#one of them only knows bc she just happened to be there while i was telling the other dkfnlxnd

[luvergirl-866]

something like love

part - 6

pairing - paige bueckers x azzi fudd

word count - 4.7k

c/w - language, tiny bit of angst (this is only the beginning i fear.)

a/n - is it cringe of me to ask for live reactions? bc i want live reactions sb. anyway, sorry ik i said this chap would be long and juicy but i decided to hold off on the juicy part, i needed a lil more plot development! also ty to everyone who sends me asks, even if it’s just things like “when’s the next part😫” i love it sm lol. hope yall like this one!!

The next two days are—at least compared to the first two—almost peaceful. The weather is nice, just warm enough and not too humid, which Azzi’s hair appreciates. She got goddess braids done just before the trip and even in protective styles, her hair gets frizzy at the very notion of moisture.

The peacefulness largely comes from the fact that Paige is avoiding her parents like the plague, instead spending all her time with Azzi and her siblings. The third day they spend almost entirely at the local park, shooting around at the court there under the hot sun. Lauren even reluctantly joins for a few games, and she may be adamant about not wanting to play basketball but the talent for it must be genetic because she’s a natural. And if Paige and Azzi spend the whole ‘competition’ brushing hands and flirting, nobody says anything. (Though Ryan does wrinkle his nose at them a few times.)

The fourth day starts out warm, and so Paige and Azzi sneak the kids out bright and early (Azzi, of course, ends up with the job of waking all three siblings up—not one of them is a morning person whatsoever) and go to an ice cream shop, where they eat their cold, sweet breakfasts on the curb while they chat. Both Ryan and Lauren may have argued that they were too old to be excited about ice cream for breakfast anymore, but they both end up with matching, chocolate-covered grins when they’re done.

The weather turns for the worst before noon, though, and the kids want to go home but Paige insists they go to the arcade instead. When she says she’ll pay for as many games as they want, they’re easily swayed. Of course, Paige and Azzi make a competition out of the day, deciding to keep a tally of all their points so that whoever has the most wins by the end has to buy the whole group prizes.

Azzi gives it a fighting go but Paige plays way more video games than she does so she very nearly beats her—but then, when they’re almost out of game tickets, Azzi pouts at her about the whole situation, and suspiciously, she ends up making an incredible recovery, easily beating Paige at almost every game after that.

Lauren picks a koala plushie, Ryan picks some new shoes, and Azzi gets this shiny plastic tiara.

“You didn’t have to get the cheapest prize,” Paige says as Azzi adjusts the tiara on her head. “I got money.”

“I know,” Azzi replies, smiling at her reflection in the mirror. “But I had to. As the princess.”

Paige gives her that stupid fucking look again—the one Azzi still can’t figure out even though she knows Paige like the back of her hand, which is just driving her crazy—and that look shows up so often Azzi should really just start referring to it as The Look at this point.

But then Paige smiles, previous odd expression gone, and the way she does that,—slips out of it like she doesn’t even realize it was there in the first place—drives Azzi even more crazy than The Look itself.

Now, it is the fifth day. And Azzi reminisces on these past two blissful days to try and distract herself from the fact that Paige and her parents are having a heated argument right in front of her and her scrambled eggs.

“No, Paige,” Amy is saying. “Absolutely not.”

“You can’t do that!” Paige replies, throwing her hands into the air. “I’m an adult, I make my own money, I can do—“

“It’s stupid.”

“It’ll be fun!”

“It won’t, because it’s not happening.” Amy is unpacking a load of groceries, and Dean is lingering in the corner of the kitchen being absolutely useless. That seems to be his brand.

“Yes it will, Mom,” Paige replies, voice lower now but still obviously frustrated. “I wasn’t asking for your permission. I was just seeing if you wanted to come with us. I was tryna be nice!”

“Well it won’t be nice when you crash and we all drown, Paige.”

“Jesus, Mom! I ain’t gonna go around crashing!”

Azzi feels very uncomfortable, wishing she were literally anywhere else, but at the same time this is sort of amusing and she has to hide a smile in a bite of eggs.

This argument is, out of all things, about a boat. Paige wants to rent one and have a lake day, and though she didn’t want to, Azzi convinced her to invite her parents—she figured they’d decline but that they’d be offended if they weren’t at least invited.

She wasn’t really expecting a lecture to come out of it, though. But by the tired look on Paige’s face, she knew exactly what was coming their way.

“You don’t even have a boating license,” Amy continues, placing a new jug of milk and some apples in the fridge. “This is illegal. If you won’t listen to your mother, at least listen to the law.”

That very nearly gets a giggle out of Azzi. She chokes it down.

“This is a private lake, I’on need my license.”

“Well that doesn’t sound shady at all.”

“It’s not, it’s super legit!” Paige makes for her phone in her back pocket. “It has its own website and everything, I looked way into it.”

Amy stares her daughter down for a few seconds, hands on her hips, before she lets out a resigned sigh. “Like you said, Paige, I can’t tell you what to do. You’re an adult, do what you want. But you will not be taking your siblings on that death trap.”

“Wha…” Paige flounders, eyebrows furrowed, and her voice raises again, “that was the whole point of this entire thing!”

“Well, that’s too bad. It’s dangerous.”

“I’ll make them wear life jackets!”

“They’re teenagers,” Dean points out rather unhelpfully, and it’s the first time he’s spoken around her in days but Azzi is already sick of him again. “Neither of them are gonna wear life jackets.”

“I’ll force them, I swear.”

“Paige Madison,” Amy snaps, and Paige may be an independent adult now but she still straightens her back subconsciously at her mother’s warning tone, “no means no. They are my kids.”

“They’re my siblings!” Paige replies—rather boldly, Azzi thinks, because if Azzi were in her place she would’ve given up by now.

But Paige, as most daughters do, knows exactly how far to push her mother to get what she wants—apparent in the way Amy massages her temples with her fingers before saying, “You know what, Paige? Fine.”

Dean is jumping in immediately. “What? No, she can’t take my kids out on a boat.”

“She’s right, Dean,” Amy says, though she looks a little pained to be siding with her daughter for once. “They’re her siblings. She wants to do something fun for them.”

“It’s dangerous!” Dean motions sporadically at where Paige and Azzi are sitting at the island. Azzi’s eggs are gone now and so she has nothing to put her awkward energy into. “Neither of them owns a boat, and they are practically strangers—“

“She is my daughter,” Amy says, and it’s so quiet Azzi almost doesn’t hear it, but she does, and it sends shivers through her. Because there’s something dangerous, something protective in her tone, something only a mother who loves their child could convey. And it sends a flicker of hope through her. “She is my daughter and I trust her with her siblings.”

Dean flounders for something but comes up empty, instead storming off all red-faced like a child. Amy doesn’t look either of them in the eye when she says, “Let me know if you kids need anything today,” before leaving the two best friends alone in the kitchen.

Slowly, Paige turns to look at Azzi, something like disbelief in her expression. “Did that—actually go well?”

“Yeah,” Azzi responds. “I think it did.”

Things may just be looking up.

———————————————

Dean may be an asshole, but it turns out he was right about one thing: Ryan and Lauren will not wear life jackets.

“C’mon, guys, it’s the law,” Paige insists, thrusting a pink life jacket at her sister, who scrunches her nose in disgust.

“No way! That’s so ugly, Paige.”

“The color wont matter when you’re drowning.”

“You sound just like Mom!” Lauren sighs, and Paige’s mouth falls open.

“You did not just say that.”

Lauren gives Paige a smug smile, which amuses Azzi because it’s the same smile Paige gives her whenever she wins an argument. “And I meant it too.”

If Lauren were not much smaller than Paige, she would be tackling her right now, based off the look on her face. But instead she composes herself and turns to Ryan, who is sitting at the front of the speedboat on his phone. He feels his older sister’s gaze and looks up at her, then at the life jacket in her hands. “You’re funny.”

“I’m being so for real.”

“There’s gonna be hot girls in bikinis on the lake,” Ryan replies, as if this is the most obvious thing ever. “No way I’m wearing a life jacket.”

Paige sighs and rubs her temple with her fingers, and Azzi would never say it out loud (for fear of being pushed into the lake) but she does kind of look like her mom in this moment.

When Paige turns on her with a warning look, Azzi startles, wondering if she’s somehow read her mind. But instead, Paige picks up another life jacket and says, “Will you at least wear one?”

Azzi smiles, a little puzzled. “Paige, I don’t need a life jacket. I can swim.” Which is obvious considering she and Paige have spent various lake days at her family’s cabin.

“Yeah, but for my peace of mind, though!” Paige shakes the life jacket in Azzi’s direction.

The truth is, Azzi wouldn’t mind wearing the life jacket. But ever since she put on this bikini—pastel purple in color—Paige has been swallowing thickly and averting her eyes constantly. So Azzi thinks she has other reasons for wanting her to cover up.

And Azzi can’t let her get away with that, can she?

“I don’t need it.” Azzi steps forward and takes the life jacket out of Paige’s grasp, tossing it aside before reaching to trail her hand down Paige’s bicep, squeezing the hard muscle a little bit. “And besides, won’t you save me if I’m drowning?” she asks, smiling coyly.

Paige’s throat bobs, eyes landing respectfully on a spot past Azzi’s shoulder. “Well, that’s not really how that works.”

Azzi blinks, and she knows just how big and brown her eyes are when she looks up at Paige through her lashes. “No? Thought you’ve been in the gym?”

“I have,” Paige says defensively.

“Hm.” Azzi lets her hand trail off Paige’s arm, resting it on Paige’s side before dancing her fingers dangerously over Paige’s exposed abs. “You wanna prove that to me, baby?”

Paige’s eyes widen, and Azzi loves the way she can not only see but feel her stomach tense under her fingers. But the moment is broken by a gagging sound nearby.

Lauren—who has sat beside her brother and pulled out her own phone—is now looking at them with disgust. “You guys are so gross.”

“You shouldn’t be making sexual innuendos in front of Lauren,” Ryan adds on, though his eyes don’t leave his screen.

“Yeah!” Lauren agrees, then furrows her eyebrows and starts tapping at her phone. Azzi guesses she’s probably searching what sexual innuendo means.

“Hey, yo, don’t blame me,” Paige says, putting her hands up and taking two big steps away from Azzi. “She started it.”

“Azzi’s a freak,” Ryan says.

“Whoa, chill!”

“Hey, that’s actually offensive,” Lauren says. She has picked up a habit of defending Azzi with her life these last few days they’ve spent together, and Azzi has decided she would do the same. “That’s like calling her a monster or something.”

Ryan smirks, finally looking up at them. “I didn’t mean that kinda freak.”

“Okayyy!” Paige jumps in before Lauren can do any more Googling. “Let’s get this show on the road. Imma go untie us real quick, then we’ll head out.”

For the first time, nerves bubble in Azzi’s tummy. “Paige, you sure you’ll be able to drive this thing?”

Paige looks almost offended at the question. “Yeah, duh.”

“It’s just, you’ve never driven a speed boat before…”

“Trust me, mama,” Paige says, nodding cockily to herself. “I got driving skills like you’ve never seen.”

Fifteen minutes later, Azzi realizes Paige was telling the truth. She has certainly never seen these driving skills before.

Paige is an—erratic driver, to put it mildly. This lake is private, huge, and though there are plenty of other boaters out Paige drives as if they’re the only ones on the water. At one point, she gets to such a high speed that even Ryan grasps onto Azzi a little bit.

When Paige very nearly runs into a cruising party boat, Azzi finally gets up from her place between the kids and marches over to Paige, who glances up at her with a sheepish smile. “Whoops.”

“Lemme drive,” Azzi demands, beckoning for Paige to get up.

“No!” Paige says stubbornly. “I’m doin’ good!”

“I thought I was going to die!” Lauren pipes up angrily.

Azzi motions to her. “See? You’re scaring your brother and sister.”

“Whoa, who said I was scared?” Ryan says.

Azzi decides against bringing up the fact that he kept clinging to her arm. “This is scary, I wanna drive.”

“But babeee,” Paige groans, bringing the boat to a stop so she can properly argue, “you drive like a grandma.”

“I drive like a sane person, is what I think you mean to say.”

“It’ll be boring.”

“Paige.”

Paige stares her down for a moment before sighing like a stubborn little kid. “Fine. You can drive.”

Azzi nods, pleased, and shoves at Paige’s shoulder when she doesn’t move. “Get up.”

A slow smile creeps over Paige’s face and Azzi doesn’t like the look of that at all. “I gotta show you the ropes.”

“I don’t need you to teach me how to drive this thing,” Azzi says as if it’s obvious, because really, it is. The thought of Paige trying to teach anyone her…unique ways is downright scary. “I got it.”

“Nah, I think you’ll need some help.”

“P, for real, stop being difficult and move.”

“I’m not about to—“

“Can we go?” Lauren says loudly, getting both girls’ attention.

“Yeah, I’m getting hot as hell just sitting here,” Ryan agrees.

“I wanna get to that diving cliff Paige was talking about!”

Before Azzi can turn back to Paige to continue arguing with her, Paige has her hands on her hips and is pulling her firmly into her lap. Azzi squeaks, grabbing onto the wheel for leverage.

“Paige!” she exclaims, turning to glare at the smug-looking girl underneath her.

“You heard them,” Paige says simply, shrugging her shoulders as if her hands are tied. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t—“ Azzi starts to argue once again, but then Lauren is sighing dramatically in that teenage-girl way of her’s and saying, “Seriously, come on!”

So, almost in a daze, Azzi turns back to the front and moves her hand to the shift, getting the boat moving slowly again. She tries desperately to ignore it when Paige leans up close to her ear and murmurs, “Atta girl,” but she can’t help the goosebumps that erupt over her neck and Paige must spot them because she chuckles lightly before leaning back, letting Azzi do her thing.

Trying to shake off the feeling of Paige’s hot breath fanning over her skin, Azzi amps up the speed a little bit, determined to show Paige that she can be fun and safe, as promised.

After a few minutes of skimming over the water, Azzi calls over the wind, “Thought you were gonna ‘show me the ropes’?”

“Looks like you got it,” Paige says, sitting straight so she’s pressed up against Azzi’s back again, and her hands find their place on Azzi’s waist.

“Why’d you make me sit on your lap, then, P?” Azzi asks, and her tone lilts teasingly but she is sort of freaking out on the inside because moments like these—moments where Azzi hardly bothers to hide her feelings for Paige and Paige, instead of shying away, responds—are becoming a little too common for comfort.

Paige rests her chin on Azzi’s shoulder, lips brushing her cheek when she says, “Think you know why, hm?”

Yeah. Definitely far too common for comfort.

Ramping up the speedboat a little bit—enough that Ryan whoops and Lauren leans over the side to touch the water—Azzi shifts her hips. She moves out of discomfort, almost subconsciously trying to get away from this buzzing energy between her and her best friend, but Paige lets out a huff of air at the motion and, curious, Azzi does it again.

A full-on gasp this time.

A flush creeps up over Azzi’s cheeks all the way down her chest, and she’s not sure if it’s from pleasure or shyness, though likely it’s both. But she can’t let Paige have the upper hand, because Azzi can���t even imagine how quickly she’d fold if that happened. So instead, she turns her head to the side and says, “All good, Paige?”

The problem with this is Paige’s face is still turned toward her when she says it. And when Azzi moves to reciprocate the angle, their lips are so close that they brush on the last word. On the utterance of Paige’s name.

Azzi jerks back as soon as it happens, putting a couple inches of distance between their faces, and she’s sure the flush is noticeable by now. She tries for a lighthearted laugh, “Oh, sorry, didn’t realize you were so close—“

She doesn’t see it coming when Paige kisses her.

It pulls a gasp out of her, lips now pressed against Paige parting slightly in surprise, and her eyes don’t even close until she feels Paige’s tongue dip inside her mouth.

It’s a quick swipe, her tongue against the space between Azzi’s teeth and upper lip before she’s pulling away—only enough to make the kiss much more chaste.

Her hands slide from Azzi’s waist to her stomach, and Azzi grips onto the steering wheel for dear life when Paige moans ever so quietly into her mouth, the sound barely heard over the wind whipping around them. And then the wind is whipping Paige’s hair into their faces, a few strands getting in Azzi’s mouth, which she takes as her opportunity to pull away. Paige stares at her—The Look again—for only a split second this time (Azzi much prefers that over the lingering one) before her face is breaking into a smile, not cocky or smug or teasing but just bright, and Azzi can’t help but laugh with her as they pull Paige’s hair out of her mouth.

“Keep your eyes on the lake!” Lauren yells at them, and when they look at her she’s got her nose wrinkled. “What is it with you guys and PDA today?”

“Maybe someone put viagra in their coffees this morning,” Ryan suggests, looking equally as disgusted as his little sister but also twice as amused.

“What’s viagra?” Lauren asks.

“Yo, Ryan!” Paige snaps, her hands moving tantalizingly from Azzi’s tummy to rest low on her hips instead, and Azzi forces herself to look back where she’s driving. “Keep it PG, dawg!”

“I could say the same thing to you,” he replies, and Azzi isn’t looking at him but she can picture the smirk on his face—she knows the look all too well by now.

The three of them bicker for a few more minutes, and Azzi tries really hard to focus on where they’re going rather than the implications of that kiss and all the questions that follow it.

Paige is the bad driver, but when she leans forward and mimics her—“All good, baby?”—Azzi worries she may be the one to crash this boat.

———————————————

“Sunscreen time!”

“No, what?”

“We just put some on!”

“Az, I’m never gonna tan at this point!”

Shaking the sunscreen into her hands, Azzi motions the three siblings towards her. “C’mon, you need it.”

“I don’t burn,” Lauren insists as she steps up in front of Azzi, lifting her arms dutifully anyway.

“You’re already getting a little red,” Azzi points out, applying an extra-thick layer onto Lauren’s rosy nose.

“This is lame,” Lauren groans, though she still lets Azzi work in silence and mumbles a thank you before she turns back to the lake.

Ryan is next, and he doesn’t complain about it but he does stare down at his phone the entire time, his head only falling back down when Azzi tries to push it up. “Ryan,” she sighs.

He tears his eyes away from his phone, only to look around subconsciously. Azzi knows he’s trying to see if the gaggle of teenage girls along the rocky beach have noticed him getting his sunscreen done.

“Hurry up,” Paige complains, nudging her younger brother in the back, and he turns around to shove her.

Azzi fights back a smile. “You can put it on yourself if that’s better.”

“It’s good,” he says nonchalantly, but he hasn’t quite mastered acting like he doesn’t care.

Azzi finishes up quickly, ending the torture with an encouraging smile, watching him run up to join his sister where she stands on the ledge above the lake, sneaking up on her. He pushes her in and Azzi laughs at the way Lauren screeches before her eyes drift to Paige, who is now standing right in front of her, looking awfully petulant.

“You really don’t want me to tan, huh?” she says, wincing as Azzi rubs the cold lotion over Paige’s sun-kissed shoulders.

“Your white ass is gonna burn if we don’t do this every thirty minutes,” Azzi says, reiterating what she said the past five times Paige complained about the sunscreen.

“I got a little melanin in me.”

Azzi looks at the way Paige’s blue eyes are squinting against the summer sun, the way her pale skin is already tinted pink, and raises her brows.

Paige holds her hand up. “Just gimme the sunscreen.”

Chuckling, Azzi squirts some into her hand before giving the bottle to Paige, who turns around and starts doing her front while Azzi does her back. They’ve done this maybe a hundred times, before countless sunny fair days and hot boat rides, but today it just feels a little…off. Everything feels a little off about them recently.

Azzi worries it may be her fault. She has always been good at hiding her feelings for Paige, good at making sure her attraction doesn’t show on her face just like she knows all her other emotions do. But recently, ever since they began this facade—and more so ever since they arrived in Montana—she knows she’s been slipping up. She thought she’d be okay but she wasn’t prepared for the way Paige would look at her like she wasn’t pretending, the way Paige calls her pet names even when they’re alone, the way Paige told her she liked kissing her and wants to do it again.

The way Paige did do it again.

And there lies the burning question: why?

Azzi knows Paige doesn’t have feelings for her. Azzi knows that she’s the only one who lies awake thinking about having Paige in every sense of the word, the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night thinking of Paige with an uncomfortable stickiness between her legs. She is the only one, of course, who is in love.

Then why do Paige’s eyes and hands wander nowadays? Why does she call her baby in quiet moments? Why did she kiss her when she really didn’t have to?

Could she be—attracted to Azzi? Maybe through playing this role, she’s seen Azzi in a new light, and realized her best friend is no longer dorky and fourteen but rather a tall, pretty twenty year old with a great ass. (And yes, Azzi knows she has a great ass.)

She could be attracted to her and not be in love. She could be attracted to her and have no other attachment whatsoever. The two things can be true at once, can’t they?

The thought flatters her but it mostly scares her, because she’s barely surviving this unrequited love as it is. But with her best friend having any level of attraction back? How is she supposed to continue on like that?

“Azzi?” Paige asks, and the tone of her voice implies she’s already said it a few times.

Azzi hums, blinking. “Sorry, yeah?”

“Uh,” Paige says, and it’s then that Azzi realizes her hands have stopped rubbing lotion into Paige’s back and have sort of just come to rest on her waist—like it’s instinctive. Like it’s natural. “You done back there?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Azzi says, but for some unknown reason she can’t find it in herself to let go.

Paige glances over her shoulder. “Azzi?” she repeats.

Azzi can’t really take it any longer.

“Why’d you kiss me?”

Paige’s sides tense up under Azzi’s hands, and then she’s stepping away, out of her grasp, and turning to face her.

The look on her face is guarded, almost closed off completely. This is dangerous territory and Azzi has barely dipped her toes in the water yet.

When Azzi’s hands fall helplessly to her sides, Paige says, “I was pretending.”

As much as Azzi doesn’t buy it, the words—and the flat, cold intonation of them—sting. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“Why’re you being weird about it?” Paige asks, eyes dancing nervously away from Azzi’s face.

“I’m not, Paige. I just—I wanna know. For real.”

“You agreed to do this for me,” Paige reminds her, as if that has anything to do with this. But, of course, it has everything to do with this, and Azzi hates how easy it makes it for the both of them to hide under a facade, a lie.

“I know,” Azzi says carefully, also taking a step back if only to get away from Paige’s chilly stare. “But you didn’t have to kiss me this time. There wasn’t a reason.”

Paige shrugs, and Azzi hates to admit it but she is much better than her younger brother at acting nonchalant. “We’re s’posed to be a couple. I don’t want my siblings getting suspicious. They know I’m a touchy person.”

Getting the sinking feeling that Azzi won’t get anything out of this conversation other than a fight, she nods slowly, looking down at the ground. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Paige, as usual, thaws at the slightest hint of weakness, taking a tiny step forward. “Did it make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Azzi is a little too quick to say. The kiss caught her by surprise, but they’ve only done it two times and Azzi is quickly coming to find that kissing Paige is the most comfortable thing in the world—it’s natural, and right, and like curling up in bed with a book and a warm cup of tea—and Azzi also knows they should never do it again.

Despite the earnest answer, Paige looks at her suspiciously. “You sure, ma? Don’t ever wanna make you uncomfortable.”

Azzi does her best to fix her face, which she worries may be showing a little too much. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure.”

“Aight,” Paige says, but she still doesn’t sound very convinced. Azzi’s just glad she’s letting it go.

“Sorry for bringing it up,” Azzi says. She’s not.

At this, Paige sighs, reaching out to bridge the gap between them, running a gentle hand up and down Azzi’s arm. “Nah, don’t be, I get it. Sorry for getting a lil defensive.”

A little? Despite the fact she doesn’t believe Paige one bit, and that she doesn’t like anything about the interaction they just had, Azzi manages a smile. “You’re good.”

Paige nods, and her smile at least seems to be sincere. But as they jump into the lake, and as Paige talks Azzi’s ear off while Azzi floats around lazily in a donut floatie, things feel even more off than before.

Azzi can’t quite place what it is until late that night, when they’re both going to sleep and Paige is, for the first time in ages, strangely quiet. She glances over to find Paige lying on her stomach, face turned away, breathing too quickly to be asleep.

And that’s when Azzi notices it. The gap between them, the sheer amount of space from Azzi on her side all the way to Paige, who is almost on the edge of the bed.

Paige always sleeps close to Azzi.

And she always sleeps with her head turned towards her.

@azzibuckets @smiths-fan--13 @ch12334 @makethemhoesmad @the-other-half @rosemariiaa

lmk if u wanna be on my tag list btw!!

[angel---eater]

i truly have no tolerance for this fandom shittin on random fans personal trans headcanons. someone saw themselves and their experience in this character, isnt that beautiful? why dont you mind your business and focus on your own fan stuff? wouldnt that make you happier? someones headcanon doesnt negate yours. what the fuck is wrong with yall. its playing make believe x2. its just a headcanon. real life trans folks are in active danger right now and some of yall are wasting all your energy abusing others over which pronoun set figments of someone elses imagination 'should' be using

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

okay disjointed thoughts about the wicked movie 1 day after watching it lets go

-first of all, my movie theater put speakers outside and was just blasting the entire soundtrack on repeat. we could hear it down the street as we were driving up. that's just simply insane

-the opening establishing shots of the land were great but honestly. the very clearly animated dorothy and gang really annoyed me lmfao like I'm sorry it cannot have possibly been too hard to get a few extras to stand in front of a screen for point 5 seconds lol. it was so fast that I Know I'm being dramatic about it but they looked more cartoon than the flying monkey's did

-baby elphie and baby nessa are the cutest things I've ever seen in my life...

-I kinda...like the more human/animal hybrids that the stage show and the original movie had. sorry. like I Get they were only like that bc you can't make a real life goat sing and dance but they're just more interesting to look at than normal-looking animals who happen to talk!

-jeff goldblum's face being hidden every time he had a dance number...I have a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't really dancing lmfao

-whoever decided to bleach ariana's eyebrows deserves jail time

-when jonathan bailey first showed up on screen my mother leaned over to me and whispered 'he's HANDSOME...'

-when cynthia finished the 'wizard and I' I had to actually stop myself from applauding. it felt so weird and rude for there to be dead silence after that performance my GOD.

-also omg the part where she's singing about the wizard de-green-ifying her and the colors in the suncatchers were canceling out the green so she looked normal....inspired!

-madame morrible had these HUGE crystal ball looking rings and I just want them so much lmao

-glinda's friends were really funny the bit were she was like 'I need to lie down' and they immediately picked her up like a plank of wood and carried her off while the one was screaming 'WE NEED A PASTRY!!! IT'S AN EMERGENCY WE NEED A PASTRY!!!' had me cackling

-I wish there was more time between them moving in and 'what is this feeling' starting? like I wanted more time to see them bickering and then also more time seeing them getting along after the ball??

-'dancing through life' was BEAUTIFUL however two complaints 1) why would they cut the line 'what's the most swankified place around?' I Quote That Often and 2) at the end when glinda and elphie dance together like...it's beautiful and everything but from what I remember after their solo moment fieryo joins them?? and they have a cute three way dance moment??? and I'm very pro "they're all in love with each other" so I missed that lol

-also just in general would of liked to see more of fieryo with the girls! like it felt like ball->lion cub->emerald city, in the course of a couple days, and idk I just feel like they could have slowed it down a bit?? especially since they broke it into two movies?? like I don't think that Actually all happened in the span of a week, but they didn't do a good enough job establishing how much time was passing so it Felt like it. which is dumb bc then it just doesn't seem realistic that elphie and glinda are THAT attached to each other by defying gravity like it feels like not enough time has passed for them to really know each other

-boq felt very mild tbh I know ethan can be more unhinged than that

-would've liked to see glinda in magic class!!

-I was a little underwhelmed by elphaba's costumes? like there were clearly patterns on the material but it was all the same shade of black so you couldn't make anything out. it felt a bit flat. and I love the idea behind the freckles I agree with freckles I am pro freckles HOWEVER her's looked very obviously drawn on. like, I have seen way more realistic fake freckles before. so that was a bit annoying

-other than the lunchmeat dress glinda's costumes were good! especially loved the flower shaped one she wore to the ball

-the whole trying to escape in the hot air ballon scene was cool as hell but as the flaming remains of it fell to the ground I couldn't help but be like wow...she really just killed all those guards huh!

-also lmfao the bit in the woods with the lion club and fieryo has like a scratch on his temple. genuinely thought to myself 'is that his lobotomy scar' lmfao

-still trying to get over the part in dancing through life where people were dancing on the spinning gears in the clock tower...bitch

-the flying monkeys were correctly horrifying

-when I saw the broomstick I was like 'won't that be really uncomfortable between your legs' but then she just held it next to her like they do in the stage show and I was like....okay I guess you win that one? lmfao like I don't mind it for when she's hovering but when they had her like supersonic zooming on the broom it was weird that she wasn't actually riding it

-overall I just don't understand how it's an adaptation of act 1 but it's the length of the entire stage show?? lmao like I wish they took advantage of the split and added so much more but really really it was still just such a solid great movie. 5 stars. I can't keep talking about it right now I'm gonna start screaming.

[instantpansies]

top sfth couples/ships bc it's 2:49am and im thinking about them again

oopsie daisies (marianne and jacques, oopsie daisy bulge). idk if anyone else calls them that but they're my oopsie daisies and i love them so much. if oopsie daisies have 100 fans im one of them if oopsie daisies have 1 fan it's me if oopsie daisies have 0 fans im dead. they make me ill. handsome butch mayor and her pretty scientist husband.....they love their town and their kraken and ethically dubious transhumanism!!!!! and i am patting them both on the head and tucking them in. i am making this post so i can ramble about them but it felt weird to just do that so i made it a list. they're childhood friends to lovers, marianne definitely got all embarrassed giving jacques flowers after school, they prob graduated and were friends for a while and then decided "wait duh of course we're gonna get married" so they dated for a while and then marianne ran for mayor so they waited on the wedding until after she won and then they honeymooned the next town over bc they couldn't bear to stay away from le bulge for more than two weeks and they bicker and marianne brags about being the mayor and pretends to know what jacques is talking about when he's explaining his genetics work. and they're always working together bc jacques' tech is their main line of defense and she sits on his lap during briefings and all 12 of the other residents are a little annoyed when they enter a room both bc marianne is kind of bossy and needs total focus when she's addressing a room and bc jacques is just staring at her and zoning out and thinking about cell division the whole time. and jacques probably only sustained mild injuries from that gunshot wound so he's fine. he's fine and he definitely didn't die. because that would be silly and pointless. but marianne THINKS he's dead or dying so she harnesses her grief and rage to literally snap the neck of the king of england and tbh i think that's very sexy of her. what am i talking about again

pergephone (persephone and geoff, wild wet and worrisome). i love their dynamic so much, the pining is both silly and very earnest, and i have a bunch of headcanons about what happens when geoff leaves but feels like there's something missing....i like them very much. especially if persephone has some monstrous stuff going on, like huge sea beast or fanged and clawed siren. that's the shit.

ditch (derek and titch, the unrelenting aubergine). derek i love you so much, never stop being yourself. it's requited unrequited, it's got drama and pacing, it's sweet and hits home. what more could u want (except maybe a half mime half giant octopus)? they're the most popular ship in this fandom for a reason. and i concur. titch struggling with his feelings, derek setting boundaries and giving titch time to work out his shit on his own, margaery doing her best to sort out their drama. wonderful

[nemainofthewater]

Halfway through, and it's a close race with Mei Changsu in first with 19.7%, then Zhou Zishu with 19.2%, and finally Pei Huai in third with 18%.

Tag propaganda under the cut:

Pei Huai

#see i don't think mcs is like going out of his way to eat poison#poison just happens to him more often than anyone around him would like#pei huai on the other hand has means motive and opportunity by @sinni-ok-sessi

#I also immediately went for Pei Huai#he literally does this and doesn’t even have bullshit poison immunity he’s just Like That by @jianghushenighans

#polls#i chose pei hua but let's be real#it's pei hua and tang fan staring each other down and competitively doing poison shots#while a bored dong'er reads one of tang fan's wips with the bottle of antidote in one hand by @foxofninetales

#nearly voted li lianhua until i saw pei huai there#pei huai is an absolute terror in the vicinity of poison#tang fan: what have you got there? pei huai: A POISON! tang fan: NO!!!#pei huai is the spiders georg of the poison world#average person yadda yadda poison huai who lives in a cave adn drinks 10000 a day…#(ps i’m love him ❤️) by @unfortunatelycake

#polls#pei huai#my beloved mad scientist#he does it on purpose for science no duress required#but hed probably do it in exchange for a new world veggie too#he’s just Like That by @auroramagpie

#poll#the sleuth of ming dynasty#please it's (with caveats) so good#pei huai#ok i also adore ying hecong but he won't think twice about asking you to poison yourself whereas lao pei will make you talk him into it by @a-sea-with-no-shores

#i absolutely agree with everyone saying pei huai#didn't he eat a tomato or something bc he was told it was poisonous and was disappointed it wasn’t? or am i remembering that wrong by @marquisguyun

Mei Changsu

#I am forced to disagree with my esteemed colleague#on the basis that 'medicine that will give me a month of full function in return for burning out my remaining lifespan' is.#reasonably classifiable as poison. by @morkaischosen

#nirvana in fire#i mean.... he DID do that#more than once even by @acesgroupchat

#you know who I voted for#(mcs)#but maomao would get the vote has she been included#antri by @xiaojingyan-jingwang

Song Qingshi

#soooooo many strong contenders here#but i have to go with song 'i am disfiguring myself with poison on the regular' qingshi#boy is so full of poisons. he's not normal about it. he thinks he's normal about it but he's not by @noswordinourlake

Wu Xie

#there are so many poison-eaters...#but I'm choosing Wu Xie#because he gets surgery so he can inject snake venom directly into his nasal organs#no one wants him to do this#it makes them sad by @vergoftowels

Ying Hecong

#oh my god this is the hardest poll yet#the number of these who have literally eaten poison on purpose in canon....#I think I'm definitely forgetting details about pei huai based on the tags... anyway makes sense that he's winning#I picked ying hecong because I figured other people wouldn't be choosing him but he's a little freak and deserves some recognition#but truly. it's SO hard to choose here. they're all winning the 'idiot who would eat poison' award to me by @silver-grasp

Li Lianhua

#lmao#i voted li lianhua#it doesn't need an explanation#he literally ate something he was allergic to that he considered poison#because it wouldn't affect him bc of the bicha poison#but tbf most of the characters i know on this poll would#zzs definitely would#mcs would if it furthered a plot of his#i know three others by name only so i can't judge by @fire-burning-brighter

#llh literally ingests poision and knockout drugs constantly#they dont effect him but its amazing how many people you can convince when you can just hit poisions whenever#feel like he ingests at least one (at least semi-) toxic substance every plot arc by @fealiniel

Other

#my mind immediately went to Apothecary Diaries#maomao#jinshi#the apothecary diaries#but applies to MCS too i guess 😂 by @indelibleme

#I feel every single one of these is i_cant_read.png at the sight of a warning label#if they're in the mood#see also:#yu she and zhong wan from 'those years in quest of honor mine'#yu she in particular has never seen a toxic item that he didn't immediately stuff in his mouth while maintaining deliberate eye contact by @woolasaur

#i think it's gotta be wei wuxian#especially emphasizing the part where he does it for Science#and then spits it out by @dripping-moonlight

AITA for preventing my friend from eating POISON?

They claim that it's for science/to mess with people/it just looks so tempting!/don't ever give me an explanation, but I don't think it's wrong to ask them not to literally poison themself? However, they've told me that it's 'enrichment' and I'm a 'spoilsport'. So AITA for stopping them?

Write-ins, propaganda, and images are welcome!

[teddybeartoji]

o wait before i start posting any pics.. i was thinking that maybe.. you guys could help me liquify this gender some more by switching up what you call me.... DON'T GET ME WRONG I LOVE . LOVE LOVE LOVE WHEN YOU USE HE/HIM AND JUST OVERALL LIKE MORE MASC STUFF THAT'S SOOO MMMMMMMMMSO FUCKING GOOD like i don't get to feel that irl at all so it really does make me so happy but i've just been thinking abt TRYING to switch it up more yk? does this even make sense...... . hhhh anyway i might won't even like it and i'll want to just go back to hehim but i wanna try... JUST TO SWITCH IT UP.

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

(from this video)

[not-rigel]

the devil works hard but arcane fanfic writers work harder or however the saying goes

warnings: canon-typical discrimination, rushed bc I wrote this instead getting back the sleep arcane stole from me

WC: 1050

In the aftermath of the battle, as a gratitude for the Undercity's services to Piltover, the council voted to provide more jobs to Zaunites. Labor jobs away from the fissures, clerk jobs at the library, and even art commissions from the museum. The compensation was great too, allowing for so many people to afford food. But it came at a cost Piltover couldnt afford while recovering from war. It was Councilwoman Sevika's proposal for where the wealth would be drawn from. She proposed that the top 5% of Piltover's wealth holders would be taxed and the money be redistributed to all citizens affected by the war. It put a big target on her head but it meant her people could get jobs and eat. 

Councilwoman Sevika first noticed you on your second day, when you were tailing behind Shoola in the corridor, holding a stack of papers to your chest. You were taken on as Councilwoman Shoola's secondary assistant, the one she passed the less favorable errands onto. You gave Shoola the benefit of the doubt when she passed her worst tasks off to you, you're aware you dont have much knowledge on politics. But it always felt targeted. Each day, you run her dumb errands and pretend to be aware of the glares and rude glances. Sometimes you manage sweet ignorance, too occupied with enjoying the fresh air to care about your hurt ego at all. 

The two of you only made eye eye contact for a second but that second shocked Sevika. For the first time since she took her chair at the table, someone looked at her with something other than disdain. She had begun to think disgust was the only expression she would see tossed her way, but in a second you changed that. And gods, was it a needed change of pace. 

Later in the week, Councilwoman Shoola hands you a stack of files,"Take those to the Zaun ambassador," she orders, you catch the way she avoids saying Councilwoman Sevika's name. 

"Are these not for the meeting scheduled soon?" You inquire, needing to confirm your suspicions. 

"They were. Please inform her the meeting will not be happening. Deliver the files," she says with a finality. You exit her office and as you walk the hallways to Councilwoman Sevika's office, you hear the voices of the other councilmembers through the shut door. You're suspicions are confirmed, the meeting was in fact happening, it was just happening without Sevika. 

You walked into her office, looking at her like you did the first time you met eyes. It made her relax, knowing she was going to be treated like a person. 

"Councilwoman Sevika," you greet. 

She nods at you, "Have something for me?" It's your turn to relax, its it's been too long since you've heard someone speak informally. 

"Yes, from Councilwoman Shoola," you inform her. Sevika squints at you, now that you're in the same room she notices more about you. She notices that you don't hold your chin obnoxiously high. She notices your imperfect posture. She notices the tiredness and weight in your shoulders that only someone from the Undercity could carry. 

"Take a seat," she orders. You find a chair in front of her desk and sit, waiting for her to say something else. She looks over you again, confirming what she's already figured out. You tense with nerves. 

"You're not topside. Can't tell you how much of a relief that is," she sighs. The tension in your body is gone when you realize you're not in trouble. 

"Yeah. From the Lanes. Just a bit below the fissures," you tell her. She holds out her hand for the papers and you hand them over. She fingers through them, skimming over the contents before tossing them onto her desk. She wonders for a moment why you, Shoola's secondary assistant from the Undercity, would be delivering files to her. 

"Why'd Councilwoman Shoola send you to me for this? We're supposed to discuss these things over a meeting. Couldn't it wait five minutes?" 

You know the reason, you bite the inside of your cheek to hold back from letting the truth slip. She notices and calls you out on it. 

"Out with it." 

You sigh, deciding on the truth, "It's no secret the other councilors dont like you. They don't like you being on the council. They don't like you being their equal. Half of them really don't like you because you're the reason they're paying steep taxes. So Shoola, and likely some of the other councilmembers soon, hired me to do anything she didn't want herself or her actual assistant doing. Which right now, is keeping you from the meeting." 

Sevika groaned and rolled her eyes, rubbing her hand over her face. It hurt you to see, the non-suprise at the blatant discrimination flashing across her face.  

"Thanks. You don't have to stay here and keep me from their meeting anymore," she sighs, picking up the files and reading through them. 

"I could stay and help. You don't have an assistant yet and I'll have nothing to do until the meeting is over," you offer. In truth you mostly offered to stay so you could continue being treated like a person. 

"How well do you know their laws?" she asks. The answer is very little. 

"Not much," you answer. 

She picks a book up from her desk and tosses it at you. You try to catch it but it passes through your fingers and thuds into your lap. You pick up the book and read the cover, which simply reads "The Ethos". You're shocked and ecstatic, Shoola took no time in making sure you were versed in their laws. But within minutes, Sevika was handing you a book for you to study. 

"You can go. Study that, you seriously need it. And I'll have a word with her about tonight's 'cancelled' meeting personally" she says. Now she has officially ordered you out, you have to leave. 

"Good night, Councilwoman Sevika," you say in farewell. 

Once you're gone, Sevika moves over to her typewriter. She's pressing down hard and angry onto the keys, typing out a letter to Councilwoman Shoola. She types out a list of her grievances. Then she types out a request to have you transferred as her assistant.

deep sigh.... councilwoman sevika<3

[napstabl00k]

Those sonic prime gjinkas from my day out today

[fleshdyk3]

god i fucking hate my dad

[ehlnofay]

It’s not until she hears Sissel’s knees hit the floor that Efri is jolted back into her body.

She blinks, whipping her head around. Sissel is kneeling, bracing a palm on the ancient stone pavement, at the barrier – no, the barrier’s gone, it’s just Sissel on the floor. She lifts her head and meets Efri’s eyes; her hair is wispy and wild, the little plaits meant to keep it neat come loose and tumbling, her eyes wide. The barrier's gone, but still, her pale face is lit up blue.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She doesn’t speak loudly, but it echoes in the great stone chamber.

Nine, Efri doesn’t know.

She blinks again, looks down at her hands, clinging to the metal stick so fiercely that her joints ache. (Her own stick, her nice wooden one, is still on the floor somewhere, where it slipped out of her grasp when she hit the wall.) The lumpy heavy end of it, the clobbering end, is still resting on –

Not on. It’s in the thing’s head, fitted neatly in the opening of its dented helmet, the horns spiralling over the floor. There’s a tooth, perfectly preserved, by Efri’s foot.

One by one, she unwraps her gloved fingers from the handle of the metal stick, letting it drop to the floor with a clang so loud it makes her wince. Kazari is nosing at her side. (When did they let go of it? When did they get so close? She must have missed that. She feels out of the loop. Her heart is juddering like fish on a line, battering like some frightened trapped thing at her ribcage, and her breath is coming fast and heavy.) Absentmindedly bringing up a hand to press over her sore shoulder, she says, “’M fine. Not too – barely touched me.”

Kazari turns and spits on the floor. Efri blinks. She does it again, tongue lolling out of her mouth, face very disgruntled – and oh, Efri gets it. She does not glance down at the thing at her feet; she doesn’t need to, she knows what its arm looks like, chewed almost to pieces even through its banded armour. (If she hadn’t been so busy being scared of it, that sight might have made her a bit scared of Kazari. But not now, when they’re trying to hack and spit the taste of dead man arm out of their mouth.)

Efri unclips her canteen from her belt and holds it out. “Here,” she says. Her voice is rough. Her heart is racing too much to let constructing sentences be easy. “Not much, but –”

Kazari stands still while Efri tips half of the remaining water onto her tongue, and then Efri watches her swilling it around in her mouth, trying to bathe all of her teeth in it, before she spits it again on the floor at the dead thing’s feet.

The water is still clear. That’s something, at least; the dead man was too old to still have blood in him. Or maybe he was embalmed, drained of it hundreds of years ago, thousands.

“Are you okay?” Efri asks Kazari when they’re done, because they were the one doing most of the fighting, who was closest. They tip their head, shift their weight – wince when they put weight on one foot. Their lips peel back from their teeth. Their clothes on that side are singed.

Efri points it out. “Your robe,” she says, which makes it sound much fancier than it is. She’s too tired to think of a better word. She rubs a hand over her face, pushing the hair back over her forehead, says, “I’ll reinforce it for you when we get out.”

Kazari noses at Efri’s shoulder – the shredded fabric of her dress, the fraying edges stained with blood. Efri says, “I know. I’ll have to sew that up too.” Over her shoulder, she calls, “Kazari’s leg’s hurt, I think.”

“There’s blood on you,” Sissel replies. She peels her hand off the floor and leans back on her heels.

Efri touches her shoulder again. “’S fine,” she says. “Just a scrape. The blood’s drying already.”

It’s really sore, actually – the flesh abraded and tender, an ache sinking deep into the muscle – but it’s normal sore, the kind of sore you really should be after being thrown into a wall. It doesn’t feel sprained or dislocated or anything like that.  Just like it will be bruised a whole rainbow of colours come tomorrow.

Kazari noses at it again. She leans too far forward and falters on her maybe-hurt leg – rights herself, wincing, and rolls her shoulder. It gleams, just for a moment, and she nearly stumbles again. Efri puts out a hand to steady her. (It doesn’t really accomplish anything – Efri’s strong, but she’s not that strong – but it’s the principle of it.) “What was that spell?”

“Pain relief,” Sissel says from behind her. “I think. Doesn’t actually fix anything, but.”

“You’ll be okay ‘til we find someone?” Efri asks, and Kazari nods. She presses a hand against their shoulder and nods back.

They both turn to look at Sissel, then, who’s just kneeling on the floor, sitting on her heels.

“You all right?” Efri asks her.

“All right,” Sissel confirms. She doesn’t look at them. “Didn’t even come near me.”

She’s staring.

Efri crosses the floor to stand with her. (She needs to lean on Kazari – her legs are too wobbly, and she doesn’t want to touch the dead thing’s stick, doesn’t want to look for her own. Kazari limps a little on their sore front leg.) There’s a moment of total, humming silence – all of them still and staring, necks craned back, looking up at the thing.

Whatever it is.

It’s a ball. Big and blue and shimmering, it floats above a wide crystalline dish set into the floor, spinning on an axis. Just spinning and spinning and spinning, endless motion. Its smooth surface is cut through with dark wavering lines, etched with lettering, and it doesn’t quite glow but it doesn’t not glow, either, the light moving across it silkily, like clouds in a blue sky. It looks like something that should be humming – a low pitch in their ears, an eerie shiver dancing over their skin – but it’s silent. Inert, maybe, but for the spinning.

“What is it?” Efri asks. Her voice cracks as she speaks. She looks down at Sissel’s face, staring as though mesmerised, illuminated by the room’s dim lighting – the fires that should not still be burning down here, the luminous not-glow of the ball.

Sissel says, “I don’t know. Something important.”

Hovering above the dish, it spins, and spins, and spins.

“Is it what the ghost was talking about?” Efri asks. She tilts her head and squints at it. It doesn’t – well, it looks strange and unearthly and powerful, but it isn’t doing anything. And it hadn’t been clear what the ghost was talking about, exactly, according to Sissel, just that it was something important – but what else could it be?

Sissel, still watching it, shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think so.”

Efri watches it with her, brushing a bit more hair out of her face. It’s sticking to her sweaty forehead. She feels a drip of not-dry blood running down her arm under her sleeve.

Kazari is staring at it too – just as confounded as the rest of them. Efri sees the light in their irises shifting as the ball spins.

They’re not learning anything from staring, the ball staying strange and mysterious as ever, so Efri raps her knuckles against her sternum to steady her breathing (it’s slowed a bit – not normal, but closer to it) and climbs up onto the stone rimming of the dish. Kazari, behind her, lows in consternation; Sissel catches her breath, a noise like a creaking door. “Careful,” she says.

“Promise,” Efri replies, and places her feet very, very carefully on the glassy blue flooring. Nothing happens. She doesn’t step on the dark curved lines as she treads toward the ball in the centre, slow and wary as if she were approaching a skittish animal. Nothing happens.

She reaches out, and, with just the tips of her fingers, she grazes the ball’s surface.

Nothing happens.

It’s cool to the touch, and smooth, like polished metal or not-frozen ice or delicate glasswork. It continues to spin gently under her fingers, warming her glove with friction, no smudges left on its clouded face.

 It really feels like there should at least be a tingle running up her arm, a strange and unfamiliar current, a spark. But it’s just Efri, standing with an arm outstretched, pressing her hand to a ball.

“It’s not doing anything,” she reports, and Sissel clambers up onto the dish with her, fitting her palm to its gently hovering underside. Kazari balks, begins pacing agitatedly. Efri frowns. “Why isn’t it doing anything? Shouldn’t it be doing something?”

“It’s important,” Sissel says definitively. There’s ancient dust on her fingers, but none of it seems to transfer. “It’s something really special, I think.”

Efri shifts restlessly. She shifts her grip and tries to grab onto the dark ridged curves ringing its surface, but they slip easily away from her grasp as though her touch was no barrier at all. “But what does it do?”

Sissel shrugs.

Behind them, Kazari lows.

Efri drops her hand and grabs Sissel’s wrist. “C’mon,” she says, and when Sissel frowns at her, “We’re not going to learn anything about it this way. We have to look for clues!”

Kazari makes a more impatient noise. (Efri thinks she found a clue.)

Sissel gives the ball one last searching look and lets Efri tug her away, off the weird blue dish and down to where Kazari stands on the stone floor, at the head of the table where the dead man sat. Efri sniffs loudly and tries not to think about it too much. The table is smooth polished stone, worn a little away with time; Efri trails a gloved finger over the edge and directs her attention to where Kazari points with their chin.

There’s something carved into the surface, the edges blunted and shapes softened by however many years it must have been since it was put there. Efri squints, trying to make it out. She has to stand right up on her tiptoes to get the right angle to see much of it in full.

“That’s not letters,” she says eventually, frowning. She’s pretty sure she knows her alphabet well enough by now to know that. “Is it magic?”

Sissel shakes her head. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not like magical writing I’ve ever seen.”

Efri looks at Kazari, who also shakes her head. “Maybe it’s a different sort of lettering,” she theorises. It must have been written a long time ago, if it’s from back when the city had people. Onmund’s been reading all about it for ages, and he’s told her a bit – Saarthal was the city of Atmorans, populated by proto-Nordic people. All complicated history stuff. But they weren’t quite the same as Nords today, he said, so it stands to reason they had different writing, too. They’re supposed to be uncovering and cataloguing artifacts (at the thought, Efri glances back at the hovering ball and swallows an inane bubble of laughter) so she suggests, “Maybe you can copy it and we can show it to someone. I’m sure there’ll be someone at the College what knows what it is.”

Sissel, also standing on her toes, nods dutifully. “What will you do?”

The chamber they’re in is cavernous, and about empty but for the ball in the dish, the altar and chair, the body on the ground. “I’ll check him,” she says, and points. “See if he has anything on him that’s special.”

Sissel follows her finger and grimaces.

She digs out her note-paper and her stick of char, and Efri assumes it’s clues time, but when she turns she feels a hand grip her elbow. She looks back over her tattered shoulder at Sissel’s face, her furrowed brow.

“Promise you’re really okay?” she says, voice anxious and solemn.

“Promise,” Efri says, twisting her arm to touch her friend’s hand. Sissel presses her lips together and lets go of her arm.

Kazari trails after Efri to look at the dead man.

First thing is the metal stick. It’s magic someway, Efri knows – he waved it and threw her into a wall, flung spells with it – but she’s not sure how. Doesn’t know enough about enchantments. Didn’t need to, to use it; when Kazari clamped down on his arm she just ripped it from his grasp and –

She doesn’t quite exactly remember, actually, except for the bitter tang of adrenaline in her mouth and nose, the horrible grunting and scuffling sounds, the heft of the stick in her hands. Impact, over and over and over, against something that had a little more give each time.

Efri scrubs a hand over her mouth and grips the handle of the stick. It takes effort to wrest it out of the thing’s face, caught as it is by the edges of the helmet, and when it’s finally yanked free it’s – actually not as bad as she might have expected. There’s no blood, and the corpse was so desiccated it already didn’t even really look like a person anymore, so it registers less as someone with horrible violence done to it and more as a really gross art piece. It’s not nice. She doesn’t like the twisted, gaping mouth, teeth embedded wrong-ways in its tissue and scattered like coins over the floor. And one of the eyes, which had glowed unearthly blue, is now a dull, rotten black, squished like a plum in its socket.

It's worse the more she looks. She sniffs and turns away.

“This is magic, right?” she asks Kazari, testing the weight of it in her hands, the cool surface of the metal, and they nod. “A good artifact?” she adds, and they nod again, emphatically. Efri sets the stick aside and kneels.

It wasn’t wearing any clothes, really – or if it was, they rotted away. She touches the rusted armour gingerly, tries to avoid brushing her gloves against the shrivelled skin at all. Whoever it was had expensive taste, it seems – there’s jewellery in a shockingly well-preserved beard, pendants around the neck, armbands. Efri asks Kazari if each thing is enchanted. No to the armbands, no to the beard-ring, and then, pressed against the wizened chest where the flesh contours to the ribs, she finds some kind of necklace, sharp-edged and thrumming. Kazari nods to that, and, face scrunched up like an old fruit, Efri reaches around the ancient neck to slip it off.

She tucks it into a belt pocket with the tripwire necklace they found at the weird wall.

“Done,” Sissel says. She folds her paper and slips it into her own pouch. Her footfalls on the echo-y stone floor as she approaches the body for the first time are almost silent. “Did you find anything?”

“Necklace,” Efri replies, watching Sissel’s face pinch at the sight of him. “And – stick.” She scoops up the metal stick and holds it out. “He did spells with it.”

Sissel looks at it warily. “Is he a draugr?” she asks, glancing back down at his mashed-up face.

“I mean,” Efri says, “he’s got to be, right?” She’s certainly never seen a draugr before, but what else could it be?

(Calling it a draugr makes her shiver, the set of her shoulders quaking. She’ll stick to dead man.)

Sissel shudders. She reaches out to grip the handle of the stick, and Efri’s not sure if she’s taking it or just trying to keep herself upright. “I can’t believe that happened,” she says. Her voice sounds, suddenly, fragile. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”

“Me neither,” Efri says. She presses the tip of the stick into the ground so Sissel can lean on it, stands a little unsteadily.

Kazari, with a hushed murmur, telegraphs something. Efri recognises the head incline of understanding – she’s familiar with that word, that idea – and, after a moment, the flickering ear of doubt.

“They’ll have to believe us,” she says with conviction, because she means it. “We’ll show them. They’ll see for themselves.”

Kazari presses their nose to her head.

Efri clasps her hands together. “We’ll go tell someone now,” she declares – though it’s easier said than done; they were lost in the ruins ages before they even found the crumbling wall, the halls, this horrible wonderful chamber. But they’ll get un-lost eventually. They’ll get out eventually. Surely. They have practice enough with walking. “But first – help me find my stick.”

[possamble]

Question to a fanfic writer: do you think that, in Marcille’s research ways *And* her love for romance novels… would result in her writing some in-universe fanfics of her own? Like, maybe she hypes herself up on something and get disappointed, or maybe she finds some character decision isn’t as ideal as she thinks it could be? Or it’s as simple as she wants to play around with the characters and see what happens?

I can’t help but imagine a scenario where she’s struggling with some romantic trouble irl and she’s struggling with deciding on what to do, but then the answer slaps itself upside her head when she rediscovers her fanfics and how she LITERALLY made a character or two do the exact romantic decision she needs to do? It would so silly but yet I can’t help but find it so charming. Hell, just the imagery of her writing romance fanfics of her own At All is just… delightful to me hehehe.

you know I've been rotating this in my head since I saw it this morning and. I went through a wild journey of opinions before I realized... Marcille wouldn't think about fanfiction like we think about it. In the modern age, yeah, she'd be a complete tumblrina -- but we're talking about a 17th century-ish fantasy setting.

Writing before the digital age was a physical commitment to investing ink and paper into your thoughts -- and this is even before mass production can make pens and notebooks kind of whatever to buy and use on a regular basis. I'm sure the situation wasn't dire, but I really can't see Marcille, perfect honor student, using her allotted supply of stationery at the academy on super frivolous things.

Fanfiction has been normalized incredibly fast in the past few decades. Think about now normal and popular D&D is nowadays compared to how much people looked down on it 20-30 years ago. Fanfiction was a freakass nerd thing to do until relatively recent history, something that was even considered offensive to the original creators.

Remember, we've already seen Marcille react to adaptations with disgust. She's kind of a hater and an elitist fan. She also considers herself a Reputable Academic. In a setting where a digitized culture hasn't reframed fanfiction as an act of appreciation and creativity, she would absoluuuuuuuutely think that fanfiction was complete loser shit.

If she did write anything about her favourite books... She'd. She'd be one of those assholes who writes huge scathing reviews of Dal Clan translations into Common. She'd be the fantasy equivalent of those Weebs/Japanese elitists on twitter tearing through every single localization choice in anime and JRPGs and being so so annoying about it.

If we're being charitable, we could say she'd be able to appreciate non-faithful translation choices that still do a good job of carrying over the original spirit of what was said. But I think we also have to acknowledge the possibility that, at her worst, she'd really really be like those guys who were malding about the Unicorn Overlord localizations so hard the (correction: Final Fantasy Tactics Creator, not the Unicorn Overlord devs) had to step forward and ratio them. (The silver lining is that she'd never get published in the arts review newspapers/journals that she submits her essays to. those poor editors just have to deal with her being persistent.)

[froggods]

still thinking about how pike is a way better love interest than angel (and spike) and should have followed buffy to sunnydale.... mentally rewriting buffy season 1

[onrainynights]

I'm about to be so annoying btw

[hella1975]

some people really still treat drugs like it's a fun little thing and im trying SO hard not to get mad about it