#Those lucky lucky people who went to the early screenings

[milli0n-dollar-fool]

9 days!

I really can't believe that everyday it's - a getting closer

[hollowdeath]

hii! I love love loveee ur harry fic. can I request a modern au where harry and fem reader are both famous actors, they get paired up to do a movie where they have to do a s3x scene, and things get pretty heated off set as well ~

hi! thank you so much for requesting, i really enjoyed writing this! i hope you like it!

pairing: harry james potter x fem!reader AU (18+)

summary: you're filming your first romance movie that features a sex scene with harry potter (early 20's), an actor you've only ever seen on the big screen. despite both of your nerves, a growing chemistry between you two leads to something more in the dressing room.

content warning: smut!!! dry humping, oral sex, penetration

word count: 8.7k (i can't write short blurbs i swear lol)

you were currently sitting in the hair and makeup chair chatting with the stylist about each other's respective careers, laughing and messing around before your official call time. you always went out of your way to talk to the crew on any set you worked, not just to be respectful, but also to make everyone comfortable around you right away.

it was a little hard to grasp from your perspective as you were only thrust into the spotlight a few years ago, but you were in enough successful movies that you were now pretty recognizable to most people. not that long ago you were just like everyone else, a fan of celebrities yourself who went to premiers and fawned over meeting them. today, those same people are technically your coworkers. it's something you're still learning to accept as your new normal.

that being the case, it was easy for people to feel a bit intimidated by you. you were well-liked, by both fans and people in the industry, and already highly-acclaimed with quite a few notable awards/nominations under your belt in just a couple years. and while you took your acting seriously, in your real life you were very different from the stoic characters you played. funny, warm, personable, always trying to lighten the mood - you were a pleasure to work with in every sense, so the intimidating preconception people had of you would quickly melt away.

"wow, jen, it must be so cool being able to work with so many celebrities all around the world," you sighed. the stylist, jenny, gives you a bewildered look in the reflection of the mirror. "well, you do that too y'know? you're one of those celebrities that people will ask me, 'oh my god, what's she like?'" she laughs at you, finishing up the final details of your hair.

you give her a half smile, feeling a blush rise on your cheeks. "okay, well, i guess…but it's not the same. i'd love to travel as much as you do. i know it's for work, but i'm sure you get to see some pretty incredible places," you gush. jenny smiles back at you.

"i do, it's nice and all, but you get to be on the big screen with some pretty handsome faces," she teases. "i mean, that movie with timothee you just did?" she practically moans. "i would do anything for that boy," she laughs.

your blush only worsens. being a young woman in the industry you're very often paired with actors around your age, almost always men, to have a romance plot line with. it seems like no matter how artistic, action-packed, or sad the movie is, they just can't let you leave without having you makeout with said actor at least a million times before getting 1 good take. after a while it becomes so routine that it loses all novelty. kissing becomes meaningless and these 'heartthrobs' just become coworkers to you.

"please, timothee's like my brother at this point," you roll your eyes, pulling out your phone to check the time. just a few more minutes before you have to leave and be on set. "and i'd much rather do his makeup than makeout with him in front of everyone again," you laugh, putting your phone back in your pocket.

"well, y'know, i was doing the potter boy's makeup just before i came in. wouldn't mind making out with him a few times, lucky duck," she teases you, starting to pack up her equipment.

harry potter. the name was familiar to you. he was an actor around your age who started getting more roles at the same time you did. you always seemed to miss each other at award shows and premiers, so you haven't been properly introduced yet, but you had been somewhat excited to work with him on this movie.

it was your first proper romance, a book adaptation that you had actually read just a few years prior on your own. you knew the director well and you were his first choice when casting the lead role. at first you were a bit hesitant to accept because you didn't even enjoy the little romance you did in your previous movies, so you weren't sure how you'd feel doing an entire film centered on it. but robert, the director, had convinced you to at least read the script, and you were hooked from there.

it was less of a romance and more of a drama, focused on the downfall of a marriage due to the wife, you, having an affair. that's where potter came in. you learned he was cast for the role of the 'side piece' only a month or so before filming began, and you weren't sure how to feel. on one hand, like jenny said, he wasn't bad looking from what you had seen in his films. however, when you previously did these types of scenes with costars, you at least knew them previously and could be friendly with them between takes. you had never met potter, not even seen him off-screen, and now you have to have an entire affair with him on camera.

that's another thing. you've only ever done heated kissing scenes before, maybe a little undressing and implied nudity, but nothing too explicit. this would be your first real 'sex scene', which just added another layer of awkwardness to the situation on top of not even knowing the basics about each other. to say you were anxious about filming those scenes would be an understatement.

"then you can take my place, cuz i'm not looking forward to it. you know i've never even met him before?" you ask as you stand up from the chair, stretching your body after sitting for over 2 hours. "just gonna introduce myself like, 'yeah, hi, i'm [y/n], nice to meet you. you ready to pretend to fuck passionately for the next 4 hours in front of the catering staff?'" you joke, putting on a voice and pretending to shake jenny's hand. she laughs at you, pulling her hand back and waving you away.

"oh hush, you're gonna do just fine. hell, you might even like it." she gives you a smirk as you just laugh her off. you exchange goodbyes with her, wishing her well and thanking her excessively for her time.

as you're walking through a maze of hallways to find your set, you run into robert. he looks like he's seen a ghost when you greeted him.

"oh…[y/n]...i've been meaning to talk to you…" he says nervously, trying to keep his tone positive. you narrow your eyes at him. you've worked with robert long enough to know when he's about to tell you something he knows will annoy you.

"robert…" you warn him, a hint of sarcasm in your voice. he sighs. "look, just walk with me." he tells you as he walks away, motioning you to follow.

as you catch up to him, he begins trying to find the best way to break the news to you. "see, well…we uh…we think it's best if, uh…maybe…" he stammers, causing you to look at him with concern. you've never seen him this nervous to tell you something. "what? just spit it out, rob." you tell him.

he sighs again, rubbing his forehead. "look, casting just isn't sure on this potter kid yet. we've shot a couple of his solo scenes already, but…" he trails off, trying to find the words again.

"but…?" you ask confused. he gives you an apologetic look. "but…we just need to see his chemistry with you first." robert says. you're just more confused, staring at him blankly. robert slows to a stop and turns to you, his hands raised in innocence.

"it's not my idea, but cast wants you and potter to shoot the sex scene today so they can decide if we're keeping him or not," he admits regretfully.

you're completely dumbfounded. there's a few moments of silence before you can even conjure up a response. "what?"

he sighs yet again, clearly stressed about the situation. "i know, trust me, i know, you weren't excited to do this scene to begin with but…think about it this way," his voice turns to the same fake positivity to try and reassure you.

"if we shoot all the lovey dovey stuff first just to find out there's no chemistry during the sex scene, then we just wasted all your time, all his time, and a lot of money…" he reasons with a strained voice. you're still giving him a death glare, arms crossed, not buying his excuses.

"robert, that doesn't even make any sense. wouldn't we build chemistry over time like any other movie? i thought i had at least a couple weeks to get to know this kid before… you know…" you trail off, blushing from both frustration and embarrassment.

"i know, i know, but cast is really pushing for this other guy, but i've wanted potter in this role as long as i've wanted you as my lead." he says desperately, his hands literally pleading with you. "please, [y/n], i know this isn't cool of me, but i'll do anything you need from me for the rest of filming. for the rest of my life!" he's joking, but there's a hint of seriousness in his voice. "just, please?"

you're still glaring at him, not happy that you're being put in this predicament. you take a second to breathe, trying to think past your anger, and see this from an outside perspective. realistically, even if you and potter did have chemistry outside of the sex scene, it didn't necessarily mean it would transfer over. by filming that first and getting it out of the way, there would be no awkward building of tension over the next few weeks knowing what's to come. and who's to say there even is any chemistry? then they'd end up having to switch him out for an entirely different actor, which could up a lot of time for paperwork and legal fees…

sighing, uncrossing your arms, you give robert a look of defeat. "fine."

robert's relieved, thanking you profusely as he continues to show you the way to the stage. he's trying to babble on about how you're going to do great, and there's nothing to be afraid of, but you can't focus on his words even a little bit because your heart is thumping so loud.

as you walk into the bustling room with robert leading the way, you can't help but search the room for potter's face. you want to at least see who you're going to be dry humping from 4 different angles.

recognizing different crew members you've worked with before, you smile and say hello to each of them as you continue analyzing each face in the room. you only kind of know what he looks like, so it might be a fruitless search, but it's the only thing that can distract you from your growing anxiety.

robert brings you to the catering table, telling you to make sure you eat and drink some water before being pulled into conversation with someone else and, eventually, leaving you behind completely. whatever, you think, he wasn't helping anyway.

grabbing for a water bottle, you drink at least half of it before feeling a tap on your shoulder. you're twisting the cap back on as you turn around.

harry potter.

you can instantly tell it's him, though he's now wearing glasses, something you don't remember seeing in his movies. he has a shy, nervous smile as he offers you his hand. "[y/f/n] [y/l/n], right? i'm harry potter," he introduces himself. "i guess we'll be filming together for the day."

you smile and shake his hand. "harry, hi, it's nice to meet you. and, yeah, i guess so…" you reply shyly, noticing that your hands are sweating, as well as his. he chuckles just a bit, reaching for a water bottle as well.

"yeah, i take it robert talked to you already?" he asks before he takes a drink. you nod, giving him an awkward smile. "he did…" you chuckle as well. "just a minute ago, actually."

harry nods in return. "yeah, he came by my room not even an hour ago to let me know." he states.

there's a few moments of awkward silence between the two of you before harry sighs and sets his water bottle down. he turns to you with his hands up just like robert.

"look, let's not be coy, yeah? this is weird as hell." harry states bluntly, a look of guilt on his face.

you let out a surprised laugh, setting your water bottle down as well. you turn to him, giving him your attention, curious to see what else he has to say.

harry briefly looks you up and down, his hands still raised. there's a hint of anxiety in his eyes before he blinks and shakes his head. "and, i'm just a big fan of yours in general, and this is really not how i wanted my first sex scene to play out, especially with you…" he emphasizes, his eyes widening at his own words.

"not that i didn't want it to happen at all, i definitely did, just, like…" he groans, throwing his head back and covering his face with his hands in frustration. you can't help but giggle at his nervous antics. you didn't know what to expect in terms of his personality, but you certainly didn't think he'd be so humble and shy. most actors you meet close to your age are either full of themselves or try too hard to be something they're not. you've made friends with plenty who aren't like that, but it's definitely more common than you expected.

with harry, however, he seemed very honest right away. he wasn't putting on a face to impress you, if anything he was failing miserably at that…but you found it really admirable. he reminded you of yourself, in a way.

after hearing you giggle at him, harry looks back at you with flushed cheeks. his brunette hair, an already messy fringe, was now even more disheveled. you continue to giggle at his expression, covering your smile as you look him up and down as well. tired converse, blue jeans, a maroon zip up, and a plain blue polo. you'd never think this kid was a famous actor based on his appearance. even his glasses looked old and bent out of shape.

but again, you found it admirable. no designer names, no flashy accessories. not that you found anything wrong with either of those things, it's just what you're used to seeing. it was refreshing, harry's simplicity.

he awkwardly chuckles with you, wringing his hands together nervously. "uh, what i'm meaning to say is…" he trails off. you interrupt his thoughts. "i know what you're saying," you reassure him. he looks back up at you. "you do?"

you laugh again. he's oddly innocent despite his age. "i do. i've never done this before, either." you admit. "oh, i know, i've seen all of your films plenty of times," harry beams, his nervousness melting away a bit. you're taken aback by his statement. "oh?" you respond.

he nods proudly. "oh yeah, i'm just a big film person in general so i'm constantly watching them at home. or on the plane. or in the dressing rooms…" he laughs. you smile warmly at him. again, something about him is so genuine to you. not afraid to be a fan.

"but, anyways, yeah, i just love your work. and i know you've worked with robert before, so i was over the moon when i heard he wanted me to work with you guys. that was one of my favorite films that year, y'know? definitely deserved more recognition than it got." harry rambles. 

blushing, you give him an incredulous look. "yeah, we have worked together before. i-i loved that film." you're clearly impressed with his knowledge of you and of cinema in general. that film wasn't even all that popular, and definitely not your most well-received work as far as the critics went. "thank you. really."

harry's smiling at you, admiring you in a way.

you blink a few times to come back to reality. "u-um, i love your work, too. i actually just went and saw your most recent one twice, before robert even told me we'd be working together." 

harry's shocked, his mouth slightly agape and eyes wide. "you…you've seen my movies?" he asks with a slight smile.

again, you can't help but giggle at him. his humility just keeps surprising you. "of course i have. you're not the only actor who enjoys films, y'know?" you tease him. he laughs, shaking his head.

"yeah, i'm…i'm just surprised, i figured you might not be familiar with me at all, really," he shrugs, still sounding in shock.

"well, we always miss each other at shows and such, i always meant to introduce myself, but…" you trail off. "i know! tell me about it! i've wanted to meet you for ages, seriously," harry gushes. 

smirking, you cross your arms and shift your weight. "well, what do you think now that we've met?" you ask, mostly sarcastically but also curious about his response.

he clears his throat, the nervousness coming back slightly. "u-uh, well, um…" he stumbles. "quite honestly, i didn't think you could be more beautiful in person." he admits like a schoolboy with a crush.

his response gives you butterflies. he's so adorably innocent, but such a gentleman at the same time. at no point does his admiration for you feel manufactured or forced. it's like he's truly just happy to be with you in this moment.

"well…thank you, harry," you respond. "you're not so bad yourself. i really adore the glasses." you admit with a blushing smile.

harry perks up immediately. "really?" he asks, excited and shocked at the same time. "they're prescription, actually, i'm blind as a bat…but no director wants me to wear them, they say i look like a total nerd," harry laughs, but you can tell it saddens him.

"nerds are hot." you shrug. harry's stunned for a moment before chuckling, his eyes softening for you. "right."

you and harry continue to chat for a while, losing all sense of time as the crew continue to work around you. you're mostly discussing films you both enjoy, and have incredibly similar taste. you love all the same directors, and grew up watching the same stuff.

this eventually leads to talking about both of your starts in acting, which are also strikingly similar. you discuss your experience so far as a woman in hollywood and he listens intently, asking questions with genuine curiosity and concern. he tells you about his experiences with theater growing up and the connections he made throughout his time performing.

you're completely enthralled with the conversation and feel like it could go on for days without any complaint. it's not until you hear robert calling both of your names that you look at the time and realize you've been talking with harry for nearly an hour and a half, but it feels like you just started 10 minutes ago.

harry follows you towards robert who's talking to the wardrobe team. you recognize a few faces and excitedly greet them, asking how everyone's been.

"potter, [y/n], these lovely folks are gonna walk you through how this works as far as clothing, don't be afraid to ask questions," robert told you both distractedly, his head already turned away before he ran off to help someone else out on set.

you and harry are separated and put into your respective outfits for your characters, as well as specific underwear for the scene. looking in the mirror at yourself in a simple dress, you can't help but feel the nerves coming back to you as you realize you actually have to film this scene with harry soon.

harry…

when you come back, he's already in his outfit and waiting for you. he's in an earth tone suit, his glasses taken off and his tie slightly undone. you have to admit that he looks extremely handsome, and decide to tell him so with a smirk. "says the most gorgeous girl in the room," he instantly quips, but you can see the blush blooming over his cheeks.

the wardrobe team basically teaches you both how to take off your clothes in a "movie style" that looks best on screen. specific movements can obstruct certain body parts from the camera, some take less time than others depending on what you're wearing, just little things that keep you from having to constantly reshoot the scene.

after a few tries of swiftly removing your dress, and taking glances at harry as he took his button-up off, you start to get the idea and have the motion memorized. you're laughing with one of the assistants you've met previously about the task and catching up with her in general. harry comes up behind you and also recognizes her, giving her a friendly hug. you're impressed with how personable he is with her, asking about her schooling and her roommates, parts of her life you hadn't even known about. you couldn't help but be in awe of him. he really was like you in so many ways.

before you get too comfortable, the wardrobe team informs you and harry that you have to also practice taking each other's clothes off for the camera. obviously, you thought, but you were still a bit shocked at the news.

you turned to harry, who's already waiting for you with that familiar smile. you smile back nervously. "hey, it's alright. it's just me." harry reassures you. the tone of his voice is so comforting it actually helps settle your nerves a decent amount.

both of you basically learn what the other person learned, you taking off harry's suit jacket and tie as he lifts your dress in one swift motion. the first run through you're a bit nervous and end up giggling most of the time. harry also laughs with you, making the atmosphere less tense. 

"feels like a dance, oddly enough," harry says, pretending to dance with you. you laugh and agree, dancing along with him.

after a few more awkward tries, you both start to get the hang of it and feel more comfortable with each other both physically and emotionally. you're cracking jokes, helping teach the other how to unclothe themselves quicker, just having a good time that comes so naturally to both of you. it doesn't take too many tries before you can efficiently take off each other's clothes without giggling or accidentally tickling the other.

before long you're both placed on set, a mock living room that resembles the apartment of harry's character. you and harry are given a few simple, non-sexual scenes to start with. the scripts are kept close by in case either of you need a refresher, but you both seem to have your lines memorized well and go through the scenes very naturally.

you were familiar with harry's acting of course, but something about how he performed his lines with you struck a different chord. his emotions were so raw, his timing felt natural, and his eyes told a whole story on their own. at one point you got so lost in them you missed a beat, quickly correcting yourself and focusing your gaze elsewhere.

you only had to redo them one or two times before moving on to the next scenes, which included kissing. you could feel your heart start to race again before harry's hands found their way to your shoulders from behind, a soft but firm grasp that sent chills down your spine.

"remember, it's just me," harry mumbles to you, coming around the side of you with a reassuring expression. somehow he knows exactly how to ease your nerves, and does it at the perfect times.

you're moved from the couch to the 'front door' area, where robert has you and harry mimic the steps he wants you to take before the cameras start rolling. "[y/n] opens the door, harry grabs her hand and pulls her back in," he directs you two like puppets as he shows you how and where to stand. 

harry has you by the hand, your palms still sweaty as he squeezes your hand for reassurance. you smile at him, and he smiles down at you before quickly looking back at robert's actions.

"harry backs her up to the door, back, back, back 'til it closes," harry's pressed against you, chuckling under his breath as he looks down at you. you try to hold back a smile.

"kissing, kissing, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda," robert calls out despondently, flipping a page in his notebook. "harry, you take her shoulders and push her against the east wall," robert points to the wall just next to the door, and harry lightly moves you to the other wall, keeping his body close to yours.

"really sweet, yeah, but make sure it's passionate!" robert says dramatically, making both you and harry laugh.

you're instructed on the best way to take each other's clothes off for the cameras, and practice only a bit before officially having to start to scene. in the lull between the cameras being placed properly and the lighting being set, you start to nervously crack your knuckles and try to steady your breathing.

harry appears in front of you. he lightly grabs your chin with his fingers and kisses you softly on the lips. you're a bit stunned at first but can feel butterflies erupting in your stomach. you look up at harry with wide eyes, and he's chuckling again. "sorry. just thought i'd get the first one off-camera."

your mind is jumbled and you're staring at harry with, undoubtedly, a ridiculous face. you can't even remember the last time a kiss made you feel this way, or if one has ever made you feel this way before.

you suppress another smile as robert calls for places. somehow you're now less nervous about making out with him, if anything…you're excited about it. that soft, gentle kiss he gave you left you wanting more. maybe he just knew kissing you before being filmed would make it feel more natural on camera.

the scene starts, harry pulls you through the doorway, and backs you up against it until the door clicks shut. you're looking up at harry with wanting eyes, exploring his face as the camera pans to your left. once it pauses, harry pulls you in for an eager kiss.

your hand goes to his jaw, keeping it out of the way of the camera's view. you realize after a second just how comfortable you are kissing harry. not only are you comfortable, you're actually getting into it. and so is harry.

as another camera pans towards the wall beside you, harry grips your shoulders firmly and pushes you against it, reconnecting your lips with a desperation that felt completely real to you. it only fired you up more, running your hands through harry's hair and arching your body closer to him as the kiss became hungrier.

"cut," robert calls out in a casual tone, causing harry to pause and take a step away from you. you look at him for only a second before you have to look away, crossing your arms, a blush completely taking over your face.

what the fuck was that?

you've made out with plenty of guys plenty of times, but not like that. not even off-screen have you been kissed so passionately. either harry was the best kisser in the world, or you were confusing your feelings with your character's.

"that was great, guys, no issues, just gotta readjust," robert informs you as he works with a camera guy to get the angle right. "harry, can you come in again?" he asks, motioning harry towards you.

harry steps closer to you, giving you a shy smile like he didn't just change your entire life with one kiss.

you smile back at him, still blushing, mind still spinning. he may be pretty cute with his glasses on, but at least without them you can get a better look at his pretty green eyes. you wondered for a split second if his glasses would get in the way of you making out with him, but you quickly dismiss the thought as he's your costar. one that you barely met 3 hours ago.

the camera gets adjusted, and you're directed to just continue to the undressing part of the scene. you look over at harry, getting closer to him as you mumble, "do you think it'll be difficult, kissing and undressing at the same time?"

harry gives you an unsure face, looking at his tie before loosening it a bit. "might be, i'll get it started for you," he says, unbuttoning the top couple button of his shirt as well. you smile at him a bit. "just take your time, i'll help you." he says. something about the way he looks at you lets you know he means it, and you believe him.

as the scene starts, harry pulls you in for another breath-taking kiss, and the butterflies erupt in your stomach yet again. you know something's not right about this. well, actually, everything couldn't feel more right with harry's lips pressed against yours, but that's the problem. you're way too into this for it to just be acting for a movie, and it seems like harry's just as into it, if not more.

you quickly start undressing him, pulling off his suit jacket as he helps you, repeating the steps you practiced together. except now you were trying to keep the kissing going smoothly.

your fingers began fumbling with harry's shirt buttons, getting it and his tie off just in time for him to pull the skirt of your dress above your head, resuming your kiss with an eagerness that surprised you.

"cut, nice, one more time, little bit quicker guys," robert calls out. you pull away from harry breathlessly before trying to put your dress back on. harry redresses as well, and a stylist comes from the side to fix the back of his hair. he thanks them by their name and with a smile.

you and harry resume the scene again, picking up the speed just a bit as you attempt to make out and undress at the same time. the quicker you both moved, the more intense the kiss became, as if neither of you wanted to stop for even a moment to breathe.

"cut, nice, thanks guys," robert calls out, walking away to the furthest camera man.

you and harry redress, making funny comments to each other about the scene as you do. you notice your lipstick is on harry's lips, and you giggle as you tell him he should maybe wipe it off. "maybe i like this shade on me," he says sassily. you just roll your eyes and laugh at him.

as you chat a bit more, robert eventually comes up to you guys with a script in hand. "okay guys, we're gonna do this quick and try to get it in one take if we can. we wanna eliminate all the awkward for everyone, including the camera guy," he jokes, waving towards the camera man who laughs at him.

you and harry chuckle dryly, knowing what's coming next. 

a few crew people leave the room, whether robert told them to or they chose to you're not sure. it's down to just a few more people than you and harry, along with a camera. you look at each other, harry giving you a big smile before he starts undressing.

you follow suit, listening to robert's instructions. "the scene's barely 10 seconds of screen time, so we're only gonna do about 30 seconds of filming. yeah?" you both nod, setting your respective clothes to the side. you're quite a bit relieved at this news, glad that everyone else wants to get this over with as much as you do.

you're both wearing nude colored underwear, harry's briefs and your panties and strapless bra matching your skin tones enough that it could pass for nudity in the dim lighting. you feel a bit exposed, but not to the point of embarrassment, especially having harry next to you in just as little clothing as you.

"alright, now, i don't care if you're both virgins or whores, we all know what sex looks like, so i'm not gonna get too graphic here," robert jokes to lighten to mood, making you and harry laugh to yourselves as you give each other embarrassed looks.

"all i'm gonna do is tell you where to be and you guys just feel it out from there. sound good?" robert asks. "yeah," you both say at the same time. "but remember, you're a cheating bride, so put some oomph into it," robert jokes with you, walking towards the couch. you feel your cheeks heat up as harry tries not to laugh.

robert has you on the couch, laying with your head hanging off the arm as harry steadies himself above you. his arm has to be in a certain position to keep you covered for the camera, and as he repositions himself to their liking, you admire his body from your view. his chest is well built, his shoulders and collarbones creating shadows across his lovely pale skin…

you had to stop. this is just a job. he's an actor, you're an actor, you're acting together, nothing more. just be professional.

just before the camera's start rolling, harry looks down at you and gives you that same reassuring smile that makes your heart skip a beat every time. fuck. stop doing that.

"it's just me. okay? just you and me." his voice is so deep and he's so close to you, and the lighting behind him is making him glow. this moment could be a movie on its own.

"yeah," you breathe out, mesmerized by his words. just you and me. you could do that.

when the camera starts rolling, harry's hips start grinding into you slowly, his lips immediately connecting with yours. you involuntarily melt into him, your hands reaching for his shoulders as his leg starts rubbing against your panties. you let out a moan against harry's lips, and your grip on him gets tighter.

his hips become more and more rough with you, using your thigh to rub against rather than your panties themselves. it doesn't matter. you're still insanely turned on. and not just as your cheating character, but in real life, as yourself. 

as you throw your head back in pleasure, harry takes advantage and digs his head into your neck. he's softly biting at your skin as he brings a hand to one side of your face, keeping his other arm stable for the camera.

he brings you back in for a kiss, and your hands are back in his messy brunette locks. this time he moans, and his rocking hips begin to pick up speed, grinding with more force into you.

your face twists in pleasure, partially for the camera but mostly for harry. you can't believe how natural this feels for you. it's like it really is just the two of you, no camera, no pressure, just pleasure.

as robert cuts the scene, there's a tone to his voice that was different compared to his normally distracted, stressed voice. harry slowly backs up from you, an indistinguishable look on his face as he gives you space to sit up.

you sit up, and quickly walk over to grab your dress. you don't feel uncomfortable, you're just afraid that you got wet enough to soak through your panties and really don't want anyone to notice.

as you slip the dress over your head, you notice harry putting on his pants. you can't tell if you just saw him from a weird angle or if you looked too quick and were mistaken, but you could've sworn he had an erection he was stuffing in his trousers.

well, even if he did, that's normal, right? you're both young people practically dry humping each other and pretending to enjoy it, of course your bodies are going to think it's real and end up actually enjoying it…right?

that's what you tell yourself as you try your best to seem normal, fixing your hair and steadying your breathing as robert makes his way over to you.

"that was, uh…that was great. i don't think we'll have any problem keeping potter, yeah?"

with a heavy hand on your shoulder and a knowing smile, robert calls it a day for the rest of the crew still on set and says his goodbyes.

you're a bit confused by his statement, but try not to think about it too much. you turn to look at harry, but he's already gone.

you're a bit surprised. you thought for sure harry would want to maybe chat a bit after all that, but you tried not to be disappointed as you turned around and headed towards the wardrobe department to retrieve your real clothes.

after getting dressed and setting wardrobe's outfit back in their closet, you make your way out towards the hallways. your mind is still racing, but you're trying not to think too much about what just happened so you don't lose your mind.

on your way to your dressing room, you kept feeling like someone was watching you. the feeling made you walk a bit faster as you tried to remember which hallway was yours.

once finding the door, you quickly let yourself in until a hand stops the door. as you peak through the crack, you see a tie hanging over a messily buttoned-up shirt, and instantly recognized it was harry.

you open the door a bit more excited than you expected yourself to, and are completely in awe of the man in front of you. messy hair, his glasses back on, still wearing the wardrobe outfit without the suit jacket.

"harry," you greet him, smiling like an idiot. he smiles back. "[y/n], hey, um…" he takes a breath, seeming a bit nervous. "sorry i just dashed, i hate those contacts and had to put these back on," he jiggles the frames of his glasses from the the side, making you giggle. "well, i guess i can forgive you. only because i'm pro-glasses," you say with a smirk.

harry seems so nervous, he's constantly shifting his weight and his smile isn't reaching his eyes.

"well, um, i just wanted to say, y'know, thank you for trusting me today…i know it wasn't easy but you did really, really well," his smile is so sweet, and his eyes are incredibly kind. you swear he's trying to get you to swoon.

"thank you, harry, but you made it incredibly easy to trust you…" you say with a small smile. "and it went a lot better than i was expecting." you say with a laugh.

harry cracks a smile. "yeah, same here. i actually wouldn't have minded it at all minus the cameras and audience." harry tries to joke with you, but his nerves are still overpowering his voice. is he joking, or does he feel the same way you felt shooting that scene?

smirking, you lean on the doorway of your dressing room. "i don't know, part of me thinks the audience part is kinda hot…mostly terrifying and vomit-inducing, but…" you joke back with him. he tries to laugh with you but he looks a little shocked by your statement.

"but, i agree. i didn't mind it at all." you say with a tone of seduction. you try to analyze harry to understand how he's feeling, what he's thinking, and why he's so nervous to be talking to you after everything you just did. yeah, maybe you shouldn't be playfully flirting with a coworker, but he started it…

there's a few moments of silence between you exchanging nervous glances with each other. you somewhat enjoy watching harry squirm like this under your gaze, after being so calm and collected on set it's pretty funny to see him fall apart with just you and him.

"uh, look…" harry finally breaks the silence, looking at the ground before making resistant eye contact. "[y/n], i know i said i was a big fan, um…" he's sweating, and he can't stop shifting his weight.

"but, i was just wondering, since, y'know, now we work together for a bit, maybe, um…"

god. he's so cute. is he really nervous to ask you to hang out after having practically having sex on camera? you can't take it anymore. you don't care if you're working together, you need him.

you grab harry and pull him into your dressing room, closing the door and locking it before turning to him and practically forcing him into a kiss.

harry's a bit stunned, quite a bit, but he quickly begins kissing back. the performance kiss was nothing compared to this. he's somehow an even better kisser when it's just the two of you. 

this time, you're pushing harry into the wall next to the door. you smile up at him between making out. "this feels familiar." you say with a smirk. harry nervously lets out a laugh before immediately pulling you back in for the kiss.

the tension that's been built between you guys for the last 3 hours is finally being released, your hands exploring as you slowly take off the other's clothes. unlike the acting you were just doing, you're both gentle with each other and take your time to carefully take the other's clothes off. you're admiring harry's body as his shirt comes off, throwing it to the side. you're mesmerized by his neck and shoulders.

harry takes a moment to admire you, his hand on your cheek as he moves a strand of hair out of your face. your heart couldn't have been beating louder. something about these small, intimate moments with him between the heavy kissing and touching actually makes you more nervous. it was one thing to just be physically attracted to him, but the soft kiss he gave you during the break between filming and now this gentle moment between making out had your mind racing with questions but wanting nothing more than to just keep going.

"harry…" you sigh, examining his face while he looks down at you. "[y/n]...this is like a dream come true…" he whispers softly. the genuine look in his eye has your stomach twisting knots. "i never thought an on-screen kiss could feel like that…" you respond just as quietly.

his smile's real this time, no nerves, no looking away, just admiring you with the most loving smile. "don't tell robert, but, um, i wasn't acting out there. that was harry kissing [y/n]," harry tells you with a chuckle. you feel yourself smiling like an idiot and suppress your laugh. "yeah, i could tell," you say with a smirk.

harry pulls you in to kiss again, and your hands go to his chest. standing on your toes, you push your body further into his, moaning into harry's mouth as his hands find their way to your waist and hold onto you firmly.

"fuck," he practically whimpers, his hands sliding down your hips and eventually to your ass. he squeezes it roughly and causes you to gasp. "i want you." he states simply, staring you in the eyes again. "i don't care if we get in trouble, i'll take the fall. i just, fuck, i need you [y/n], please…" harry breathlessly begs you, his hands making the way under your shirt and up your back.

"we're just working on our chemistry," you respond, helping him pull off your shirt. he groans at your mutual eagerness and his lips attach to your neck and chest, leaving plenty of bite marks as you tangle your hands in harry's fringe again.

letting moans slip out of your mouth without a second thought, your body is responding to harry like it never has with anyone before. everything you've done with someone before him has felt so mild and mechanical, but harry was so naturally passionate with you. you're not sure if it's because he's always been attracted to you or if you just really, really find yourself attracted to him…

eventually harry's lips find your own again, and his hands begin to explore. he runs his fingers over your bra straps as he traces your back, sending shivers all over your skin. smiling into the kiss, he's loving the effect he has on you. harry slowly unclasped your bra and you let it fall to the floor, his hands already replacing it as he massages your tits.

your hands make their way down to his pants, pulling at the waistband only slightly before harry immediately unbuttons them for you, helping you push them before he separates the kiss and kicks off his pants entirely. you steal a glance down and see his erection. "i've had this since that first kiss, need you so bad" harry's voice rumbles.

you take your pants off as well, with harry's assistance, and he pulls at the waistband of your panties. "fuck, everything about you is so beautiful," harry admits before attaching his lips to yours sloppily. the kissing becomes needy, messy, and secondary to you groping each other roughly.

harry spins you around so you're now against the wall as he begins kissing down your body. the cold wall makes your skin shiver again, the visual of harry slowly getting to his knees in front of you making your mind spin.

he looks up at you for just a second above his glasses and your heart can barely take it, how can someone be so adorable yet so incredibly sexy and seductive at the same time?

eventually harry's mouth finds its way to your panties, softly kissing your pussy through them as you squirm under his touch. quiet whimpering and frustrated hip thrusts let harry know you need more, and he slowly pulls the fabric to the side.

you're in a complete state of ecstasy watching harry eat you out from above. his eyes are softly closed as he gets lost in licking and sucking on your clit. his hands go to your legs as he lifts one of your thighs over his shoulder, getting a better angle.

you're full on moaning now, not afraid to let harry know just how good he's making you feel. you can't remember a time where someone was this eager to eat your pussy, solely giving you pleasure. you can feel yourself getting wetter against harry's lips and blush at just how desperately your body's craving him.

"harry, fuck," you whimper, your hands returning to his hair as you begin to slowly grind down onto his face. harry is completely accepting of this, moaning as you stuff his face further into you. his moans send shockwaves through your body, gasping as you feel the tension building in your body.

harry looks up at you, his eyes full of lust and barely open as he continues to make out with your pussy. you can hardly stand the erotic sight before you as he watches your body react so well to him.

"fuck, harry, keep looking at me like that and i'm gonna cum," you teasingly scold him. you can see the smile in his eyes as he backs away, his chin and lips soaking wet. your body goes cold, missing his touch, and your climax fades away.

he quickly wipes his face with his hand before standing up and going back in to kiss you. you moan as the taste and smell of you is all over him. his hands go to your weakening legs and he lifts you up without breaking a sweat. you gasp and look down, seeing he already took off his boxers as he holds you against the wall. you look back in his eyes and they're so much darker than you remember, the bright green now a haunting emerald as he searches yours.

"i need you," he growls, the complete opposite of his usually gentle nature. you can't hold back your moan, something about his desperation makes you crave him so badly. you've never felt so wanted or loved by a partner.

"need you," is all you can say before you kiss him again, tongues instantly entangled. he takes this chance to use one hand to stroke himself, your legs wrapped around his body as he continues to hold you against the wall. 

as harry's slowly pushing into you, your body envelopes him and embraces the pleasure. he's slowly thrusting up into you, his eyes completely fixated on your face as you fall into bliss. you can't get the words out, but harry feels so perfect inside of you. it's everything you've been wanting since he gave you that loving kiss on set.

harry's pace stays slow and torturous until he begins groaning and thrusting more desperately. "holy fuck, [y/n], you feel so fucking good," harry's head falls into your chest, his heavy breaths hitting your skin. the only sound you can make are your pathetic whimpers, your head thrown back against the wall.

harry starts sweating as he holds you against the wall, his legs getting weaker along with his arms. despite that, his thrusts become quicker and more hungry as his hand finds its way to your pussy. your whimpers turn into moans as harry brings you closer to your orgasm. his head lifts to look at you as you reconnect your lips, forcing your tongue in his mouth.

you can feel that knot in your stomach tightening, your hands finding harry's shoulders for something to hold onto. his exasperated breaths and gasps against your lips only turn you on even more. even at his weakest moment he's doing everything possible to make sure your pleasure and comfort comes first. 

"harry, harry, i'm gonna cum," you say between kissing, your arms wrapping around his neck. "please, baby, please," harry groans eagerly, pushing your body further into the wall and thrusting even deeper into you. you can barely wait a moment before letting yourself go, burying your head into harry's neck as you call his name. harry's breathing is completely ragged as you squeeze around his cock, loving the way your body feels against his as you begin shaking.

it's not long into your climax that harry slows down, his hips stuttering before pulling out at the last second and letting his cum drip to the floor, his head falling into your shoulder as well.

you let yourself down from harry's grasp, your legs barely able to keep you up. harry steadies you, chuckling, his reassuring hands on your arms. "okay?" he asks breathlessly. you look up at him, his face is completely drenched and flushed as he stares at you lovingly. "yeah, fine," you say with a smile, using the wall to balance yourself.

you and harry stare at each other for a bit before going in to kiss each other again. it feels so natural, like you've been kissing him your whole life. the butterflies come rushing back. even after having sex with harry you still feel so attracted to him in a nervous, crush-like way.

after getting dressed harry offers his phone to you, asking for your number. you set your contact's name to your character's in the movie, and it leaves harry blushing. he's smiling at you for just a moment before he envelopes you in a hug. warm, comforting, and completely safe, you lean into his touch and don't want to let go.

with some flirtatious remarks and a promise to meet up tomorrow for a date, harry's leaving your dressing room in a barely buttoned up shirt and messy hair. you watch him disappear down the hall before closing your door, hardly able to believe you're already so smitten with the costar you only met earlier that day.

[cinellieroll]

☆ random aot headcanons!

eren, armin, mikasa, sasha, connie <3

cw: modern au, slight angst but nothing too graphic. there might be grammar errors too bc fuck proofreading honestly

small note: so the reason why i took so long to post is because i had to do a lot of things and my old draft got fucking DELETED and that affected my motiviation to write so...im so sorry 😭

armin:

- during armins childhood he used to be scared of dogs until he came over eren's house often. his fear of dogs eventually disappeared. (i hc that erens family had a dog that time and its a german shepherd)

- armin has had his own small shelf of books ever since he was a baby! he got his bookwork attitude from his father.

- meanwhile he got his manipulating skills from his mama (and no i don't mean this in a bad way. armins mom is a girlboss.)

- went to church every sunday when he was young till his early teens. eventually stopped because he became more and more devoted in school.

- every year he looks forward to vacations the most because thats where he gets to visit his other relatives in the province! they live nearby the ocean and armin always receives trinkets and seashells from them.

- if you ever get to live with armin expect a lot of magnets on the fridge. especially if they're beach related like seashells, squids and fish!

- always has chapstick everywhere he goes especially in school because he has a bad habit of biting on the skin on his lips.

- loaded with stationery bro like you name it, he has it

- he's kind of a picky eater and also has a few allergies like shrimp or a specific fish.

eren:

- had a lot of game merch as a kid. minecraft, fortnite, etc. you name it, he has it.

- very much a computer addict during his teenage years. his parents constantly scolded him for it and they eventually got tired of scolding him lmao

- has been sent to the guidance quite many times because of his recklessness. like every fucking school year you'll hear my boy in the guidance.

- the fact that jean has teased him way too many times because of it doesn't help

- one of those bitches who turns their pfp into a black screen and posts on his story "hiatus." then comes back the next day

- mikasa was mainly the one who taught him to drive, including levi

- road rage thats all im sayin

- during elementary and highschool there's never a day where he doesn't fall asleep in class. usually falls asleep in math or history

- always compares heights with mikasa to sew if he finally grew taller than her

mikasa:

- entered her goth phase once she reached highschool

- from other peoples perspective, they'd think miksasa would be a smoker but in truth she actually hates it. one of her main priorities are self care after all

- very strict with her work out routine. she can't miss a day of it unless it's her cheat day

- her cheat day is like once every 3 months bro

- but it's good for you because she lets you join her. if you're lucky she'll let you sit on your back while she does push ups ;)

- joined jujitsu and taekwando with eren when they were younger

- started walking to school by her own or with eren and armin when she turned 15

- always rolls her eyes or side eye people unintentionally

- very protective of her girl friends. if you're close enough with her she'll always accompany you everywhere like how she does with eren. she's constantly asking where you are on weekends and on school days she'll be waiting for you outside your classroom breaks.

sasha:

- enjoys and i mean ENJOYS going to the mall and always look forward to cinemas. she'll invite all her friends for a good movie date!

- her favorite genre is horro and likes to watch conjuring with connie.

- her favorite color is purple and yellow!

- another one who falls asleep in class alongside connie

- after school convenience store hangoutd are very common when you're friends with her!

- if you're in a friend group with her and you feel left out, she'll most likely be the one to notice.

- no worries, she'll make you feel right at home!

- (istg this is the reason why ppl cry over her death i lub her sm..)

- very loud and obnoxious laughs but its okay because it's sasha

connie:

- is a basketball varsity student! to be honest he likes every sport where he gets to run and jump alot because it "fuels" something inside of him

- no school items whatsoever like he lost all of them after a month. he prays for the best and just picks up pens and pencils on the ground.

- always does bets with his friends. usually consists of who will treat everyone free food after school

- likes banana icecream / popsicles. like the ones where you peel it and stuff. also a slurpee lover. dude he just buys anything he finds delicious in the store

- sings out loud in the hallways when he's in an especially good mood. bro he got scoldes by the teachers once

- mainly teases jean out of all his friends but i feel like thats already canon

- HE DOES THAT THING THAT OLDER BROTHERS DO WHERE THEY BLOCK YOU AND DO A BASKETBALL MOVE ISTG ITS INFURIATINGGGGG

- also glides his hand on the ceilings when he gets the chance

- his bag smells like ass

[foreludes]

Blood on the Side of the Mountain

pairing: young!coriolanus x reader

summary: coriolanus snow, a man known for his charm, his wit, and his passion for power, meets a talented artist in the capitol. she spends most of her days painting portraits for prominent figures and finds herself painting one for none other than coriolanus snow himself. through all the ups and downs, will coriolanus and the artist be able to defy all odds? or is this so-called love merely another version of control and a means to a devastating ending?

word count: 2,506

(chapter one | chapter two)

chapter three: shadow's of us are still dancin'

What is a "shadow dance?" A shadow dance can be described as a complex relationship between two people. Where hidden motives, secrets, and unspoken dynamics arise. In a relationship where there are secrets, hidden motives, and thoughts unspoken can it really prevail? Do people from seemingly two different worlds make sense together? What is the gain of the most powerful man in Panem taking an interest in a budding artist who's just trying to get by?

You set down your journal at the edge of your nightstand, the cover glistening from the moonlight that came in from the window that was behind your bed. The curtains danced in the wind as you laid your head on your pillow, the midnight breeze softly singing you to sleep. But you couldn't sleep, not after today's events. The thought of Coriolanus' lips against yours echoed in every cavern of your being. You stared into the darkness wondering how a truly innocent portrait painting led you to being kissed by the man that every woman yearned to be with and every man yearned to be. Did you consider yourself lucky? No. Not yet. Maybe it was a one-time thing. The atmosphere of the greenhouse and the conversations you had might have made him sentimental for the moment. Maybe it was the fact that you had shown interest in something other than his power. Or maybe it was because you held onto his every word like your life depended on it. But it didn't make sense that Coriolanus Snow, the President of Panem, had kissed you. Now you weren't one to have low self-esteem. You knew you were significantly good-looking, there was no doubt in your mind that was true, but you couldn't help but feel insecure about how he saw you and what he thought. You rolled over in bed, tossing and turning, going over the facts over and over again. The facts were that you were going to finish your painting, you were going to go back to your old life, and you were probably never going to see him again besides on a TV screen. Those were your facts, the facts that finally put you to sleep.

In the morning, the sun bled through your thin curtains lighting the room. You turned over and looked at your clock, it was around six in the morning. You never woke up this early, you usually woke up around nine. But your sleep had been restless. Dreams of what had happened and what was to come crept through your mind. And the facts that you had told yourself last night began to dissolve. You decided there was no point in getting up yet, the birds had barely begun to sing in the cool morning air. You were not one to get up before the birds.

A couple hours went by, you must've dozed off to sleep again. A knock on your door shook you awake as your eyes slowly opened. You planted your bare feet on the floor of your apartment and began to walk towards the door of your room, grabbing your bathrobe that you had discarded lazily on your floor. You wondered who it could be. It was probably your landlord asking about the electricity bill again. You hadn't paid it this month and he had given you a week's extension. You opened the door to your bedroom and walked towards your apartment door as whoever it was knocked again. "I'm coming! I'm coming!" You said with haste as you opened the front door of your apartment.

Standing in front of you was the last person you expected to see in your building. It was Coriolanus Snow. His skin was fair, matching the sky on a winter morning. It was so clear, not a blemish in sight, practically perfect. His hair was well done like he had taken his time with it, and it looked even more vibrant than it had the day before. He was wearing a clearly custom-made suit made from the finest textiles you had ever seen, probably nicer than anyone in District 8 could even get their hands on. His undershirt was a tasteful complementary color, probably something you would have recommended if you had the chance. And on his feet were the cleanest pair of dress shoes you have ever seen. His outfit embodied Capitol style, it was almost designed to command attention. "What are you doing here?" You asked, clearly in shock. He pushed past you, entering your apartment. Normally, you would have found this extremely rude, but it was Coriolanus, he always did and got what he wanted. "I wanted to see where you live," he said as he stood in the front of your apartment. Why did he care where you lived? Why did it matter? "Oh," you said, not really knowing what to say. You watched. as he turned around, looking at your apartment. Now, you loved your apartment. It wasn't the nicest but it was home and it was cozy. But him being in it made you hate it and made you feel embarrassed. It was nothing compared to what the President's mansion was. The President's mansion made your apartment look like a hole in the wall.

"Coriolanus, what are you really doing here?" You asked after a couple of minutes. It wasn't like you minded his company, but an unannounced visit was strange and you were due to return to the mansion anyway to finish the painting. "I thought we could spend the day together, it would give you a break from that painting," he replied, his back still turned to you. If you agreed, this meant that you would have to cancel on other clients again, which meant that you would have to find time for another day to be with him. "I-I have other clients, I was supposed to paint for someone tomorrow," you stuttered nervously. "I can pay more than they will, I can give you more than they ever will," he stated simply as he turned towards you. This was probably true, he probably could pay more than really anyone could in the Capitol and Districts combined. But give you? What could he give you? "I can't cancel again. These are loyal customers." You felt like you were pleading with him, art was so important to you and the thought of losing people who counted on you to paint for them made your stomach churn with anxiety. "Cancel," he said as he began to step closer to you. This time, it didn't sound like a suggestion, it sounded like a demand. You opened your mouth to protest and as you did, his hand reached out and clamped itself on the base of your jaw. You closed your mouth, not even wanting to move. This was the Coriolanus people had talked about, the one that had run up the ranks to become what he is today. And you didn't dare to question him. His face was plain now, the happiness that he exerted before was gone. The light that had been in his eyes when he walked in the door was now replaced with something else, you weren't sure what it was. "Okay, I'll cancel," you finally said as reality began to push its way back into your mind. You watched as his hand dropped back to his side and that happiness that had been there at the start of the encounter slowly crept back into his features.

After making some calls and having to anxiously explain why you had to cancel to at least three different families, you let out a sigh of relief that it was finally over. You hated not being able to follow through on things, but Coriolanus had insisted. And after your brief interaction with him, you knew it was smart to try and question it. Coriolanus was now sitting on the edge of your bed, flipping through the pages of your journal as you entered the room. Your eyes widened as you briskly stepped towards him, yanking the book from his hands. "You can't read that," you said as you opened one of the drawers of your dresser and pushed the book under a couple of pants. "You will let me one day." He was so confident in his words that you honestly believed him. You could see yourself sitting next to him as he read your deepest and darkest thoughts and desires. "I like what you wrote about me though," he added a snarky looking appearing on his face as he said this. Your eyes widened as you turned around, grabbing a towel from your laundry basket, along with some clothes. You stayed silent as you walked towards your bathroom and closed the door behind you.

After showering and getting dressed, you brushed through your hair. The mirror in your bathroom was still foggy from the hot shower you had taken so you couldn't really see your reflection. You opened the door of your bathroom, Coriolanus was still sitting in the same place you had left him. This time, he had one of the smaller paintings you had made in his hands. He set the painting down on your bed and stood up. "Ready?" He asked. You nodded your head and followed him out the door of your room and then to the door of your apartment. He opened the door for you and let you walk out before him. You wondered what he had in store for you today.

Coriolanus couldn't really walk around Panem without getting noticed by somebody. Everybody knew him and everybody loved him. He was a celebrity in a sense, the biggest one. You knew this to be true as you walked down the stairs of your apartment building, passing by your landlord who was probably on the way up to bitch at you about your unpaid bill. His eyes widened as he scurried up the stairs, maybe you didn't have to worry about your electric bill anymore after he saw you with Snow. You smiled to yourself as you continued to walk down the stairs, following Coriolanus. You exited the building and the crisp morning air whipped at your face. A car was parked in front of your building. It was a rather out-of-ordinary car, but elegant nonetheless. A chauffeur exited the front seat of the car and opened the door for the two of them, allowing you to slip into the warmer air that was inside the car. You wondered where he was taking you and to be frank you were nervous.

Subsequently, you arrived at a building, one you had seen many times. Coriolanus had taken you to the Capitol's art museum. Panem's only art museum was a cultural sanctuary, it was a place where people gathered to reminisce about the dark days and the times before. Most of the art in the museum was rather old, some of it dating back to over two hundred years ago. But your favorite piece was in the back of the museum, hidden in a dark room. It was called the "Echos of Desolation." The painting used charcoal blacks, midnight blues, and blood-red accents to depict despair in the most regal way possible, and you loved it. "Are you happy?" Coriolanus queried. He was always trying to figure out if you were happy. It was like he was trying to find the things that made you happy so he could store the knowledge away and use it later. "You could say that," you returned as you both began to walk up the steps into the art museum.

The art museum was practically empty, so you weren't surprised. The Capitol had somewhat turned away from this kind of art a while ago. Most people were now focused on how colorful their clothes could be, rather than what someone could create on a canvas. The both of you began to walk down the hallway that led to your favorite painting. You hadn't been to the art museum in a while, so this was kind of nice. Even though Coriolanus made you extremely nervous, being in the art museum made you feel at peace. He took your wrist, his fingers feeling like they were burning holes into your skin as he led you into a dark room where a video installation was playing.

The installation was called "Shadows of Us." The video showed vibrant circles and colors intricately forming together, like a dance. You watched the video, the colors flashing back and forth on your face. You turned to look at Coriolanus, his eyes pacing back and forth as he watched the video alongside you. The colors of the video contrasted against his skin beautifully, lighting up all of his features. You turned your attention back to the installation and for a brief moment, you truly felt a peace, that was until you felt the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. You turned your head slightly and noticed that Coriolanus was looking at you intently.

"This city belongs to me," he started as he looked down at you, making you feel so small. "Which means that you do too," he said as the hand that was still placed on your wrist pulled you closer. "I find that everything and everyone associated with me tends to have a way of falling perfectly in line." His voice was deep and resonant, making goosebumps run up and down your arm. "With me, you could paint whenever you want, never having to worry about money or when you'll get the next call," he finished. He turned back towards the video installation, still holding your wrist in his hands that were significantly larger than yours.

Finally, he said, "Do you trust me?"

Did you trust him? All the thoughts you had the night prior about Coriolanus being a one-time thing and that you would never see him again, vanished into thin air. "I think so," you finally said as you thought about what things could be with him.

"Good, because I'm going to make you the most sought-out artist in Panem," he said enigmatically, pulling you roughly into his chest, letting your hand rest against him. You were barely able to look at him before he kissed you roughly. The kiss was not a mere meeting of lips; it was a calculated exchange, a subtle negotiation of dominance. His lips, firm and deliberate, pressed upon yours with a deliberate force that spoke of authority. There was an unspoken understanding in the way he held you close, a possessive grip that conveyed not just passion, but a claim to power. The kiss was a dance of influence, a manifestation of the power dynamics that existed between them.

This was the first time you truly felt a pang in your heart. You needed him and you wanted him. No matter how much you felt like he might control you, it gave you a warm feeling you could no longer deny and you needed more.

Good afternoon everyone! Thank you for reading the 3rd chapter, this one was really fun to write and I had to get creative. I also want to thank everyone for the compliments on chapter 2, it made me super happy. I love writing and it's great to be able to share it with people!

chapter 4 out 12/08/2023

taglist:

@bambikitten

@pepperanddsprayy

@enslique

@andwhatofthelight

[chasseurdeloup]

Toss a Coin to Your Hunter

TIMING: Early March LOCATION: Another Castle PARTIES:  @eliaskahtri and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY:  Elias runs into Kaden while he's on the job at the arcade and they both find themselves in unexpected territory. CONTENT WARNINGS: Nerdery, that's it.

It was a Friday night, and Elias was trying to make an effort to go out and do things instead of letting himself rot alone inside. He needed to branch out more if he wanted to make more friends. Another Castle was the arcade below his apartment in the downtown area, so he decided to stop by. He had made sure to wait until past seven so that it was a bit of an older crowd when he arrived. The last thing he needed was to be surrounded by a bunch of college kids while he was in his mid-thirties. 

A Mariokart tournament was going on, and Elias wanted to see what the scene was like. He wasn’t the best at the game, but some friendly competition with people who just wanted to have fun was always an option for getting out and meeting new people. He spotted a familiar face he hadn’t seen in a few months. 

“Kaden?” Elias called out, tilting his head to one side with a curious expression. “Didn’t expect to see you in a place like this. You a fan of arcade games?” The Pacman game to his right beeped, and he looked over, only to see it back on the menu screen. He shrugged, then turned his attention back to the man.

There was one reason and one reason only that would lead Kaden into a place like this: a monster. Or, well, a stray animal. Maybe a ghost. Or a shifter or something, perhaps a curse or– Alright, there were a few reasons why Kaden would walk into an arcade full of loud sounds and bright lights. The point was that none of those reasons were to play games. They didn’t appeal to him much. For one, he never got the chance to play them as a kid so he felt stupid and terrible at every single game he ever attempted. Even though he wasn’t as intense as his sister, he still hated losing. Anytime he tried to play, he was bad, felt bad, and then found himself frustrated. So, good for the people who liked that kind of thing, Kaden just wasn’t one of them.

Instead, he was here due to a call to animal control that Gary promptly wrote off. There were some weird “hamster-looking things with horns chewing through parts of the store,” apparently. Gary informed them that animal control was not pest control, and he wasn’t wrong. Animal control didn’t deal with rodent infestations, even if those rodents were supernatural in nature: snicker-snackers. Which was why Kaden wasn’t there as animal control. Not officially, at least. He told the kid working at the front he was there as animal control, that he was there to help. Best part about working off the job was he wouldn’t have to write up any fucking paperwork about this. 

Kaden crouched down to get a better look at the floor, the machines, the carpet, and anything he could get his eyes on, hunting for any signs of the creatures. A brick or two were wedged under the legs of one pinball machine to keep it balanced, tiny teeth marks etched into the edge of the wood. They were lucky it wasn’t worse. He was about to crawl towards the next machine, see if he could figure out where they might have gone, when he heard his name. 

The ranger jumped and went to stand. Only, he forgot he was underneath a pinball machine. His head thunked against the bottom of the table and he could here clicking and clacking and bells and whistles going off right above him. “Putain!” 

Kaden rubbed the back of his head as he slowly backed his way out from under the arcade game to get a better look at who he was talking to. Merde, that was going to be a bump. “Elias?” he said, raising a brow when he came face to face with the other man. “What are you doing here?” 

A pause. That was a stupid question. “Nevermind. I can guess.” This was very much his sort of scene. “Anyway, just here for a job. Animal control job. All that.”

Surprised by his name being called, Elias whirled his head around to see Kaden rubbing the back of his head with a curious gaze. “Oh, hey!” He replied with a smile. “I live above the place,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulder. “Thought I’d do my best to try and not rot away in my apartment like I want to.” He spoke, realizing maybe he was being a bit too honest with someone that was virtually a stranger. “On a job?” He asked. He knew very little of Kaden, but he knew enough to know that he wasn’t the type to play video games. 

Elias looked over to one of the TV setups, it was on the menu screen for one of the Witcher games. Elias smiled at the idea of the game. It was a compelling story, he’d read the books too. Something about it was drawing him in, though. Like he’d forgotten all about his conversation with Kaden, Elias began to slowly walk toward the machine like it had a siren song calling out to him, his eyes faraway as he slinked toward the machine. It was so entrancing, and in that moment, he felt like he was there. The sudden need to break out into poetry came over him, to flirt with everything that moved… what was happening? He blinked, trying to draw himself away. 

“I think there’s something weird about this game,” he said aloud, not sure if Kaden was still listening or if he’d gone back to what he was doing. “I can’t look away.” He then said, starting to feel as if something magical was afoot. “Hey, Kaden, you see this?” Elias felt his knees start to buckle, and suddenly, the man was passed out on the floor, but really, he was somewhere else entirely. 

Elias Kahtri was no longer a boring, human man. No, he was… a bard! Master Dandelion! Elias blinked and looked around, realizing he was in the center of the town of the game. Oh shit, he thought with wide eyes, looking down at his outfit to realize that he was the sidekick to Geralt. “I’m in the fucking game!” He shouted, drawing the stares of various NPCs.

Kaden’s face scrunched with concern. Rot away in his apartment? Didn’t sound great. Not that it mattered to the ranger one way or another what Elias did or didn’t do with his free time. Something about the statement, though, it was concerning. “Yeah, on a job. You know, animal control.”

Before Kaden had finished his sentence, the man was drifting away towards one of the glowing screens. “Hey, I didn’t think I was that boring,” he said as he craned his neck to get a look at what the hell was going on over there. What could possibly be so distracting about that screen to lose focus that fast? 

His brows narrowed, watching the pixels on the screen. Looked like a standard video game to him, but Elias was entranced, drawing ever closer. “I don’t,” he told the man, “and I think you should step away from the–” 

Elias was sucked up into the game itself before Kaden could say putain.

Merde. Kaden ran over to the screen and felt gravity falling away and the world shifting around him. In the blink of an eye, he was face down in the mud and wearing something strangely heavy. A lot heavier than his usual gear. 

He grumbled as he pushed himself up off the ground, wiping the mud on his pants. Which were leather. And just above the waistband was chainmail. Not to mention the gloves, also leather and something that looked like armor. “Putain?” he said, giving himself another one over before looking around.

They were definitely not inside the arcade anymore but somewhere outside. Somewhere he’d never seen. It looked almost medieval. And Elias was wearing some silly outfit with an even sillier hat and had a lute strapped to his back. “We’re what?!”  he said to the other man. No, that couldn’t be. They were in a game? “What the hell kind of game is this? Don’t fucking tell me I have to save a princess from a castle or some shit.” He muttered more curse words under his breath. “Any clue how the fuck we get out of here?” 

Swallowing, Elias looked over to Kaden to see that he was dressed in heavy leather armor and mud covered his face. “You’re a witcher.” Elias spoke with a grin, suddenly glad that his years of video games were finally paying off in the grand scheme of things. “They kill monsters, but only if they get paid. Which means there are monsters in this world too, except these ones are programmed to attack on sight.” Elias pulled a face at the idea, then shook his head. 

“Well if I know what’s going on correctly, I’m just your sidekick. I write prose and sing about your adventures and triumphs.” Elias pulled the lute off his back and strummed the strings, and it was obvious he had no idea how to play it. It was out of tune and the cacophony of strings made the man wince at his own attempt. “Okay, maybe I won’t sing. That’s… probably for the benefit of all.” He strapped the lute back onto his back, then shrugged his shoulders.

“I know this game. It’s the third Witcher game. It’s a roleplaying game where your decisions shape the game and you have a grand adventure and kill monsters and the big bad guys are this army that when it shows up, everything turns frozen. Elias waved his hands around animatedly as he spoke, beginning to walk through the old-fashioned village. “If I’m right, then this is the start of the game.” 

Elias suddenly snapped a finger, then pointed to Kaden. “Also everyone hates you because you’re a witcher. They call your kind mutants. So… we have to watch out for normal people as well as monsters. Don’t say anything weird and we should be fine. As for getting out, I don’t know. Maybe we have to complete the starting area? Which is by defeating a gryphon…” Elias trailed off, suddenly worried of how they were going to pull that off. “Or… maybe we can find something easier, like a fucking off button.”

Elias was saying a lot of damn words and they might have made sense to him, but they didn’t make any of it make any more sense to Kaden. The one thing he did catch was “kill monsters.” Putain de merde, even in another fucking reality he was hunting goddamn monsters. With a sword, apparently. There was a crossbow on him, too, but it sure as hell wasn’t as powerful as the compound one he had at home. Looked a little useless, if he was being honest. Sword it was, he supposed. While the other man was chattering on, Kaden was trying to figure out what other shit he was carrying on him. He wasn’t sure how the fuck all of it was in one little bag but he figured he should be grateful that the video game logic persisted in this case. There were bottles of strange substances, more weapons, books, some pieces of metal, gems, powder, full hides and… a broken oar? What the fuck?

His gaze shot back up to meet Elias at the word “gryphon.” Kaden blinked back at the man. He couldn’t be serious. And yet, nothing about his countenance suggested that was the case. “A fucking gryphon?” he repeated. “And wait, did you say mutants? I’m a goddamn mutant now?” Then again, he considered what he was normally: a guy with enhanced strength, hearing, tougher than normal skin, and the ability to sense werewolves. Alright, maybe not much had changed. Kaden sighed and wiped a gloved hand down his face. “Fine. Lead the way. I guess.” 

As they started to walk, he realized how goddamn slow he felt. And he couldn’t pick up the pace, not without running. Which sounded exhausting. He glanced around and saw there were horses. “Hey, do I get one of those?” he asked Elias, pointing to one of the horses hitched to a post. 

Elias watched as Kaden slowly came to terms with the reality they found themselves in. “Uh, yeah. You’re a mutant. And you’re judged for it. Instead of being praised for hunting monsters, you’re a mild inconvenience but also useful when needed.” He shrugged his shoulders then pulled the lute off of his back and began to strum it. Having no musical talent, it sounded cacophonous and wrong. “I…” He strummed a few more times, then gave up and put the lute away again. “Okay, maybe not.” He spoke, frowning. “Man, if I’m going to be stuck as a bard, at least give me magical musical talent.” He complained, kicking at the dirt under his foot. 

“Yeah, a gryphon! We’ll… totally get our asses kicked. I’m not a fighter.” He scratched at the back of his neck, the reality of their situation finally kicking in. As they walked along the path, Elias stopped in his tracks as Kaden pointed to a bay horse. “Actually…” He took a good look at the horse, then grinned. “That’s actually your horse!” He told Kaden with a bright smile. “Name’s Roach, isn’t she a beauty? Call her, she’ll probably come to you if the theory that you’re Geralt is to be believed…” He trailed off, lost in thought as he tried to remember the details of a game he hadn’t played in quite a long time. 

Elias took the other horse that was next to Roach, deciding that the person didn’t need it. It was a video game after all, he could do what he wanted, right? Only problem was, he had never ridden a horse in his entire life. He stared up at it, then frowned. “I… should probably walk.” He decided, nervous.

“Of fucking course they to,” Kaden grumbled. The reality of what that actually meant hit him a little slower. “Hold on, that means people know about the supernatural?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d be lying if he said he’d never wondered what life would be like if the supernatural were less of a secret, if he didn’t have to hide what he was or how he grew up. He wondered if life would be better, or at least easier. Sounded like he was fucked either way if this world he landed in was anything to go by. 

“Roach? The horse’s name is Roach? Putain de merde.” Who the fuck named their horse that? Nevermind, didn’t matter. “Uh, come here, Roach,” he called out to her. The mare looked at him questioningly (as much as a horse could), but trotted over all the same. He was thankful that his horseback riding skills have improved dramatically since he started dating Monty. It was easy to pull himself up into the saddle, even with the armor he was wearing. And Roach seemed agreeable enough. 

He raised a brow as he watched Elias approach the other horse. It was clear he was not as familiar with horses and that, despite being in this fucking video game, they didn’t have skills beyond their normal arsenal. Right. That was concerning. If the gryphon was anything like he was imagining, he was pretty sure he didn’t have the skills to take it down by his damn self. Especially since he was going to take a wild guess that he wasn’t getting his hands on a shotgun anytime soon. 

Kaden rolled his eyes at the man’s declaration that he’d walk. That was going to be too goddamn slow and left him even more vulnerable than he already was. “Come on,” he said as he reached down to grab Elias’s arm, pulling him up onto the back of the horse, seated just behind Kaden. “Probably a good idea to hold on.” 

He nudged the horse ahead and they began trotting down the path. For some goddamn reason, there were villagers just constantly in his way. Kaden did his best to steer past them, but Roach didn’t seem to be as dexterous or responsive as most horses he was used to. “Hey, watch it!” one man yelled out as he dodged out of the way. Another woman yelped. “Don’t walk in the fucking roads!” Kaden shouted back but it didn’t seem to deter them from their predetermined loops. “Who the fuck makes people walk in front of a goddamn horse?” he grumbled to himself.

It was then he realized he wasn’t even sure if they were headed the right way. He sort of just picked a direction. Kaden considered pausing to ask one of the people wandering around but the dirty looks they shot him didn’t make him want to strike up any conversation. He was going to assume he was headed down the right path since, well, it was a path in a video game after all. How hard could it be to navigate?

Roach started to get nervous and skittish as they neared a small patch of water along the road. “Is she scared of water or something?” he asked Elias as if there would be a simple explanation from the video game… rules or whatever it was. It wasn’t like it was deep, there was no reason the horse couldn’t cross it. They wouldn’t even have to jump to get to the other side. Hell, he was pretty sure it might go up as high as his ankles. Kaden urged the horse forward anyway and Roach listened, but was still uneasy. Whatever, it was probably nothing, some way to teach a player how to gallop or some shit. Either way, he was sticking to trotting while he had an extra passenger on the horse with him.

If he had looked to either side of the path as they reached the middle, he might have noticed the bubbling at the surface of the water. He might have reconsidered his decision to not go faster than a trot. Instead, inhuman screams rang out and the water splashed around them as three ghoulish creatures popped out of the water, bringing with them the stench of foul water and decay. They were blue, scaley, and Kaden sure didn’t miss the jagged teeth and sharp claws. “Putain de merde! What the fuck are those?!” he shouted while Roach did her best to keep calm while she was clearly freaking out. Shit, they didn’t have time to learn what those were. Fuck this.

”Hold on!” he shouted to Elias as he kicked Roach into a gallop. So much for not faster than a trot.

_____

“Not only do these people know about them but it’s a normal occurrence. Just another day as far as they’re concerned.” Elias shrugged a shoulder, looking at all the townspeople. “God, can you imagine living in a world like this?” He spoke, glad to have indoor plumbing and no cockatrices. “Yeah, the horse’s name is Roach. Appreciate her! Love her! Treat her with the respect she deserves!” Elias retorted with a frown. 

Before he could protest, Elias was on the back of a horse. God, this was wrong. He didn’t like it one bit. “Kaden, this is such a bad idea,” Elias spoke, his fear of the gentle beasts coming to the surface. Then, the horse started moving and Elias was quick to grab onto Kaden to keep himself from falling off. 

“Hey, the NPCs aren’t supposed to be smart,” Elias mentioned with a roll of his eyes as Kaden complained after nearly trampling a few people. He watched in partial fascination and partial horror as the landscape went by. “We’ve got to stop getting into things whenever we run into each other,” he remarked with a smirk. Then, the horse started to get freaked out. “Oh, those are drowners!” Elias spoke, pointing to the blue-colored things coming straight for them. 

Before he knew it, they were taking off down the path before the things could get their hands on them, and Elias felt his grip tighten for dear life. “Oh this is nuts!” Elias complained as the horse galloped along. “I mean, how are we going to get out of here? Are we stuck in the Witcher world forever? I can’t play the lute!” Elias felt himself spiraling at the concept of being stuck there. Not to mention Kaden didn’t really fit Geralt’s part either. 

“Man, I mean I could have been anyone in this game, and I’m Dandelion.” He continued. “He’s woman-obsessed and a genius with words. I’m neither of those things.” Elias frowned and shook his head at the idea of being someone like Dandelion.

It was in the midst of Elias’s complaining when a terrifying screech came from above them. Elias looked up, and there it was. Swooping right for them was the gryphon from the beginning of the game. “Oh, we’re done for!” Elias shouted, pointing up at the creature. “Run, Roach! Run!” He demanded, pulling out Geralt’s, no… Kaden’s sword and pointing it up at the creature. “Back off!” He demanded, knowing it would do little to deter the beast.

Roach kept running, but started to make scared whinnies and as the large bird creature swooped closer. “Oh, we’re going to die here!” Elias shouted, squeezing his eyes shut. This was it, goodbye world! The gryphon’s talons were pointed straight for them, and they made contact when– he opened his eyes and he was on the ground of the arcade next to Kaden, who was still unconscious. The game had been stopped. Elias blinked up at the worker who was staring down at him with wide eyes. 

Elias blinked a few times before forcing himself up onto his feet, disoriented. He was just holding Geralt’s sword and about to meet his end. Shit, was Kaden still in the game? Elias whirled back to look at Kaden, who was slowly coming to. “Oh thank god,” Elias muttered as he noticed the man blink a few times. “What happened?” He asked the worker, who just held their hands up. “I dunno man, you two just passed out.” The guy spoke, taking a step back. “It’s only my first day, I dunno.” Elias waved a hand, telling the kid that they’d be alright, and put his hand out to Kaden to help him up. “You alright?”

_____

A string of French curse words left Kaden’s mouth as they sprinted from the drowning monsters or whatever they were only to run into the aforementioned gryphon. At least that’s what he assumed was attached to big goddamn talons and horrendous shrieking.  “Hey!” he shouted when he noticed Elias had taken one of the swords for himself. “Do you know what you’re doing with that?!” He grumbled some more and then reached for the other sword that was on his back. Lucky there were two, he supposed. 

Kaden couldn’t say he had a plan of attack beyond just that: attack. He had faced bies and catoblepones, he could face a goddamn gryphon. He shouted back and thrust the sword up towards the beast’s talons as they swooped in towards them. 

Before the blade even made contact, the world went black around him and everything faded away. He groaned as he came back to life on the other side of the screen, pain shooting through his side as he lifted himself up off the floor. Putain de merde, whatever position he’d landed in wrecked hell on his spine. “Passed out you say?” Kaden felt his head to see if there were any bumps that would explain the hallucination from that game or whatever. It had to be that, right? If the kid was saying that they passed out. 

Only, Elias was there, too, and he looked just as startled. Fucking hell, had they really been sucked into that game? “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said with an added wince as he stood. “Back disagrees but I think it’ll get over it. Comparatively.” He looked over at the screen that they had been sucked into – black, empty, lifeless now that the console was turned off for the night. “That happened, right?” he said looking back at Elias. What the fuck kind of supernatural bullshit led to this, anyway? Maybe it was some fae bullshit or spellcasting gone awry. “Glad that’s over. I don’t think I’m going to become a gamer anytime soon.” Too much like real life. 

[deathbyseventeen]

As the World Caves In

pairing: Dino/Chan x f!reader 

genre: post-apocalyptic, romance/fluff, angst | zombie!au

word count: 521

series: To be Together

chapter warnings: lots of allusions to death and dying

summary: The world ended on a Tuesday in November, days after Halloween, when the sun was less than an hour away from setting. Chan had just left his dorm’s building, late to his History of Dance 136A lecture, when it happened. You hadn’t been as lucky on the day the world began to crumble.

a/n: it’s uh... it’s been a while since I posted here. I really don’t know what to say except... hi :) take a chance on this fic!  oh boy.. oh boy oh boy oh boy 

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{intro} + {3 days from the end} + {7 days since the end} + {10 days since the end} + {20 days since the end} + {24 days since the end} + {27 days since the end} + {a month since the end} 

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The world ended on a Tuesday in November, days after Halloween, when the sun was less than an hour away from setting. There was no wind that day, no windstorms or gentle breezes. But, those particularly sensitive to the world around them noticed a certain stagnant quality over everything. They didn’t know (those who were sensitive to the world), but if they had tried, really tried, and let themselves get lost in the world around them, they would have been able to hear the music in the air. They would have been able to hear the quiet pianos and guitars, the strings and a band, and a voice singing longingly and sadly, all crescendoing into an existence impossible to ignore, and, underneath them all, a symphony of screams just beginning to materialize.

And when the sun finally began to set, and the sky became a painting composed of deep oranges and reds, sleeping televisions startled awake, and forgotten sirens blared to life. The world had officially begun to crumble.

Chan had just left his dorm’s building, late to his History of Dance 136A lecture, when it happened. One of his RA’s had run outside, pushing past him, screaming, “Everybody inside! Everybody back inside! Everybody get inside now!”

He had grabbed Chan by the shoulder in his panic and shoved him back into the building seconds before the sirens flooded their surroundings. 

He’d never forget his RA yelling, or the sirens, even after the sound ceased to exist. He couldn’t. He’d be forced to hear them again when fear struck him and as he tried to sleep without nightmares taking hold of him.

You hadn’t been as lucky on the day the world began to crumble.

It had been an early day. After six hours of lectures, studios, and labs, your biology professor had let your entire class go an hour early after getting everyone to observe the growing carrots they had planted almost three months ago. 

In an attempt to make do on your New Year’s resolution at least once, you had followed your roommate to the campus gym. You had been running on the treadmill, watching the sun begin to set through the wall-length window (at the same time Chan had been leaving his dorm’s building) when the TVs playing campus news suddenly turned black. A gray popup screen appeared just as the sirens went off-- Mandatory Campus Wide Lockdown. The words went unnoticed by most, however. 

A student worker yelled above the sirens soon after, “Mandatory lockdown! Nobody’s allowed to leave!”

A fight broke out. Cocky, testosterone-filled assholes refused to be made to stay. Among them is your roommate. And, as the glass doors were finally locked behind them, you watched as your roommate left you behind. 

It would only take half an hour before more than half of the others refused to stay put as well.

Soon enough, you’d hear the beginning of the screams that you’d never be able to forget or the panging against the thick windows as people ran into them, even as you delved deeper into darkness, attempting to seclude yourself from the world.

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3 days from the end

[randomliverpool]

A large fire was witnessed by residents of Liverpool Student Lettings accommodation in the early hours on January 27 2024. #LiverpoolEcho

Village of the damned: Inside the Fox Street fire

Special investigation: For years, Matt O'Donoghue was told about major problems at a controversial development in Everton. Then the dire predictions came true. By Matt O’Donoghue.

“Block D is an inferno right now”, the first message reads. “Look what’s been torched.” More follow. “Not sure how other blocks are faring, they’ve been evacuated.” Some have video or photos attached. “Seen this. I feel sick.” One simply reads: “Fox Street’s final chapter.”

Block D at the stalled residential development of Fox Street Village sits on the edge of Everton. It is ablaze, and a lot of people want me to know. As the firefighters battle to hold back the flames that threaten to leap from block to block, frantic calls, dramatic videos, and heartbreaking messages light up my phone screen. Many of those getting in touch are people I met over the past five years I’ve been reporting on the sorry saga of Fox Street Village. They’re all saying the same thing: “It was only a matter of time.”

“Something like this had to happen,” says Chris Burridge, who owns one of the Fox Street Village apartments as he surveys the damage. It’s Sunday, January 28th and the day after the fire. Steel girders are bent and buckled like roller coaster tracks; the metal cools and creaks, and loose material flaps in the wind. “There’s been no decent perimeter fence for some time, even though we’ve been reporting incidents. We were lucky Block B didn’t go up. The flames and heat were ferocious. Mersey Fire saved those buildings.”

Lucky indeed. Fox Street Village was originally intended to be a 400 apartment complex spread across four blocks that were to be four or five stories tall. But Block D was never completed and has remained an unfinished shell for the past five years. The rest of the site, on the other hand, is home to a number of residents. Had the fire spread there, it would have been catastrophic. Letting agents are on-site to support tenants and help with the clean up, while insurance brokers and risk assessors mill about around them. Lifts, heating, and water are soon back on. Black debris litters the ground and the flat roofs of the adjacent blocks, while clumps of burnt insulation and wood continue to drift from above.

A team from Residence 365, the company that manages the Village’s interior communal areas, is helping to get residents back into their homes. “Unfortunately, as the fire started to take hold, many residents in Block A failed to evacuate,” says Carolyn Delaney, Residence 365’s managing director. “Police had to force their way into every apartment to make sure that building was clear and everyone was safe. Those doors and frames will have to be repaired.”

Outside, Block B’s walls and windows are warped from where it faced the fire. The cladding is buckled and wavy, like bad icing on an overbaked cake. Most of the glass is cracked and broken, and window frames have bowed out of shape. The fire breaks under the cladding will have activated and expanded. There will need to be a lot of work to put things right.

“The grounds and estate management company are nowhere”, says an exasperated Burridge. The last he was told, a company called Xenia Estates Limited were responsible for looking after the outside areas. “It’s outrageous. They’ve sent nobody down here to help or make things safe.”

Kevin Robertson-Hale is a local campaigner who set up the action group Everton Together. He was shopping at the ASDA on the Breck Road when he first saw the black clouds rising above his community. He knew straight away what was likely to be burning. “It’s just a miracle that nobody’s been hurt,” he says. Although Block D was not a finished building, homeless people have been sleeping there and using it as a shelter. “The way the place went up, someone asleep would never have got out.” Kevin is horrified by what has happened, but certainly not surprised. “We’ve been saying for years that something was going to happen. Either someone was going to fall off and break their neck, or it was going to go up in flames.”

Beneath the debris and behind the spectacular videos, the plumes of smoke billowing out and up from the bare bones of blazing Block D, are hundreds of stories of loss and despair. To properly understand what went wrong at Fox Street Village, to learn why things must be fixed, we have to understand why they were broken in the first place.

Between 1971 and 1991, Everton’s population dropped by 60% as the area’s fortunes and prospects charted exactly the decline of the British Empire. As Liverpool’s docks fell silent, the huge warehouses and the factories like Tate and Lyle and British American Tobacco were closed. Thousands of jobs disappeared and the communities that once relied upon those goods shipped from all corners of the Empire ceased to exist. An urgent need to improve the area’s housing conditions, the crumbling Victorian tenements, led to slum clearance and demolition on a massive scale. Those once solid communities were broken up with families moved out and housed in places like Kirby, Runcorn and Skelmersdale. It was the perfect storm; shops closed, tower blocks were pulled down and the city’s terminal decline was hastened by Margaret Thatcher’s vicious attempts to starve the upstart council controlled by Hatton’s Militant Tendency into surrender.

Fox Street Village followed the same controversial funding model that has dogged similar schemes across the city, known as ‘fractional sales’. Buyers — many based overseas — are enticed with the promise of a good rent and a solid investment in return for paying a large part of the sale price upfront. But as countless investors at other stalled sites in Liverpool have discovered to their detriment, there’s little or no protection should things go wrong.

When Fox Street Village Limited collapsed into administration, in 2019, it owed creditors £10 million and the city council nearly £700,000. The council told us that an invoice for over half a million pounds remains unpaid but that the building’s new owners will have to pick up that tab. Meanwhile, £6 million that investors had paid out for Block D was instead spent on a new fifth building the developers had added to their scheme. A search of records show creditors who had paid for apartments in Block D came from Birkenhead to Beijing and all points in between. With no money left to complete the job, and no cash to settle their bills, the steel frame and internal walls made of wood have remained open to the elements. The freehold to the site was sold to Manchester-based property investment company SGL1 Limited in 2020 for a reported £1.6 million. The site was split and a separate company run by the same two directors as SGL1 but called SGL3, took over the unfinished Block D. A series of complex court cases followed as buyers battled to gain control and finish the scheme. By 2021, the architect’s original drawings for Block D had been rebranded as “Park View” to be marketed at a new group of buyers. A one bed studio in the unfinished wood and steel shell was being advertised for £85,000. The Post is unsure how many people bought into this new scheme or whether their money is protected.

“I bought a three-bedroom apartment that cost £135,000, which was a really good deal. With hindsight, almost too good to be true. I’ve been firefighting one problem after another since day one.” November 8th, 2023 and I am rattling along the M62 with Chris Burridge. “It doesn’t look that good,” Chris says with detached stoicism and monumental understatement as Fox Street Village Block D comes into view. “It would be funny, if it wasn’t so costly and dangerous.” Chris is one of the apartment owners who have been battling over an £80,000 bill to install a transformer that would safely reconnect their electricity to the grid. The builders left a hot-wired connection into the mains, which Chris says the buyers only found out about after they’d secured the right to manage some of the site. It was just the latest in a long line of hidden surprises that have revealed themselves over the five years since tenants moved in. “The biggest block, Block D, is just a shell that should have been finished years ago,” Chris tells me as we pull up alongside what looks like a building entirely made of wood and wrapped in tin foil. “There should have been one large, shared entrance area, an underground car park for 170 vehicles, shops, a cinema room with communal laundry, and a bike store. All of those amenities were what made this site so attractive.”

Chris pauses to re-imagine what could have been, before reality kicks back in. “None of that exists. What we’ve actually got are great apartments next to the rat-infested fire trap of a mess that is Block D.”

By Matt O’Donoghue

“Block D is an inferno right now”, the first message reads. “Look what’s been torched.” More follow. “Not sure how other blocks are faring, they’ve been evacuated.” Some have video or photos attached. “Seen this. I feel sick.” One simply reads: “Fox Street’s final chapter.”

Block D at the stalled residential development of Fox Street Village sits on the edge of Everton. It is ablaze, and a lot of people want me to know. As the firefighters battle to hold back the flames that threaten to leap from block to block, frantic calls, dramatic videos, and heartbreaking messages light up my phone screen. Many of those getting in touch are people I met over the past five years I’ve been reporting on the sorry saga of Fox Street Village. They’re all saying the same thing: “It was only a matter of time.”

Chris Burridge on Fox Street. Photo: Matt O’Donoghue.

“Something like this had to happen,” says Chris Burridge, who owns one of the Fox Street Village apartments as he surveys the damage. It’s Sunday, January 28th and the day after the fire. Steel girders are bent and buckled like roller coaster tracks; the metal cools and creaks, and loose material flaps in the wind. “There’s been no decent perimeter fence for some time, even though we’ve been reporting incidents. We were lucky Block B didn’t go up. The flames and heat were ferocious. Mersey Fire saved those buildings.”

Lucky indeed. Fox Street Village was originally intended to be a 400 apartment complex spread across four blocks that were to be four or five stories tall. But Block D was never completed and has remained an unfinished shell for the past five years. The rest of the site, on the other hand, is home to a number of residents. Had the fire spread there, it would have been catastrophic. Letting agents are on-site to support tenants and help with the clean up, while insurance brokers and risk assessors mill about around them. Lifts, heating, and water are soon back on. Black debris litters the ground and the flat roofs of the adjacent blocks, while clumps of burnt insulation and wood continue to drift from above.

A team from Residence 365, the company that manages the Village’s interior communal areas, is helping to get residents back into their homes. “Unfortunately, as the fire started to take hold, many residents in Block A failed to evacuate,” says Carolyn Delaney, Residence 365’s managing director. “Police had to force their way into every apartment to make sure that building was clear and everyone was safe. Those doors and frames will have to be repaired.”

Outside, Block B’s walls and windows are warped from where it faced the fire. The cladding is buckled and wavy, like bad icing on an overbaked cake. Most of the glass is cracked and broken, and window frames have bowed out of shape. The fire breaks under the cladding will have activated and expanded. There will need to be a lot of work to put things right.

“The grounds and estate management company are nowhere”, says an exasperated Burridge. The last he was told, a company called Xenia Estates Limited were responsible for looking after the outside areas. “It’s outrageous. They’ve sent nobody down here to help or make things safe.”

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Kevin Robertson-Hale is a local campaigner who set up the action group Everton Together. He was shopping at the ASDA on the Breck Road when he first saw the black clouds rising above his community. He knew straight away what was likely to be burning. “It’s just a miracle that nobody’s been hurt,” he says. Although Block D was not a finished building, homeless people have been sleeping there and using it as a shelter. “The way the place went up, someone asleep would never have got out.” Kevin is horrified by what has happened, but certainly not surprised. “We’ve been saying for years that something was going to happen. Either someone was going to fall off and break their neck, or it was going to go up in flames.”

Beneath the debris and behind the spectacular videos, the plumes of smoke billowing out and up from the bare bones of blazing Block D, are hundreds of stories of loss and despair. To properly understand what went wrong at Fox Street Village, to learn why things must be fixed, we have to understand why they were broken in the first place.

The building on Fox Street. Photo: Chris Burridge

Between 1971 and 1991, Everton’s population dropped by 60% as the area’s fortunes and prospects charted exactly the decline of the British Empire. As Liverpool’s docks fell silent, the huge warehouses and the factories like Tate and Lyle and British American Tobacco were closed. Thousands of jobs disappeared and the communities that once relied upon those goods shipped from all corners of the Empire ceased to exist. An urgent need to improve the area’s housing conditions, the crumbling Victorian tenements, led to slum clearance and demolition on a massive scale. Those once solid communities were broken up with families moved out and housed in places like Kirby, Runcorn and Skelmersdale. It was the perfect storm; shops closed, tower blocks were pulled down and the city’s terminal decline was hastened by Margaret Thatcher’s vicious attempts to starve the upstart council controlled by Hatton’s Militant Tendency into surrender.

Stand on the edge of Fox Street today and look towards the gleaming glass skyscrapers and modern penthouses and it’s obvious, the regeneration that has breathed new life into other parts of Liverpool in recent years seems to run out of steam as it creeps towards this area’s streets. According to the last census, Everton West — where Fox Street Village sits — has the third highest numbers of children on free school meals. This neighbourhood has some of the poorest health indicators, including the lowest life expectancy, across the whole of the city.

As Liverpool’s reputation grew as a great place to study, the last decade has seen residential housing for the influx of students become the city’s short-term planning solution and a way to kickstart Everton’s economy.

Fox Street Village followed the same controversial funding model that has dogged similar schemes across the city, known as ‘fractional sales’. Buyers — many based overseas — are enticed with the promise of a good rent and a solid investment in return for paying a large part of the sale price upfront. But as countless investors at other stalled sites in Liverpool have discovered to their detriment, there’s little or no protection should things go wrong.

When Fox Street Village Limited collapsed into administration, in 2019, it owed creditors £10 million and the city council nearly £700,000. The council told us that an invoice for over half a million pounds remains unpaid but that the building’s new owners will have to pick up that tab. Meanwhile, £6 million that investors had paid out for Block D was instead spent on a new fifth building the developers had added to their scheme. A search of records show creditors who had paid for apartments in Block D came from Birkenhead to Beijing and all points in between. With no money left to complete the job, and no cash to settle their bills, the steel frame and internal walls made of wood have remained open to the elements. The freehold to the site was sold to Manchester-based property investment company SGL1 Limited in 2020 for a reported £1.6 million. The site was split and a separate company run by the same two directors as SGL1 but called SGL3, took over the unfinished Block D. A series of complex court cases followed as buyers battled to gain control and finish the scheme. By 2021, the architect’s original drawings for Block D had been rebranded as “Park View” to be marketed at a new group of buyers. A one bed studio in the unfinished wood and steel shell was being advertised for £85,000. The Post is unsure how many people bought into this new scheme or whether their money is protected.

“I bought a three-bedroom apartment that cost £135,000, which was a really good deal. With hindsight, almost too good to be true. I’ve been firefighting one problem after another since day one.” November 8th, 2023 and I am rattling along the M62 with Chris Burridge. “It doesn’t look that good,” Chris says with detached stoicism and monumental understatement as Fox Street Village Block D comes into view. “It would be funny, if it wasn’t so costly and dangerous.” Chris is one of the apartment owners who have been battling over an £80,000 bill to install a transformer that would safely reconnect their electricity to the grid. The builders left a hot-wired connection into the mains, which Chris says the buyers only found out about after they’d secured the right to manage some of the site. It was just the latest in a long line of hidden surprises that have revealed themselves over the five years since tenants moved in. “The biggest block, Block D, is just a shell that should have been finished years ago,” Chris tells me as we pull up alongside what looks like a building entirely made of wood and wrapped in tin foil. “There should have been one large, shared entrance area, an underground car park for 170 vehicles, shops, a cinema room with communal laundry, and a bike store. All of those amenities were what made this site so attractive.”

Chris pauses to re-imagine what could have been, before reality kicks back in. “None of that exists. What we’ve actually got are great apartments next to the rat-infested fire trap of a mess that is Block D.”

Residents in this area have been complaining to me about the rats for as long as I’ve been investigating Fox Street Village. Back in April 2019, I broke my first story on the slow-motion car crash that has taken place here — months of work as part of an ongoing investigation for ITV’s Granada Reports. Back then, tenant Ross Lowey told me on camera: “We don’t feel safe. Every time we come back round that corner, we expect to see flames coming out of it.” He was far from alone in his unhappy prophecy.

Six months before that first ITV News report, in November 2018, I had been on a separate investigation into how developers duck out of paying the millions they owed to their cash-strapped council. It suddenly took an unexpected twist. While I ploughed through a mountain of conflicting planning documents that link to this case, a buyer tipped me off that their building was about to be the first on Merseyside to be shut down and issued with a Prohibition Notice. It was the last-ditch resort for a city council that had run out of ideas on how to make this site safe. “Serious construction issues will contribute to the spread of fire,” the Prohibition Notice reads. “Fire will spread quickly and possibly unnoticed.”

Put simply, the problems that the buyers had uncovered at their completed flats were so severe that they put lives at risk. While Block D remained unfinished, three of the four blocks that people had already moved into were so dangerous that everyone would be forced to move out — immediately. Judge Lloyd would later brand the project “disgraceful” as she fined the developers £3,120 for breaching planning conditions. She expressed sympathy for the residents and investors who had been affected. Planning inspectors said the development was “poorly finished” and failed to meet standards. Those problems have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to put right.

3

By Matt O’Donoghue

“Block D is an inferno right now”, the first message reads. “Look what’s been torched.” More follow. “Not sure how other blocks are faring, they’ve been evacuated.” Some have video or photos attached. “Seen this. I feel sick.” One simply reads: “Fox Street’s final chapter.”

Block D at the stalled residential development of Fox Street Village sits on the edge of Everton. It is ablaze, and a lot of people want me to know. As the firefighters battle to hold back the flames that threaten to leap from block to block, frantic calls, dramatic videos, and heartbreaking messages light up my phone screen. Many of those getting in touch are people I met over the past five years I’ve been reporting on the sorry saga of Fox Street Village. They’re all saying the same thing: “It was only a matter of time.”

Chris Burridge on Fox Street. Photo: Matt O’Donoghue.

“Something like this had to happen,” says Chris Burridge, who owns one of the Fox Street Village apartments as he surveys the damage. It’s Sunday, January 28th and the day after the fire. Steel girders are bent and buckled like roller coaster tracks; the metal cools and creaks, and loose material flaps in the wind. “There’s been no decent perimeter fence for some time, even though we’ve been reporting incidents. We were lucky Block B didn’t go up. The flames and heat were ferocious. Mersey Fire saved those buildings.”

Lucky indeed. Fox Street Village was originally intended to be a 400 apartment complex spread across four blocks that were to be four or five stories tall. But Block D was never completed and has remained an unfinished shell for the past five years. The rest of the site, on the other hand, is home to a number of residents. Had the fire spread there, it would have been catastrophic. Letting agents are on-site to support tenants and help with the clean up, while insurance brokers and risk assessors mill about around them. Lifts, heating, and water are soon back on. Black debris litters the ground and the flat roofs of the adjacent blocks, while clumps of burnt insulation and wood continue to drift from above.

A team from Residence 365, the company that manages the Village’s interior communal areas, is helping to get residents back into their homes. “Unfortunately, as the fire started to take hold, many residents in Block A failed to evacuate,” says Carolyn Delaney, Residence 365’s managing director. “Police had to force their way into every apartment to make sure that building was clear and everyone was safe. Those doors and frames will have to be repaired.”

Outside, Block B’s walls and windows are warped from where it faced the fire. The cladding is buckled and wavy, like bad icing on an overbaked cake. Most of the glass is cracked and broken, and window frames have bowed out of shape. The fire breaks under the cladding will have activated and expanded. There will need to be a lot of work to put things right.

“The grounds and estate management company are nowhere”, says an exasperated Burridge. The last he was told, a company called Xenia Estates Limited were responsible for looking after the outside areas. “It’s outrageous. They’ve sent nobody down here to help or make things safe.”

Subscribe

Kevin Robertson-Hale is a local campaigner who set up the action group Everton Together. He was shopping at the ASDA on the Breck Road when he first saw the black clouds rising above his community. He knew straight away what was likely to be burning. “It’s just a miracle that nobody’s been hurt,” he says. Although Block D was not a finished building, homeless people have been sleeping there and using it as a shelter. “The way the place went up, someone asleep would never have got out.” Kevin is horrified by what has happened, but certainly not surprised. “We’ve been saying for years that something was going to happen. Either someone was going to fall off and break their neck, or it was going to go up in flames.”

Beneath the debris and behind the spectacular videos, the plumes of smoke billowing out and up from the bare bones of blazing Block D, are hundreds of stories of loss and despair. To properly understand what went wrong at Fox Street Village, to learn why things must be fixed, we have to understand why they were broken in the first place.

The building on Fox Street. Photo: Chris Burridge

Between 1971 and 1991, Everton’s population dropped by 60% as the area’s fortunes and prospects charted exactly the decline of the British Empire. As Liverpool’s docks fell silent, the huge warehouses and the factories like Tate and Lyle and British American Tobacco were closed. Thousands of jobs disappeared and the communities that once relied upon those goods shipped from all corners of the Empire ceased to exist. An urgent need to improve the area’s housing conditions, the crumbling Victorian tenements, led to slum clearance and demolition on a massive scale. Those once solid communities were broken up with families moved out and housed in places like Kirby, Runcorn and Skelmersdale. It was the perfect storm; shops closed, tower blocks were pulled down and the city’s terminal decline was hastened by Margaret Thatcher’s vicious attempts to starve the upstart council controlled by Hatton’s Militant Tendency into surrender.

Stand on the edge of Fox Street today and look towards the gleaming glass skyscrapers and modern penthouses and it’s obvious, the regeneration that has breathed new life into other parts of Liverpool in recent years seems to run out of steam as it creeps towards this area’s streets. According to the last census, Everton West — where Fox Street Village sits — has the third highest numbers of children on free school meals. This neighbourhood has some of the poorest health indicators, including the lowest life expectancy, across the whole of the city.

As Liverpool’s reputation grew as a great place to study, the last decade has seen residential housing for the influx of students become the city’s short-term planning solution and a way to kickstart Everton’s economy.

Fox Street Village followed the same controversial funding model that has dogged similar schemes across the city, known as ‘fractional sales’. Buyers — many based overseas — are enticed with the promise of a good rent and a solid investment in return for paying a large part of the sale price upfront. But as countless investors at other stalled sites in Liverpool have discovered to their detriment, there’s little or no protection should things go wrong.

When Fox Street Village Limited collapsed into administration, in 2019, it owed creditors £10 million and the city council nearly £700,000. The council told us that an invoice for over half a million pounds remains unpaid but that the building’s new owners will have to pick up that tab. Meanwhile, £6 million that investors had paid out for Block D was instead spent on a new fifth building the developers had added to their scheme. A search of records show creditors who had paid for apartments in Block D came from Birkenhead to Beijing and all points in between. With no money left to complete the job, and no cash to settle their bills, the steel frame and internal walls made of wood have remained open to the elements. The freehold to the site was sold to Manchester-based property investment company SGL1 Limited in 2020 for a reported £1.6 million. The site was split and a separate company run by the same two directors as SGL1 but called SGL3, took over the unfinished Block D. A series of complex court cases followed as buyers battled to gain control and finish the scheme. By 2021, the architect’s original drawings for Block D had been rebranded as “Park View” to be marketed at a new group of buyers. A one bed studio in the unfinished wood and steel shell was being advertised for £85,000. The Post is unsure how many people bought into this new scheme or whether their money is protected.

Fox Street after the fire. Photo: Chris Burridge

“I bought a three-bedroom apartment that cost £135,000, which was a really good deal. With hindsight, almost too good to be true. I’ve been firefighting one problem after another since day one.” November 8th, 2023 and I am rattling along the M62 with Chris Burridge. “It doesn’t look that good,” Chris says with detached stoicism and monumental understatement as Fox Street Village Block D comes into view. “It would be funny, if it wasn’t so costly and dangerous.” Chris is one of the apartment owners who have been battling over an £80,000 bill to install a transformer that would safely reconnect their electricity to the grid. The builders left a hot-wired connection into the mains, which Chris says the buyers only found out about after they’d secured the right to manage some of the site. It was just the latest in a long line of hidden surprises that have revealed themselves over the five years since tenants moved in. “The biggest block, Block D, is just a shell that should have been finished years ago,” Chris tells me as we pull up alongside what looks like a building entirely made of wood and wrapped in tin foil. “There should have been one large, shared entrance area, an underground car park for 170 vehicles, shops, a cinema room with communal laundry, and a bike store. All of those amenities were what made this site so attractive.”

Chris pauses to re-imagine what could have been, before reality kicks back in. “None of that exists. What we’ve actually got are great apartments next to the rat-infested fire trap of a mess that is Block D.”

The author Matt O’Donoghue on ITV. Photo: ITC/IMDb.

Residents in this area have been complaining to me about the rats for as long as I’ve been investigating Fox Street Village. Back in April 2019, I broke my first story on the slow-motion car crash that has taken place here — months of work as part of an ongoing investigation for ITV’s Granada Reports. Back then, tenant Ross Lowey told me on camera: “We don’t feel safe. Every time we come back round that corner, we expect to see flames coming out of it.” He was far from alone in his unhappy prophecy.

Six months before that first ITV News report, in November 2018, I had been on a separate investigation into how developers duck out of paying the millions they owed to their cash-strapped council. It suddenly took an unexpected twist. While I ploughed through a mountain of conflicting planning documents that link to this case, a buyer tipped me off that their building was about to be the first on Merseyside to be shut down and issued with a Prohibition Notice. It was the last-ditch resort for a city council that had run out of ideas on how to make this site safe. “Serious construction issues will contribute to the spread of fire,” the Prohibition Notice reads. “Fire will spread quickly and possibly unnoticed.”

Put simply, the problems that the buyers had uncovered at their completed flats were so severe that they put lives at risk. While Block D remained unfinished, three of the four blocks that people had already moved into were so dangerous that everyone would be forced to move out — immediately. Judge Lloyd would later brand the project “disgraceful” as she fined the developers £3,120 for breaching planning conditions. She expressed sympathy for the residents and investors who had been affected. Planning inspectors said the development was “poorly finished” and failed to meet standards. Those problems have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to put right.

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The council say that it was only after the buildings were largely constructed that it became apparent there was a failure to comply with conditions or the plans that had been passed. When the new owners submitted another application to make up for the missing car park, a fresh deal was struck for them to pay towards a cycle route and parking scheme. But planning approval was refused when no money was forthcoming.

Two companies were involved in the development of Fox Street Village: Linmari Construction Limited and Fox Street Village Limited. Both were run by company director, Gary Howard. In 2013, Howard was left as the sole director of Fox Street Student Halls Limited after his business partner, Lee Carroll, was forced to step down. Carroll had been found guilty of being a gang master under legislation brought in to tackle labour exploitation after an investigation into a recruitment company that Carroll ran with John Howard. Carroll was banned from being a company director for 12 years.

While nothing should be inferred from Gary Howard’s previous business history, six companies where he was a director and shareholder have a County Court Judgement against them. Just like Fox Street Village Limited, seven firms that Howard also once helped run have gone into administration owing money to creditors — two of which were also residential developments in Liverpool designed for student living. We’ve been unable to contact Mr Howard for a comment.

“The frameworks that are supposed to deliver safe buildings, protect their owners and keep those inside safe are not up to the job,” says Dr Len Gibbs, whose doctoral thesis focused on the problems with unfinished developments in the Liverpool area.

That regulatory framework — to get a building through from an architect’s drawings to the point of being occupied — can be roughly broken down into two stages: planning and building control. The first part is strictly controlled by rules and regulations that must be met and followed to the letter. A council department controls the planning process, and everything has to be approved by a committee after a rigorous assessment by trained officers. Once it passes and everybody agrees that the buildings are what the council and community needs, the proposals are said to have ‘gained consent’.

When developers have their planning consent, a building control team comes on board to oversee every step of the construction. Site inspectors visit to approve stages such as the foundations and drains, and the relevant paperwork is filed with the city council to confirm everything has progressed according to the plans that were submitted and in accordance with the required regulations. In theory, these two functions operate independently but in support of one another to deliver a building that doesn’t kill the people who move in.

That’s something of a simplification, but these are incredibly complex areas that require years of training to properly understand. Only when every step has been followed can a completion certificate be issued against the building and each individual apartment. These final pieces of paper confirm that everything is up to standard and legally ready for tenants to move in. If all these steps are followed correctly, then a development of buildings that were once judged to be a threat to the lives of residents should never be occupied. Yet they were occupied.

[the-writer-nerd-ro]

I referenced this movie in "Hunter Finally Plans The Perfect Date" so you should have known this fic was coming! Spoilers for the 2005 movie Elizabethtown but not enough that you shouldn't watch it apparently it's on Max now but I personally just bought it on Vudu bc I plan on rewatching it A LOT. I also own it on DVD. This is my favorite movie ever please watch it please.

Also there are a bunch of headcanons in this fic I'm having a blast with the world building.

28% Critics, 66% Audience

“Movie night!” Sara said, plopping down on the comfy couch and patting the seat next to her.

“So what’s this movie about?” All Hunter knew was it contained a date scene set in a cemetery, which was a Hunter Richardson specialty.

“It’s about love. And loss. It’s kind of beautiful in its own weird way.”

“Like you,” Hunter said.

“Like me. Come watch!”

Hunter settled in, having no idea what she was in for. But if it made Sara happy, then she just felt lucky to be included.

From the first few seconds Orlando Bloom was on the screen the movie was a sequence of terrible things knocking Drew to the ground and kicking him when he was down.

Immediately, without even trying, Hunter connected to Drew. She remembered the out-of-nowhere system shock when her parents had died. The holes in her life they had left and how quickly regret had crept in to fill those holes.

She glanced over at Sara, who was mouthing along with the lines.

Sara glanced over too, and grinned.

“Here she comes,” Sara said, clearly excited. Sara was watching a different movie than Hunter, one that didn’t truly begin until Kirsten Dunst stepped on screen.

“Celebrity crush,” Hunter thought. She would find out that that was an oversimplification.

Hunter saw Sara in Claire Colburn pretty quickly. Like Sara, Claire had so much passion and love that it was offputting for some, but the people who stuck around got a whole garden in bloom. Hunter could see how Drew would fall for her by the end of the movie.

But the movie was about so much more than an ex-shoe designer and a flight attendant falling in love. Hunter teared up three times before Claire appeared on the screen again. Hunter felt personally targeted as Drew reflected on the life his dad had lived and the heartwarming, overwhelming outreach of his father’s family as they held him and waited for him to grieve.

Hunter remembered feeling like a bug under a microscope, mourning but in all the wrong ways. Wanting to reach out to the people who were hurting too, but having no idea how to relate to any of her relatives.

“That could have been me,” She whispered without meaning to as Drew flipped through family photos with an aunt he clearly didn’t remember (played by Paula Deen, of all people). Sara didn’t say anything, just wrapped Hunter up in a hug, reminding her that she wasn’t under a microscope anymore. Sara saw her as she was without expecting anything more.

They were silent, enthralled, for a few more minutes, and then Sara turned to Hunter and beamed.

“The phone scene is my favorite.”

It was actually a collection of scenes, but Hunter understood why Sara liked it. After struggling through awkward conversations with his ex and his sister, Drew stumbled into an easy conversation with Claire. There was something deeply intimate about the act of staying up all night talking with someone, even if it was a stranger. Hunter hadn’t lived with Sara very long but they’d already had many late-night/early morning conversations. Hunter snuggled closer into Sara’s arms.

Hunter recognized what happened next, too, when the sun rose and they went their separate ways, both sure they’d never see each other again. When Hunter had first met Sara, she’d thought it was a stroke of dumb luck, a fluke that would never be repeated.

Instead of saying any of that, Hunter asked, “Have you ever watched the movie Fluke?”

“Huh? No,” Sara was distracted by Susan Sarandon.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Hunter decided, not wanting to miss a moment of Sara’s favorite film.

Especially not the over-hyped cemetery scene, which Hunter didn’t find as romantic as Sara clearly did. It seemed more like two sleep-deprived people blowing off some steam. Hunter didn’t think the romance really started until they were walking back in the dark, the third late-night conversation Claire and Drew had gotten to have.

When they were talking, they felt like more than characters on a screen. They felt so vivid, so real. Claire was a person who had always gotten second place in the lives of the people who claimed they loved her, never the first choice, never the priority. Drew was only first when he was successful, and when he failed he might as well be as good as dead. Who hadn’t felt like that before, like a substitute person who could easily be recast?

Again Hunter didn’t say any of that, just leaned over and whispered, “They should make a lesbian version of this movie.”

Sara nodded earnestly. “They should cast us.”

Hunter laughed, “Yeah, they should.”

“Are you loving it?” Sara asked.

“I love you,” Hunter said, which was so much easier than saying how this silly, sappy movie was ripping her heart to shreds.

And when the stupid, silly straight couple ended the evening almost-but-not-quite kissing, Hunter couldn’t admit just how invested she was in the pairing.

It felt like she was holding her breath until Claire showed up again, just waiting for the two repressed dorks to take another baby step in their relationship. She exhaled in relief when Claire admitted, very directly, that she liked Drew. She let out an audible whoop a few minutes later when Drew finally kissed her.

Unfortunately, there was still a sizeable chunk of runtime left, which didn’t bode well for the substitute people. Fortunately, Kirsten Dunst could act her little ass off, really selling the heartbreak she felt when she realized Drew was still too hung up on his failures to love her the way she deserved to be loved.

“How are they going to come back from this one?” Hunter whispered.

“Haven’t you ever seen a romcom before?”

“A few.”

“Then trust the formula.”

Hunter had gotten so caught up in the love story that she had almost forgotten it was a movie about loss. Then the memorial hit her again with that dissociative feeling of grieving with people who all had their own version of the deceased. It was the kind of thing you never completely forgot.

Hunter squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered.

For the first time in over an hour, Sara paused the movie.

“Hun? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just remembering.”

Sara nodded, knowing exactly what Hunter was talking about.

“When did it happen? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Seven years ago. But sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

“I’m sure they were wonderful.”

“The best,” Hunter agreed. Maybe she should reach out to her family, it had been about that long since she’d seen some of them. Her dad’s brother and his family lived in the city but everyone else was scattered. Her parents had been the ones to bring them together.

“I’m sure they would be happy to know that you’re loved,” Sara said, which seemed much nicer than the usual “They’d be proud of you.”

Maybe Hunter hadn’t done anything worth their pride but she was loved, and that’s all they’d ever wanted for her.

“Go ahead and start the movie again.”

Sara did, and they watched Susan Sarandon tap dancing, and the air in the room seemed a little lighter than it was before.

Hunter was surprised to find the movie wasn’t done surprising her. The grief of the memorial turned into celebration and celebration slipped into chaos as Drew’s eccentric cousin (played, Hunter was pretty sure, by that one guy from Parks and Rec) brought down the house with a live performance of Freebird that really emphasized the Baylor family motto.

“If it wasn’t this it would be something else,” Hunter whispered.

“Exactly!” Sara said, thrilled that the movie was resonating with Hunter.

Neither of them spoke after that, until the credits rolled twentyish minutes later. It was hard to talk, when so much was happening on screen. Hunter didn’t even realize she was crying again until Sara reached over and gently brushed the tears away.

“Thank you for watching this with me, I’m sorry if it was a lot,” Sara said.

Hunter laughed a little, rubbing her eyes. “Everything about us is a lot.”

“Good point.”

“You seemed to really like Claire, is she your type?” Hunter asked, not jealous just curious.

Sara burst out laughing. “Oh no. Oh no no no no. Hun, you’re my type. But I was,” Sara thought back, “thirteen when this came out, and it changed how I saw the world.”

“Your gay awakening,” Hunter guessed.

“Sort of. I’d fallen in love with a lot of tv girls before, but I didn’t feel that way about Claire. I didn’t want to be with her, I wanted to be her. I’d never had words for those feelings before. It had never been so concrete.”

“Oh!” Hunter had known Sara was trans but she had never considered that came with an origin story. She felt kind of foolish that she’d never asked Sara about it before.

She studied Sara, a smile growing on her face. “Huh. I can see that, actually.”

Sara beamed. “Really?”

“Really. You’re a lot like her. Better, in my mind. Cuter, too.”

Sara Pena looked like she was going to swoon.

“You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Thank you for sharing this part of you with me. I like learning about what made you who you are. Because I love who you are.”

“Next time you can pick the movie. I want to learn more about you, too.”

It was only the start of their journey, but Hunter really, really liked where they were heading.

[melt-into-the-night]

Here’s my two cents on Haley Pullos that no one asked for.

What she did was awful. Truly. Getting into the drivers seat of a vehicle when you’re hammered is literally the dumbest fuckin thing you can do. She caused a wreck and gave major injuries to another driver. Allegedly was responsible for another hit and run incident that night too. Treated the first responders and the hospital staff like dirt. And got a DUI, rightfully so.

Now of course the GH fandom is boycotting…cancelling…whatever you wanna call it. There’s a large amount of people calling for her to be fired. I’ll be honest. It seems a bit ridiculous to me.

The girl is typically on the show maybe…twice a month, if that even. In fact this current storyline for Molly has shown us more Molly in the last couple of months than we’ve probably seen her in the last 5 or 6 years. Most of Molly’s stories happen off screen (money problems, domestic partnership, studying law and becoming the assistant DA, I can’t even name any other story she’s been in prior to those blips since like…2013 when they had her interacting with Rafe, the kid that belonged to the supernatural characters from Port Charles). Considering we’ve never really heard a single bad thing about the actress in all these years it seems a bit dumb to roast her at the stake for one mistake, even if it’s a big one. While I have never personally drove while under the influence, I can list tons of people her age that stupidly did. Some lived to regret it, some were lucky enough to not have caused harm. But if she isn’t driving drunk to work, being professional while at work, and doing what is required of her while at work, then I don’t see why GH should fire her.

NOW HAVING SAID THAT. I do think she needs to step down from the role of her own free will, and take a good look in the mirror because this shit will not fly if she wants to continue to have a career in acting. I’ve always noticed from her social media that she’s definitely a wild child who enjoys partying. Let’s face it, most of us did too, in our early 20’s. But that reckless decision she made on top of the way she allegedly treated those staff while inebriated?

This girl has the personality of someone who seems entitled and spoiled rotten. Let’s face it, she can definitely afford a cab or Uber or Lyft or whatever is out there in LA for transportation. Even if she perhaps went somewhere in her own car not intending to drink but ended up doing so, you can still definitely be smart enough to leave your car there and pick it up the next day. Even if it’s towed or ticketed she could probably pay the bill easily. Or just choose not to drink since you do have your car.

Even this whole “checking herself into rehab” thing seems like a false way of trying to save her image rather than getting the help she needs, partially because she decided to do it AFTER the news broke out but also because driving drunk doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an alcoholic and need rehab, it does for sure mean that you’re not good at making decisions and perhaps that can be managed and sorted through regular therapy.

Anyway, bottom line is, I don’t think Haley should lose her job, but I do think she needs to step down, take responsibility for what she did, get the help she needs and only when she’s up for it, claim her job again.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

The Last Great American Mystery

At 5:00 PM on the 27th of September, 1992, the sky over the town of Winesburg, Ohio went dark. Not just a little. Not just dusk -- a sudden, complete, total power outage. No streetlights, no lights at all -- a few emergency lights, a few porch lights, just that. A few dim gas lanterns, at most. Not even the glow from the TV screens inside the few few remaining houses in town, not even the moon, which still hung low in the night sky, casting faint shadows on the town's empty streets and sidewalks and deserted intersections. A complete loss of light, like the light was simply going out. Everyone in town -- the people who had come to the annual festival in Winesburg, those who had just stayed in town, the visitors in town -- went absolutely dark.

The town of Winesburg was about 70 miles north of the Ohio-Michigan border, on the road which runs northwest-southeast through the midst of the Ohio Piedmont, a rolling plain of high-altitude, deeply-curtained mountains and old deciduous forest. It was a fairly small town -- fewer than 2,000 people -- one of the smaller and more remote towns in the Ohio Piedmont. Its only real claims to fame were that it was the site of the Piedmont College and that for a brief time, in the fifties, it had one of the highest per capita rates of population growth in the world. And that it was the site of an annual festival, the largest festival of its kind in North America, which drew some 100,000 attendees every year, from across the Piedmont and from beyond -- and from beyond the Piedmont -- people who lived hundreds and hundreds of miles away, in places such as Boston and New York and San Francisco. It was, the local newspaper, the Winesburg Pulse, ran a banner headline in its issue of the 28th of September, the day of the blackout, to announce: THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN MYSTERY! The Pulse also reported that the blackout had lasted more than ten hours, at one point lasting a full twenty-four, before it had been finally brought under control after dawn the next day.

Most towns in the Piedmont were not so lucky as Winesburg. Most people drove into Winesburg from the outside world, rather than coming from within the town itself -- and Winesburg's small size, combined with the town's proximity to other towns, made it hard to coordinate any sort of response. The nearest larger town was about fifty miles west -- Cleveland -- and on the next day, the 29th of September, some 1,600 miles away, it was already mid-afternoon. Cleveland would be waking up soon after dawn, and the sun would rise in the morning, and the whole of the Piedmont, from New York to Boston, would still be in the sunlight -- a bright, open, beautiful world -- as soon as the sun set that night. By noon, the sun would already be up for the people there -- by that point, a full forty-four hours earlier in Cleveland -- the sun would be on the Piedmont -- and the people of Winesburg would still be dark, a few hundred thousand miles away.

Many other towns did, however, have a little bit of an early start on this problem. Some early, half-conscious recognition that perhaps something was happening, a few people at around 2:00 AM began to make their way south from town, along the main north-south through-route, toward the nearest highway, where they encountered the highway patrol. The highway patrolmen were puzzled by their findings. The blackout seemed to have begun at around 6:00 PM that day, and now it was still almost exactly 6:00 PM the following morning, but it seemed to the highway patrolmen that something was very wrong with their watches.

Some of the highway patrolmen were also baffled by the blackout. The highway patrolmen had the advantage of being far from any cities; in Winesburg and in Winesburg alone, on that night and that morning, the people were still awake. There were no people at night and the highways at night were empty.

Some of the other highway patrolmen, however, on that September morning, noticed something else: that they were not being nearly as successful in getting people to report the blackout as they had been in the previous years. There was something odd about the way that people on that day were acting. They were not acting the way they should have been acting -- they were behaving strangely, even unnaturally, even bizarrely. This was the most unnatural thing about it all, to the highway patrolmen. But even among the bizarre, unnatural, and otherwise odd people -- the ones who had gotten out of bed very early that morning (and so had not slept through the night) and who were walking north on the road alone -- some of these people reported the blackouts to the highway patrolmen, while others did not report them. The ones who reported the blackouts said that they had not been there when they should have been; the ones who did not report them said they had not been there when they should have been. (This was why the highway patrolmen took a statement, on that September morning, from the local veterinarian, a man named Dr. Henry Raynor.)

The most unusual thing, it seems, was that, in this town that was otherwise so small and otherwise so ordinary and ordinary-looking, this town -- this small town in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of one of the most sparsely populated areas of the US -- there had been no blackouts in this town, not even at all at night, not even at night that the highway patrolmen were out on that morning of the 29th -- before this night. This town, this town was normally so empty, this town was normally so uninteresting, this town -- and on the evening of September the 26th, a week before, this town had been quite alive, and there had been music and dancing and dancing and dancing and laughing and playing of banjos and fiddles and singing and singing and singing. There had been parties and music, music and parties, parties and music, a town that was -- just like other towns -- but a town different, a town strange -- a town in the middle of nowhere, among the mountains and pines, with its only 1,400 inhabitants, a town where people were strange and unusual and a little odd, and there was so much music, and there were so many people, and the night before, there had been an enormous, an enormous, an enormous, an enormous party in town, and the town was so alive and the party was so large and so loud, it had spilled out over the hills, and there were people everywhere, and there was music all night and music all night and music all night.

But there had been no music and no music that night, because this town had been dead. And this was not a death by violence -- there was no fighting, no fighting that night -- this was not a slow death from old age or natural causes or something, there was no fire, no floods or accidents or sickness, but this town was dying, and it was dying from something else -- it was dying. In the morning light, people would see it and they would be afraid. But at night, when you were out of town -- when you were far from town and the lights of town were gone -- you wouldn't see it. You wouldn't hear it either. It was a town that was dying

[ohwynne]

Penny for your past // Leviathan & Wynne

PARTIES: Chuck/Leviathan @faustianbroker & Wynne @ohwynne LOCATION: Mephisto's Repository TIMING: Early April CONTENT WARNINGS: Mentions of animal cruelty, SUMMARY: In search of a rabbit's foot, Wynne ends up in Chuck's store where they encounter not one but two demons. Leviathan is quick to show an interest in their past, after Gab spills the tea on Wynne's unfulfilled destiny.

They weren’t sure why this urge had risen in them, to return to previous ways. It had risen with the settling down, the quietness that came from starting to develop a routine and having their own room rather than a musty, dusky motel one. Wynne had missed a fair amount of rituals and celebrations, and while they didn’t know if there was any point in continuing to make offerings (what with refusing to be one) it still felt strange to separate themself from it entirely. 

That was why they were in need of a rabbit’s foot. Lucky or not, it hardly mattered — luck wasn’t part of the teachings, anyway, and superstition was considered sacrilegious. It was more so about the sacrifice of the creature, the circle of life ended early, and Wynne was selfishly enough unable to undertake a murder themself. (Too reminiscent of fates escaped, and all that.) A rabbit’s foot, though, that was purchasable, especially in this strange town, and it would come close enough. And luckily the internet came with kind enough recommendations.

So Wynne had a mission. They entered Mephisto's Repository with a bit of trepidation, but walked up to the counter instead of letting their already-frazzled mind get distracted by all that’s in stock. Their chin was somewhat high when they looked at the person behind the counter, though, eyes trained. “I’m looking for a rabbit’s foot, and heard you might have one. Can you point me in the right direction?” 

—

The young man sitting by the register, leaning back precariously in his chair with his combat boots propped up on the counter, didn’t move a muscle as the customer stepped into the shop. There were a few other people milling around, poking at this and that and commenting in hushed tones, but he seemed wholly unbothered by the idea that he ought to maintain a professional demeanor. Though to be fair, the aura of the place didn’t seem like one that demanded its employees to button up their shirts and straighten their bowties, so to speak. 

Glancing up from his phone as they spoke, he raised a brow. “Oh, uh… yeah, I think we got those.” Clicking the screen off as he pulled his feet off the counter, he rocked forward to lean against it and point to a far-off corner of the shop. “Back there,” He casually sniffed, giving them a once over and a shrug before settling back in the chair. Something caught his attention though and he cupped a hand to his mouth, giving a sort of half-shout to someone who was coming up behind the customer. “Hey, Mr. Jones, we still got them rabbit feets, yeah?”

The person coming up behind her audibly laughed. “Yes, Orville. Glad I could do your job for you.” The younger man gave a snort and went back to looking at his phone, while Chuck gave the customer a knowing smile. “Had a feeling I’d see you in here some time soon! Come on, I’ll show you where they’re at.” The vague directions Orville had provided would likely lead to a fifteen minute search, with how packed this place was. Walking them over to a section that was dedicated entirely to animal remains, Chuck made a sweeping motion with his arm. “We’ve got a few in stock right now, so you’ll get your pick of color, too.” A beat. “... you’re in need of some luck, then, huh? If you don’t mind my asking.”

—

Wynne had little intention to stay in the store for long. Something about it put them off, but then that was the case with most things these days. It was the feeling of living on borrowed time, that tendency to look over their shoulder expecting something there — an elder, a mentor, a creature their mind was too small to picture, their father or mother or worst of all, their brother. This place was obscure, strange, called itself filled to the brim with cursed things. Wynne couldn’t help but think about how they were considered blessed once, and what a curse that had been.

Still, they have something they want. They look over their shoulder in the direction the employee points them in, giving a small nod. “Thanks.” While Wynne does their best to not look out of their depth or jumpy, there is still an unplanned movement of their shoulders as a voice booms. Another figure appears, considerably larger and more impressive in stature. “I said I’d come.” And while they were not always a person of their word (considering the fact they were at present alive, and all), they had been in this case. 

They’re quick to follow, eyes falling on different bits of animal. A sad display, Wynne thought — whenever they had made an offering of living things, they treated them with respect. An altar. Flowers and fruits and something burning. If they had ever handled it like this – killing not for the sake of the entity or community, but for profit – perhaps the Protherians would have ceased to exist much earlier. They swallowed their thoughts. It wasn’t like they understood this economy enough to comment on it in a smart way. “That’s a fair amount.” Their eyes moved from the different colours of fur, trailing up. “Isn’t everyone, always?” It was a trained response. “But yes, I suppose. The seasons are changing, it always requires a certain …” Shoulders lifted. “I don’t know, something extra.” They tried really hard to tell themself that this would be fine: that this could serve its purpose. If there was any at all. To the rabbit feet. To life, even. “Which one is freshest?”

—

It wasn’t quite the question Chuck expected, brows raising in thought. “Freshest? Well…” All he could really say was which had been acquired most recently, but that wouldn’t exactly say much about the foot’s age, itself. The demon narrowed his eyes at the customer, digesting the rest of what they’d said. Changing seasons. It was nothing, probably, but—no. It was nothing. He let an easy smile stretch over his features once more as he reached into the pile and plucked out a black foot, handing it to them. “This one, I’d say.” The rest of the display, composed mostly of bones and tails and pelts, seemed to bother them a bit, but that was hardly new. For every trapper in this town, there was a pacifist. “Lucky as they come. Might help your spring come in a little easier, eh?” 

Something bumped against his leg and Chuck glanced down. Oh. A curious looking badalisc had wandered out of the back room (which was against the rules) to inspect whoever it was that Leviathan was speaking to, toddling over on all fours and angling his massive head up and slightly to the side to get a good look. Chuck tried to swipe the creature back behind his legs with his foot, but the lesser demon was having none of it. 

“Oi!” it wheezed, clambering up Chuck’s legs to settle in his arms. The owner gave a glance around the shop and was relieved to see that in the time they’d been talking, everyone else had left. That was less to explain, or… deal with. 

“This one smells funny,” the badalisc grumbled, leaning out to get a better whiff of the customer. Chuck’s brow furrowed and he hoisted the creature onto one hip, scolding him. 

“Gab, that is not a nice thing to say to someone.”

“The fuck you care about nice?” the badalisc cackled.

—

For a moment, Wynne considered changing their mind, excusing themself and turning around, heading right out of the store. What use was there, in any of this? There was nothing to keep at bay any more. No one to share these holidays with. Maybe it was all the talk of Easter, the longing for something familiar in this unfamiliar place — but it would be a poor version of a ritual, anyway. And still, they remained, took the black rabbit’s food in their hands, and turned it over. “So none of this is cursed?” Eyes glanced over the inventory, before turning to the other. They opened their mouth to confirm that this was supposed to help make the spring a little smoother, though they were interrupted by a strange sight.

“Oh!” The exclamation was close to a yelp, Wynne clutching the rabbit’s foot as they jumped back a few inches as the creature made its way into the shop owner’s arms. Eyebrows shot up, an expression of surprise and something close to terror washing over their features. From all the strange things they had seen since their running away, this seemed to stir something most. As it reached towards them, they moved back further. It’s nothing, they told themselves, it’s different from the pictures they had back home.

Forcing a breath in and out, they tried very hard not to stare and jump to conclusions. But there was a tenseness spreading from the base of their spine, dread pooling in their stomach. As the demonesque thing grumbled, their eyebrows lowered to a frown. Another shaky breath, “Can you ring me up?” They really wanted to get out of here now. Wynne attempted to focus on the fur under their fingers, but their eyes kept being pulled to that thing. “Without that, maybe?”

—

Orville came scrambling over from the register, hoisting the badalisc out of Chuck’s arms. “Sorry sir, I’ll—sorry, sir,” he wheezed, waddling toward the back room door with the creature in his arms. Chuck shot his customer an apologetic look, but seemed altogether unbothered by the display of the unnatural. So it went, in this shop, and most folks were too afraid to tell anyone else about it, lest they be ridiculed.

“My apologies. Gabagool is something of a menace, sometimes, I assure you he meant you no harm.” The reaction was interesting. Different. Chuck had a feeling that anyone else that had been in the store when this customer walked in would have run off screaming. Curious… curious indeed. 

“Tell you what. For your understanding, I’ll let you have that, free of charge.” He smiled. “And I hope I can be of more help to you someday, should your rabbit foot not quite do the trick.” There was something in his tone that suggested an unspoken offer, but the demon wouldn’t elaborate. Not here, not now. All he would do was pull out his business card and pass it to them. It had his name, Chuck Jones, and the names of his two businesses on the front. On the back, a phone number, superimposed over a faint symbol that looked something like a dressed-up pentagram.

“As the need arises.”

—

They missed the apologetic look, eyes glued to the strange creature. Their mind echoed something distant, that this was demonic, that this town kept proving that there might be answers here but that those answers might be threats. Wynne felt a tingling in their legs, as if they were to give in from under them.

There was a dryness gathering in their mouth, no words leaving it as they were offered the rabbit’s foot for free. It didn’t seem particularly lucky now, but Wynne wasn’t fond of being rude. Their fingers wrapped around the business card, eyes taking in the pentagram. They’d never used such gaudy iconography, back home — but even Wynne knew what pentagrams were.

“Thank you.” Their eyes redirected to Chuck Jones. Wynne swallowed, taken aback by his general attitude: the extended business card, the charity, the hint of helpfulness that went unspoken. The discrepancy between it and the creature. They really did feel as if their legs weighed nothing at all, a tightness forming in their chest. They opened their mouth again, “What was that?” They made a quick correction: “He, I mean.” 

Before Chuck Jones could answer, Gabagool piped up again as it scuttled through the store again, “Better question, what are you?” Gaze rested on the red-eyed demon, Wynne finding themself speechless once more. But Gabagool wasn’t looking at them: rather at the store-owner, “Outran their destiny, this one.”

—

Orville, who was standing back in the shadows looking mortified, straightened up as he was addressed directly once more. 

“Orville,” Chuck said slowly, his gaze fixed on the customer. “Go take your lunch break.” Without question, the employee nodded and hurried from the room, going out the back to leave those three to their business. 

Gabagool huffed, pacing in circles around the stranger. “It reeks of ritual, Leviathan. Ritual unfulfilled.” With a satisfied sigh, the child-sized beast sat at Wynne’s feet, staring quizzically up at them. 

Finally, Chuck reacted. Sucking in a short, sudden breath, he smiled. “Gabagool is a badalisc. A lesser demon, if you will. Harmless for the most part, but very nosy. And very good at digging up people’s secrets.” 

“You know I don’t like it when you call me lesser,” the beast complained flippantly, twisting its stout body around to narrow those little eyes at the shop owner. Chuck shrugged. 

“Well you are, sweetheart, sorry to say.” His attention returned to the customer— “Of course I’m curious to know what Gab is talking about, but first… how about a name for my new special interest?” He was waiting, expectantly, for them to offer up their name. 

—

Panic spread through their body as the creature opened its mouth and Chuck opted to respond in a calm yet determined manner. He suddenly seemed much too tall and imposing to be at all helpful. Wynne felt their body take a step back, eyes casting a glance over their shoulder to the door before meeting the other’s fixed gaze.

Leviathan — there was distant recognition, a term from scripture, from lessons they were hardwired not to forget. Their mouth felt dry as the truth came to them: this was a demon, of sorts. Not the one from the pictures, not one as threatening as gythraul. Still, this thing at their feet was cut from the same cloth from the thing that had demanded their life and not received it.

They took another step back, hit a shelf with their shoulder and halted. “Wynne.” Instinct told them to turn away, but then there was the harmless for the most part demon at their feet and a tightness in their muscles. “I’m Wynne.” 

The rabbit's foot was still in their hand. They weren’t sure if the feeling of being backed into a corner was accurate or fair, but it mattered little. What Wynne did know was that the other’s response was eerily calm and curious, and that wasn’t something they knew how to deal with. So they didn’t: instead they asked, “What do you want?” 

—

Leviathan beamed, but there was an unfriendliness in the arch of its brows. “What is it that the angels always say? Ah, yes… be not afraid.” The demon chuckled, then snapped its fingers at Gabagool. “Come on, back off, you’re frightening the poor thing.” The flash of malice that had lived in its expression for a fleeting moment was almost forgotten in the warm, inviting smile that followed it now. “Want? Oh, nothing that would be an imposition to you, my dear.” 

The badalisc wandered back toward Leviathan, giving itself a good scratch behind the ear before piping up. “It wants your story, marked one,” the ungainly lesser demon explained, to which Leviathan simply nodded.

“He’s right. That’s all. It sounds to me, at least from what Gab is saying, that you were supposed to be… a sacrifice?” It was a rhetorical question, of course that’s what they’d been intended to be. “I’ve never much cared for sacrifice. I always found it so… oh, what’s the word…” 

“Gaudy? Tasteless? Lacking imagination?” Gabagool offered. Leviathan nodded and shook a finger at its small companion.

“Those are the ones. Lacking. In. Imagination.” It leaned a bit closer to Wynne, pleased with itself. “I’ve never been so full of myself to demand human sacrifice, I’ll have you know. Happy as a clam just living among the people and striking a deal here and there. Helping people. And I’d like to help you, if I can. So… tell me your story.”

—

They had seen worse things than this, had they not? Wynne wondered sometimes where their resilience had gone, since they had run away. It only took so little to unsettle them, to make their heart climb in their throat. Back on the commune, they had been more tranquil, even in the face of terrifying things. 

But it was hard to fight, the nervousness and fear that came with being in the presence of one confirmed demon and another mysterious yet lanky character. They let Chuck speak, let it lay out its motivations. They let their mind run with the words they receive, falling into assumptions before they could stop themself from doing so. Wynne saw dots to connect in the most innocuous of things, and this was hardly an innocuous situation.

Was there use in denying the rhetorical question? There was a corner, yes, they were backed into its metaphorical borders. But it seemed that what they were backing away from wasn’t deeply malicious. Their eyes shifted, landed on Chuck. “Are you one too?” 

Wynne breathed in, fingers pressing down on the fur of the rabbit’s foot. Its bones gave way. There were the phalanges, which they’d sown in pillowcases back home. So small you hardly felt them. “I ran. The night before I was supposed to die. They had it all ready, the altar, the –” It was hard to find the right words, to find the start, the context. The courage, perhaps. “I’m not supposed to speak of it.” No, the rules had been clear: only certain Protherian ways were to be shared with outsiders. Definitely not the sacrifice bits. 

“Why should I trust you? If you’re like It, then —” Their head shook. Wynne swallowed thickly. “There’s always tricks and deals. How could you help? What would you want? Just a story?” That couldn’t be.

—

The brown eyes that belonged to the human face it wore, the ones that glowed a sweet honeyed shade in the right light, looked ravenous. For what, one couldn’t be certain. 

Leviathan was not like other greater demons. For one thing, it generally had far more contact with humans than any of its brothers and sisters. Many of them liked to impose themselves on the creatures of this dimension as a god to be worshipped, but that had never been an attractive life to the Leviathan. It entangled itself with them across hundreds of cultures and centuries of time, rather than controlling a pocket of people here or there. Even the name it went by, Leviathan, was given by the humans. Its true name, one that would not be spoken aloud, was an identity that it had almost completely forsaken. And the other demons, well, they looked down on Leviathan for it. All of that was to say that the demon had a bit of a chip on its shoulder. 

“Yes,” it answered simply, “I am. Though… I am not like them. I don’t have the same goals.” It listened while they told their story, nodding in understanding. The secrets were nothing new, anyway. “I see,” was all it said, straightening up. “As for the tricks… don’t insult me. There’s nothing tricky about my deals. It’s all written right there for people to read.” It wasn’t Leviathan’s problem if people chose not to pour over the whole contract like they ought to. And even the ones that did still thought they could handle the cost, which was usually not the case. 

The demon smirked. 

“I’m not asking you to trust me, Wynne. And I don’t know how I can help, not yet. I’d need more information. But that’s up to you to give, so…” It shrugged, silencing Gabagool with a motion of its hand as it noticed the lesser demon about to pipe up. “As for what I want? That changes by the day. I’m not asking you to make any deals with me right now, sweetheart. You’re free to sleep on it.” 

—

There was no beating around any bushes. The demon met their question with a simple, forthright honesty Wynne was wholly unfamiliar with. Should these things not be clouded in more mystery? Hidden away, covered in some level of mythology? But then this demon was nothing like the creature they had spoken of. It looked like a man, albeit tall and imposing, and did not speak in tongues or ways only a select few understood. It ran a store with objectively strange objects but it was still just that. A store. 

There was no demand for blood or offerings, no claws reaching from the darkness like the paintings depicted. There was honesty. And yet Wynne was afraid, as if it was the only emotion they were able to tap into. They stared at it, letting out a shaky breath. “How are you not? What are your goals?” The questions came almost automatically. Wynne had always been curious in their nature, but they had not met many people willing to satiate it.

Then their gaze cast down, fingers pushing the phalange bones aside once more. “I didn’t mean to insult, I’m sorry. That’s not fair of me.” Corwyn Prothero’s deal with a demon some three hundred years ago may have had lasting impacts on Wynne and their commune, but that wasn’t to say all demons demanded to be paid in the blood of future generations.

Their eyes remained wide as they processed what was laid in front of them. They couldn’t recognise it yet, unsure if it was a helping hand or one wanting to be shook for something macabre. There were things they wanted, things they thought to request — but their trepidation remained. If there was one thing they had learned over these past months, it was to not to trust people immediately. “Can we talk about it another day? Somewhere else, maybe — I need to think. Process.” It felt strange, to voice their needs: but it felt distantly mature. If it wasn’t for their nervous glances, that was. And part of them yearned for it, to lay everything out that had occurred and have someone look at it without asking too many questions. But whether it was the person to look for, Wynne was wholly unsure of. “I’ll take you up on that offer, to sleep on it.”

—

Leviathan’s goals were not ones to be shared with strangers. Hell, they weren’t even shared with the one person they involved: so for now, a half-truth would do.

“There is someone that I care for whose life is at risk. I am looking to put a stop to that… uncertainty. Beyond that? I’m just here to have a good time.” With a smirk, the man dragged an index finger over his chest in the shape of an ‘x’. “Cross my heart.” 

The apology was like a balm for its riled ego and it visibly relaxed, though it said nothing else on the matter. A nod was all that was offered before the conversation moved elsewhere. “Of course, Wynne. Take as much time as you need, and really think about what it is that you might want from me, hm?” It grinned. “You know where to find me, and of course, you’ve got my number with you now. Just don’t call Sunday evenings, that’s when I hold my bible study.” A beat. “I’m kidding,” it chuckled.

—

The answer lacked detail, but Wynne was hardly one to press in situations like these. It was enough, to not hear him say that its goal wasn’t to be worshipped or feared, anyway. So they nodded their head, just once. “Alright.”

Their mind was already moving, already passed through the door and ruminating on all the things they could ask for and what they might have to offer in return. It took restraint, not to ask the questions that burst under the surface, but Wynne was certain that they’d shown enough desperation. 

A nervous burst of laughter slipped from their lips at the joke, which was a good one. “Okay. Bible study, got it.” There was another nod of their head, which was more a tuck of their chin. “I guess until the next time.” If there was to be one. They held up the rabbit’s foot before tucking it in their jacket. “And thank you.” With that, they turned and headed out of the store.

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 2988

todays only been a long day because it's almost 3am and im still awake.

i have a cut on the knuckle of my thumb and it hurts. i have the intense need to scratch it a lot.

worked this morning and did papier-mâché with the kiddos. one was doing it for school, the other just wanted to do it too. but i realized last night that i didn't have all of the things i needed. that i didn't have any of the things i needed. so i got up early to hit the craft store for things. i ended up going to walmart bc mom asked me to get a couple other things too.

after work was the meeting and i got to give somewhat of a run-down to ben about what i expect to happen. i'm happy i have a staff member.

after that i went inside because it was quiet, and i sat and talked to daniel and joel for a while. i was tired so i went to take a nap, but joel was leaving so i gave him a hug before he headed out. i had to be up at a certain point so i could go with papa to pick up dinner, so i fell asleep probably around quarter past 2 and woke up two hours later.

got up, packed my stuff, headed to panera, waited with papa for the food, and brought it home.

of course, the whole reason for the panera was that it was my family birthday party. because we have those for every person in our family around their birthdays. like this one, they usually occur the weekend after. it was nice.

aunt wendy made the cake - it was chocolate mousse cake again, which is excellent because it was just delicious. the decorations were cute - they were put up nicely but you could tell momma wasn't feeling great. but also she's the shortest one besides grandma, so she had a hard time putting things up anyway. but it was really nice.

aunt wendy got me a two-parter, the first of which hasn't arrived but the other was in a big bag - it's a queen sized red fleece blanket. it's beautiful and i love it.

papa got me a new sewing machine!! i'm so excited about it. i can make things without the machine snapping the thread and/or fucking up the tension! i'm honestly so excited about it.

and the eggies got me something i totally didn't expect: an apple watch, with cellular. the model i wanted, the size i wanted, and the color i wanted for both the external case and the band. and they got the right kind of screen protector, which i wound up fucking up almost immediately bc there was a speck of something and i thought i could get it off - i was wrong. rip. but at least i can get a new one for almost nothing! it's fine how it is right now though. the band is a little itchy, but i'll get used to it. it's so cool.

after the party, i said my thank-yous and took myself to the pumpkin festival. it was almost 8 at that point, so i went downtown and walked around for a while, just absorbing the atmosphere and buying things without going over my limit (i used cash). i was looking for a new tote bag, and i found one by a lady who works with african women who are mothers of children with disabilities, and all the proceeds of the things they make go directly back to them to help them get care and therapy for their children. i got an orange bag with elephants, and i love it a lot. i'm lucky i found it, too, especially because of who it goes to. as someone with several disabilities, it's important to me to be able to help people like me however i can. and even though my disabilities are only mental, being able to help kids with mental and physical disabilities is important to me. being different is okay, good even. but we live in a world that's not made for us. so being able to help people live better means a lot.

i walked around for a while downtown. it was nice. warm enough to walk around comfortably for me, but cool enough that walking around wasn't uncomfortable. i didn't wear my sweatshirt i'd brought.

i got some earrings and some candy and i eventually played a darts game and i got a little pink octopus from it. i smiled and cradled her all the way back to my car.

i went to mcnaldos after, stopping for ice cream and juice, and i went home to work on some homework. i got the last of this week's work done, and finished watching a movie with papa. when i was finally done and ready to go to bed, i got upstairs and the octopus family i have told me to go get my new friend, so i did. i went downstairs and got her and brought her up so she could spend the night with her new friends and family and not all alone.

i totally didn't cry about her being lonely. nope.

also it's now quarter past 3, my thumb still itches, and i need to finish my routine. i'm a disaster.

but at least i can track my sleep better.

also i'm looking for a recommendation of a discord access app for my watch because there's a few but i don't know which to use, or if i should at all. eh.

[itcamefromthetoybox]

Disney’s “The Godfather”

Growing up as a child of the 90’s and early 2000’s, I absolutely adored Boba Fett. And why wouldn’t I? He was the mysterious, badass bounty hunter who turned out in the EU to have a warrior’s code of honor. He looked cool, he kicked ass, and he was generally awesome. Unless you only watched the movies, in which case, he’s that chump who got taken out by a blind dude. Anyways, Disney wants to make new “Star Wars” content, which means that almost every single character’s getting a show or movie. But the thing is, the average, non-super nerd has only seen Boba Fett go out like a loser in the movies and has no reason to think he’s all that. So Disney, seeking to fix that, decided to bring him back in “The Mandalorian” and show people that yes, this guy is in fact the biggest badass in the galaxy. And after reestablishing Fett’s cred, he was then given his own series, where he pretty much goes through the plot of “Dances With Wolves” and comes out as a major crime lord. It was awesome. He rides a kaiju and fights a mech. Anyways, I love him and grabbed the “Star Wars Retro Collection Boba Fett (Morak).” The question is, though, as awesome as Boba Fett is, is this figure a worthy addition to your “Star Wars” collection?

We’ve talked about the Retro Collection before, but let’s rehash for any new readers. The line recreates the figures and aesthetics from the original “Star Wars” toyline In the 1970’s. This means that the figures tend not to be screen accurate a lot of the time and have very simple designs with limited articulation, but this is very intentional, since it’s meant to look like a toy you’d find in those ancient days of old. The figures as a whole tend to come with a few accessories, at most, and articulation in the legs, arms, and neck.

The friendliest little mob boss.

This Boba Fett is no exception to that rule. In terms of articulation and design, he’s not exactly revolutionary. What you see is what you’re going to get, but this does give an excellent trade-off. This Boba Fett is actually pretty screen accurate, with a great amount of detailing. Unlike the first Retro Collection Boba Fett, which was designed to look like the original toy from “Empire Strikes Back” instead of the actual character, this figure is very screen accurate, which is due to how he’s meant to match an on-screen character. He has deep, fresh colors that reflect how the character is restarting his life and sculpted clothing under his armor that doesn’t get in the way of the toy. As a nice call-back to how the first Boba Fett toy was supposed to have a firing missile, this Fett’s jetpack looks like it can fire a missile at first, though it can’t.

Awesome supporting cast sold separately.

Boba Fett comes with two guns he can hold in his hands: his iconic gun and a space pistol. This actually brings me to my two big complaints with this toy. First, he doesn’t have a tight grip on his guns. If you’re not careful, he can and will drop them easily. Considering they’re small and black, you can imagine how easy they are to lose. The other complaint is that they can’t be stored anywhere. Fett has a sculpted hoister on his leg, but it can’t actually store either gun. Basically, you will lose at least one of those guns. There is no denying it. It is the will of The Force. This is actually a step up from the first Retro Collection Boba Fett, though. Only one of that Fett’s hands could hold a gun, and even then, he couldn’t hold it well. So in comparison, this is great.

Looked away for two seconds and already have no idea where these went.

Retro Collection Boba Fett (Morak) is supposedly available at retail for about $10. I say “supposedly” because the Retro Collection tends to be very hard to find in physical stores, at least where I live. I actually got lucky and grabbed the last one Walmart had. The figure is meant for collectors, but kids would like it a lot too. Just make sure they’re above the “eating small items” phase. Would I recommend this toy? Honestly, yes. Aside from my complaints about his weapons, he’s a fun toy who would go great in a “Star Wars” collection. Now remember, the Retro Collection is hard to find, so if you see Fett in stores, don’t hesitates. This is JL, signing off and wishing you Happy Toy Hunting!

[yessadirichards]

Carl Weathers, linebacker-turned-actor who starred in 'Rocky' movies, dies at 76

NEW YORK

Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.

Comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as he was joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development,” Weathers was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

Most recently, Weathers has starred in the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” appearing in all three seasons.

Creed, who appeared in the first four “Rocky” movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984’s “Rocky IV,” going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroided-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. Before he entered the ring, James Brown sang “Living in America” with showgirls and Creed popped up on a balcony in a Star-Spangled Banner shorts and waistcoat combo and an Uncle Sam hat, dancing and taunting Drago.

A bloodied Creed collapses in the ring after taking a vicious beating, twitches and is cradled by Rocky as he dies, inevitably setting up a fight between Drago and Rocky. But while Creed is gone, his character’s son, Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed, would lead his own boxing trilogy starting in 2015.

Weathers went on to 1987’s “Predator,” where he flexed his pecs alongside Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura and a host of others, and 1988’s nouveau blaxploitation flick “Action Jackson,” where he trains his flamethrower on a bad guy and asks, “How do you like your ribs?” before broiling him.

He later added a false wooden hand to play a gold pro for the 1996 comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opposite Adam Sandler and starred in Dick Wolf’s short-lived spin-off series “Chicago Justice” in 2017 and in Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” earning an Emmy Award nomination in 2021.

Weathers grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in “Spartacus” made an early impression. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, stars who broke the mold and the color barrier.

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate, and just kind of hit the benchmarks they hit in terms of success, who created a pathway that I’ve been able to walk and find success as a result. And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well,” he told the Detroit News 2023. “I guess I’m just a lucky guy.”

Growing up in New Orleans, Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path but he would reunite with his first love later in life.

Weathers played college football at San Diego State University — he majored in theater — and went on to play for one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders, in 1970.

“When I found football, it was a completely different outlet,” says Weathers told the Detroit News. “It was more about the physicality, although one does feed the other. You needed some smarts because there were playbooks to study and film to study, to learn about the opposition on any given week.”

After the Raiders, he joined the Canadian Football League, playing for two years while finishing up his studies during the offseason at San Francisco State University. He graduated with a B.A. in drama in 1974.

After appearing in several films and TV shows, including “Good Times,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Starsky & Hutch,” as well as fighting Nazis alongside Harrison Ford in “Force 10 From Navarone,” Weathers landed his knockout role — Creed. He told The Hollywood Reporter that his start in the iconic franchise was not auspicious.

He was asked to read with the writer, Stallone, then unknown. Weathers read the scene but felt it didn’t land and so he blurted out: “I could do a lot better if you got me a real actor to work with,” he recalled. “So I just insulted the star of the movie without really knowing it and not intending to.” He also lied that he had any boxing experience.

Later in life, Weathers developed a passion for directing, helming episodes of “Silk Stalking” and and the Lorenzo Lamas vehicle “Renegade.” He directed a season three episode of “The Mandalorian.”

Weathers introduced himself to another generation when he portrayed himself as an opportunistic and extremely thrifty actor who becomes involved with the dysfunctional clan at the heart of “Arrested Development.”

The Weathers character likes to save money by making broth from discarded food — ’There’s still plenty of meat on that bone” and “Baby, you got a stew going!” — and, for the right price, agrees to become an acting coach for delusional and talent-free thespian Tobias Funke, played by David Cross.

Weathers is survived by two sons.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Now You See Me (2013)

I don’t like dismissing premises outright. You never know. A sufficiently stylish presentation or engaging story might make it work. I'll make an exception for Now You See Me. This heist thriller was doomed from the start. It cheats so frequently and so obviously that even before the twist ending comes around, you’ve already started booing it off the stage. It’s less “sleight of hand” and more “pumping the auditorium full of knock-out gas”.

Magicians J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) are brought together by a mysterious benefactor. One year later, they perform together as “the Four Horsemen” and baffle authorities when they transport an audience member inside a bank in Paris, steal all the money inside the vault and then give it away to their audience. FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent) investigate what HAS to be a trick… right?

Audiences are immediately suspicious any time we see magicians on-screen. These sleight of hand, escape acts, illusions, etc. are not the same as those that amaze us in person. They’re cheap facsimiles created by tricks of the camera. Ostensibly, this movie is about a quartet of magicians who use their skills to become Robin Hoods but every time you see them perform, you don’t buy it. The obviously fake tricks, which include Henley flying in a giant bubble and Merritt hypnotizing audience members to aid the group’s escapes, create a canyon between you and the investigators. You know what they’re doing is impossible. I don’t mean that it looks impossible. It's impossible unless they're all wizards and that’s just the beginning. Early in the film, we see the Horsemen interact with a hologram courtesy of “the Eye”, a Freemason-like group of magicians who steal from the rich and give to the poor. So it’s a science fiction film now? The FBI should be less worried about magic wands and more about alien tech teleporting people across the ocean.

This movie is like a four-year-old playing Snakes and Ladders against a blind man. It cheats at every opportunity. You don't believe for a second that the Four Horsemen - as wealthy and influential as they might be - could install a giant mirror in a secure location to make it seem like they’ve stolen an entire safe. Why? because you realize that if anyone stepped up close to check if it was actually missing, they'd spot the trick immediately. It’s one insult to your intelligence after another… and then we get to the ending

So it turns out Dylan was the one who brought the Horsemen together. Why? So he could get revenge on various people who contributed to his father’s death years ago, or failed to compensate his family after a tragic magic trick went wrong. Let's break down that sequence of events. Dylan spent DECADES plotting this whole thing, getting a job at the FBI, assembling a team, praying to the dark gods that he would get assigned to the Four Horsemen case, then thanked his lucky stars he took all those acting classes so he could act all frustrated when the Horsemen ran circles around him, even going so far as to maintain character even when alone, just in case someone was watching. His scheme involved chasing Jack through the streets of New York at high speed, the other Horsemen stealing a corpse from the morgue so they could fake Jack’s death in a fiery crash - a crash that conveniently does not burn a critical piece of paper that leads the investigation to the next clue. The Count of Monte Cristo must be blushing somewhere. The whole thing almost gets railroaded when Dylan begins falling for Alma - a magic trick in itself because there’s no reason the two of them should like each other, much less form any lasting attachment - so it's a miracle the thing worked out like it did.

Even if you can swallow the rabbit-sized ball of suspension of disbelief Now You See Me wants you to, the characters are thin and their motivations illogical. The plot tries to do way too much but I suspect that’s a deliberate strategy from director Louis Leterrier and writers Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt and Ed Solomon to keep your brain spinning past the ending. It's the only way to prevent you from realizing how little sense this story makes. One more thing. Some versions of the film feature a post-credit scene that hints towards a sequel (released in 2016). Others don’t. If you are determined to catch Now You See Me and want to get the most out of it, you might have to do a bit of digging. (August 27, 2021)

[denimbex1986]

There are a lot of people talking about lessons lately when it comes to movies. Specifically, what we’ve seen from the combined box office strength of both Barbie (a movie that’s now made over a billion dollars) and Oppenheimer. There are the right lessons. Oh, then there are those wrong lessons. And who or what is going to learn a lesson. And if it will be one of those aforementioned right lessons or wrong lessons. Lessons! Wading through all the lessons, the conventional wisdom of “right lessons” seems to be somewhere along the side of more original films by great filmmakers. And, I guess, technically, those labels could be used for both Barbie and Oppenheimer, though, you know, Barbie isn’t exactly a brand new character but, for the sake of all this, sure. The wrong lessons seem to fall into the category of making clones of both movies or more sequels and doubling down on IP. Though, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that if there’s any lesson to be taken from the success of both Barbie and Oppenheimer, it’s that there is no lesson.

Last week I saw Meg 2: The Trench at a theater on the Lower East Side that I had only been to once before in my life. (But one I’ll never forget: Seeing an early screening of A Quiet Place Part II there on March 5, 2020. The next movie I’d see in a theater of any kind would be May 6, 2021.) As I was in the lobby, waiting to see Jason Statham do battle with a massive prehistoric shark (again), a woman came into the theater by herself wearing a bedazzled “Barbenheimer” t-shirt. She stopped near a Barbie poster, took a selfie, then went on her way. For whatever reason, this knocked me out of my “movie bubble” a bit. No matter what profession you’re in, when it comes to something that involves that profession, you’re only going to come to think of it in terms from that profession. That it must be something that can be controlled or harnessed by the forces of the companies that make this product. That customers for this product are telling something to those companies with their wallets. But, what if they’re not? I started thinking about this from outside the movie bubble.

Remember being “Iced”? If you don’t remember (oh, and lucky you, by the way), back in 2010, basically on command, someone would hand an unsuspecting person a Smirnoff Ice. The person now in possession of the Smirnoff Ice had to kneel and drink the whole thing. Pictures and videos of someone being iced would then be posted on social media. This caused a big spike in people buying Smirnoff Ice. This is what’s happening with Barbie and Oppenheimer. It’s become a cool thing to do on social media and it just happens, this time, to involve movies. Sometimes it does! Like when people started dressing up in suits to see Minions: The Rise of Gru. But it’s too unpredictable and almost impossible to replicate. It’s like trying to predict the phenomenon of planking. (Ken would no doubt be good at planking. And Icing, actually.) Or when people were dumping buckets of cold water over their heads for charity. Chasing trends rarely works out.

I’m sure every liquor company had meetings on how they could replicate “being iced.” I can see, say, a suit at Mike’s Hard Lemonade being like, “Hey, what if instead of being Iced, we tell people they should be Miked instead!” And I’m sure this was met with a lot of pleased executives who all went to work on this project that of course never happened. I promise every nonprofit had meetings about how they, too, could create their own version of the ice bucket challenge. “Wouldn’t it be great if our charity went viral?” Yes, that certainly would be great. But it didn’t happen. And the thing is, most people who work at studios know this. They know the combination of these two movies became a social media sensation and there’s no real way to replicate that. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get orders from some executive who doesn’t understand the randomness of the trends that become popular on social media. Someone, right now, is being told, “Make it happen again” fully knowing that it’s impossible. Like videos of the Harlem Shake, people will eventually find something new. There will be no “Strays Turismo” coming later this month.

Have you ever had a tweet (I’m sorry, an X) in mind you just know will take off, but then you post it (“that’s gold!”) and it gets maybe 15 likes and dies a humiliating death, while something fairly benign that you post later actually does go viral? (To this day, one of my most popular tweets was a picture of a Han Solo bookmark I got off eBay, mailed inside a DVD case for Halle Berry’s Catwoman. No clue why.) My point is that what’s happening right now is almost impossible to actually manufacture. And that’s not to even imply either of these movies wouldn’t have done well on their own without the added plus of becoming a social media phenomenon. And both of these movies being actually good and getting great reviews probably did help extend what’s happening. But people who never go to the movies are going to the movies right now because they want to be part of an online event. With this specific phenomenon, there really aren’t any lessons. It’s like trying to explain why planking was such a huge deal that it became an entire cold open for an episode of The Office. If you love that people are going back to theaters in droves to see Barbie and Oppenheimer, just be happy this time it doesn’t involve having to chug a bottle of a citrus-flavored malt beverage.'