got out and everybody laughed at the poor rookie and told him more about your background and how you love to swear (apparently swearing will prolong your life, so you'll basically be immortal here)

035 was impressed by the whole ordeal and rewarded you with more shows to watch whenever you're both free

SCP 105 (Iris)

Iris would accidentally swear in front of you and whenever she realises it, she would tell you to not swear at people since it wasn't very nice

So she would use words to replace the swearing like "oh fudging hell not now" and "no sugar honey ice tea"

The foundation felt that it was slightly unnecessary but went with it anyways

They'd even go as far as saying that it's ridiculous, but who are they to judge?

Iris was your mother and she's a single mum too, so she felt the need to be overly beating but would occasionally let you decide on your own since you were only 12

The foundation members did tell her that you will eventually grow and more of these words will be used but she just hesitates

As a teen, you did begin to use foul words more often and Iris would argue about how you're using them, especially towards her, your own mother

Needless to say, you both felt bad and made up

SCP 106 (Old Man)

Now this old man right here doesn't exactly speak, or at least very rarely

And if he does, he'll most likely be talking to you or the foundation staff if he needed some help finding you

He'll most likely be able to understand what the researchers are saying, even if they aren't speaking English

My own personal hc is that 106 understands English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic and Indonesian and probably many others

Every now and again, somebody would come in and teach you new words and give other lessons like maths and poetry (our favourite)

You came back home to tell him all the things you've learnt as he watched you in awe as he braided your hair

You've even used some new phrases, including swear words while talking and 106 was pretty impressed

I feel that he's quite neutral with swear words since words are words and are used as a form of verbal communication

So I don't think they'll be much change in his behaviour to whether you're swearing or not

SCP 096 (Shy Guy)

Now with 096, all he does is scream

So basically, somebody else would have to teach you some words

It's not to say that 096 is a dumb animalistic creature with no soul and just kills people who look at his face

He isn't stupid since he manages to find anyone who looked at his face from the other side of the globe

And he seems to understand what the researchers are saying, or at least on a more intermediate to moderate level

You'll learn about swear words from the other researchers, whether they'll be teaching it to you intentionally or you've overheard them

The foundation could really care less, but would at least prefer that you chill a bit if you got carried away

096 would act all cheery when you learn more new things as it's not like the foundation would let him out anyway, so he'll be living the outside world life from you (How relatable, but more with babysitting and dating, cuz I'm too pretty for anyone to date XD)

Like with 106, I don't think 096 would have any special reaction towards swearing, but would probably be screaming internally for a bit since he knows that it isn't a nice word

Dr Jack bright

This mf right here is one of those parents who would be kind but firm

Bright would most definitely give in to your curiosity and teach you whatever you want to learn but would warn you of the dangers

Depending on what it is, he would even go as far as giving you your own personal guard who would stay with you and train you

And unfortunately, this guard has such a foul mouth, so you're constantly exposed to such words

Luckily for the both of you, Jack Bright doesn't really care about swearing as long as you're not being extremely inappropriate if you were to work

He would even joke around with you sometimes and would even start the conversation with swearing

For instance, he'd just surprise you with a "Yeet his mf outta my sheithole"

And yes, you did laugh at his antics

Some would even say that you're an exact clone of him but more stable (for now)

Well, Bright is an amazing dad, but I'd say just below Dr Glass

Or maybe even on par with him

Like Bright is a goofy dad that has all the terrible dad jokes and Glass would be the type of dad to look out for his kid

Dr Simon Glass

Dr Glass would most definitely avoid using swear words, especially if you were under 15

Even if you were over 15, he'd still avoid swearing unless he wants to make a joke or 2

So most of the time, you'd learn all the swearing from other people and SCPs

Sometimes you would swear by accident and Glass would just look at you, slightly disappointed

I'd say he doesn't exactly care about you swearing per see, but would rather you avoid it

It's cuz Simon is the best dad a dad could ever dad and nobody could prove me wrong here

He's also one of the top best dads compared to the others on the list

He's basically your best friend so he'd let you vent and its the 1 time he'd let you swear to show your emotions

Simon would 100% know your thoughts and behaviour

He's just that good at reading people, especially you - almost to the point where people would say he's an SCP cuz I swear he's just empathic and telepathic

As mentioned before, Glass would be the type of dad to care for your mental health

It's not that the others don't, it's just that Glass is a top their God of Psychology and would come to you before you even know you have depression

He would even crack a joke sometimes

So every so often, he would shout out "LANGUAGE!!!" from across the room before you could even bat an eye and say anything

Dr Alto Clef

Another top tier dad, but swearing addition

Your godfather would literally be Jack Bright

Then it's Kondraki and Glass

He would let you swear on a daily basis and would join you

Sometimes you be looking at your Oppas/Noonas and be like: "Oh fxxk me!" and Clef, who's in the next room, be like: "Yeah, fxxk me too!" (Yes but no sis! No incest pls!)

Other times, you would be in the same room as Clef and Bright and you'd join them in being chaotic

And poor Kondraki  is just there at the back trying to do his work peacefully

One time, Kondraki had to grab a Simon Glass to help stop the chaotic trio

And OML did it end so well

You were easy to manage tbh, with the exception of you swearing

Clef and Bright would most definitely encourage you to swear more

Especially Clef since he does have a twisted sense of humour

Dr Benjamin Kondraki

Kondraki is totally the type of person who would tell their kid to mind their own language

But he secretly doesn't care and his child knows it

His style of parenting is similar to Simon's

And yes, Simon is your #1 godfather/uncle

You'd go to him for emotional support since Kondraki sucks at that

Sometimes you'd swear at him and he'd get mad though

So yeah, running to Glass is a wonderful idea

And we all know that Kondraki doesn't mean what he said

He's just extremely introverted, but he's rather sensible - Usually...

Anyways, he would ask Simon on tips and advice on how to get you to stop swearing so much and he just gave Benjamin a parenting book (Like fr guys, let Glass have some rest, he's tired of babysitting over 100 dozens of pets in the zoo and all the other babies who work in it)

[spookybias]

ᝰ frozen ideals | park sunghoon ˎˊ˗

paring: park sunghoon x gender neutral! reader

genre: slice of life ─ fluff, slight angst

content: idol! sunghoon x figure skater! reader, more than friends but less than lovers au, i ramble a bit about what a home is.

synopsis: sunghoon revisits the ice rink, and after seeing you, begins to have doubts on what he really wants in life.

word count: 2.7k

note: this only took a couple of days, so it’s not my best work. i kind of overdid it i guess? this was supposed to be short, but i just couldn’t stop. i also cried while writing a couple of paragraphs of this lol. one more thing, i’m not the best with endings, so i’m not sure if you guys will understand it. it is happy, though.

SUNGHOON DIDN'T VISIT THE ICE RINK AS OFTEN AS HE BEFORE. During his figure skating career, he was often at the ice rink at least 3-4 times a week. Sometimes before school hours, other times after school hours, and many times during school hours. If he thought his life as a professional figure skater was busy, his belief had changed once advancing from trainee to applicant to contestant, and finally, to idol.

Sunghoon’s time was divided between training, schoolwork, competitions, and every now and then, interviews.

His schedule was now made up of all the tasks of a predebut idol. There were photoshoots, interviews, and vocal and dance practices to attend. His free time was given away, -but only out of love for his fans- to sudden vlive sessions and random social media updates. he rarely ever had time to himself nowadays, as even what was left after all of his daily routines and weekly events was often used to eat, freshen up, and rest. And none of this would compare to the schedule that was to come once him and the boys made their debut.

There were times where he thought back to his days on the ice; what would life be like if he hadn’t quit figure skating?

It had been a long time since he had visited the ice rink, and while all the other boys used their one free day off in a while to visit their family back home, or to hang out with their old friends at their favorite place, Sunghoon found himself back at the ice rink. But who’s to say that this favorite place of his that he spent many times at alone, wasn’t his home?

Home isn’t where you live. No, that was your apartment, your house, your condo or your space at the shelter, maybe even the streets. Home is the place that provides you with a sense of security, an overwhelming amount of happiness, a much more avaliable version of cloud 9. Even when you’ve been there twenty times in one week, forty times in one month, the place still feels like a new visit each time. That’s a home.

Often, it isn’t what you do at said place that makes it a home. It’s the safe space founded by the very things about that place that make you happy. The angle at which the lights hit, the background noise that boasts behind you when you’re having fun, the people inhabiting the environment. All these things still feel new, but recognizable every time you visit.

This was the case for Park Sunghoon. You were his safe space.

The ice rink was nearly empty except for you, your coach, and the advisor who kept watch to make sure there weren’t any mishaps in the rink. This wasn’t meant to be a private meeting. You almost always arrived as soon as the rink opened, and so there were never really people there.

Sunghoon had shown up out of the blue after waking up with a sudden urge to visit the rink. It wasn’t until he stood in the seating area, looking over the frost, did he realize how much he missed. He remembered the goosebumps that grazed his skin when the chilly air hit his bare arms and the numb feeling you get on your butt when you land on it after falling back.

He longed for it all, but maybe not enough to quit his new career.

You noticed the lanky boy outside the rink after landing a toe loop. You were a skater, sure, but you weren’t the most coordinated one. You had often made it to competitions with Sunghoon, but you wouldn’t ever make it as far as he did. Still, you loved ice skating, and you would only get better.

That being said, you hadn’t gotten better just yet and were easily distracted. Skidding to a halt, you cheerfully waved to Sunghoon. “Hi, Hoonie!” That meant your eyes were off the cracking ice in front of you, and you tripped, flying forward.

Sunghoon rushed out onto the ice, panic gracing his features. He was accustomed to the ice, and carefully but quickly made it to you in his converse.

“____, are you okay?” Sunghoon didn’t wait for an answer, wrapping one of your arms around his neck and hoisting you up bridal style. “I haven’t seen you in months, and when I finally do I cause an accident.” He shook his head.

You chuckled at his self-disappointment. You waited for him to put you down on the bleachers before telling him, “It wasn’t that big of a deal Sunghoon. I’ve fallen hundreds of times. Ninety out of a hundred of those times, you weren’t there to help me.”

“If it was no big deal, then why did you need me to carry you off the ice?”

You smiled mockingly, eyes shut tight and lips pressed together, a compressed smile at its finest. “I didn’t. I just wanted a free ride.”

Sunghoon shook his head, laughing. His laugh was light like a feather, quiet like a baby’s snore. “You always were lazy,” He replied jokingly.

“Hey! I’ve been practicing really hard! Someone has to take your place, remember? And you’re not here to coach me anymore.”

It was true. After word got around that the Park Sunghoon had quit his career as a professional figure skater, everyone in you guys’ age range seemed to be fighting to be known as the best. For awhile, Sunghoon offered you tips and techniques for mastering his most known tricks. You were someone dear to him, and even when you guys were competing against each other, he secretly hoped you’d do better than him.

The young boy only got busier, though, and could no longer help you train.

“____!” You were snapped out of your conversation by your coach, Eunkyung. She walked up to the two of you. The way she eyed Sunghoon -a look of disbelief mixed with digust- made you gulp. “Stop fooling around. He isn’t here to train you anymore, therefore, he’s wasting valuable time.”

You knew how Eunkyung felt towards Sunghoon. She had dreams of making it as big as him when she was the same age, but couldn’t due to financial situations. Seeing someone who had everything she wanted in a figure skating career give it all up irked her soul. She had openly voiced her opinions on Park Sunghoon to you and the other trainees.

“Please, Eunkyung.” You begged in a low voice, but Sunghoon could still hear. Something about you begging Eunkyung to let him stay made his heart flutter. “We hardly see each other anymore. I really missed him.”

That was it. Sunghoon’s ears were suddenly on fire. When had you gotten so bold?

“Fine. Thirty minutes. Don’t expect another break today because this is the only one you’ll be getting.” Eunkyung walked off muttering something about ungrateful teens and the next competition being in three weeks.

You began to move from the bench Sunghoon had dropped you off at, but immediately sat back down, a hiss escaping your lips.

“You said you were fine.” Sunghoon placed a protective hand on your shoulder, as if the pain was a person making their way towards you.

“I am fine.” You stared out onto the ice trying to wiggle out the static shooting through your leg.

“That isn’t the kind of sound people make when they’re fine, ____. I’ll get Eunkyung.”

“No.” Your voice was firm. “It’s just a cramp, Sunghoon. You know figure skaters get cramps.”

Sunghoon stood quietly, looking down at you, but you avoided eye contact. “Okay.”

“I get them a lot. Eunkyung says it’s because I don’t stretch enough beforehand. We used to stretch together, remember? But you’re not here anymore so I forget.” The statement sounded more spiteful than you intended.

Sunghoon wondered if you were mad at him, and hiding your anger with fake excitement towards seeing him again. Did you secretly wish that he had never come back?

You kept bringing up the past and reminding him that he wasn’t around anymore. It was times like these where he questioned what he really wanted.

The two of you sat in silence. Just basking in each other’s existence was enough. That’s what was so mesmerizing about your friendship. Sometimes all the two of you did was sit next to each other, and it felt like so much fun.

“It’s been awhile, huh, ice prince?” You broke the silence and smiled playfully. “Did you miss me?” Your tone was teasing when you asked, but deep down you knew that if the answer was no your heart would shatter.

Sunghoon didn’t bother to even fight back. “Yeah, I did.” He liked it when you called him ice prince. It could get him to admit anything. It could even make him admit he was in love with you, but you didn’t need to know that.

“You never text me anymore.” He couldn’t figure out if it was a normal statement or a sad one. “I know you’re busy, though.” He exhaled being grateful for that add-on. “What’s it like?”

“I love it.” Sunghoon simply stated. You hardly even finished asking the question when he had answered. “It’s a lot of work, and sometimes I can’t believe I made it, but I love it.”

“You love Jake especially too, right?” You teased.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

“You know I’m kidding,” You shook your head, laughing. Sunghoon missed hearing your laugh. The audio recordings from old videos of you two together just weren’t enough for him anymore.

“You know you’re the only…” Sunghoon trailed off and looked away. Talking about his feelings for you was difficult for him. It was difficult for you too. You didn’t need him to finish his sentence. Of course, you often needed reassurance that you hadn’t been replaced, but just the first few words of his statement were enough. You knew what he meant.

He was the only one for you too.

“Do you think what I’m doing is right?” Sunghoon suddenly questioned. For some reason he was holding back a sob, and he wasn’t sure why.

You stared at a scrape in the ice for a moment, before finally turning to the boy of your dreams. “Yes.” You nodded your head, smiling. “I watch your vlives and read your interviews and I retweet all your photos and cheer on all your moments.”

A single tear slipped down your cheek. You were happy for Sunghoon, but it hurt that he was doubting his desires after a long time of trying to prove himself.

You continued, “Sometimes my friends tell me I’m whipped, but I’m just really happy for you, Hoonie. So please don’t doubt yourself.”

Sunghoon was glad that only one tear had escaped. He didn’t want you to cry over him. “There are days where I try to imagine what life would be like if I was still here. Skating with you and everyone else.”

You replied almost instantly. “Well stop imagining those things. You’re not here anymore. You can’t let what you thought you wanted interfere with what you really want. You didn’t leave anyone or anything behind. It’s not like you forgot about this place. We still love you, and we’re rooting for you and always have been. You spent so long trying to prove yourself to everybody. Don’t let those years be in vein. If you quit, I swear I’ll-”

“I’m not going to quit.” Sunghoon stopped you. “If you’re proud of me, then I must be doing the right thing.”

You let out a breath and smiled, turning away from the boy once again. “Ideals change, ice prince. You’re allowed to change.”

Sunghoon looked over at you, noting how you avoided eye contact. He found it really cute. “Thank you, ____.” The two of you shared a smile, and then Sunghoon looked down to your left leg. “How is it? Is the cramp gone?”

You stood up, wiggled your left foot, and hopped on your left leg for good measure. “Yep! Think we can go around the rink for a bit before my break is up?”

Sunghoon’s cheeks turned pink. “Are you asking me out?”

You tightened your laces and laughed. “I would never."

SUNGHOON SKATED BESIDE YOU. This wasn’t a date. Despite your hands clasped together tightly but comfortably and the statements shared between the two of you earlier, you and Sunghoon were not a thing. The two of you were just a couple of friends who almost had something due to your shared interest and quiet bonding. You loved each other and it wasn’t complicated, but it was uncharted territory neither of you were ready to enter.

You skidded to a stop. “I’ve been practicing really hard,” You told Sunghoon again. You skated circles around him. “Eunkyung says that with a couple more months of training, I can make it farther than you ever did.”

“Is that a threat?” Sunghoon began following after you, the two of you facing each other, skating sideways to form a small circle around the spot you guys had just been standing in.

“Yes, it is.” You stuck your tongue out at him. “But seriously. It’s so much work ‘cause you’re known for doing the most.” You rolled your eyes, remembering the countless laps Eunkyung made you skate around the ice rink. You brightened up when you remembered something else. “I’ve been getting a lot better at salchows, though, which we all know I am terrible at. Look.”

Sunghoon watched in amazement as you skated around the rink, performing salchows over and over again. Your landings were a little slopping, but you could easily fix that.

“I wanna show you something else before you go.” Suddenly Sunghoon remembered that he had to leave soon, as your break would be up, and he had to see his mother in a bit. He followed you out the ice rink.

You opened your backpack, which Sunghoon had just now noticed was left out on the bleachers. He would have to remind you not to do that. If the rink got crowded, someone could steal your stuff. You pulled out a black notebook and handed it to Sunghoon.

He opened the notebook, puzzled at the lines and numbers all over the pages along with little doodles. However, his confusion went away once he realized that the little doodles were diagrams of figure skating tricks, and the lines and numbers all matched up to physics calculations.

“After you left, I honestly forgot a lot of your tips. It was hard using your methods without you being around to coach me.” You looked down at your hands. “I take physics in school, so I’ve been using it to help me with figure skating.”

Sunghoon was in awe. In his mind, he had been selfish to keep wishing he could be back at the rink just to help you. If he had stayed, he would just be stopping you from finding your own techniques, from realizing your full potential. He now realized that he didn’t have to keep worrying about if you were okay. You were doing just fine without him, and although that thought would be negative to most, Sunghoon was proud of you.

“____, this is amazing.”

“You don’t think it’s nerdy?”

“Of course not. You’re a genius,” Sunghoon stated. The embarrassment that had just filled your senses was quickly replaced by fluster. “Um, thanks, Hoonie.”

The two of you continued to flip through the book together, you pointing out tiny notes that you wanted Sunghoon to see, and him asking questions and nodding his head in intrigue. Sunghoon flipped to the most recent diagram, and examined the page.

“What’s this?” Sunghoon pointed to a diagram of a trick he had never seen before.

“Oh! Eunkyung says that if I want to stand out I should combine a couple of moves and form my own tricks, and name them something cool. I need to show the judges how I stand out from the other contestants.” You looked over the page, and caught a small note in your handwriting. Suddenly feeling nervous, you tried to change the subject. “Uh, why don’t we skate some more.”

Sunghoon glanced at you before scanning the page once more. And then he saw it. The diagram was a mix of a salchow and a toe loop, two moves Sunghoon was very much known for perfecting. Under the diagram were two words that made Sunghoon’s heart flutter.

Ice Prince.

[tcm]

Andy Griffith: An Underrated Movie Star By Susan King

Andy Griffith was one of the greatest actors of the 20th century. He didn’t make the impact of his peers Marlon Brando, James Dean and Paul Newman when they all burst onto the scene in the 1950s, but Griffith demonstrated he was an actor of depth, complexity and, at times, brilliance during his 50-plus year career. His depth is especially on display in his greatest role as Lonesome Rhodes, the odious hard-living, hard-loving Arkansas drifter who becomes a television sensation in Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD (’57).

A dark social commentary about power and the media, A FACE IN THE CROWD is as prescient today as it was 63 years ago. It wasn’t a hit upon release but has grown in reputation over the years. And, it’s head scratching to believe that Griffith wasn’t nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

Perhaps he’s not uttered in the same breath as a Brando because Griffith achieved his greatest success on the small screen. He starred as the gentle widower Sheriff Andy Taylor in the beloved 1960-68 sitcom The Andy Griffith Show and as the folksy but brilliant and often cantankerous attorney Ben Matlock in the 1986-95 legal eagle series Matlock. Despite his popular, genial and understated turn as Andy Taylor (who many kids thought was the best father around), Griffith didn’t even earn an Emmy nomination.

Griffith originally wanted to be a singer or a preacher but ended up teaching at a local high school after graduating from college. But the lure of performing was too great, and he left the chalkboard behind to become a comic monologist. And he was funny. Check out his most famous routine, “What It Was, Was Football” from a 1954 The Ed Sullivan Show on YouTube. He’s so believable as the backwoods rube, audiences undoubtedly thought that was Griffith’s real character.

The year of 1955 was life-changing for Griffith. He became an overnight sensation after he was cast in the lead role as the naïve Air Force Private Will Stockdale in the live TV comedy No Time for Sergeants. He’s so mirthful as the good old boy that members of the crew can be heard laughing. Later that year, he made his Broadway debut in the stage version of No Time for Sergeants earning rave reviews and a Tony nomination. It was while he was the toast of Broadway that he was approached by Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg (ON THE WATERFRONT, ‘54) about playing Lonesome Rhodes.

Griffith told me in a 2005 L.A. Times interview that Schulberg and his mother came to see the play and soon after Griffith met the writer at a bar. Ironically, Schulberg didn’t think Griffith could handle such a ruthless character. “We were sitting there talking and drinking,” Griffith recalled. “He told me, ‘you can’t play this role.’ I had never read the script or his short story on which it was based at that time, but I just kind of envisioned the character. I said, ‘I can’t provide it to you…but I can play it.’”

Kazan also had his doubts, but quickly changed his mind when Griffith did an impression of evangelist Oral Roberts “healing” the filmmaker. “At that moment, he and Budd could see that I had a little wild side – that is, I can create a wild side. So Gadge [Kazan’s nickname] used that. He used that part of me to find the emotions of evil, the various thousands of moods that this man had.”

Kazan and Schulberg, Griffith noted, “were trying to make the social commentary that the medium and the people who control it can control the thoughts of the country and how dangerous that can be,” Griffith said. The director told Griffith to drink some whiskey for this film’s conclusion when Rhodes is unveiled as a phony and a demagogue. “They brought me a bottle of Jack Daniels Black Label,” he said. “I would shoot a little bit and drink a little bit. I thought I was great. Gadge pulled the plug around 3 o’clock. The next day he said, ‘Andy, we have to shoot most of that over again. Today, just smell the cork!’”

The 1958 film version of NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS and another 1958 service comedy, ONIONHEAD just didn’t work and bombed with both critics and audiences. “I basically struck out in Hollywood,” Griffith told me in 1993. He returned to Broadway, earning another Tony nomination for the musical version of Destry Rides Again. Griffith admitted, though, the show wasn’t very good. So, he decided to do television. The pilot for The Andy Griffith Show, which also starred Ron Howard as his young son Opie, Frances Bavier as Aunt Bee and Don Knotts as the ultra-nervous deputy Barney Fife, aired on the popular The Danny Thomas Show. The show was quickly snapped up by CBS to develop into a series.

Knotts, who won five Emmys as Fife, wasn’t in the pilot. Knotts, who appeared with Griffith in NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS, called him and said, “Don’t you need a deputy?” “I was supposed to have been the comic, the funny one,” said Griffith. “It might not have lasted even half of season that way, but when Don came on, I realized by the second episode, he should be funny, and I should play straight to him. “

Despite the fact the series was the no. 1 show, Griffith wanted to stretch his acting muscles and the series ended in 1968. But Hollywood still didn’t know what to do with him. He signed a three-picture deal with Universal, but the first film ANGEL IN MY POCKET (’69) had a devil of a time trying to find an audience and the critics were not impressed. He struck out again and returned to the small screen. In between series work, TV movies and guest spots, Griffith appeared on the big screen, most notably in the sweet nostalgic comedy HEARTS OF THE WEST (’75) with Jeff Bridges and Alan Arkin.

He finally earned an Emmy nomination in 1981 for the TV movie MURDER IN TEXAS, in which he got the opportunity to show his dramatic chops as a wealthy Texan who thinks his daughter’s new husband isn’t exactly who he appears to be. His turn in Matlock gave him a renewed popularity. Griffith was doing guest spot on TV and had just released a hymns and spirituals CD when I interviewed him in 2005. Two years later, Griffith was perfectly cast in WAITRESS (2007) as Joe, the elderly and curmudgeonly owner of a small café who had a generous and kind heart. The role fit him like a comfortable glove.

Baby boomers felt they had lost a big part of their childhood when Griffith died in 2012 at the age of 86. Ron Howard summed up what so many of his fans were feeling: “His pursuit of excellence and the joy he took in creating served generations and shaped my life. I’m forever grateful. RIP Andy.”

[reallyhardy]

regent’s open air theatre LSOH (2018) breakdown

act one. herein, two years later, i try to remember as much as i can about this production with the help of gifs i took from the trailer and shutterstock images. let’s go!

THE BEGINNING. i went to see a matinee so it was daytime, but the stage set was all black-and-white very newspaper aesthetic. my sister and i were very close to the front, five rows back:

and here we are, excited for everything to begin. (note my giant tooth earrings. was really hoping they’d catch matt willis’ eye.) soon enough crystal, ronette and chiffon took the stage for the prologue, belted their faces off and got me hype from the first moment. their costumes were kind of punky, street style (my favourite look was on the girl with the green jacket and shiny leggings:)

skid row was great. the grey set really highlighted the colourful costumes, and for this first number the set stayed black-and-white so the only colour were the main characters and urchins, and the ensemble wore black-and-white costumes.

and i remember being so thrilled by the costumes - in this photo seymour is wearing yellow socks but by the time i went to see it they were pink (to match audrey’s hair!) and audrey is wearing fluffy slide slippers in the promo photos but when i saw it she wore a pair of blue open-toe kitten heels.

once the song ended we got to see some character personality: marc antolin as seymour was adorable. he was (for most of the first act at least) very goofy and beamed a lot, he had a very cute smile. his voice was quite high and nasal and silly and i honestly had a really big crush on him. jemima rooper as audrey was equally sweet and adorable - she had a cotton candy pink wig and started off in kind of a sexy-ish outfit, with a sheer off-shoulder top over a bra. her eye makeup was light blue (and the bruise bright purple) and she was really short compared to seymour. mushnik was super tiny and greasy looking.

every interaction seymour and audrey had was just! so cute. at the start where audrey and mushnik discuss orin (the ‘you don’t meet nice boys on skid row’ conversation,) seymour is stood behind them kind of goofing around and he flips his shirt collar up pretending to be orin and acting macho but at the end of the scene audrey goes quiet and carefully fixed his collar back down before she left and it was!!! emotions.

da doo i can’t remember anything about how things looked :( during grow for me it really highlighted how…cute seymour was. he beamed the whole time, and the plant puppet in its baby form was fantastic, (the pod head at the top opened up and had little human teeth lmao) and they used like… household objects painted green for plants. the roses were red toilet brushes:

with red ink on them so when seymour touched the bristles there was visible blood on his finger which was fun. lots of attention to detail in this production.

seymour on the radio i think happened off-stage? so we just hear him being interviewed while we watch mushnik and the urchins listen to the radio together. the choreography during you never know was really fun too, with seymour and the urchins dancing together, seymour did a lot of hip wiggles and kept trying to stop audrey ii from trying to bite at the urchins as he danced. one of the green ping-pong balls fell off the puppet but nobody slipped on it so it was fine. also GOD the voices of the urchins were just so good in this one.

somewhere that’s green is a song that makes me cry most of the times i listen to it or watch any versions of LSOH, but this is the first time i’d seen a version where audrey was also crying. during this number the actress climbed up onto the top of the mushnik’s store prop and she still had the bright purple black-eye makeup on as well as the cast on her arm so she looked so beat down and sad and it was just toward the end of the song at ‘i’m his december bride’ where her singing started to break down and she started crying, and covered her face by the time she got to ‘far from skid row’ with her voice breaking oh my god the tears were flowing VERY much from my eyes.

and as a note the actress did not have this beautiful wig on when i saw it, she wore one with much less volume - it could have been the same wig just styled differently, (tucked under/trimmed to be just sort of...round?) but it was just... so much less cute lmao, you can just about see it here in this cast mirror selfie:

anyway. then it was time for closed for renovation! this one was fun, audrey and seymour i think were just...arranging plants and other things? the ‘mushniks’ shop prop might have expanded a bit? they turned it around?

there were some cute little dancey bits with the three of them together:

then audrey & seymour talk a bit. audrey gives seymour the kind of advice that she also needs to be taking herself -- seymour asks audrey if she’d go shopping with him, and then orin arrives on the scene.

dentist was amazing. i’ve seen a lot of bootlegs of kind of lackluster orin scrivellos but… well, me and my sister decided we were absolutely going to see this production when we found out matt willis was playing the dentist. (we were big busted fans lol) he wore this insane painted leather jacket with this tooth-themed biker gang design (he and his backup dancers all had hell’s teeth on the backs of their jackets) and his dentist coat underneath had the sleeves ripped off to show his tattoos… they gave him white foundation to make him look i guess more ill/joker like? it totally worked. he honestly kinda stole the show and he totally exceeded my expectations (which is saying something because my expectations were that he’d be perfect for the role and that i’d enjoy his performance thoroughly!!!)

then he comes into the shop, comments on the plant, poses around, treats audrey terribly. and not only does he abuse audrey in front of seymour who iirc was watching horrified (as you would) but also poor seymour gets his junk grabbed twice by villains in this production too lmao, orin grabs and squeezes seymour’s junk while he’s yelling at audrey. it’s a theme i guess???

(hell of a promotion image, that one.) then orin and audrey leave and it’s time for mushnik and son. they did a lot of the usual ‘awkward-tango’ choreo and it was just excellent really. there’s nothing i didn’t enjoy about the number, plus mush was quite a short guy but had a real big voice.

you get a good view of all the fun things they used to represent plants here too: cleaning brushes, feather dusters, hairbrushes, a small fishing net, a bubble wand...

so feed me was great because it starts off of course with the plant puppet prop:

but then by the second verse (when it comes to ‘does this look inanimate to you’) they opened up the puppet’s leaves like a mouth and audrey ii in drag queen form emerged (to thunderous applause). [i found a short clip someone got on instagram a while back, you can watch it here!] she was holding a microphone in her hands so when it came to seymour’s responses she held out the mic to his mouth and it was :’) really funny. and seymour gets his junk grabbed again:

because he can’t catch a break. staging wise i think i remember this was very bisexual - it’s important to note that the first wig audrey ii wears strongly resembles the wig that OG audrey wears - and at times during this number audrey ii acts quite flirtatious with seymour and he seems receptive to it and has to visibly shake himself out of it.

audrey comes back for her sweater (iirc it was a VERY jazzy 1990s looking one in aqua green and pink) and seymour and audrey ii make up their minds about what to do with orin.

so seymour heads out - the dentists chair was just a beat-up shopping trolley with various things stuck on (see there’s what looks like a plunger, wrist restraints too lmao) and orin had a bunch of bloodied weapons such as a power drill instead of a dentist drill:

anyway i usually don’t enjoy now(it’s just the gas) as a number when i’ve seen it in bootlegs but again matt willis had tremendous feral energy and he pulled it off. plus the gear was quite retro-futuristic very cool looking:

it was also especially funny just after ‘now’ because after seymour runs off with orin’s body in the trolley he comes back in with it all chopped up and he was pushing dismembered limbs (the arm was even painted with matt willis’ tattoos and nail polish which was a GREAT detail) into the windows of the prop mushnik’s building that audrey ii was inside of, and he even threw up into the audience which was :’) gross but funny. it was yellow. i didn’t see if it splashed anyone.

then... intermission. will continue this in [part 2, which is here!]

[nctinfo]

[TRANS] WayV’s interview with ELLE Korea May 2020 issue!

— Kun

A suffering leader, everyone's Kun —  With a meticulous personality. The pros and cons would be: I think I am the leader thanks to my sense of responsibility and delicacy. [But] when there is too much to take care of, it is a bit cumbersome. There’s no member who gives me a hard time because they all pick on me one by one (laughs). If I had to introduce my hometown, Fujian Province, it's a quiet city with clean air and few people. Many people come to visit because the mountains and the lakes are beautiful. When I think about nature, I start missing my hometown. At school, I was the head of the student council's entertainment department. I might look like a serious person since the members are so active and mischievous, but I'm also a fun person. Times when I feel like we’re one team are when you know what the others are thinking just by the look in their eyes and, when we dance and the movements are 'synchronised'. WayV to me is the comfort of being able to share everything with each other. All the members worry a lot about music so a lot of ideas come out every time we hear new music. It is certainly an advantage that all seven have a lot of desire. I have a bright young voice, but my desire as a vocalist is to have a thicker and more mature voice these days. Wouldn't it suit dance songs that match our [team's] style more than ballads. I graduated in Practical Music. If there is a song I want to arrange: I'm still trying to look for my style while listening to various songs. I want to challenge not only the arrangement but also the composition. I am a good cook. The dishes I recently made for the members are the dishes that I learned from the main chef of the company while I practiced them [on the members]. The menu with the biggest reaction recently was DongPo Pork. When I can't sleep, I deliberately watch low-rated movies and these days, I watch a four-hour-long landscape video shot from a train driver's perspective. It makes me fall asleep really fast (laughs). The most memorable stage after debuting was as expected, MAMA 2019. When I was giving the award speech, my hand that was holding the microphone was shaking and it was all captured [on camera]. What I want to say to myself in hard times is to be confident! The moment you lose your confidence, everything becomes more difficult. The mindset I don't want to lose is to be grateful. Everything I do right now is impossible to do by myself. This is the most important. To Winwin: who has known me the longest among the members! I hope you always take on challenges with courage because I will always be there beside you to support you. Also, all the members know that you are cute.  

— Lucas

Healthy energy, hot Lucas — Between a boy and a man, I feel closer to 100% boy! I don't think I feel mature enough. [Maybe I’m just like] a baby who wants to be a man (laughs). The most impressive man to me is a responsible person. And also, a man who gives everything to his loved ones. Having an attractive rapping sound because of a low and husky voice. My desire to sing is big! I want to sing a sad song. I've heard from people around me that a calm song suits my voice. Like the calm songs of Paul Kim I normally listen to too. My favorite song is "Take Off, The killing point is the dance break, with the powerful guitar riff. Emotion is what is the most important on stage. I believe each song has its own soul, and it is important to immerse yourself. My role in the team is positive energy. Although always looking bright, surprisingly, I have a lot of thoughts. Yesterday too, I had a lot of thoughts before going to bed, so it took me a while to fall asleep. Not long ago, Kun hyung played me a song he had composed and so many ideas came up so I wrote them down and sent it to him. WayV to me is a friendship that feels really deep even though it’s been only a year since I made a debut with the people I love so much. So much that when we come back from a schedule, as we laugh and talk together, the stress will suddenly be gone. The most important thing in a team is to have sincere conversations with each other to understand each other's differences. Only then can we get along well because of the wider understanding. Having appeared in a number of familiar variety shows like the Chinese version of <Running Man> <Let's Run Season 3> I like that I can go to various places the most. It's also a special opportunity to meet people with other jobs and not only artists. I think I'm often called/casted [for these shows] because of my sincere youthful reactions. The mindset I don't want to lose is the promise I made when I debuted to be a good influence on people. That's what I always keep in mind. I want to be a person who always gives positive influence to people, family, and fans around me. To Yangyang: who I know is really smart, you're still a cute little brother to me (laughs)

— Winwin A quiet presence, Winwin — In the reality show <Dream Plan>, mingling well with the elders in the village was impressive. Special trick behind it was thanking them for looking out for me! Since they were all kind natured, I guess treating them with sincerity looked good. When Lucas and I visited their home, we got served a meal and received a warm welcome. A performance video of Ten and I has been released. As a dancer, Ten is a member whose strength is being versatile. He helps the members at dance practices a lot. I’ve learned dancing in a special dance school. At the time I was the shortest and least talkative kid until I grew taller in high school. I’ve spent most of the time practicing alone. Chinese dance is similar to modern dance mixed with ballet. Learning the choreography is fast and it’s an advantage to be skillful in tumbling. I would like to properly showcase a modern dance at a concert someday. When I’m on the stage what I care about the most is my gestures and facial expression. During ‘Take Off’ promotions, the gestures and facial expressions I did during my part varied from stage to stage. I hear that I’m ‘pure’ a lot. A new charm that I want to have: our fans call me ‘Baby Chick’. I want to showcase more of an ‘eagle’ image, so I cut my hair short. Isn’t it similar to Park Saeroy (laugh). Something that makes me angry, although I normally have a good temper is being unsatisfied with stage performance to the point I can’t sleep on that day. But it’s okay to just take a nap. I just need to do better. The most memorable moment in WayV promotions was receiving the Best New Asian Artist Award at the MAMAs, it was the first time we’ve gotten an award together so I was very happy. The reason why I went to Beijing on my own as a middle school student seems to be fate. I passed my exams without much determination, left my hometown and went to school in Beijing where I was noticed and then debuted. Coincidence became fate. To me WayV is a path that we’re talking together, a team with a lot of growth potential. I’d like it if the younger members came to me whenever they need someone. I feel our fans love and support the most when: I’m always amazed and grateful for our fans hearts. All of the people who always look out for us even when we’re not promoting any albums and who support us are an immense source of strength. Success to me is when more people get to know us and we get to perform in many different countries. I want to think about my personal success after my team’s success. To Kun: when members want advice, we reach out to Kun first before our families. He knows a lot, can do a lot, and is a person we can depend on.  

 — Ten

Ten who is curious about what's next rather than what’s now — The secret to adapting well everywhere is attending an international school. I had friends of various nationalities and I also traveled a lot. Wherever I went, I went to see the common [places] first. Learning an unfamiliar culture is fun. I’m learning Thai, English, Korean, Japanese and now working hard at learning Chinese. I memorize expressions that I can use while watching Chinese variety shows and dramas. Although it's still difficult to read the buzzwords and hanja. The most important thing as a performer, and what makes you an outstanding dancer, is to have your own style while not being trapped by masculinity and femininity. I am different now from a few years ago and I'm trying to challenge myself by being flexible in various aspects. What I've learned since debut is, in the case of WayV, that when you work with various genres the main concern is the vocal style and with SuperM, I learned about the importance of performance through the activities [we did]. 'It's important to dance well, but you must also have your own [style]', 'think about what you want to express in front of the camera, but you must be faithful to your feelings on every stage in order to develop [yourself]' is the advice I received from the Hyungs (Baekhyun, Kai, Taemin). For the dance video that I did together with Winwin, the concept, music, settings, and outfits were all decided by us together without the company's advice. I came to realize the difficulties of being a staff member (laughs). I can [now] see the wider picture and more details. I like poetry too. I think poetry expresses emotions. It helps me  understand the world and the society as a person and not as an artist. The lyrics of my 2nd solo song 'New Heroes' feel like an autobiography. If 'Dream in a Dream' was all about the performance then 'New Heroes' is a song about the time spent committing [to something] and I thought anyone can sympathize with that. The [original] lyrics were so great that I asked them not to change it and to just go with it. I want to write lyrics myself someday. The kind of person I want to be is [someone who] always tries to go with the flow as I think that making plans and setting expectations can make it more difficult on yourself. I hope I could be a person who can leave a good impact on others. WayV to me is just like a family who always does everything together and takes care of each other asking ‘have you already eaten?’. Everyone has an open mind to try and accept new challenges. During the 'Moonwalk' promotion period, I was kinda surprised how well we got along. Having received recognition for my skills since debut. The times when the expectations are high are: Art and languages too are ever-evolving disciplines, so it's not easy to keep up. Nevertheless, there are self-expectations and anticipations to show a new side of myself. I will work hard (laughs). I still play Pokemon Go and I'm waiting for the June update. I will catch a lot of new Pokemon again! To Xiaojun: with whom I saw Harry Potter together yesterday! Let's make an appearance in Harry Potter when there is a reboot.

— Hendery

Flexible midfielder, Hendery — Something I’ve gotten into recently is practicing playing drums. Kun hyung is cooking a lot lately so I’ve been reviewing the food too. The other day he made kimchi jjigae so good that it even got an approval from manager hyung. My favourite track is ‘Take Off’. We filmed the music video in Ukraine and spent loads of happy times together, so I feel happier whenever I listen to it. Something I’ve improved on since debut is that recording songs takes less time. When I hear a member of staff say ‘Is this really Hendery’s voice?’ I feel proud of myself. The charm of my vocal is: I’m still looking for it, but I feel like my rap sounds nice when I spice it up with a little melody. Good at giving advice to our members. A tip to giving good advice is: it’s important to have helping and not making decisions in mind. Talk about both bad and good points about the A and B. The secret to always looking like I’m at peace is my parents always telling me ‘Your happiness is the most important. You always have a home to come back to, so work as much as you can enjoy’, thanks to them I grew up as someone with little stress or worries. Mindset that I don’t want to lose is the excitement before going on stage. I think the most important thing for an artist is their greed for performing. When I get on stage the most important is interacting with fans. The most memorable stage was our Korean debut on <Show! Champion>. I couldn’t believe we’re performing Chinese songs in Korea. I was so overwhelmed to see our fans welcoming us so enthusiastically even though they didn’t understand what we were saying. I opened an instagram account recently. My posting plan is ‘This is where I am‘ ‘I am filming today’. I want to showcase my daily self. I hope our fans can smile for a brief moment when they see the pics I had the most fun taking. To me WayV is: I feel empty when I go away to see my family for a little. Every time that happens I facetime them to relieve the sadness. Lucas is the member who picks up the most (laugh). To Lucas: No matter how busy we get, even if we become grandpas, I’ll always be by your side. It’s something I want to say to all of the members, but Lucas is a friend I'm especially attached to so I really wanted to say this. 

— Yangyang

Infinite potential, bold maknae Yangyang — I speak Chinese, German, English Korean and Spanish. Great language skills are useful when you travel. Whenever I talk with friends of various nationalities, I think it's fortunate that I can speak many languages. In our team alone, it's full [with people who speak] Chinese, Thai, English, and Korean (laughs). My role in the team is being the happy virus! Although of course, the hyungs think I'm a maknae that requires a lot of energy from them. WayV to me is a high tension team that can deliver strong and positive energy. If someone shows a slight sign of exhaustion, we immediately stick together and somehow infect each other with energy. I think that such energy is conveyed to fans on stage. If I have learned anything from living together with the members [it would be] the habit I have developed to control my greed and to care for others. I'm used to looking at the other's feelings now before doing something. My favorite song is ‘King of Hearts’, because I participated in writing the lyrics. I also love 'Love Talk' from the 2nd mini album. It is a charming song that is sweet and sexy but has a way to make your body move. My ambition as a rapper is the flow. Because I think this is the aspect that determines the impression of a song from the listener's point of view. I want to be a multi-talented person who is good at not only rapping but also dancing, singing, and writing lyrics. I've always had a lot of ambition. The attractive part of writing lyrics is that I can tell my story, since from a long time ago, I wrote lyrics little by little and it's always fun work. I want to steadily keep doing it. I like Virgil Ablo and Demna Gvasalia, and the fashion icon who caught my eye these days is Mike Amirie. I am drawn to people who have a simple yet clear style. The same goes for musicians. I like people who have a clear style like Travis Scott and A$AP Rocky. I’ve said 'I like who I am' before. Instances when I am especially like myself is when I'm confident. When I have confidence and want to show off, I can show much more than my actual skills. I use SNS to check on NBA and fashion news. I see the news on sneakers I'm looking forward to fast. Surprisingly, I don't look up anything about me [but] when a stage or performance is over I do look up the reactions. Most of them are good, so every time I read, I get energized. To Hendery: hyung, you seem to really get into gaming, but don't try too hard (laughs). 

— Xiaojun

Warm voice, Xiaojun — Something I’m into these days is practicing the songs that will be included in the next album that we are preparing for. Before debuting, I only sang my favorite ballad song, but nowadays, I want to sing songs of other genres such as R&B. I've been uploading videos of me singing on my personal Instagram. My favorite song is ‘Face to Face’. My heart warms up every time I hear it. I really like the lyrics ‘You won’t be lonely because I’ll be your strength, I won’t let you cope with your wounds alone in silence’. The keywords that describe me are kind. Friendly. Positive. I often say ‘I wish my songs were healing different people’. The way I heal myself is: my heart calms down when I look at pictures with many memories sealed in them. I take a lot of pictures of the scenery and especially when I look at the pictures of my hometown in Guangdong I feel healed. The reason behind my strong sensitivity is the big influence of my dad who’s a singer and my older brother. Ever since I was little we would often watch movies together. I graduated with a musical major. My greed for musicals is: I’ll surely do it again later. I like starring in musicals but one day I’d like to make my own. A musical piece I’d like to recommend is <Dear Evan Hansen> who won at Tony Awards and Grammys. It’s a warm story about a lonely high school boy suffering from social anxiety disorder, who is working on his trauma and healing from the pain. My way of dealing with stress is quiet time on my own. Just like positive energy, negative energy is easily spread to others, so I’d rather be alone. A memory I really want to make is a trip, I promised to go on before debuting, with the members. The destination is still undecided. The kind of team member I want to be is a silent supporter. It would be nice if I can be 'my people/dearest' to others. Something I want to do this year is to have an event for the fans. I like to surprise friends or throw surprise birthday parties. I think fans will love it if we would do a guerilla performance. I told you here so I have to throw [that idea] away and I will prepare something else (laughs). To Ten: You are one of the 'Hyung-line', and you Korean is the best so there are many times you have to lead us. Don't carry everything on your own and sometimes lean on us! The same goes for Kun hyung.

t/n: Due to the structure of this interview there might be inaccuracies as many things only made sense in Korean but sounded kinda awkward in English (more so compared to other translations we did). We tried our best to convey what they meant, but please keep this in mind when reading this interview.

Translation: Alex, Esmee @ FY! NCT (NCTINFO) | Source: ELLE Korea Scans — Do not repost or take out without our permission!

[ciggylungz]

Summer bummer pt.2

y/n x harry pairing

summary- y/n and Harry are part of a cast of a reality show called ‘summer bummer’ that’s a uk version of the jersey shore and things are chaotic

pnot proofread, not sure if its any good pt.2

_3.9k words

 Waking up smooshed between a warm body and a hard wooden wall was what Y/n was currently experiencing, but soon the pounding headache and nausea took the front seat in her brain as she let out a low groan shifting in the hold of the man beside her as she sat up rubbing her eyes, mascara from the night before flaking onto her fist getting another irritated groan to bubble in her throat.

“quiet, try’n sleep here” Harry mumbled and turned over as she climbed out of his bed yawning and stumbling to the bathroom, peeing and taking off her messy makeup from the night before, taking a quick shower and going back upstairs to her shared room to change into some comfy shorts and a big sweatshirt pulling the hood over her damp hair to help block the brightness that’s making her head pound like a drum.

Y/n made her way into the confessional room, sitting on the couch in front of the green screen and turning on the camera the producers had there for them to do their periodic self interviews.

“so it’s like noon, I just woke up and I realized ‘holy shit, im in bed with Harry’…” she made a point to tilt her head and widen her eyes at the camera showing her bit of shock at the situation. “I was blackout wasted last night, the last thing I remember was dancing and making out with him so I’m gonna wait till he’s up to ask if we did the deed or not because I don’t remember, god first day in the house and I’m already blacking out.” She paused to laugh at herself a little before continuing, “ugh, we’ll see. My moms gonna kill me when she see this episode_- fuck_”

She sighed as she turned off the camera and went back out into the living room where some of her roommates were, all of them sleepy and hungover chatting to themselves but Y/n raised an eyebrow when she noticed Tommy give her a side eye and stop talking when she walked into the room, the camera men that were in the house filming panning their cameras between the two young adults.

“what? Why are you looking at me like that?” she didn’t waste any time in brining attention to his behavior, not in the mood for the pricks little attitude problem getting a scoff and a snarky little turn of his lips as he waved her off like a dog, and Y/n was having none of it. She stood up straighter, squaring her shoulders and pointing at the man. “Obviously you have a fucking problem so say it, fuck are you acting like a little bitch for? Thought you were a fucking tough guy.” She wasn’t scared of that guy In the slightest, he had the most punch worthy face she’s ever seen and god was he making the urge more prominent with every move of his ugly face.

“shut the fuck up bitch, you talk too fucking much. You talked shit about me at the club last night, probably just mad because I was making out with other girls and not giving your ugly ass any fucking attention you stupid bitch.” He glared at her giving her a disrespectful little smile and every other person in the room was now staring at the pair, engaged and waiting on the edge of their seats for what was gonna happen next.

Y/n couldn’t stop the laugh that came from her mouth, looking at Tommy like he was the stupidest person on the planet, because right now he sure did fit the description. “You’re joking right? I was saying how I felt sorry for those girls because you’re such a piece of shit wanker. You hit on me from the moment I walked in this house and pouty like a fucking baby when I told you to fuck off after dinner, it was on camera you prick. I’m perfectly content having you and your non existent lips far away from me.”

She was annoyed, but also amused. This guy had no fucking clue how much everyone already hated him and she loved it. He stayed silent for a minute and she took the chance to get closer to him pointing her finger right in his face, making eye contact with him, “watch who the fuck you call a bitch around here Tommy because I’ll punch you right in your smug fucking mouth, lets see how much of a tough guy you are when you get your teeth knocked in by a fucking girl.”

At this point Ryan was up off the couch and making his way between the two when he saw both of them getting even more agitated, Tom standing up and Y/n refusing to back down as he tried to intimidate her.

“alright guys, chill out. Drop it, it’s not a big deal don’t fight over stupid shit like this.” Ryan stuck his arm between them Tommy trying to push it away while Y/n started to tie up her hair yelling back and fourth with him as Ryan tried to keep them apart. “what you gonna fucking hit me Tom? Huh? You gonna hit a girl? Makes sense, you’re a pussy and act so tough till you’re throwing a tantrum when you don’t get your way. Gonna go cry to mommy because I didn’t want anything to do with you or your 2 inch dick?”

This comment of course got the reaction she was hoping, his face grew red and his body tensed just making her smirk more. “the fuck did you just say to me?” he was pissed, and Y/n was loving how she got him so mad over her comment, that’s how she knew she struck a nerve because it was definitely true. She even got some laughs from the roommates who were sitting around watching the show. Ryan turned so his left arm and part of his body was between them, looking at Tommy raising an eyebrow at him. “Watch it mate, you’re on thin ice. Lay a hand on a female in this house and you’ll never get to walk this earth again.”

Tommy clenched his jaw flickering his eyes between Ryan and Y/n like an angry child who didn’t get their way, and god was Y/n loving how he’s embarrassing himself and he doesn’t even realize it.

The pair continued to argue back and fourth, him trying to insult her and her pushing his buttons – (because lets face it, he was too damn easy)- and in the midst of it Harry decided to emerge from his room, hair a mess and all sleepy. His tattoos were on full display as his shirtless body started advancing towards the arguing duo. Y/n gasped when Harry pushed her back a bit to get right in Toms face using his large body to completely cover Y/n’s as he looked down at Tommy with stone cold eyes.

“Mate I suggest you fucking keep it moving because I’m not gonna put up with you being disrespectful to anyone in this house, let alone a younger girl who didn’t do anything to you. I won’t let her fight you, but I sure as hell have no problem pounding your face in. Step off before I make you, I promise you that you don’t want that.”

Harry’s tone was serious, his muscles were taunt and flexed as he towered over the other man. Tommy of course tried to play it off and muttered a ‘whatever asshole’ as he sulked off to his room, but everyone in there knew he was almost shitting his pants from how afraid he was of Harry.

Everyone took a second to take everything in before they really spoke. Ryan gave Harry a pat on the back, “Thanks mate, dudes a proper prick. And Y/n, you’re a bad ass fuckin’ girl, that was crazy!” he chuckled and shook his head, plopping down on the couch again as Harry turned to the girl raising and eyebrow as he looked down at her. “try to not get yourself involved in any more trouble, at least until I’ve had some fucking coffee. Was sleeping love, bit rude to wake me up for a brawl.”

Y/n laughed a little and pushed his chest, “Hey! I didn’t wake you up, I could have taken him I didn’t need you to jump in.” she put her hands on her hips and gave him a sassy little face, the man laughing in return. “ ‘m sure you could have, babbled last night about how you’re brothers taught you boxing growing up, but if that kid was to try to fight you I’d go down for a murder charge. Me mum taught me to respect women and women beaters aren’t in my good graces. Now you, miss thang need to keep your ass out of problems.”

Harry gave her the stern bossy eyes and she caved, nodding her head and pouting a little as he went into the kitchen and grabbed himself a Gatorade and some crackers nodding his head to the deck door,           “ ‘cmere rocky, need to talk to you.” Harry teased her with the name, getting laughs from everyone including her as she walked out on the deck with him sitting down on one of the couches as he fed himself.

“need to talk to you about last night.” He mumbled through a mouthful of sports drink getting a nod from Y/n as she tried her best to ignore the camera getting a little too close for comfort. “Wanted to ask you about it too, was waiting till you got up..i’m just gonna ask, did we bang?” she twisted her stray hairs around her pointer finger as she asked, slightly nervous for the answer.

Harry shook his head laughing a little bit to himself. “Nope, told you I wasn’t gonna do anything when you were drunk unless I talked to sober you about it first. Plus, love if we would have fucked you would still feel me. wouldn’t have to ask because your trouble walking would answer that question for you sweetheart.” Harry wore a slight smirk on his lips as he said it, watching the younger girl roll her eyes and lick over her lips. “god you’re such a boy.”

“No, sweetheart. I’m a man, a gentlemen actually. Not like the little boys where you’re from, I’m a grown man love and I’m cocky because I know I have the skills to back it up. Maybe you’ll get lucky to experience that yourself sometimes little girl.”

Y/n was a bit in shock. She was turned on, overwhelmed and a little bit offended by his attitude but god if she wasn’t turned on. “Oh my god. I can’t, guys are too much for me right now. I might have to take up Selena’s offer and become a lesbian over summer because you guys are stressing me out!”

Y/n smacked his arm playfully and Harry grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand to his mouth and kissing her knuckled. “Yea, let’s see how long that lasts since last night you were almost In tears any time I broke the kiss to open the damn door. You’ll be knocking at my door by the end of the week guarantee it.”

“Ok mister confidence, shut up.” Y/n covered her face with her hands to hide her smile and growing blush, both of them just talking about the night before until the camera crew left for a while before they were going to go out that night.

“hey Harry?” Y/n stood in his doorway, calling out his name as he rummaged through his suitcase to find whatever he was looking for. “Whatsup love?” he peered at her for a second to let her know he was listening before going back to what he was doing “about what you said, sober me says if neither of us come home with someone we can fool around a bit, you have my permission. Just know I fully plan on bringing someone home tonight and I already called the spare room. I wanna start my summer off with good booze and an orgasm.”

Harry let out a little snort, pulling the brush he was looking for out of his bag and turning to Y/n, “I’ll keep that in mind, good luck with your plans tonight, I hope you get your wish and don’t end up with some dude who doesn’t know where the clit is.”

Y/n rolled her eyes, “Don’t speak that into existence asshole, if he fails me I’ll just do it the old fashion way.” This got the mans attention and his eyes to meet hers, “Old fashion way?” he rubbed his stubbly chin a bit, moving the brush between his right and left hand, “yea, just masturbate in the shower or whatever. I brought some tools that could lend a helping hand in that. I’ll make do.”

Harry had to stop himself from groaning. His mind flashed with images of her in the shower using toys on herself, biting a wash cloth to keep quiet since everyone’s here. He was able to collect himself after a few seconds and give her a playful smile nodding “sounds like a plan love, now get out of here it’s time to get ready.”

__

The music was blaring and the booze running through Y/n’s system made it ten times better, she was dancing- not caring about anything as she danced on this nice looking guy she met and who she decided she was gonna bring back that night and occupy the spare room she’d already called. He was tall, dark hair, tan just a typical good looking guy and the vodka helped make him look more attractive. She just hoped that he could give her what she so desperately needed. A good fucking.

“ ‘cmon, lets go now so we have extra time before my roommates get back, I wanna play.”

Little else was said between the two as they darted out of the club and back to the shared house, clothes coming off quickly as they got up the steps and now she’s panting, groping her tits while the stranger who she can’t remember the name of is tongue deep in her cunt. He’s average at giving head, but she’s desperate and so horny she doesn’t care.

Her hips rock against his mouth as he brings her right to the edge before stopping, Y/n let out a loud protest at this feeling the coil that was forming in her stomach and about to come undone fade.

“what the hell?!” she was pissed, and between her legs was aching at this point from needing attention. “I’m sorry, mouth got tired and I wanna fuck you now..” the man slipped his shirt off while Y/n laid under him, irritated but hopeful his cock can give her the relief she really needs.

But just her luck, it doesn’t. He lasts 5 minutes before he’s cumming into the condom and panting leaving Y/n angry and horribly deprived, and so she wasted no time in kicking him out and storming into her room, grabbing her black vibrator she had brought and marching to the bathroom turning the shower on getting it nice and arm before she stepped in.

__

Y/n had her head resting against the tile as she sat on the shower floor, legs spread and vibrator rubbing up and down her needy slit while her free hand was plunging 2 fingers in and out of herself. She always loved being fingered, but she wishes her fingers were just a bit longer as she worked herself letting herself be loud since no one else was in the house, but she just couldn’t reach the spot she needed to. It was so close yet so far, and she was so upset she was almost close to tears.

She was in the middle of a fit of cursing everyone in existence when a knock on the bathroom door made her jump, her heart almost burst from surprise and now she was wondering how long she’s been in here since her roommates weren’t coming back till at least 6 am.

“Can I come in? it gotta pee” the voice on the other side of the door asked loudly so she could hear them over the water, and when she realized it was Harry she yelled out an agreement, as soon as he opened the door she peaked her head around from behind the curtain to look at him while still shielding her body.

Harry chuckled a little bit and gave her a funny look, “Can I take a leak in private please?”. Y/n groaned and stomped her foot on the shower floor like a child. “Fine! Please pee and then get in the shower with me, I’m so horny it literally hurts and that guy lasted 5 minutes and I swear to god if I don’t get to cum I’m going to cry please!”

Harry stared at her for a moment, letting her words sink in pushing his hair off his face and shrugging. “what do you want me to do love?” he could see just how desperate she was, eyes close to tears, lip stuck between her teeth and he felt both bad for her but also so fucking turned on.

“Anything, please finger me? play with me? please I need it my fingers aren’t long enough and you said you’d play with me, I’m not even that drunk please Harry.”

Y/n didn’t care about the cameras in the hall that were probably picking up the audio, or how desperate and crazy she sounded, she needed his touch.

“Okay..Okay doll relax, let me do what I need to do and then I’ll join you alright?”

Y/n nodded and moved back behind the curtain, she took her original place sitting on the cool tile floor of spacious shower as he went to the bathroom before stripping down to his boxers and pulling the curtain back seeing the younger girl naked, legs spread a bit giving him a glimpse of how swollen and flushed between her legs was letting him know she was probably a bit too rough on herself when she got frustrated, which only made her problem worse.

Her tits sat perky on her chest, her nipples pebbled with water droplets running down over them before dripping off onto her thighs. Harry let out a low groan at the sight, “Have m’ boxers on just because I’m not gonna fuck ya’ , honestly don’t think I even can because I got whiskey dick right now. Need to lay off the booze so I can take care of you properly next time. Cmon, stand up sweetheart.”

Harry held his hand out to the girl who took it, standing on wobbly legs as he stepped in the shower with her, skin tight black boxers covering his goods which disappointed her a bit but she couldn’t care too much since there was so much else going on.

His big hands ran up and down her back, thumbs digging into the dimples right at the base of her spine as he pulled her closer to him, kissing down her neck, mumbling into her skin about how pretty she is, and promising he’s going to make her feel better.

“Pussy is all swollen doll, gotta be careful. Don’t want you to hurt yourself just ‘cause you get frustrated, that’s no fun…” His voice was deep, slow and made her stomach tense from how it vibrated through her getting a whimper and tug on his wet matted locks.

“Talk to me darling..tell me what you want, tell me what you need baby” his fingers were trailing downward, squeezing her ass and brushing his finger tips on the backs on her thighs. “need you to touch me, please put your fingers in me I need it”

Her voice was pathetic and she knew it, she was needy to the highest capacity and almost let a ‘daddy’ slip through her lips but she managed to bite her tongue just in time. Harry hummed as he brough his right hand around her front, moving it between her thighs and coaxing them open wider while he brushed two digits up and down her slit, mouthing at her neck while he gets a feel for her exterior, taking the vibrator from her hand and setting it down on the rack holding their shampoos and soaps while he tapped the pad of his middle finger against her entrance before sinking it in.

Her reaction was immediate. She dropped her head onto his shoulder, a long relieved moan falling from her plush lips as he slipped a second one in with ease from how eager her body was. “Got t’ give me a minute to find tha’ special spot love, deep breaths don’t need ya’ passing out on me.” Harry was on a mission to find that spongey spot inside her that would have her cumming in no time, and Y/n was practically riding his fingers as she stood in his grip, her body going rigid when he pressed against the spot she needed the most attention on, mumbling a low “found it” as he pressed on it again, rubbing over it as he fucked his fingers in and out of the younger girl who was holding onto him for dear life as he massaged her G-spot with vigor.

“There you go, that’s a good girl Y/n you’re doin’ so good love, know you’re close can cum whenever you feel it. Know you need it baby, let go.”

Y/n could barely hear him as her body started to tingle, everything was muffled and her mind was hyper focused on the pleasure pulsing through her core. She was gearing up for a strong one, she hasn’t had one quite this big since the winter when she had a 4 week dry spell and finally got some action the day after Christmas, she soaked through the poor dudes sheets that night.

Her moans and gasps picked up, frequent bursts of pleasured moans passed her lips as she started to pant her nails digging into his tattooed shoulders while her held her to him so she didn’t fall.

“Doing so well, almost there huh? Almost there…” his fingers moved with purpose and unfaltering speed as he massaged her special spot faster, her legs becoming jelly as she started to cum. She couldn’t help the loud moan that shot out of her throat, Harry quickly grabbing the wash cloth and stuffing it in her mouth since he knew Ryan was here. He cooed in the girls ear, talking to her the entire time she was cumming feeling her cunt squeezing his digits while her own juices dribbled down his wrist.

She was dizzy, tired, spent and completely drained. She finally got what she needed and was now dead weight clinging to Harry who peppered her face with kisses as he withdrew his hand from her cunt rinsing her off down there and kissing her lips a few times.

“That was fucking amazing… god Harry you’re gonna make me fall in love with you with fingers like those…”

He only chuckled at her dazed comment before shutting the water off, wrapping the girl in a towel and sitting her down on the counter

“Lucky for you, you have all summer to do so, I might just be up for it too.”

[stufftippywrote]

Not My Type (fake dating au) part 2, version 2

Part one

Lardo fiddles with Jack’s tie. “One more time,” she prods.

“Show up at the party,” Jack recites. “Look for blond caterer with a ... cowlick?”

“Cowlick. You saw the picture.”

“Yeah. Right.” If the photo Lardo showed him was any indication, the cowlick is pretty distinctive.

“Go on.”

“Meet him. Say hi. Flirt.” Jack turns doe eyes to Lardo. “I’m still not sure about the flirting.”

“Don’t worry,” she says, turning his collar down. “Bits’s got it.”

“Bits?”

She frowns. “Don’t call him that.”

“What should I call him?”

“Sweetheart,” she says flatly, then snorts. “Kidding. Call him Eric.”

The gala was easy enough to get an invite to. It’s a red-carpet something for some charity or other, maybe involving animals. Jack’s head is too full of other details to remember that one. As he ascends the stairs toward the ballroom, he’s thinking, blond, cowlick, caterer. Blond, cowlick, say hi, flirt. Cowlick, caterer--

A reporter from the local NBC affiliate appears before him, camera-ready in a red gown. “Jack Zimmermann,” she exclaims, and several people turn their heads. “Imagine finding you here so soon after your Cup win! I thought you’d be waterskiing in Tahiti.”

“Yeah. Um.” He wasn’t expecting to be interviewed. “Well. It’s an important issue.”

“I had no idea baby seals meant so much to you!” She’s delighted.

Jack wants to melt, just sink into the floorboards and leave behind a puddle of a tuxedo. “Uh, yeah.” He’s looking everywhere but at her, still searching for the right blond head.

“So how is it, being the most talked-about Stanley Cup champion in years?” Jack’s not sure if she’s here in her reporter capacity or simply as a guest. Maybe a little of both. It sure feels like she’s got a phone or microphone in her hand, even though she doesn’t.

The question irritates him. “Actually,” he says, and searches for her name. “Candace -- I’m here to meet someone--”

And then it appears, like a lighthouse in a storm, a tuft of yellow hair bouncing to and fro atop a roundish head. Thank God, Jack thinks. He pushes past Candace, hurrying across the room toward who he suspects is his quasi-date. He’s short, Jack thinks. Not enough meat on his bones. Needs to eat more protein.

“Excuse me--” he calls out, but the cowlick won’t stop bouncing, blond hair won’t stop moving. “Um--” He finally catches the guy and tugs on his shoulder. “I think we’re--”

“Can I help you?” Eric -- because it’s definitely him, Jack’s seen a picture -- turns around and cocks his head. Smiles like he’s in a beauty pageant.

“I-- um-- you’re-- I’m Jack,” Jack stammers.

For a moment, Eric’s eyes are blank. Then -- and Jack sees it, like a switch is flipped -- his eyes light up and his whole body begins, all at once, to hum with energy. “Well, hello there, sweetheart!” he declares at full volume. “Fancy meeting you here!”

And before Jack can say another word or move a muscle, Eric’s on his tiptoes, leaning up, and planting a wet kiss on Jack’s cheek.

It takes all of Jack’s strength not to recoil and put as much space between them as possible. Flirting is one thing. This is practically making out in front of everyone. He can hear the murmurs and the shutter sounds from the cellphone cameras all around.

But it isn’t really making out. After the kiss is through, Eric remains on his tiptoes and whispers into Jack’s ear. “Don’t you worry, Lardo told me everything. Leave it all to me.”

This is probably supposed to be reassuring, but Jack’s on edge. It doesn’t get any easier when Eric takes his arm, looping his skinny hand around the muscle of Jack’s forearm and tugging. “So?” he says. “How are you enjoying the party?”

Jack frowns. “Don’t ... don’t do that,” he says.

Eric blinks at him. “Do what?”

If Jack wasn’t pink already from the kiss, he’d be flushing now. He lowers his voice to just above a whisper, leans in toward Eric. “Don’t k--kiss me.”

Eric laughs, a round, tenor sound that seems to fill the ballroom. “Well, honey, I can’t much do what I’m supposed to be doing if I can’t even kiss you!”

That urge to melt into the floorboards is good and strong now. “Shh,” Jack scolds. “Listen. All we have to do...”

“Is get seen canoodling, I know,” Eric finishes for him, sotto voce. “But to do that, honey, we’ve got to canoodle first.” He swings on Jack’s arm, pressing close. “Come on, sweetheart, canoodle with me.”

He’s got a point. Jack is reminded of Lardo’s last instruction: flirt. It’s not something he’s used to doing, especially not with a man. Especially not with this man, this scrawny kid who can’t be more than a few years out of college, who’s doing all of this far too easily. If anything, his ease is making Jack even more uncomfortable.

“I, uh.” Jack looks for conversation. “So, um. Do you ... cater here often?”

Eric is about to burst out laughing again, but a sudden presence by his side sobers him. A demure girl in a waitress’s outfit says, “Bitty? Can you come look at the dessert spread? I think Chris had an accident with the petit fours.”

Bits and Bitty, Jack makes a mental note in his head. Of everything about Eric so far, the nicknames please him the most.

Eric straightens up, letting go of Jack in an instant. “Of course,” he tells her, abruptly the picture of sober responsibility. She hurries back to the dessert spread, where a lanky boy with Asian features is trying desperately to rearrange what looks to be an unkempt pile of small cakes. “You stay put,” he says to Jack. “I’ll be right back.”

Jack watches him head toward the dessert table, confounded. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but this Eric -- this over-the-top, jubilant, totally un-Jack-like personality -- definitely wasn’t it. And Jack’s supposed to flirt with him? He’s seen documentaries of WWII spy operations that seemed like simpler tasks.

Then the vultures swoop in, and Jack is in the center of a ring of reporters and TV personalities who have all seemingly forgotten that they’re not here to do a job tonight. “Jack!” “Jack Zimmermann!” “Jack, any comment on --” “Who was that--” “Did you come here tonight with--”

Jack shakes his head and tries to muscle his way out of the throng. It’s going to be a long night.

Part Three

[halothenthehorns]

PADFOOT RETURNS

Favorite chapter of this book! I don't care you still don't need to know this.

HPHPHPHPHP

Sirius, who clearly still had that last task stuck in his craw, grumbled at Harry, "Well this does prove I was right about Krum, and Cedric. Anyone who leaves those other kids down in that lake are to be avoided by you at all costs."

Lily was frowning down at the little infant in her arms sadly, but still tried for some good, "I don't know Sirius, maybe we were being too harsh on them. Cedric at least, after all, before I heard about Harry's first year it never would have crossed my mind Dumbledore wouldn't put some contingency in place to make sure the unrescued kids came back to the surface. Cedric hasn't had the same bad feelings about Dumbledore recently as we had, I'm sure he just had faith enough not to take that song literally."

Sirius rolled his eyes, clearly not in all agreement, but Remus had a happy smile in place, clearly liking to the idea. "You gave me an interesting idea about Krum as well, what if he saw Dumbledore talking to those merpeople, and pieced the whole thing together from there."

"I can see that," Lily instantly agreed, "he's been staying out on the lake, any Durmstrang student could have seen Dumbledore discussing the task with them, or even more realistically, I'll bet Karkaroff told Krum as soon as he knew that he only had to worry about his one hostage."

"I wouldn't be surprised if Karkaroff did know the others would drown and told Krum to leave them down there anyways," Sirius rolled his eyes at the two of them." *

Harry and James exchanged a look, clearly realizing Sirius was looking to pick a fight, while everyone else just wanted to move on away from that task, so Harry leaned over to Sirius and gently restrained, "I'm positive I'll take your advice as seriously after the task as I did before."

Sirius was instantly derailed, turning back to Harry with a brilliant smile as he declared, "Well how else would you take advice from me?"

Lily and Remus rolled their eyes at him and looked pleadingly at James to go while he had the chance.

James still had a stupid happy smile stuck in place, hoping beyond all measure that Harry would just breeze through the last task and that until that had to arrive they'd spend the rest of his school year hearing of nothing more than homework and actual fun things to laugh about.

One highlight of the aftermath of this task, was Ron getting far more attention than Harry for once.

"Why?" Sirius couldn't help but ask, some nasty memories resurfacing of the last time Ron had been in the limelight, that hadn't been pleasant for Sirius. "Ron was asleep the whole time."

"Everyone saw Fleur kiss him along with Harry," Remus reminded, "and I can all to easily picture Harry shoving Ron in the way when anyone asked why."

  People were clamoring to hear his time down in the lake, and at first Ron seemed to be telling the truth. How the teachers had collected them, promised their safety, and he'd awaken when he reached the surface. A week later however, his tale had been embellished to include a fight for his life against a dozen merpeople, single handedly defending all of the women as they forced him under.

"I like the second story better," James beamed. "Its sounds like a thrilling tale."

"Ron's always been the best at those," Sirius snickered in agreement.

He made sure to assure Padma, who'd been much more taken with Ron since all this started, that he'd had the situation under control that whole time.

"Of course," Lily huffed with disgust at such a flighty girl. Ron acting like this was giving her some annoying flashbacks to James as well, so she wasn't going to pretend to enjoy any of this.

Hermione was not as pleased with his little stunts. She'd been snappish lately with all the people mocking her for being Viktor's missing person, and whenever she caught Ron she'd snap all he could do was snore them to submission.

"Teasing might not affect Hermione," James couldn't help a sympathetic smile for her, "but it certainly gets to her."

"Notes for the future," Harry said simply.

Ron blanched in surprise at her quip, and quickly went back to the real version afterwards.

"Least Hermione keeps him in place," Lily approved.

March came with drier weather, but cruel winds skinned their hands and faces every time they went out onto the grounds.

"I miss Quidditch," James sighed.

Owl post was getting delayed slightly by the buffeting winds, but Sirius' brown owl still managed to make a landing the Friday before Hogsmeade. It took off the moment Harry untied the note, clearly not up for making a return trip.

Harry was the only one who gave a laugh, the others were to on edge for the reply. Sirius' last note had not been promising.

This letter was almost as short as the previous one, simply requesting Harry meet him at an old stile in the back of Hogsmeade at two tomorrow, and to bring food.

They all sat there in a bit of dumbfounded silence for a moment.

Lily cracked first, saying with the most sincerity than she ever had in her life, "I am going to strangle you."

"Bring food?" James demanded, his voice cracking on the last word so that he couldn't have continued if he'd wanted to. James felt like an idiot, he'd made the joke himself that Sirius would probably have to steal a cake, but how much was he eating on the run?

Sirius had a torn look on his face, somewhere between he wanted to laugh them all off for thinking he was in danger like his usual idiotic self, and the rest was curiosity. He somehow managed to ask as if for the weather, "wonder what I'm up to."

"Would you please, for just a moment, pretend like this is dangerous," Remus sighed.

Sirius clucked his tongue at him in agitation, stating, "Never stopped me before. I'm just curious what I finally couldn't put in a letter, or maybe I'm just sick of owl post and want to see my Godson."

The baby in Lily's lap had been growing increasingly fussy, so Lily excused herself to put him down for a nap while still muttering about murder.

James fidgeted with the pages until she got back, honestly debating holding him down for her the whole time, but in the end he reminded himself it wouldn't be fair to murder Sirius just for mouthing off in here. In fact James was almost getting his wish, at least Harry and Sirius having a conversation face to face should be some modicum of fun, his best friend was probably right and just wanted to check in on Harry and no one should be looking for him in Hogsmeade, this should turn out fine.

Harry and Hermione were incredulous he'd really come back, but Ron brushed them off and said he'd been away from dementors this long, he obviously knew what he was doing.

"Thank you Ron," Sirius said a little extra loudly, still with an insufferably cocky look in place that no one was going to catch him.

As Harry tucked away his letter, he was surprised that he honestly felt better with the idea of seeing Sirius again.

"Ha!" Sirius barked in triumph, while Harry was in such a good mood with the most recent task finally being over he couldn't do anything but roll his eyes back.

So he headed down to his Potions class in a much better mood than normal.

Of course that was ruined the moment he saw the standard group of Slytherins all standing in a group, snickering over something.

"Well this never starts well," Lily grumbled, clearly the only one clinging to her unease over Sirius. She was equally annoyed at her boys trying to brush this off as a spot of fun, and just as unwilling to argue it otherwise. She relinquished Sirius had been out long enough it wasn't one hundred percent suicidal to come back, more like seventy five.

Pansy caught sight of them first, gesturing wildly at them to get the others attention.

"I'm with Lily," Remus groaned, "prepare to be annoyed just by that."

Harry saw a magazine in her hands, Witch Weekly.

"Guess that's better than the Daily Prophet," Sirius narrowed his eyes shrewdly.

"Not by much," James grumbled.

Then Pansy gave the paper a toss to Hermione, telling her she should have a good read of it. At that moment Snape opened the door, and they all had to file in.

"Of course this had to happen inside there," Sirius snapped, "at least when this stuff comes up in Care of Creatures you know Hagrid'll back you up."

"I'm sure they planned it this way just for that," Lily sniffed.

The three friends set up their cauldrons in the back of the room like always, but instead of pulling out their ingredients they all leaned over Hermione's magazine as she riffled through it.

The piece wasn't hard to find, another photo of Harry was spotted over the title Harry Potter's Secret Heartache. The article starts by reminding everyone that Harry had grown up without love while being deprived of his parents,

Lily and James flushed in hatred already for this, did that have to keep coming up!

was at least equaled out with the love he'd seemed to find in his school life was Hermione Granger.

"Didn't this already come up?" Sirius scoffed, "Skeeter must be running out of material if she's rehashing your love life."

"Let's hope she just runs out altogether soon," Harry sighed.

Sadly for Harry, he may not even be aware of his own suffering. Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl,

"She needs to keep her own story straight," Remus reminded, "she keeps changing her own description of just how pretty she thinks Hermione is."

"We've well established her facts change to fit her story," Lily huffed.

had recently been seen in more company of Viktor Krum. Clearly the girl had a love of famed Quidditch players, though it was clear neither boy knew of the other. Krum himself had been heard saying he'd never felt this way about another girl, even inviting her to his country over the summer.

The real crux was, it most likely wasn't Miss Granger's charm the cause of this.

Skeeter had interviewed a few students to get the real story, and Pansy Parkinson had happily stepped up in the story to report how intelligent Hermione was, it was more than possible Hermione was using Love Potions on these boys.

Love Potions were banned at Hogwarts of course, and this reporter only hoped the matter would be looked into soon before someone's heart was broken forever.

"That's all there is," James finished with a disappointed shake in his head, "thankfully. I'm relieved, I was fixing to start laughing at how ridiculous that was."

"I can still see why Skeeter tried to go that way for Hermione," Lily shook her head furiously, "that really would be traumatizing for some girls to have that printed about them."

"Hopefully Hermione'll take this as she did the other one," Remus said.

Ron was furious for Hermione, even as he couldn't stop an I told you so for her. Skeeter had gone and printed this about Hermione, turning her into a scarlet woman.

"Well he's not wrong," Lily couldn't resist a smile for Ron.

Hermione stopped looking down at the paper and began to laugh at Ron's choice of words, now shaking with giggles.

"I'm sure that's the exact reaction Skeeter was hoping Hermione would have," James beamed with pride.

"Laughing in the face of it all," Sirius agreed at once, "best way to face life."

"You're still not off the hook mister," Lily told him at once. "If you get yourself caught and killed for being an idiot, I'm going to kill you."

"And just what's it to you?" Sirius demanded with an impetuous smirk, clearly all at ease with digging his own grave.

"It means a great deal to me," Remus sniffed back, his mind scrambling to play this off and blast away the worry really eating at them. "As I take great comfort in knowing it'll be my hand that'll be the death of you one day."

Sirius most likely would have kept going, for some deranged reason he seemed to feel the way to make them feel better was throwing out more jokes at this, but James was in no way amused and kept reading loudly around them.

Ron said that's what his mum called them.

Hermione was not impressed, saying if that was the best Skeeter could do, she'd lost her touch.

"As if she ever had one," Lily scoffed, "so far all of her stories have been nothing but dribble."

The Slytherins were watching her expectantly for a reaction, but Hermione simply waved pleasantly at them.

"Never let it be said Hermione doesn't know how to play a situation," James smiled happily at the girl.

The three finally began on their potion for today, a Wit-Sharpening Potion.

Only a few minutes in though, Hermione began how odd it was

"That Snape's never used that Wit-Sharpening Potion on himself," Remus offered with wide eyed innocence.

about Skeeter knowing...

When she trailed off, Ron quickly yelped in surprise if she had been making Love Potions?

"That was his first thought?" James snorted.

"Not that I believe she'd do it," Lily shrugged, "but I'd be the last person to be surprised that she could. Ron would know the same thing."

Hermione snapped at him for being stupid, no what she was surprised was how Skeeter knew about Krum inviting her to Bulgaria.

"I thought that was just more made up stuff," Sirius said in surprise.

She was blushing in embarrassment by the end of admitting to this.

Ron dropped his pestle in shock as he looked at her.

Hermione tried to ignore this and quickly got the whole thing out, telling out he'd asked her just after he'd pulled her out of the lake.

Ron demanded what her answer was, now trying to grind up his desk more than his ingredients.

All four of them were snickering now, though at least trying to hide it at Harry's bewildered stare. He wasn't sure if they were laughing at Ron or something else altogether like he was thinking, but did not want to discuss it.

Hermione tried to ignore him, unsuccessfully by going all the more red, as she agreed he'd been quoted saying he'd never felt this way about another girl.

"I cannot believe she's actually admitting this to them," Remus shook his head.

"This is why Hermione needs some friends who are girls," Lily sighed for the poor thing. She knew full well how that could feel.

That didn't explain how Skeeter knew this, she hadn't been around when Krum had said that, no one had. Perhaps she'd had an Invisibility Cloak on and was sneaking around?

"Would not put it past her," James grumbled.

Ron repeatedly demanded what her answer to Krum had been, knocking the desk so hard with his pestle he put a dent in it.

"I'm thinking Ron wants an answer to that," Sirius raised a brow.

"What on earth gave you that idea?" James kept trying to repress giggles while continuing.

Hermione began to admit that she hadn't a chance to answer before Harry appeared- but was cut off by Snape saying from behind them that he was docking ten points from Gryffindor for discussing their business in his class.

Amusement instantly gone and snatched away because of that insect, no one had the heat to snap at him this time, it went without saying at this point.

The whole class turned as Snape hovered over the three of them, Harry getting another wave of POTTER STINKS badges from Malfoy.

"Might as well glue that to his arse, or his forehead, same thing at this point," Sirius huffed.

Snape caught sight of the magazine, docking another ten points for having this in class, then finding the article and even reading the title out loud.

Lily was gnashing her teeth furiously to hold back the abundance of things she'd like to throw in his face for all the petty comments. It was sick how he was living his dream come true, being able to humiliate her son at every opportunity, when most likely he was really looking down on James in all these moments.

The dungeon rang with the Slytherins' laughter, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape's thin mouth. Going one step further, Snape then began to read the article aloud.

"I-He!" Remus spluttered, sure he must have heard that one wrong.

"There's logic for you," James lip curled, "he took their points away for reading it, and then reads it. Remind me again why I never got around to blowing this one to Norway?"

"Don't ask me mate," Sirius was glaring at nothing and not even pretending it was a joke, "I suggested at least once a week we hogtie him and leave him to the Forest, but no one would let me do it."

"Next time you get the opportunity," Remus told him sincerely, "I'll run interference while you get the rope."

They snarked on long enough at the injustice of this, but James forced himself to reread that bilge through Snape.

The whole thing came across ten times worse in Snape's cruel tones.

When he was done, Snape came to the conclusion it was time to split these three up to keep them on their work. He made Ron stay where he was, moved Hermione to sit by Pansy,

"Please tell me Hermione's brilliant enough to make that blow up without her noticing," Lily pleaded of nothing.

and put Harry in the table in front of his desk.

"I'll pause for the miracle he didn't put him beside Malfoy," James groaned, an honest toss up of which would have been worse, Harry next to him or continued interaction with Snape!

Harry furiously obeyed, dragging his cauldron to the front and slamming into his new seat to continue his potion.

Snape retook his seat but Harry refused to look up at him, determined not to give Snape the satisfaction of seeing how angry he was as he began smashing his own scarab beetles, imagining each one as Snape's face.

"You know what, I like Harry's idea better," Sirius nodded along. "It'd be much more personal and fun to turn him into a potion ingredient."

"Won't deny loving the irony of that," James agreed.

Snape began whispering for Harry's ears alone how all of this press attention was inflating his already large head.

Harry denied response, he knew Snape was trying to provoke him, he'd done so before.

"When did Snape provoke you before?" Lily cast her mind back. "He seems much more fond of humiliating the life out of you and then docking points."

"When he found out I had the Map," Harry reminded, "tried to get me into admitting I'd been visiting Hogsmeade."

"Oh yeah," she rolled her eyes at that resurfacing memory of him taking potshots at James. The incident with Remus afterwards had burned that away a bit.

No doubt Snape was hoping to take a whole fifty points from Gryffindor before class was up.

"The day is just wasted if you haven't," Sirius scowled.

Snape persisted in saying that Harry may be delusional enough to think the whole world was in love with him, ignoring the fact that Harry had long since turned his beetles into a fine powder, but Snape knew better. He didn't care how many times Harry was in the papers,

"Really?" Harry mock outraged with as much sarcasm as he could muster. "Because I've been putting in so much hard work to garner his approval!"

"It's too bad you can't say things like that to him without risking detention," Remus sighed.

"The detention would be worth it," Sirius huffed.

Potter would always be a nasty little boy who gave no consideration to the rules.

Harry finally gave his powder to his potion and turned on his roots instead, his hand shaking so bad the cuts weren't nearly as precise as they should be. Still he refused to respond and give Snape the satisfaction.

"I'm glad you're taking Hermione's path at least," Lily sighed, "he'll get less satisfaction if you act like he's not getting to you."

"Much more self-satisfying to get him back later, when he's lesser expecting it," James mock agreed with his wife, though she wasn't going to argue with him.

Snape promised this warning, if he ever caught Harry breaking into his office one more time-

"He's never broken into your office period," Remus said like speaking to an idiotic child.

"Technically," Sirius added on with a faint smile, "and Snape can't prove otherwise."

"That was two years ago though," James cocked his head to the side, "or is he really blaming Harry for, well whatever that mess with Crouch was."

"He blames everything on me," Harry reminded.

"I'm sure he's tried to get you expelled for every instance that went on at school, and at some point Dumbledore just stopped opening the door for him," James said wistfully, thinking about slamming a door in his face as well, or more on his face.

Harry snapped at that, saying he'd never been in Snape's office.

Snape's black eyes glowed with hatred as he hissed back all of his missing supplies, the Boomslang skin and Gillyweed, all from his private cupboards.

"Wait, now I'm confused," Lily made a rewind motion. "Dobby took the Gillyweed, but what's this about the Boomslang skin? Again, that happened years ago, I'm blasted he's really connecting the events."

"Again," Remus pointed out, "he clearly blames Harry for everything that goes wrong in his life, and I'm not really surprised if he's been in waiting to throw this at him since he found out."

"But it is rather odd," James had his head cocked to the side, "he's talking like this happened when Crouch was in his office, but he can't have stolen either of those, it doesn't add up."

"With what?" Sirius demanded of him. "We never even found out why he was there in the first place."

"What are the odds Crouch happened to steal the exact ingredient Harry had need of, and something he also stole two years ago," Lily said back.

Sirius had no reply, none of them did. This was such an inane mystery no one even had a clue how to begin to puzzle it out.

Harry stared back with a blank face, refusing to acknowledge this. It was in fact Hermione and Dobby who Snape should really be looking to, but Harry wasn't going to be saying that. Instead he lied, stating he had no clue about anything.

Snape hissed back he knew Harry was out of bed that night his office had been ransacked.

"While he's technically not wrong about that," Remus rolled his eyes.

"He still has no proof it was Harry," Sirius finished for him. "There are three other champions that egg could have belonged to, but of course he's still convinced, without proof, it was Harry."

Lily wanted to scold him this time it was good enough evidence, the map and the egg together wouldn't leave an idiot stumped, but that wasn't Sirius' point and she knew it.

Snape had no clue why Moody had joined Potter's fan club,

"Oh, do we finally have proof that exists," James asked mildly. "What did Colin and Ginny name it anyways?"

"Potter Doesn't Really Stink," Sirius offered to Harry's trying to ignore them both, about as successfully as he'd been ignoring Snape.

but even he couldn't save Harry from Snape when he caught him.

"About as thoroughly as he has in the past," Remus stated with a winning smile, making them all give a hearty laugh in appreciation for that; because Harry hadn't ever technically been in trouble for any of this.

Harry mildly agreed he'd keep that in mind if ever he had a wish to go for Snape's office.

"You just know it's on his top ten list," Sirius nodded along.

"Right up there with going back into the Forest, going to another Death Day party, and going back to the Chamber," Remus agreed.

Snape's eyes flashed, his hand tucked inside his robes, and for an actual moment Harry was sure Snape was about to curse him.

"I'll skin him alive," Lily said dangerously, wishing now more than ever she could leave these walls for the simple use of acting on that.

Instead he pulled out a clear bottle that looked like it held water. Snape asked if Harry knew what this was.

This time, completely honestly, Harry said no.

"Not that it's ever stopped you before," James said.

Snape explained it was Veritaserum, a Truth Potion so powerful just three drops and Harry would spill every secret he'd ever had.

"And illegal to use on the unwitting," Lily hissed.

Harry ruffled his brows at her, casting his mind back to a not at all pleasant conversation where he'd try to offer ideas to prove Sirius' innocence. This potion had come up, and he asked, "If you can't use it on people on trial because they're expecting it, and you can't use it on someone who isn't expecting it, what's it used for?"

"Nothing," Lily deflated a bit at talking to her son, though venom was still clear in her tone even not directed at him. "It's basically illegal to even own any amount unless you have specific license to study under a few fields. Snape would be allowed to have some I suppose, being a potion's teacher and all, but that doesn't give him the right to use it on anyone!" She finished, trying to force herself not to shout there at the end.

"Dumbledore wouldn't let him use it," Remus offered without any real hope.

"Dumbledore should be stopping a lot of things that keep happening," Sirius snapped back bitterly.

Snape conceded there were many restrictions placed on the use of this potion, but one day Snape's hand may just slip over Potter's evening drink.

"And ironically," Lily put her hands up in exasperation, "Snape still wouldn't get his end results."

"Though a few worse things would come out than breaking into a teacher's office," James muttered, keeping a careful eye on his best friend.

Harry turned away with false indifference, ignoring how uncomfortable that potion made him feel. Snape may not get the confession he'd be wanting, but Harry knew how much trouble not only his friends would be in, but also far worse things could happen. Like his admission to being in contact with Sirius, and his crush on Cho.

Sirius couldn't help it, he broke all tension in the room by snorting with laughter, and not stopping there by doubling over and still holding his sides with amusement.

Harry was bright scarlet already, trying in vain to get James to keep going who was paying him no attention, clearly just as amused as Padfoot that Harry's embarrassment over that crush ranked right up there with the fear of his Godfather getting caught. Good to know where Harry's priorities were at least.

It took Sirius quite some time to settle back down, rubbing happily at his chest and ignoring the exasperated looks of the others at such an overreaction. "Thanks pup, I needed that."

"You are not welcome," Harry grumbled back.

He put his roots into his potion and began stirring, his mind on Moody's idea to start drinking out of his own hip flask for a while.

"While I wouldn't blame you if you did," Remus shook his head with amusement, "I more recommend just asking the house-elves to special make you meals. Gives you a much less paranoid vibe."

"I'll keep that in mind," Harry did manage a smile for him.

A knock on the door stopped either from saying anything else as Snape called for entrance in a more normal voice.

"So, dark and creepy," James nodded along.

Karkaroff came in.

"Well, well," Sirius raised a brow. "Evil plotting in front of the kiddies now? Poor form on their part."

"I will strangle you," Lily promised, still unable to grasp how he could make light of Death Eaters around Harry.

"What?" Sirius defend himself at once. "They're not actually going to do anything to Harry in that classroom, but Harry might pick up on something else they could be up to."

Remus wanted to remind him they most likely had already done something to Harry, they were their number one suspects on who'd entered Harry into this tournament, but he wasn't going to argue with Sirius now and begged Lily not to bother while James ignored them all.

Everyone watched as he came up to Snape's desk, clearly trying to be as quiet as possible as he whispered they needed to talk.

"Then he should have done this after the fact," James rolled his eyes, "in Snape's oh so important office."

"Be happy intelligence is failing them," Sirius waved him off.

Harry still pretended he wasn't listening as he kept at his ingredients, but still clearly heard Snape's hissing response to deal with this after class.

Karkaroff refused, saying he was tired of Snape slipping away and avoiding him.

"I would too," Remus quipped, but was watching the book curiously now, all of them wondering what they could be squabbling about.

Snape repeated they would talk after the lesson.

While Harry raised his measuring cup full of armadillo bile up to the light to check the correct measurement,

"Subtleness you were excelling at I'm sure," Remus smirked.

"You ever wonder how they get some of these ingredients?" Sirius muttered to Harry.

"Detention from Snape I'm sure," Harry said back, thinking it would be just that kind of punishment for Snape to make armadillos appear just to have them vomiting their bile for the students to collect.

Harry peaked at the pair. Karkaroff looked worried, Snape angry.

Karkaroff stayed hovering over Snape's desk for the rest of class, and determined to know what they were talking about, Harry knocked over the rest of his armadillo bile with a minute to go before class let out and quickly bent down to mop it up while the rest of the class fled the room.

"That was brilliant," James praised.

"Absolute credit for sneakiness with an excuse," Sirius agreed.

Snape demanded what Karkaroff thought was so urgent? Karkaroff declared this!

Harry peeked around his cauldron to see Karkaroff had pulled up his left sleeve to show Snape something Harry couldn't see.

Remus cocked his head to the side with a calculating look in place. "Wasn't that the same arm Snape grabbed when Moody made a crack at him about marks?"

"You think him and Karkaroff got matching tattoos?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

"I think it's strange something's clearly bothering both of these Death Eater's," Lily agreed mildly even if she did think the arm thing was a slim attachment.

Of course, they all knew something was stirring, Voldemort was trying to make a return and even if Harry hadn't been having any more dreams about it, and thank Merlin for that and it not happening any time soon, it was still the most unsettling thing to happen thus far. Could these two be talking about that? It really was hard to come up with anything else this could be about, but what would something on their arms be about?

Karkaroff insisted it was clearer than ever, it hadn't been like this since-

Snape snapped at him to put that away, turning a nastier face on Harry and demanding to know what he was still doing in here?

Harry showed his sodden rag he was cleaning with,

"I'm so sure he appreciates your cleanliness," James scowled, his mind still flagging in frustration he couldn't put this together. This could be something really important, and they were all clearly missing something.

but Snape snapped at him to get lost. Harry quickly vacated the room to tell Ron and Hermione what he'd seen.

"Which was what exactly?" Lily groaned in frustration.

Next day they left for Hogsmeade, the weather finally slowing enough that it was actually a beautiful day.

This wasn't making anyone's mood feel any better. Despite the Snape distraction, no one could get over how worrisome it felt to have Sirius back in the picture like this. Danger kept screaming at every corner of their mind, and yet at the same time none of them would selfishly admit it would be good just to hear about him again not on the run or as a convict. Just Padfoot trying to spend some time with Harry for a day.

The food Sirius had asked for was tucked in Harry's bag, a dozen chicken legs, a loaf of bread, and a jug of pumpkin juice.

Sirius still fidgeted uneasily a bit at such an odd request from himself, he wasn't liking where this was headed right off the bat.

First they headed for a shop to get Dobby those promised socks, enjoying themselves by picking out the most outlandish ones they could find, including ones that screamed at you if you didn't wash them regularly enough.

"Not a bad start," James nodded along, "but you've got about three hundred more pairs to go to get to that every day of the year promise."

"I decided I'd build up to it," Harry grinned, "I need to get him future gifts after all, no sense in doing it all at once." He finished with an almost vacant look at the end, his innards squirming a warning he'd better get Dobby those socks while he had a chance.

"That's cheating," Sirius wagged his finger at the half finished return to keep Harry's attention, but agreed with a smile, "I'm so proud."

As the time came, they made their way to the stile. Harry had never been this far into Hogsmeade before,

All three boys made choking noises of disbelief at that declaration, it still blew their mind Harry didn't know the grounds of that place like they did.

and the place looked far more deserted with a long winding road and being right at the base of a mountain.

A small gate closed off the borders of the village, and leaning on said gate with large paws and a shaggy coat was a familiar dog.

Harry happily greeted Sirius.

Lily was shaking her head fondly, like she'd still been futilely hoping this whole time Sirius wouldn't be stupid enough to come, and even more pleased he had.

Harry couldn't help but compare that lean, wild looking animal to the happy pooch he'd seen in this living room days ago, trying to comfort him in his fear of what would happen to Sirius. The contrast between the same dog was as vivid as the cocky, self-assured Godfather sitting at his side, ready to joke his way to the end, and the gaunt faced criminal Harry only had memory of seeing smile once.

The black dog sniffed Harry's bag eagerly, wagged his tail once, then turned and began to trot away from them across the scrubby patch of ground that rose to meet the rocky foot of the mountain.

"Wait a minute," Remus said slowly, "you're not really..." he trailed off in disbelief as he kept watching Sirius.

"Don't know how regularly," Sirius shrugged, "but I'm even more pleased if so. It'll be much more fun to talk to Harry rather than just following him around."

"I don't understand," Lily was frowning, looking from Sirius to his two friends suspiciously.

"That mountain's got all sorts of caves and hiding spots," James told her and Harry. "We explored them all the time, even kept a stash of stuff up there when we didn't want to get caught with it. When we found Sirius wasn't staying in the Shack, I honestly thought this was where he was spending his time last year."

Lily gnawed on her lip a bit, but decided this was actually fairly out of the way of the school, and if the Marauders said they'd explored this place than that meant they knew it better than the surrounding villagers. Plus, if Dumbledore even knew Sirius was staying there, and warned people to stay away from the area, well this was honestly looking like almost a good idea. Then she realized what she was thinking, and chose not to say anything aloud, still not wanting to give that idiot the impression she approved of him being in the country at all.

The three followed him up the steep path, having to climb over boulders and struggling to keep up with the more assured four legged one, as they sweated under the sun and the straps of Harry's bag cut into his shoulders.

"If I'd known there'd be a hike, I'd have left the jug behind," Harry winced and rubbed at his shoulders in remembrance.

"I honestly forget what it's like to try on two legs," Sirius answered honestly, and with a bit of pity. "We didn't really go all through these places until we changed."

Finally the dog vanished into a crevice, and the three wiggled inside to see a spacious cave with Buckbeak tied to a corner.

"So you did actually keep him," Remus chuckled. "I never again want to hear you mock me for bringing home strays."

"Not happening Moony," Sirius shot back at once. "This beast saved my life, the least I can do is keep him around. You dragging in all manner of destruction into our flat with your creature of the month have yet to do the same."

Remus opened his mouth, to argue the point or give another sarcastic response James didn't want to listen to for once, he was too anxious to hear how Sirius was doing in person. That food comment was still lingering badly at the edge of his mind.

All three bowed to the hippogriff, who obliged back, and while Hermione rushed forward to pat him in greeting, Harry turned eyes on his godfather. Sirius was wearing the same ragged garb he'd had on the night he escaped Azkaban,

They all winced, that wasn't a great start, though no real surprise as it probably would have been a chore at best to steal anything better. Most likely if he wasn't on Buckbeak he was Padfoot, so it wasn't even the largest of deals in the grand scheme, but even something as little as this struck deep.

his hair was a long tangle mess again, and he looked extremely thin.

Lily made a noise she knew she wouldn't deny even if she'd been called out on. All her blustering and scolding aside, she was as distraught as the boys at the idea of what Sirius had really been living through.

James and Remus looked like they'd swallowed a lemon at the idea, not even being subtle as they kept a steady eye on their Sirius, here and now looking grumpy but still his usual self. He didn't even seem to realize he kept running his hand through his hair, as if to keep himself in check this wasn't some nasty new form of a mirror being put on him.

He was sitting on the ground, spitting a few newspapers out of his mouth he'd been carrying this whole time, and turned to Harry asking about the chicken he smelled.

'Missed you to Sirius,' Harry thought to himself, not looking to meet anyone's eyes. He still felt responsible for Sirius being in these conditions, and the fact that his Godfathers first request had been for food rather than an actual greeting spoke every level of how horrible it had been.

Harry handed over the bag, and Sirius began digging in at once, while thanking for the food, admitting he'd actually been living on rats.

James hardly got that out before revulsion hit and his throat retched.

"There's some kind of irony in that I'm sure," Sirius said with pure viciousness in his voice as he took in all the disgusted faces around him.

"Sirius-" Remus began weakly, but Sirius cut him off snappishly.

"What? You lot going to sit around and tell me how sorry you are for me? Like that's going to help? Let it go will you, it's my decision."

While true, this didn't make what they were hearing any better, so still fighting down the impulse to run to the kitchen and get Sirius a snack while he had to listen to this, James forced himself to keep going.

He admitted he couldn't be stealing too much food from Hogsmeade, he didn't want to draw attention to himself.

Lily kept a watchful eye on him, waiting for him to start up his bragging that of course he was smart enough to think ahead like this, clearly waiting for someone to mock him to the contrary, but when no one did he instead intensified his glare at all of them so that he actually looked pretty scary. It was clear he was growing sick of their trying to baby him, but none of them were going to be able to shake it off any time soon.

He gave Harry a grin, who only reluctantly returned it.

Harry demanded why Sirius was even here, and Sirius said back he was doing his job as godfather, while gnawing on the chicken bone in a very doglike way.

"Least some things don't change," James shook his head fondly, Sirius had done that long before he'd been an animagus, though he'd admitted he'd donned the habit more in protest of his mother's precious table manners than anything.

Sirius looked pleased enough at the comment, at least his best friend wasn't all doom and gloom.

Sirius told Harry not to worry about it, everyone around here found him a lovable stray. He kept grinning, but when the anxiety didn't leave Harry's face, he kept going seriously

Sirius released a bark of triumphant laughter, clearly never growing tired of when Harry did this the most, before turning to his pup and stating, "no need for the clarification, I say everything Seriously."

"You're right Prongs," Remus groaned, "but sometimes I wish that joke would change."

"Not happening," Sirius stated proudly.

that Harry's last letter had left him uneasy. The papers weren't helping anything, clearly something was getting fishy around here.

He nodded at the yellowing newspapers, which Ron went to investigate.

Harry kept watching Sirius, asking what would happen if someone spotted him.

Sirius waved that off, saying the three of them and Dumbledore were the only ones who knew he was here and that he was an Animagus, still tearing off large pieces of chicken between every word.

Ron got Harry's attention by showing him the headlines, one of which covered the mystery of Crouch's disease,

"One of the symptoms being night time wanderings," Sirius rolled his eyes, still finding this much more fun to think about than himself.

and the other still over the missing Ministry Employee, and that the Minister himself was now looking into it.

"I'm honestly impressed," Lily arched a brow. "Why's she getting so much attention? People have gone missing before."

"Most likely, after ah, this time," Remus wasn't quite sure how to phrase that and since they got the gist he quickly moved past, "I'm sure if it did happen, at least someone could offer up some sort of explanation. As far as we know, she's gone without a single trace. That is media worthy."

"I'd almost rather not have the answer to this one," Sirius shivered for the poor thing.

Harry read the Crouch one first, looking up when he was done about how they made it seem like he was dying.

Ron told Sirius about how Percy was Crouch's underlying, and he just wrote it all off as being overworked.

Harry disagreed, saying how bad he'd looked that night of the Goblet.

Hermione just said it was his own comeuppance for how he'd treated Winky.

"I'm thinking this might be a bit more than that," James shook his head fondly

"Hermione'll just take any excuse to change the subject to house-elves," Sirius snorted.

Saying how she was sure he was regretting his harsh actions now.

Ron informed Sirius about Hermione's house-elf obsession, but rather than exasperated like Ron, Sirius looked intrigued as he asked about Crouch sacking his elf.

"That would be news to me," Sirius agreed, he still found the instance odd, and he'd already heard about it.

Harry recounted the whole Dark Mark event for him.

Sirius pulled yet more chicken out as he made sure he got the whole thing cleared up, clearly being the most interested in Crouch not even appearing at the event of the Cup.

Harry agreed he'd stated he was too busy to come at the time.

Sirius got to his feet as he sucked on the marrow, muttering to himself for a moment before asking Harry if he'd checked his pockets for his wand before he'd left the Top Box?

"Why would you ask?" Remus asked slowly.

"Not really sure," Sirius was frowning at nothing as he tried to guess at his own train of thought...no matter how odd that was.

Harry thought back and admitted he hadn't checked until he'd needed it later, then asking of Sirius if he really thought the caster of the Mark had been in the Top Box?

"Even Sirius wouldn't make such a suicidal leap," Lily dissed the idea.

"If the Malfoy's hadn't been confirmed in with the other Death Eaters, I might argue the point," Remus said fairly.

"But there's no one else up there who could have done it," James agreed.

"Unless Winky stole it for someone," Sirius offered, his brow still ruffled as he tried to put it together.

James scoffed at the idea, saying, "Unless Crouch told her to, I don't buy that. She was clearly all loyal to him, that sounds like a Dobby stunt."

Sirius ran out of ideas, it really didn't make much sense, but something had happened in between it being in Harry's possession and it casting the Mark, they just had not a single clue of what. Harry wasn't helping anyone, arms crossed in a huffy manner as he was well aware the answer was somewhere in Sirius' line of thinking.

Sirius agreed there was a good chance, and Hermione at once snapped it hadn't been Winky!

Sirius agreed she hadn't been the only one up there, asking for a list of everyone.

When Harry recounted the Malfoy's name, Ron suddenly got the idea that it could have been Lucius all along.

Sirius didn't seem to think so, as he asked for anyone else present.

"Well you clearly don't think much of the idea," Remus pointed out.

"Which is a bit off from you," Lily shook her head.

"If Harry explained the whole thing, including Draco telling of his parents being in the Death Eater crowd," Sirius shrugged them off.

"They still seem the most likely," James sighed, then his eyes brightened with understanding, but not pleasure as he offered, "what if it was a handoff. Who wants to put money Karkaroff could have been at that game, supporting his number one student."

They all swallowed that for a moment, but Harry shook his head first, saying very slowly so as not to agitate himself, "I don't think, I mean, I like to think I'd have recognized the voice, and I still haven't heard it since that night."

It was thin, someone shouting a curse could still manage to sound different enough from just casual speaking, but if Harry was disagreeing with an idea, it was best not to argue the point.

When Harry finished, Hermione also pointed out Bagman in the end.

Sirius kept up his pacing and stated all he knew of him was that he was an old Beater.

The four of them felt themselves sink just that little bit lower, again. First the dragons, now this, had Azkaban taken everything away from Sirius? Something of his old Quidditch love and idol of a player should have sparked a life in him at the mention of that name, not just that.

Sirius asked if they'd had any more contact with him, and Harry admitted Bagman had been trying to help Harry out with the Tournament, said he'd taken a liking to Harry.

Hermione pointed out they'd seen him just before the Mark was cast and he disapparated, but Ron said it was ludicrous to think Bagman had done this.

"I can't really buy that," Lily shook her head. "He's been a bit of an idiot, one too many bludgers honestly, but I don't think he's Death Eater material."

Something buzzed in the back of Harry's skull, and for some odd reason his mind flickered to Skeeter, and something she'd said about Bagman...

Hermione stubbornly said back she thought Bagman was still more likely than Winky.

"That I'll give her," James snorted.

Ron looking imploringly at Sirius as he repeated Hermione's obsession with elves.

Sirius though waved Ron silent.

"I'm impressed he listened," Remus couldn't help a little smirk at Sirius. "Looks like you've gotten marginally more menacing to stop someone."

"Wish it would work on you," Sirius grumbled at him.

Sirius instead turned back to Harry and asked what Crouch had done after his elf had been discovered under it.

Harry told how he'd gone through the bushes looking for someone else, and found no one.

Harry still felt like someone had snapped a rubber band on his nose, something in there was a lie, but all he got for it was rubbing in agitation at his temple and ignoring the moment.

Sirius agreed that was in line, Crouch would want to pin this on anyone else but his elf.

Hermione instantly agreed, saying he'd been wrong to sack his elf just for running from that stampeding crowd.

Ron snapped at her to give those elves a rest!

"I can see Ron's point," James said around twitching lips, "I'm sure he's heard this a million times by now, and Sirius has much more important things to be asking than house-elves."

Sirius seemed to be on Hermione's side though, telling Ron that she had a better idea of how Crouch was than Ron. If you wanted to know what a man was like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Lily couldn't stop a violent, and rather vindictive, snort as she looked disbelievingly at him for that one. "You did not just say that with a straight face? After the way you've gone on about elves, I thought you'd be cheering Ron on."

Sirius had a little sneer in place for her benefit as he corrected, "I hate my elf, with good reason. That doesn't mean I'm not going to think less of someone doing the same to theirs if it hasn't done anything wrong. That's sound advice woman, you should be thanking me for bestowing that on your son."

Lily raked her hand through her hair instead of slapping Sirius for the pompous attitude, she found him being a hypocrite more in that moment than wise like he clearly thought himself, but truth be told he wasn't wrong either. Sirius had every right to hate his house-elf in particular at least, but from what she'd gathered he'd clearly treated the ones at Hogwarts with at least as much respect as the rest of the staff, if not more for the free food, which was saying something.

He ran a hand over his unshaven face, evidently thinking hard.

Sirius waited impatiently for a sarcastic comment from anybody asking how hard that was, a witty retort already in place, and was all the more frustrated when it didn't come. Couldn't these guys chill for just one second? They had no problems taking the mickey out of him in here, but clearly none of them were going to be mocking his future self...which still hurt his brain to think about so he let it go.

He was still stuck on the idea of Crouch, saying all of these absences of his from events he'd had such a huge hand in putting together wasn't like him at all. If he'd ever missed a day of work because he was sick, Sirius would eat Buckbeak.

"Best way you could have put that, past the lovely sentiment," Lily crinkled her nose at him.

Harry was surprised that Sirius seemed to know Crouch personally.

Sirius' face darkened so much, that between the menacing scowl and the dark lighting, he looked truly like the murderer Harry had once believed him to be.

Five faces lost every last drop of color at that sentiment, one question on all of their lips, what had Crouch done to Sirius? 

He whispered for their benefit that he only knew Crouch as the man who'd put him in Azkaban without a trial.

Sirius' mouth flopped open in shock, mingled disbelief and hatred suddenly burning away any trace of his joking bravado nature. It was now all too clear to Harry that was indeed an expression of one who could actually go and kill someone, and Sirius had just been given a motive.

"He what?" Lily hissed, the fire blazing in her green eyes matched only by her hair. "They couldn't really, there's no way they-"

"I'm going to kill him," James vowed on the spot. He didn't remember getting to his feet, but he was suddenly pacing all around the room, his wand tapping furiously on his hip and clearly hoping to use it on the first available target. He spat in the fireplace as he passed it but that relieved nothing, he could not get this out of his head!

Remus' lower lip was trembling, it was unclear whether he was fixing to cry or scream. Mostly he just looked diminished. He couldn't help his mind scattering to the first person that he would have called to for help with this, but Dumbledore had actually allowed this to happen! He was Supreme Mugwump, Crouch may have held off the trial but he would have had to pass it by Dumbledore to be skipped, which had never been passed in their history! Even someone brought in as a confirmed and known Death Eater was granted a trial, but Sirius hadn't even been given that! What the bloody hell was the matter with this! It only marginally explained their earlier plights and complaints that Sirius shouldn't have been sent there at all, one moment in front of an actual person should have proven Sirius' innocence, now they all realized he' never even been allowed that chance!

While Harry knew he was just as angry as the rest of them, he tried to keep some perspective. While outraged on behalf of Sirius for this slight, Harry just knew there was something important about this conversation, something Sirius was going to tell him that would make all the difference to this year. He really didn't want to be the one to call attention to himself, any of them were likely to spring into deadly action at a moment's notice now, but it spoke volumes of Harry's time here when he cleared his throat and hardly winced at all eyes falling on him. "I am begging you guys to remember this hasn't technically happened yet," he gestured vaguely to his still fuming godfather. "Crouch'll never get the chance to do this to him," he promised with much more conviction than he felt.

No one looked appeased enough to move past this, James was still pacing manically around the room and looked as likely to kiss Snape as pretend this wasn't going to weigh on him whether it had technically happened yet or not. Sirius should never have been in Azkaban to begin with, that thought had never once left his mind since he'd heard about this, and yet somehow the level of bad got worse at this news. He didn't know how to go back to simply reading a book after this kind of news, he was entirely certain he couldn't get the words out anyways through his red vision.

The book had been left in James's vacant seat, and Harry uneasily reached for it like it was the Monster Book of Monsters, ready to bite his hand the moment he touched the cover. No one made to stop him, though a few throats vibrated a warning growl that promised screaming would resume at a moment's notice. Harry's fingers fumbled across several pages, possibly earning a few paper cuts as he found his place, but that Gryffindor bravery, or thickness he was sure Ron would say, shone through as he forced himself to go on in this atmosphere.

The three of them gasped in surprise, while Harry demanded to know if he was kidding, but Sirius simply said he wasn't while taking another bite of food.

Harry paused hopefully, though in vain. He'd been hoping at least Sirius, who'd laughed off plenty of terrible things before, would at least make a crack he could discuss anything over food, but clearly it was not to be forthcoming.

Crouch had been head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the time.

"He won't be holding that position long when I get a hold of him," Lily snarled. She'd put up with his horrid ways for long enough because he'd been using them against Death Eaters, proven Death Eaters! This was, unprecedented!

He'd even been tipped for the next Minister of Magic. Crouch was a powerful wizard,

"Bet you nearly bit your tongue off getting that out," Remus sighed, his voice still coming out so quiet no one was really sure what he'd said and didn't ask for a repeat.

and power hungry. He caught the look on Harry's face and quickly corrected he was no Voldemort supporter, Crouch was the opposite. Then again, a lot of people against the Dark, but he trailed himself off saying they were too young to understand.

"Hurtful," Harry yelped at once.

Sirius gave him an even look, but finally that face was starting to wobble. It was clear he could have held it for hours yet if left to stew, but he'd never want Harry to really see him like this, so even if it didn't really work he tried to force something resembling his more normal self as he said, "well, hopefully I get over the delusion that you're fourteen. Obviously you're much older and I just need my eyes checked."

While it was clear he was going for a joke and apology all at the same time, Harry still grumbled mutinously for a bit, wondering if Sirius would reach the same conclusion in his own time.

Ron said in protest that's what his dad had told him, why wouldn't Sirius give them a try?

A grin flashed across Sirius' thin face.

"That's why you need to keep Ron around, it's good to know he can still get to me." Sirius sighed, losing the fight to keep himself tensed for a fight and instead slumping back in his seat, now just looking defeated. It was almost as bad as his anger, like he'd accepted this was his fate to come and he may as well enjoy himself in the meantime.

Everyone else refused to believe that, whatever self-punishment Sirius clearly still felt towards himself had not gone away no matter the farce he put up, but around a dry throat all James could do was what he'd always fall back on. Pick on his best friend. "Oh, now you agree with me, after the fact. Typical of you."

Sirius listlessly stuck his tongue out at him, the gesture more pouting than admitting a point like normal.

He agreed he'd give them a try, pacing back and forth a few more times before beginning.

Remus couldn't stop just the smallest of smiles gracing his features. James and Sirius were so alike sometimes, about things they didn't even realize. Only one instance being that they both tended to pace when they were upset or thinking hard, like the motion helped generate better ideas for them.

He began by recounting how it had felt to the rest of the world for Voldemort to be all powerful, no one to trust and no one to turn to. People did terrible things and no one could stop them.

"Don't have to think too hard to imagine that," Sirius muttered at Harry's side, going slightly cross eyed at himself saying this in past tense. It probably still felt like days ago to an after Azkaban Sirius, where time didn't mean much in that prison except endless torture.

You were scared for yourself, your family, everyone you cared about. Every time you turned around there was more news of death, disappearances, and even torture. The Ministry was not keeping a handle on anything, and Muggles were dying left and right.

There was nothing but panic in everyone.

"You do a lovely painting, I thought James was the artist," Remus quipped at Sirius loudly enough to be heard this time.

Sirius gave him a pleased enough smile, he'd heard that hint of longing in Remus' voice for this to be a past rather than present. James didn't find it nearly as funny, giving him a light swat on his next pass through, but at least he'd tucked his wand away.

Times like that brought out the best in some, and the worst in others.

"Clearly some people shouldn't be in this at all," Lily said flatly.

Crouch had been a rising star from the beginning, a voice for the Ministry that they weren't going to let this stand. He dealt out the harshest punishments on anyone slightly associated with Voldemort, granted powers to Aurors for people to be killed rather than captured. Sirius hadn't been the only one to get sent away without a trial.

Harry couldn't get that out without stuttering a bit, knowing it was foolish to fear for his life from them but it still wasn't passing easily through their ears without inciting more violent outbursts; made all the worse at the realization Sirius wasn't the only one treated like this. Yet more innocent people had likely died in this place because of Crouch!

Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects.

Lily blanched in horror. Talk of that was being passed along now, clearly it had gone through. She had been talking to her boys about this just last week, it was the root of all their snide comments about Crouch following whatever rules he saw fit.

Crouch became as ruthless as those he was fighting. Most seemed to agree with his methods and were begging him to take the top spot. When Voldemort vanished, it seemed obvious Crouch would get just that.

Remus opened his mouth to ask how on earth Sirius would know a thing like that, he'd been in prison by the time that came about, but not only did no one here know the answer, it would only be a sharp reminder in an already ugly room.

Then it all changed when Crouch's own son was brought in with a group of Death Eaters.

Harry got a zing tracing from the peak of his scar, marking all the way down to his toes. That was it, that was the bit of crucial information he was so sure he learned from Sirius. What on earth significant could that hold?

"Crouch has a son?" James asked in surprise, his steps finally faltering as his murderous thoughts were derailed and he was successfully pulled fully back into the story.

"I've never heard that," Lily said in shock. "I mean, sure I don't know the family members of everyone in my department, but I usually at least know who does and doesn't have kids. He's never mentioned it."

"Didn't you hear the rest of that?" Remus asked with disgust. "I can understand why if he's been hanging around Death Eaters, I wouldn't go parading that around in that sort of job."

Maybe before they'd have felt bad for Crouch, none of them could imagine what it would feel like for Harry to turn to Voldemort's side, but now that they knew what Crouch would indubitably do, all they felt was more hatred for the guy. He was clearly making examples out of others to show distance from his child, most likely why he'd never even mentioned him. That fallout had landed on Sirius for one.

Hermione was shocked to hear Crouch has a son?

Sirius agreed, while throwing himself back into the dirt. He tossed all his leftover bones to Buckbeak, while he continued saying it had come as a nasty shock for Crouch's own family to be pushed into the spotlight like that. It was probably his own fault, he should have gone home early for once and spent time with his own kid.

He then found the loaf of bread and began wolfing that down.

"I don't think I eat like Moony?" Sirius told Harry innocently, now receiving a slap from James as he passed him next. Sirius didn't regret it, as the lame joke finally ceased his best friend's incessant tread and he slammed back down on Harry's other side mutinously.

"Oh give that back," he grumbled, offering his hand out while Harry watched him uneasily. "I might need it to crack his head open next."

Harry gave it back, a little too willingly in Sirius' heads opinion, and James forced himself to continue reading. He still wasn't happy about it, but wearing out the carpet wasn't helping him, at least this way he could read past Sirius' insistent jokes rather than letting Harry laugh at them like he was prone to do.

Harry asked if his son really was a Death Eater?

For some reason Harry wanted to laugh at the question from himself, something in him clamoring to say that was obvious, of course he was, but the feeling subsided instantly and Harry was instead left listening to the blistering tones of James forcing himself to read about Crouch's personal life rather than him being burned alive.

Sirius said he had no clue if he'd really been, while stuffing himself with bread.

"You're going to make yourself sick," Lily couldn't help but scold maternally. "You've gone from hardly eating a thing to a lot of greasy and heavy foods. What good's that going to do you?"

"Yes mum," Sirius rolled his eyes at her, trying to hide his flashing smile.

He was in Azkaban when the guy was brought in,

James could not ever get that out without some interesting colorful tones threatening violence and death for that having to be a thing.

this was all stuff he'd found out after he'd escaped.

Remus still wanted to ask where that could have been from, even vaguely hoping it could have been from himself though unlikely as he didn't particularly keep up with politics, but then again Remus like to think he'd have at least kept an eye on Crouch; the man who did this to Sirius. Was that giving himself too much credit, since he clearly hadn't cared a lick for Sirius during this time? Great, now he was depressing himself as much as he was over Sirius.

The boy was certainly caught in the company Sirius would bet his life were Death Eaters, but it could have been wrong place, wrong time like the elf.

"Surprised you used a house-elf over yourself in that instance," Lily whispered softly.

Sirius watched her steadily for a moment, his expression hard to read as he told, "I got caught because I didn't run Lily, that's hardly wrong time and place."

His face spasmed, showing the deep regret and hate he had for himself, letting himself get caught, this stupid situation still falling on him though that rat had set everything in motion. He controlled himself quick enough, that cocky mask back in place as he added on to egg her on, "thought that would have given me some brownie points from you? I just compared myself to a lowly house-elf."

She shook her head fondly at him, she wasn't going to rise to Sirius' bait.

Hermione asked how hard Crouch had tried to get his son off?

Sirius let out a sharp bark of laughter.

"Always a warning of trouble," Remus muttered.

Sirius grinned and gave Harry a wink, he'd never thought to describe his type of laugh like that, but he loved Harry putting it like that for him.

Telling her he'd thought she realized better.

"I would have thought he'd think more of his child than his elf," Lily squeaked. She hadn't gained back any of her normal color tone, the fresh news of Sirius' incarceration still heavy on everyone, but still she somehow managed to look all the worse at this news.

"I'm not even going to pretend to be surprised," James muttered lowly, he now knew he'd never put anything past Crouch after what he'd just had further evidence of.

Crouch's fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial,

"Oh well hallelujah he gives someone one!" Remus snapped instantly, his spine threatening to crack in half he jerked so hard at that statement.

and the whole show had been so everyone could see how much he hated the boy before he was given to the dementors.

Sirius read the shock on Harry's face and nodded along, not looking remotely amused as he told how they'd brought him right past his own bars.

James made a sound like a kicked puppy, the image swimming before his eyes of Sirius' wasted face having to look through bars and watch all of this, hearing the screams of this guy shouting all this. He shook himself so hard to shake that off he nearly tossed his glasses across the room and forced himself to keep going, anything to focus on rather than that.

He'd couldn't have been more than nineteen, screaming for his mother to help him, but he'd gone quiet by nightfall, most of them did. Except the ones who continued even in their sleep.

Sirius couldn't pretend anymore. He'd been trying to force this off since he'd found out what Crouch had done to him, but everything in him was crumbling at the dead way James was reading that. He started shaking so violently the couch trembled with him, his fingers digging into the cushion to anchor him to this life right here, and they'd have to wrench it away from his limp fingers before he wound up like that.

Harry didn't even think about it this time as he wormed up to Sirius, pulling him into a hug for protection, but words failed him. He still held a deep sense of regret whenever he thought too hard about comforting Sirius, something in Harry telling him his godfather was doomed which wasn't a pleasant thing at all to be considering in light of this.

Lily reacted much better, scrambling to her feet and perching on the arm of the sofa, running her nails gently through his hair and promising, "It's alright Padfoot, that's not happening."

The oddity of Lily calling him that managed to win out, his movements going from violent shaking, to jerking, and finally stilling. He remained hunched in on himself, hardly speaking loud enough, "I don't want to end up like that."

"You won't," Remus croaked, even that had been hard to force out past his tight chest, but it was worth it when Sirius glanced up at him. His dark gray eyes were at war, he wanted to believe him but the image had trapped him better than any Devil's Snare.

Remus sighed, he knew he would regret what he was fixing to do, but at this point he'd suffer for it just to take that look off of his friends face. He gave James a steady look as he sated, "I'm serious."

James reacted almost instantly, some things really never died as he remarked, "Nope, he is," giving Sirius a winning smile.

Sirius blinked spastically at the pair of them before tackling both of them with a hug, then laughing his arse of as he declared, "you haven't done that since first year!" It was mostly for show, but Sirius would rather pet a dragon than let his friends get away with doing this.

"That joke wore off after Christmas, you were the only one who wouldn't let it go after the fact," Remus reminded.

Still not completely able to hide swimming eyes, Sirius forced himself back to his seat and caught Lily before she could sneak away. "Thanks sis," without a hint of mocking.

She met his eyes steadily, while flicking his nose like scolding a dog and saying, "you're welcome love."

Sirius rubbed absently at his nose, but knew he'd take that over the wallop he knew she owed him.

James watched Sirius steadily for a few moments longer, but he considered it mission accomplished when his best friend turned back to him expectantly, waving his hand theatrically for James to continue. James knew a farce when he saw one, Sirius was still on the verge of a real panic attack again at his life heading towards that prison, but James would be remiss if he just sat here and let Sirius wallow in that instead of finding something else to do.

For a moment, the deadened look in Sirius' eyes became more pronounced than ever, as though shutters had closed behind them.

No one in here needed to picture that, they'd just gotten the live version, and hoped to never see it again. That fact that he was all alone in there, with no one to really turn that light back on, caused the room to feel as if it had been iced over already with a dementors presence.

Harry asked if he was still in Azkaban, and Sirius corrected he was dead. Died less than a year after he'd been brought in.

At their surprise, Sirius bitterly agreed most who went mad in there, stopped eating soon enough.

Sirius suddenly wasn't Sirius anymore, but instead had poofed into Padfoot for no clear reason other than to bark in Harry's ear, lunge across his lap and lick obstinately at James' ear, and then start running around the room, only pausing to occasionally bite at his tail. The others weren't sure whether to laugh or call for a Mediwizard, whether it would have worked or not, as they wondered if he'd really just snapped, but then he froze, fur bristling at James. James more than anyone was used to figuring out silent language, and the intent was clear, 'get on with it.'

He couldn't believe himself when he actually managed a weak chuckle, but he supposed the logic was sound. Sirius had survived that place as Padfoot for twelve years, he clearly felt he was only going to get through the rest of this mess in the same state.

Most lost the will to live, and you could always tell when a death was coming, it was when the dementors got the most excited.

Remus had never wished to be Moony in his life, but he suddenly envied Sirius. He still understood what they were saying, as he kept his tail high in the air and sniffed at Remus' boots most likely out of sheer something else to do with himself, but it was in a more simplistic nature filtered through those ears. He could still process everything being said and yet not have to face a reaction, something they all were wishing for by this time.

Crouch's boy had looked sick enough being brought in. His father's position being what it was, Crouch and his wife had been allowed a visit to the deathbed. That was the last time Crouch saw his son, half carrying his dead wife past Sirius' own cell.

If Harry hadn't been so distracted watching Padfoot suddenly leap onto his lap, which he was far too big for, Harry knew he would have considered much more carefully the significance of that.

James reached over absently and gave Sirius a mock pat on the head, a silent promise this was all almost over.

Mrs. Crouch had died not long after, grief most likely. Crouch had never come again for his son's body, and the dementors had buried it just outside the prison, Sirius had watched them do it.

James was entirely sure that was bile slicking over his tongue, his hand suddenly trembling in the fur. The distraction of the wet tongue lapping at his fingers, and then Sirius leaping cleanly over the table to start chasing his tail again the only thing that saved another vomiting session appearing. James was sorely tempted by this point to pass the book to Harry and join him as Prongs, on his life he'd never forced himself to read anything as painful as Sirius recounting his time in Azkaban.

Harry had no want to ask about Azkaban when it had been such a horrid topic for Sirius, but the question had lingered in the back of his mind so he figured he could ask now, which seemed fairer than later when he'd have to see Sirius' face again. "If only prisoners and Dementors are in Azkaban, how does that work? How do the prisoners get fed, and like go to the bathroom and stuff?"

"There's bathrooms in the cells, and the food's shipped in," Lily sighed heavily, building up a mental rant in her head she was going to save for Sirius' human ears about him tearing around her carpet with those huge feet that had unclipped claws on the end. If he tore stitches out of her rug, she was going to make him repair that without magic.

Harry did not press for more, knowing he'd pushed his luck for now when James kept going without waiting to see if Harry was done for once.

Sirius didn't bother finishing what was left of his bread, throwing that to Buckbeak as well as he went for the pumpkin juice and draining half of it in one long gulp.

Wiping the rest off his lips, he continued explaining that Crouch had lost all his popularity in that one move. Going from the hero, to the town gossip. People judged him for what had become of his son, thinking if he'd spent more time with him he wouldn't have turned out like that.

"I believe that," Remus said at once, he couldn't wrap his mind around Crouch caring about anything ever again. Not after all this.

So now Fudge had the job, and Crouch was shunted to another department.

Silence beat through the cave after all that. Harry felt he finally understood Crouch's overreaction to finding Winky under the Dark Mark.

"Makes a twisted amount of sense," Lily sighed in agreement.

He'd probably been having flashbacks to a time when his own son had been accused of the same Dark Arts.

Harry told Sirius about how Moody thought Crouch was obsessed with catching Dark wizards.

Sirius nodded along, saying that didn't surprise him. Sirius guessed Crouch was under the delusion if he caught just one more Death Eater, his name would be popular again.

"Let's hope it's a real one, and not just a name," James murmured to himself, keeping an eye on the dog that was finally pretending like he was going to settle, stretching out in front of the fire and closing his eyes, but keeping his ears perked and listening. The message was clear, he'd change back when the chapter was over, he wasn't risking anything else until otherwise.

Ron finished with triumph that was the reason he'd gone into Snape's office.

"Triumphantly?" Remus tore his own protective eyes away from Padfoot to look curiously at James and the book. "What did Ron just latch onto?"

"You're clearly not following along anymore," Lily snorted at him. "Ron's as convinced as we are Snape's a Death Eater, and I can't say I'll be displeased if Crouch does put him away for it," she finished nastily.

"I got that," he waved her off, "but was anyone disagreeing for him to be throwing that around?"

Lily shrugged without response for that.

Sirius shook his head and said that didn't make any sense.

"Apparently Sirius is," Harry noted, looking to his godfather in surprise, who was still pretending he was asleep, clearly not even up to defending himself and still content to let the book do it.

Ron tried to argue back, but Sirius waved him down, pointing out if Crouch wanted to spy on Snape he'd have the perfect opportunity by coming to all these Hogwarts events.

A sharp breath of air was released from the wet slit nostrils, if a dog could be quietly yet smugly triumphant Padfoot was doing it.

"Oh hush you," James sighed without looking up, "if you were thinking it, you should have said it."

Harry asked if Sirius thought Snape was up to anything?

Hermione pointed out Dumbledore clearly trusted Snape,

"And that means nothing to us," Lily said bitterly, her temper flaring at the mention of his name as well as Crouch's.

but Ron cut her off by saying as brilliant as Dumbledore was, it didn't mean a Dark wizard couldn't pull one over on him.

She shot back why had Snape saved Harry's life in first year then?

"Things change," James snapped sourly, "Voldemort hadn't been on the verge of a comeback then. Clearly his priorities went from hating me yet still heeding being a teacher, to appeasing Riddle."

One sharp bark of a laughter came from Padfoot, his tail wagging from side to side a bit at that.

"I remember agreeing to call him that," Remus smirked at James as well. "I'm glad you didn't let us forget."

Harry cut off their argument by asking Sirius' opinion, which shut the other two up.

Lily pressed her fingers to her lips to hide her smile, she wasn't going to let Sirius see how amusing she found it Sirius had managed to stop those kids picking at each other, when Sirius was the source of nearly every fight going on in here.

Sirius admitted they both had a good point. He'd been blasted to find out Snape was working at Hogwarts, he'd always been fascinated by the Dark Arts even as a slimy little kid.

"He just hit the tip of the iceberg," Remus shook his head fondly. "I've heard worse things from him on his good days about Snape." Clearly Sirius was still as lost in his own thoughts in that time to have used such mild insults.

Snape had known more curses coming into that school than some seventh years, and his gang of Slytherin friends had all turned into Death Eaters.

Lily bit at the inside of her cheek, pain welling up inside her chest as she fought to try and say otherwise. Even though she knew the truth, it still hurt that had ended up being so true.

He began ticking off those old names, Rosier and Wilkes who were killed by Aurors after Voldemort fell,

"Wicked," the three Order members suddenly perked up at that information, any failed Death Eaters was good news for them, especially in light of the fact they'd yet to come across a single member of their own group who'd survived past Voldemort's downfall as well.

the Lestranges who were a married couple in Azkaban,

Sirius made a 'humph' noise from his spot on the hearth, and Harry didn't need a translator to realize Sirius was adamantly saying they more than deserved it.

Avery, who'd talked himself out of a cell by saying he'd been under the Imperius curse.

"Something else that will be fixed," Lily's eyes flashed in outrage at hearing of this happening, again.

Yet Snape had never even been accused. This didn't mean much, plenty of them were never even suspected, and Snape was clever enough to keep himself out.

"That's got to be the nicest thing he's ever said about him," James shook his head in disgust.

"We never underestimated him," Remus reminded, "you were the one who near constantly reminded us to keep our checks up for him, he was the quickest to grow wise to when we were up to something. That falls under clever, to keep up with us."

"You boys fascinate me, with the amount of arrogance you hold. How the castle held your fat heads I'll never know," Lily pleasantly informed them while James smirked and Sirius' shoulders shook in silent laughter.

Ron pointed out how Snape and Karkaroff knew each other, but were trying to keep that quiet.

Harry told Sirius what he'd seen yesterday, about how they were upset about something on Karkaroff's arm.

Sirius seemed bewildered about the arm comment,

"Darn," James sighed, "Sirius has actually been a wealth of information so far," most of it something none of them would ever want to hear again, they all mentally agreed, "yet you couldn't answer that one."

It wasn't physically possible for a dog to actually 'stick' its tongue out at anyone, but the pink muscle lolling out of the side of his mouth was point enough.

but said that if Karkaroff was running to Snape for answers, that couldn't be good. He lapsed into a frustrated silence for a moment before continuing that if Dumbledore trusted Snape, than they had to trust Dumbledore for now. Sirius just couldn't see Dumbledore hiring anyone who once worked for Voldemort.

That spiked some different feelings in everyone. Remus threw Sirius a grateful look, unbelievably happy that at least someone other than him was at least still trying to hold out hope Dumbledore wasn't completely this thing putting them through hell.

James and Lily weren't entirely sure they agreed with that assessment, they were absolutely convinced Snape had been a Death Eater at some point, and for Dumbledore not to know was not possible. Yet the headmaster must have some profound reasoning then for keeping Snape an employee. What those reasons were though, they still weren't getting an answer.

Sirius shifted his weight around, his dark gray eyes reflecting back the firelight and causing some dancing shadows to pattern back on the walls in a rather eerie fashion. Harry's mind flashed back to when he'd feared this sight, and knew this would have at one point caused him heart failure to see the Grim so casually watching this room. Now Harry instead forced his mind to get away from that question he was sure he had an answer to, and instead wondered what it must feel like for a tongue to be scraping so harshly over canines and if that hurt while his large body panted next to the heat.

Ron insisted there must be a reason Crouch and Moody were going through Snape's office.

"Got to give him credit," James shook his head fondly, "I give anyone points who fights back with Sirius."

"You're giving yourself too much credit," Lily snipped back, "he's hardly the mastermind you seem to think."

Sirius made a yip noise of protest, but Lily just glared back at him. The message was clear, she wasn't taking it back unless he changed back.

He stood up, spun in a circle, and plopped back down with his back to them instead like a pouting child.

"I was actually speaking of you dear," James told his wife while watching Padfoot with worry growing eyes. They'd moved past the Azkaban talk, and James was really starting to want his best friend back. "I've never met anyone so willing to verbally spar with him."

"Flatterer," she scolded with a quirk of her lips.

Sirius agreed Moody wasn't something to underestimate, but he'd always been fair. Hauled in anyone he could get away with and tried not to resort to violence. Crouch though, that was a different story. If he wasn't ill, what was he playing at? What's he been doing rather than attending the schools event?

"He just managed to ask every question we have been this whole time," Remus rolled his eyes in exasperation.

They all stayed silent for a time after that, the only noise Buckbeak snooping around for any bones he'd missed.

Sirius was the first to break the silence, turning to Ron and asking about Percy, wondering if Ron could send a message to him asking about any news from Crouch?

"I'd think he's already been asked that a dozen times over," Lily scoffed. "If he's in charge of the department, he would have told someone by now if he'd actually seen his boss."

"Maybe he might mention something to Ron though," Remus shrugged in Sirius' defense.

Ron agreed he'd try.

Sirius also suggested dropping a question about Bertha, see if there was any more recent news on her.

Harry told about Bagman telling him more recently there wasn't.

Sirius said he wasn't going to take Bagman at word, he'd been quoted saying how bad he thought of Bertha's memory. Sirius though had known her differently, she'd been in school at the same time as him, and she'd had an excellent use of her memory by dishing out the school's gossip.

Harry remembered back to Bertha being mentioned in the same light in here, and Harry had a feeling it wasn't Sirius' memories or Bertha that was different. It was most likely in fact, something very important about her memories that got her into so much trouble...

He could easily picture her being a liability to the Ministry, which is why it may have taken them so long to go looking for her.

He cut himself off with a weary shake of his head, asking what time it was?

Hermione told it was half past three, and Sirius told them to get back to school. Then he gave Harry a particularly hard look,

Harry tried to look innocent of whatever he was sure Sirius was fixing to tell him, which wasn't fooling anyone, not even the canine who managed another huffing laugh with his back still turned to the lot of them.

as he told them not to come back out here unless Sirius said to. Just keep sending notes, he still wanted to hear if anything else odd was happening. They were not to go wandering around out here though, it would be too easy for them to be attacked.

"I love paranoid Sirius," Lily said sincerely, starting to feel some worry herself, she wasn't used to not hearing Sirius speak for so long. "He actually gives good advice."

Sirius gave her a happy little wag of his tail for that.

Harry shot back the only danger he'd been in this year was from a dragon and a grindylow.

Sirius scowled at Harry, telling him not to get lax. He wasn't going to be breathing easily until this was over in June. Then he added on not to go calling him by name in public, and instead they should use Snuffles.

Three collective snorts of laughter appeared for that, Sirius was even so distracted he rolled over to watch them laugh at this.

"I think I get it," Lily said with a small smile. "Sirius told Harry to call him that because he and Remus are the only ones who would understand who that's referring to."

Remus was frowning in consternation, thinking over in his head what all Sirius and Harry had and could be writing to each other over, and grudgingly saying, "yeah, I guess, and if he's thinking of hiding it from a certain someone," he got out through only slightly gritted teeth, "I guess it would make sense not to go with Padfoot."

James wasn't nearly as amused at the reminder for the secrecy, and in all honesty he was entirely certain that rat could pick up on Sirius' handwriting if anything so it still wasn't much use in hiding it from him if he was trying to intercept their letters, but he wasn't going to knock his best friend's paranoia either.

He gave Harry back his bag and said he'd walk with them back to Hogsmeade, try to find another newspaper.

He turned back into the black dog and led the way back down to the stile. He waited patiently as they each gave him a pat on the head, before he vanished back into the shadows.

Harry felt something very heavy sinking down into the pit of him. Somehow, he just knew the next time he saw his godfather wasn't going to be a good thing...

The others weren't feeling much better, each wanting to rub it in that they'd been right all along, Sirius coming back around had been more terrible than anything, though ironically the worst on the man himself.

Padfoot was stretching leisurely and getting back to his feet, shaking himself off as he watched James fingering the last page of this chapter.

The three of them headed back to Hogwarts, Ron asking if Percy knew all that stuff about Crouch?

"I really wouldn't think so," Lily frowned to herself, "I can't help thinking that isn't common knowledge. Crouch would want to keep that as hushed up as possible, and if he didn't talk about his family much before, I wouldn't think he would afterwards."

Then answering himself that he probably wouldn't care, he'd just admire Crouch more for it.

"That's disgusting," Remus yelped in shock. "Ron can't really mean that," his mind had instantly flashed back to the panicky older brother, sobbing and dragging his kid brother out of an icy lake after thinking something had happened to him.

"Yeah, I think Ron's exaggerating on this one," James agreed sadly. "Even Percy's not that bad."

Harry felt a bone deep shiver that he in no way wanted to pretend to process. Surely he was just getting a chill from sitting still so long...Percy would never turn his back on his family like that...

Hermione was shocked at him, telling him Percy would never hand over his family to dementors.

Ron shrugged her off, saying he just might if they stood in the way of his career.

"Oh please stop," Lily whispered as Padfoot froze in place. It was clear he'd been fixing to change back to a person, but at one last mention of those dementors, he released a high pitched keening noise and roughly shook his head as if to scare off a gnat.

They walked back to the smells of dinner starting, and Ron told Harry how much he should appreciate poor Snuffles, living off of rats just to be around.

"That's the least awful thing I've heard about myself recently," Sirius grumbled as he stumbled slightly on his two feet, before going over to James and taking the book away.

HPHPHPHP

I promise Padfoot popping up like that won't become a regular occurrence, no matter how much I loved writing like that, but I can't say he won't ever come back either...

*That whole conversation happened between me and nahte123456.

[therokoko]

“A bad attitude on set is deadly” - Interview with Alex Rider Director and Producer Andreas Prochaska 

Andreas Prochaska on adapting the books, casting Otto Farrant and the challenges of releasing the series in times of Corona

Based on a podcast interview with Austrian news outlet Der Standard titled “Schlechte Laune am Set ist tödlich”. I’ve translated the important bits. 

1. How he came in contact with Alex Rider: 

Well, that was relatively simple. I have an agent in England, and he sent me the script for the first episode as well as an outlook, a kind of series bible about how things were going to proceed, and I read this and thought: “This works for me. That’s something completely different.” 

I mean, especially … you mentioned “Das Boot” earlier, which was the production I worked on before, and which was burdensome in every way, I mean not only because of the time it took but also because of the topic, because we killed, I think, 26 characters in “Das Boot”, not counting extras, and of course that has an effect on you. And then I also filmed “Spuren des Bösen” [Traces of Evil, a German 8 part crime series made between 2010 and 2019, A/N), in which a mother jumps out of a window with her baby, and I was looking for something with a lighter tonality, and something which I hadn’t done before in this particular form, and “Alex Rider” was perfect for that.

I also didn’t know the book series at all. I read it completely unbiased and thought: “This is actually a cool, daring concept – so to speak somewhat exaggeratedly Coming-of-Age meets Jason Bourne....

[This job] was a result of “Das Boot” insofar as someone working for the distributor, Sonar, knew someone at Eleventh Hour – and it’s not just over here that people talk, and when someone says “listen, this guy has done a decent job, take a look” or something, that helps, and in this case it’s probable that the people became aware of me through these contacts.

2. How they approached adapting the books:

Well, it already started with the fact that our series is a mixture of the first book of the book series, namely “Stormbreaker”, and “Point Blanc” – I don’t remember right now whether that’s the second or a later book.

In Stormbreaker, the drama of the protagonist is established with the uncle who dies and the realization that this uncle wasn’t who he appeared to be. Stormbreaker had been made into a feature film which was produced by Harvey Weinstein and for which Anthony Horowitz had written the script, and that was pretty much a lead balloon. And because of that it was relatively clear that everything bad that had happened with that feature film needed to be avoided, namely that everything was totally over the top.

And my job was to [adapt] this material, which actually … I started reading the novel afterwards, and I stopped after 20 pages because I realized that that wasn’t helping me because they are actually books for 12 year olds, or at least Point Blanc is – when I read it I thought: “This is an English, better-quality version of the ‘Knickerbocker Gang’ [a German children’s book series about a group of child detectives, A/N] or something like that”. And the task was to just adapt this material for an older audience and to just draw the characters in a different way emotionally, to draw them in a more realistic way. When you look at the entire season it does occasionally reach into almost absurd spheres, but it was important for me to pave the way for the audience by starting out realistically with a protagonist that could just be the boy next door.

3. How he went about filming a spy series:  

Well, the most important thing for me in every story are the characters and to get as close to them as possible. I developed a sympathy for this unwilling hero quite quickly. And, as I said, I tried to make the surroundings as British as possible given my Austrian view of things, and to draw a character that you believe and for whom failure is always a possibility, because I find it incredibly boring when you have these superheroes and you already know that they are never in any real danger.

And this was very important to me also in working with Otto Farrant, who plays Alex, to guide him and direct him in such a way that you get the feeling that it’s possible for things to not turn out well, so that you go on this journey with him emotionally, and as to the rest it is … I don’t approach things mathematically. It’s not as if I feel: “Ok, in minute 10 this particular thing must happen, and in minute 20 this thing must happen.” For me, every story is a journey, and you try to make these journeys as good as possible following your instincts.

Like, for instance, the opening scene. In the script the villain was sitting on a roof manipulating some things on his laptop. And then the thing that happens with the man happens – I don’t want to spoil anything, because it’s actually a pretty nice surprise – and this was only 2 thin pages, and I thought: “Actually, to start this series off in an epic fashion, I’d rather like to introduce another character here, too, to charge this scene as much as possible so that you’re just drawn into this world.” And equally in episode two, that’s so to speak the episode of the test, where he has to pass the test designed to show whether he’s suited for this mission, and the script called for a hut in the woods and a road in which things happen, and I thought: “Ok, if we are dealing with a secret service, the military is not that far off.” And so I told the location scout to look for abandoned military bases, and we ended up on a former nuclear weapons base somewhere in the South of England, which made the producer sweat quite a bit because this was a relatively complex location compared to what had been in the script. But those are the things where I, as a director, can try to create visual appeal for a global audience. The series has been sold to a hundred countries, which comes with certain expectations, and of course you don’t want to disappoint these expectations.

4. On the circumstances of the release and viewer reactions: 

It came out in England in the beginning of June, which is sad, of course, because we had planned to have a premiere celebration at some festival, which wasn’t possible because of the current situation. And so this release on Amazon almost felt a little stepmotherly. So I just refreshed the link on Amazon.uk again and again to see how the people reacted to it, and there were actually many very positive reviews in a relatively short time. I think we are at 4.6 out of 5 stars at the moment, whatever that means, …

There are of course, again, total haters who only give one star and say: “What a bunch of crap.” But the majority of people seem to really like it. So hopefully, or it seems we have managed, at least in England, to … that the fans who read it as children watch it, so to speak, in retrospective joy and that they remember the times in which they read it, and still [feel like the series] adds something new.  

5. On the casting process: 

There was … even before I came on board, they made an England-wide, i.e. Britain-wide casting call. And in England, there are quite a lot of youth theatre projects, which were also contacted. And we received, I think, more than 3000 e-castings, which were screened beforehand. I still saw about 200 e-castings, and then this number was reduced bit by bit. In the end there were 3 people left in the room, one boy was from Game of Thrones, another one was very young – barely over 16, which would have been difficult -, and then, to be honest, there was only Otto. On the one hand, that was surprising because you think that there are loads of great actors in England, that it would be difficult to find the right hero, but in the end it was just very clear. It was an interesting casting situation: there was Anthony Horowitz, then there were the two executive producers from Eleventh Hour, then there was Wayne Garvey from Sony International Co-Productions, and also a casting agent from Sony America, and they all sat behind me like an assembly, and I just took the camera and worked with the actors and just tried to ignore the audience – I also felt like I was being cast again as well in my work with the actors, but … it was, yeah, it was very interesting and exciting.

I virtually grilled him for hours, tried again and again to draw the different scenes in different temperatures and with different emotions out of him, just to see what his range is and how much I would be able to work with him later on in terms of fine-tuning. Because carrying 8 episodes is an extreme challenge for a young actor, and it doesn’t help me if the boy is just dashing and then he carries only half an episode and then breaks apart. That is why it was so important to really test him thoroughly, also in combination with Brenock, who plays his best friend - we tried different combinations – and with Ronke, who plays his confidante in the household, just to try and find the right chemistry. And that was a very exciting and very satisfying process. What was really great was, when he had those three, there wasn’t any discussion anymore at all, we all agreed – I mean it would have been equally possible for Anthony to favour someone else or for Sony to like somebody else better, but it was really incredibly harmonious and unanimous.

6: On what made Otto Farrant stand out: 

Well, it was his perseverance. I mean, really, we had one scene which we really tried in 10 or 15 variations, and every time I felt that he understood where I wanted to go. To direct often means to change the temperature of a scene using only short adjectives, and for that you need someone who understands you and who can also implement that. And I just saw that he doesn’t give up that he really has stamina, and that was essentially – apart from the fact that he really comes across as incredibly natural and likeable – the deciding factor for me in the end.

7: On the responsibility of making Alex Rider and the first weeks on set: 

Well, I mean the … Alex Rider is, I mean to English fans, a promise like James Bond, on a different level. And you need someone who – and of course you need that with every film and with every series – you need an actor who touches the people emotionally, to whom they can connect. That is, of course, something you can’t … beforehand … I mean, of course you can, as we did, try everything out during the casting process, but you only know whether it really works out after a week of shooting.

And I really – especially in the first 3-4 weeks, in which I was still searching, too – I mean with every production you start on the first day of shooting and you want to throw away all the material you shot on the first day right away and start over on the next day – but he was searching, I was searching, and in a way I became – it sounds a little exaggerated right now – I became a little bit of a surrogate father during that time, because I noticed that he needed a certain type of attention and a certain security that only I as the director could give him. That is, he could come to me with every problem and with every decision concerning the character, and that worked out really well …

8. On the challenge of “carrying” a series as a lead: 

As for the “carrying”: on the one hand he has to, so to speak, function technically, i.e. he must be able to, so to speak, deliver every scene, i.e. to know the dialog, to have the right energy, and do that over the course of months - now, luckily, Otto is 21; I don’t think that would have worked with a 16 year old. And that meant that while we were shooting Otto had to read the other four scripts, which were still being written while we were shooting, and he had to comment on them and to learn them by heart, and the transition was seamless. I had to interrupt my shooting schedule for two weeks because we had a location that was only available at a specific time, and so I left the set and flew to Austria to start the cutting process, and on the next day the other director came in and just kept working with him. That means Otto had to adapt to the other director, and that’s a challenge for every actor, but especially for a young actor. ...

I [as a director] could only keep it together up to a certain point in time, until my episodes where done shooting. [...] And of course, when the lead actor is in a bad mood when he comes to the set in the morning, that is at least as bad as when I come to the set in a bad mood. That emanates in all directions. So the strength of character of someone, who also knows … I mean, he doesn’t know yet about the power he may have in the second or third season, when he maybe becomes executive producer or I don’t know … but [it’s important] that you, as a human being, just treat everyone with respect in such an environment.

Source: Der Standard AT 

[pollylynn]

Title: Hip to  WC: 1000

You got something you want to share with the class? — Richard Castle, Inventing the Girl (2 x 03)

She is unnecessarily furtive at the newsstand. It’s really just a coincidence and a happy accident of the weather she is not actually wearing one of her many trench coats, but it hardly matters.  She is spiritually wearing a trench coat. She is being unnecessarily furtive. 

“Can I have a bag, please?” she asks. She has to make a conscious effort to speak above a whisper.  The old man behind the counter gives the purse slung over her shoulder a judgmental look. It’s more than oversized enough to hold one stupid magazine, but that’s not the point. “A bag,” she repeats, this time in the kind of slow, loud English she’s in the habit of judging bond traders and soccer moms harshly for. 

Her change and the purchase she’s quite obviously ashamed of come over the counter to her without so much as the gruff You have a nice day, lady, she usually gets. The bag, as it turns out, is as pointless as every other part of her nonsensical attempt to keep this on the down low. The plastic is practically transparent, and the whole thing is too short by a lot. The bag, in fact, is worse than pointless—it leaves Richard Castle’s stupid, glossy head sticking right out the top. 

Her nervous breakdown proceeds apace as she heads into the precinct. She stops safely around the corner and looks around like she’s an extra in a Baby’s First Stakeout video to be sure her newly minted newsstand nemesis hasn’t followed her to be sure she’s not wasting the bag. She wastes the bag and stuffs the magazine in her purse, after all. 

Via an almost supernatural set of circumstances, she scores a seat on the subway—a single, rear-facing seat that’s mostly shielded from the rest of the car. The purse resting across her thighs is heavy with temptation. The new and eminently hate-able part of her, just born this morning, wants badly to slide the magazine free and take at least a preliminary peek at the article she has been loudly not caring about one little bit for weeks now. 

With two stops to go, she gives in. She sort of gives in. She slides his stupid, glossy head out of the bag and awkwardly riffles her thumb over pages until she finds the beginning of the article and the second version of his stupid, glossy head. She reads the headline, the pull quote, and the first few sentences of the article itself upside down. 

It’s those first few sentences that pull he up short. She reads and re-reads. She almost misses her stop. As it is, she has to shove her way through a car that has gotten crowded without her noticing. She has to fight her way out on to the platform, almost blind with rage. 

Puff Piece Amy has read the book. Puff Piece Amy has read her fucking book. 

She’s livid enough that she wants to call Lanie. She’s livid enough that she wants to call her dad and have a deeply uncharacteristic good cry. She’s livid enough that she wishes she had a big brother who would beat up Richard Castle and his stupid glossy head. 

But she doesn’t call Lanie. She doesn’t call her dad. She doesn’t fire up Craigslist to see what the going rate for violent big brothers for hire might be. She goes about her business like the damned professional that she is. Emphasis on the damned. 

She’s short tempered with the uniforms who, honestly, are doing a pretty good job at the impossible task of maintaining a perimeter in such a high-profile location. She pointedly ignores the boys and their back-and-forth chatter and more or less tells him—stupid, glossy-headed him—to shut up. 

It’s an upsetting snowball at first. She’s livid and utterly failing to mask it, which makes her more livid. But then no one seems to notice. Lanie casts a sidelong look when it turns out Castle has correctly called their vic’s profession and likely her penultimate location, but it’s clear she thinks it’s simply business as usual between the two of them. The boys are oblivious, and it’s an irritating ouroboros that no one seems to notice that she’s irritated. No one thinks to ask about the magazine she’s pointedly, uncharacteristically left spread open in the middle of her desk. 

The morning passes like that. There’s a red alert moment with Rina when she comes within half a breath of ripping the magazine from the girl’s hands and setting it on fire right there. And the thing about that is . . . he notices. Even as he awkwardly tries to make time with Rina and her feral eyelashes—even as he tweaks her about the magazine—she can see the wheels in his head turning. She can see him sneaking nervous glances as  as they interview Sierra Goodwin and wince their way through Travis McBoyd’s recitation of the ways the NYPD had already failed his wife by the time she was murdered.  

He notices the magazine on her desk, and she thinks nastily to herself that of course he’d notice his own stupid, glossy head. And it’s not like there isn’t truth in that. It’s not as though he isn’t really, truly proud as a peacock, as usual. But he takes the bait, too, when she calls it fluff, and that’s not an accident. He moves the conversation from himself to her and the flattering portrait of her Puff Piece Amy has apparently painted. 

She wouldn’t know, and she doesn’t care what Puff Piece Amy did or did not say about her. She cares that Puff Piece Amy is in a position to weigh in on the authenticity of his portrayal of police procedure, and she is not, because unlike Puff Piece Amy, she hasn’t read her own damned book, and that pisses her off. 

It upsets her. 

And he’s the only one who seems to notice.  A/N: Deeply unthing-y; and meta. Is Beckett aware that she has a trench coat problem? Is there a trench coat 12-step program? 

images via homeofthenutty