#there’s also one lauren because why not

[luvergirl-866]

something like love

pairing - paige bueckers x azzi fudd

word count - 4.1k

c/a - language

a/n - hi!! i am so so excited to be posting my first ever pazzi fic (and also my first post on tumblr!) she’s a cute little fake-dating rom-com for yall, and i hope you enjoy reading it as much i enjoyed writing it! updates will probably be inconsistent but im gonna do my best lol. lmk what yall think!! (edit: side note, this is obviously all fiction! i’m sure paige’s mom and step-dad are perfectly good people irl, lol)

“Will you go out with me?”

When Paige asks this question during their weekly lunch date, Azzi is so taken aback that she almost chokes on her Chipotle.

“Shit, you good?” Paige asks, concerned, handing Azzi a napkin to cough into.

Azzi waves her off, swallows, and croaks, “What?”

“Hm?” Paige is staring at her nonchalantly, like she didn’t just ask what Azzi heard her ask. “Oh, that. Yeah, will you?”

“I don’t—“ Azzi shakes her head. Is she being messed with? It feels a lot like she’s being messed with. “Paige, you’re my best friend.”

“Exactly.”

“I didn’t know you…had, like, feelings for me.”

“Huh? No!” Wide-eyed, Paige shakes her head violently. “No, ‘course I don’t.”

Azzi’s stomach clenches—not in the good way it sometimes does around Paige—and she thinks Paige could’ve bothered to sound less disgusted by the notion of her having feelings for Azzi. “Funny, P.”

“I’m for real.”

Azzi frowns. “Actually?” Paige nods and Azzi wrinkles her brow, confused. “So you wanna go out with me but you don’t feel…like that about me.”

“Were you even listening earlier?” Paige playfully rolls her eyes, sitting all casually in her seat with her legs spread like she has the biggest dick on campus. Azzi usually loves it when she sits like that, but now she’s too annoyed and confused to appreciate it. “I was talking about my mom.”

“Oh.” To be fair, Azzi stopped listening a while ago, when Paige was still talking about the hot electrician that fixed her leaky sink the other day. She wasn’t aware the conversation had taken a more serious tone. “Sorry, I spaced. What were you saying?”

“I was saying she and her fuckass husband invited me home for a few weeks this summer…” Paige waits, but it doesn’t ring any bells, so she sighs and continues. “They told me to bring Josh.”

Azzi scrunches her nose. “Eww, why?”

“Because…I haven’t really, like, you know…” Paige tips her head to the side, “told them we ended things.”

“Paige,” Azzi sighs.

“I know! I know. Just, I dunno.” Paige sighs, and Azzi knows she’s trying to act chill about it even though she likely laid awake last night thinking about it. “It’s hard, y’know? They’re not like my dad’s side, they’re not like your parents. You know what they did after I told them…” Paige glances surreptitiously around the restaurant, even though they’re far away from campus and not very likely to be recognized, “everything. And if I told them about Josh and they suspected something, I don’t think they’d let me see Ryan and Lauren again.” Her eyes are wide, now, and she’s doing that thing she does when she gets mad, pinching her bottom lip between her fingers.

Paige and Josh were never actually a thing, by the way. Paige doesn’t swing that way and she’s known it for a long time. But she came out to her mom over the new year, and that phone call had ended in a seething Paige at Azzi’s door, yelling and cursing while Azzi listened, and a broken one in her bed that night, crying herself to sleep while Azzi stroked her hair.

So a couple months later Paige recruited their closeted gay friend, Josh. And they became each other’s beards, pleasing her mom enough that she could stay in contact with her younger siblings. That is, until Josh found a nice boyfriend and Paige was left hanging.

Azzi tries to come up with something to say, something comforting, but she’s not sure there is anything to say.

“And I hate them for that,” Paige goes on. “But as long as Ryan and Lauren are still kids, my parents can still keep them from me. And it sucks they’re holding that over my head but there’s not a lot I can do about it.”

Azzi offers a sad little smile, letting her silence urge Paige to go on, even though she can tell it’s hard for her.

“So, anyway,” Paige sighs, sitting back in her seat, “when Josh ended it, I didn’t wanna tell them, because I knew the calls would stop coming, the support. And so whenever they asked about him, I’d be all, oh, yeah, he’s doing great, just busy. Just bullshitting my way through it.”

“And you’ve been doing this for the past two months?”

“Umm…” Paige looks down at her fingers, counting on them, then furrows her eyebrows. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Okay…” Azzi leans forward on her elbows. “So how does your weird question come into all this?”

“Don’t say no right away,” Paige says, giving her this knowing look she hates.

Azzi narrows her eyes at her. “We’ll see.”

Paige reaches over to whack her and misses. “Lemme explain, damn. So, when they called me last night and invited me to come home with Josh, I was like, oh, shit. And I thought of ways I could handle it.”

“Uh-huh…” Azzi watches with wary eyes as Paige bends to rummage through her book bag. “Paige, tell me you’re not—”

“Let me introduce you to…” Paige keys up her laptop and then turns the screen toward Azzi with a wide smile, “Boom!”

“Oh my fucking god.” Azzi buries her head in her hands.

“No, bro, listen! It’s lowkey impressive!” Paige taps the screen. “It’s titled Game Plan for my Summer Visit to my Fuckass Parents, featuring Azzi Fudd. By Paige Bueckers.”

“Good Lord,” Azzi says, taking a peek at the PowerPoint in front of her. When has Paige ever gone to such lengths as to create a PowerPoint before? This must really be serious to her.

“So, listen carefully.” Paige taps the screen again; it changes from the title slide to one labeled ‘First (and worst) Option’. “I put the worst part because it’s true, but it’s also a lil rhyming moment.”

“Right, okay. Just keep going, please.”

“So, this is the first option that came to mind,” Paige starts, glancing down at the screen. “This is the option where I ghost my parents and refuse to come see them at all.” She taps the screen to a pros and cons slide. “As you can see, I mostly only came up with cons.”

“Yeah, because it’s a terrible idea.”

“I know. So then we have option two.” The next slide is labeled ‘Option Two (mid)’. “I put the mid part because—“

“I get it.”

Paige shoots her a look. Azzi playfully kicks her under the table. “Go on.”

“Okay.” Paige nudges Azzi’s foot with her own, but her attention is back to the laptop. “This is the scenario where I let my parents think that Josh and I are still together by telling them that I can come to Montana, but that Josh can’t. It’d be pretty easy, and as you can see here…” she clicks the screen, “there’s an even ratio of pros to cons.”

Azzi nods sagely. Sometimes, her best friend takes a while to get to the point, and Azzi learned a long time ago that waiting it out is the best way to go.

“But there is this one big con: I can’t keep lying to my parents forever. So this option is pretty much a way to procrastinate on telling them the truth. Which takes us to the last option.”

This slide is titled ‘Third Option (THE BEST)’ along with a few muscle emojis tacked to the end. A headache forms at the base of Azzi’s skull.

“This is where my awesome idea comes in.” Paige gives her a very self-satisfied smile. “Instead of Josh, I take you with me to Montana and we pretend you’re my girlfriend for two weeks. Literally a genius idea.” She leans back in her seat, nodding assuredly to herself, and Azzi can’t help but smile because she really loves this girl. Despite how bat-shit crazy she is.

“P, I don’t—“

“Hear me out.” Paige clicks to the final slide. This pros and cons list is mostly pros, and Azzi spots many love-emojis sprinkled throughout. “We pretend we’ve been dating since beginning of March. They know you’re my best friend; we’ll pretend that after Josh broke up with me, you and I bonded and fell in love or some shit. My parents won’t be happy, but I’ll already be there with you so they won’t kick me out or nothing.” Paige frowns. “Probably.”

Ok, so, Azzi absolutely hates to admit it, but this does actually make some sense. Not that she’ll ever say such a thing out loud.

“And then they’ll realize we’re totally in love and I’m happy and even if they hate gay shit they just want me to be happy, because I’m their kid.” Paige says this last part less like a fact and more like something she’s trying to convince herself of. Azzi can’t help but feel bad for her.

“Okay,” Azzi says slowly, watching Paige tuck away her laptop. “That’s your plan.”

“Yep.”

“I’m seeing a few plot holes.”

Paige waves her off. “It’ll work. No plan of mine is gonna fail, trust.”

“And why should I help you?”

Paige gives her an easy smile, and Azzi sort of hates how confident she is. “Because I’m your best friend in the whole world and you love me.”

Azzi raises an eyebrow.

“C’mon, Az. What is there to lose?”

Azzi sighs and almost says something stupid like I’m in, but this isn’t just one of those things that she can help Paige with without thinking twice. It’ll be two weeks of torture, pretending to date the girl she’s secretly in love with while being surrounded by her homophobic family, and then having to come home at the end of the two weeks and pretend she never got to experience a glimpse of what it’s like to be with Paige in the way she’s always wanted.

It sounds like hell.

Azzi sighs again, ready to say no, but when she looks up Paige is staring at her with something more vulnerable than before, open in the way she bites her lip, her arm reaching across the table like she’s wearing her heart on her sleeve and waiting for Azzi to take it.

Azzi takes her hand, instinctually, and says, “Okay.”

She is so fucking gone for this girl.

————————————-

They don’t talk about it for two days after that. It’s not that they don’t get the chance, or that they don’t see each other—they go to the gym together both days—it’s just that neither of them seems to have the guts to bring it up. And why should they? It wasn’t too scary while they were having the original conversation—nothing too big or threatening or, god forbid, real—but as soon as Azzi stepped into her dorm after that lunch, she realized just how much she fucked up by saying yes to Paige’s crazy idea.

It would be an understatement to say that talking about it is the last thing Azzi wants to do at this point.

Paige, however, seems to have other plans, as she usually does. When she storms into the living room—where almost every single member of the UConn women’s basketball team is doing homework—she makes a beeline for the seat beside Azzi on the couch and whispers, “Hey.”

Nika leans up from the floor to poke Paige with her pencil. “No chit-chat, we’re working.”

Paige glares. “What, I can’t talk to my best friend?”

“Shh,” hisses Aaliyah, barely pulling her eyes from her laptop.

Paige flips her off even though Aaliyah is too immersed to notice, and then she turns her attention back to Azzi, bumping their knees together. “Can we talk later?”

Azzi pretends to be focused on studying. “Mm. About?”

“About…” Paige glances around furtively, “y’know.”

Yes, Azzi does in fact know, but she really wishes she didn’t. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Paige says sarcastically. “Specifics? Rules? Details? I prepared a whole new PowerPoint.”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing the past couple of days.”

“Yeah, turns out I love PowerPoint.”

Azzi finally cautions a glance up, and Paige is looking at her, completely serious. The eye contact seriously messes with her ability to make sound decisions.

“Okay,” Azzi relents. “As long as you’re quiet for the next forty minutes, we can talk.”

Paige, dutifully, doesn’t say a word for the rest of Azzi’s worktime, letting everyone study in peace. And that’s how Azzi ends up in Paige’s bedroom an hour later, perched on the edge of her bed while Paige struggles with her laptop.

“Okay, fuck this,” Paige says after extensive fiddling. “My stupid fucking PowerPoint isn’t loading. What the hell.”

Every bone in Jennie’s body wants to take this as a sign from God, the fact that this PowerPoint isn’t working, that they’re not supposed to do this. She wants to walk out of the room—and this agreement—for good. But Paige is her best friend and Azzi had always been too loyal for her own good, so she sighs and says, “How about we just talk about it? Y’know, like normal people.”

Paige frowns but closes her laptop regardless. “Okay. So.”

“So…”

“First off,” Paige says when Azzi doesn’t continue, “I just felt like I should probably say sorry for dragging you into this.” Paige scratches the back of her neck, always a little awkward when it comes to apologies. “I know it’s a lot to ask for.”

Azzi blinks, startled. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, well…” should she back out? If she were going to, now’s her chance.

Azzi looks down at a scab on her knee. “I mean, that’s okay.”

Paige shifts in her seat, the stool creaking underneath her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve had to help with one of your ridiculous plans.” Azzi goes for lighthearted but knows it falls flat under the weight of what she’s going to have to do.

“Okay.” When Azzi looks up, Paige is staring at her suspiciously. She wonders just how bad of an actress she must be for Paige, the same Paige who hasn’t yet detected Azzi’s somewhat obvious, six-years-long crush on her, to see right through her. But then she just shrugs and continues, aloof like she always is. “So then I wanted to ask you about what you think we should do about…all this.”

“…Okay?”

“I was thinking we should get into the, like. The specifics.”

Azzi rolls her eyes. “Paige, just tell me.”

Paige gnaws at her lip until it turns white and Azzi starts to worry it might bleed, but then she says, “We need a sex timeline.”

If Azzi were drinking water, she would have surely spit it out.

“A what?” she asks, sort of incredulous. Paige has said a lot of crazy things before but nothing quite like that.

“Okay, my bad, weird way to put it.” Paige grins as if all of this is funny to her. “What I mean is we need a story to tell my family, our friends. Like, why did we start dating? When was our first kiss? What’s our song? Have we, you know…gone to the penthouse and freaked it?”

Azzi throws herself back onto the bed. Paige’s bed. Which she is just now realizing is probably going to be the bed that many of these fictional events are going to take place in. “Paige.”

Paige is giggling now, which is endearing because Paige doesn’t giggle often. If only it weren’t at Azzi’s expense. “We need to figure it out, for real! People are going to ask questions.”

“People are not going to ask those kinds of questions.”

“Um, excuse me.” Paige stands and walks over until she’s at the bed, pulling Azzi’s legs off the edge playfully. “Have you met our friends? KK’s not shy with that shit.”

Azzi’s ankles instinctively go around the back of Paige’s thighs, but she’s in a certain mindset due to their current conversation and the casual gesture suddenly seems much less innocent than usual. She unwraps them, pulling her legs from Paige’s grasp as discreetly as possible. “So we’re planning on telling them we’re dating, too?”

Paige shrugs. “Yeah. You weren’t?”

“I don’t…” Azzi straightens up as Paige sits beside her, their hips touching. “We spend every day with them, P. Don’t you think it’ll be hard to keep up the act that much?”

“Yeah, probably. But that’s also why I wanna do it.” As usual, Paige sounds completely sure of herself. “We only have a couple weeks until Montana and I wanna make sure we get enough practice acting like a couple.”

Azzi still feels uneasy about the whole thing, but Paige is right—they can’t get onto a plane as best friends and get off it a convincing pair of girlfriends.

Azzi’s face heats at the term. Girlfriends. But that’s what they’ll be, isn’t it?

“I was thinking we’ll tell them next week,” Paige says. “We’ll ask them to hang out and then drop it on them that we’ve been dating since March.” Paige must recognize the look on Azzi’s face, because she puts a hand on her knee—which does absolutely nothing to help. “Is that cool with you?”

Azzi can’t say all of the things she’s thinking right now, so instead she settles for, “Yeah, no.” She pauses, her feet on Paige’s fuzzy carpet, and decides this will be the last time she lets herself doubt this.

“I think that’s perfect.”

————————————

One week later, three Saturdays from the end the school year, Azzi sits with a bowl of popcorn in her lap feeling like she might hurl.

“Why are you acting so weird, Fudd?” KK asks, and Azzi startles at her name, looking at the freshman who’s sitting on the floor in front of her and giving her a weird look.

“Leave her alone, Camera,” Paige says, settling into the couch next to Azzi. “What movie we watching?”

They are all crammed into a dorm, as they often are, excited for a chill team movie night in the midst of finals season. Little do the girls know, they will be getting entertainment from more than just the movie tonight.

“No, KK’s right,” Ice says, scrolling through Netflix on the TV. “Azzi’s been acting super weird.”

Azzi, somewhat offended (she thought her acting skills were pretty decent) looks around the room for help. Instead, the girls all just nod their agreement.

Paige nudges her and raises her eyebrows, and Azzi knows exactly what that look means.

“You don’t have to tell us what’s up if you don’t want,” Inês says from her place on the other side of Azzi, dipping her hand into their shared popcorn. It almost makes Azzi want to back out.

Almost.

Putting on her bravest face, Azzi nods and turns to face their friends. “Paige and I have something we’d like to tell you.”

There’s something odd about the silence that follows this, the way the girls on the floor look at each other before turning their bodies to face the couch, the stragglers sitting in the loveseat and at the dining table leaning forward almost imperceptibly.

Azzi tenses up as she is suddenly under the scrutiny of eleven other girls. How is she going to lie to them? How is this ever going to work?

Paige, through some form of best-friend-telepathy, senses Azzi’s struggle and places a comforting hand on her back. “I can say it.”

This isn’t what they practiced, but Azzi is too grateful and too distracted by the hand on her back to worry about going off-script.

“We’ve been wanting to tell y’all for a while,” Paige says. “But we also wanted to just keep it to ourselves for a little bit.”

It sounds so natural, and effortless, and Azzi can feel herself slipping into this role for the first time. She pretends the hand on her back is more than friendly, the nerves in her stomach are something other than guilt, the things Paige is about to say are true.

If one good thing is going to come out of any of this, it’ll be this feeling of contentment that Azzi will get to have, at least for a little while. And maybe she’s okay with that.

“Do you guys remember that party we went to a couple months ago?” Paige asks. Her nails scratch over Azzi’s shirt, making her shiver.

“Yeah…” Nika says at the table in the corner. Aubrey rests her chin in her palms, looking suspiciously like she’s trying not to smile. For some reason, Ice and KK are clutching each other’s hands.

“Well, when Azzi and I got home we just decided to stay together in her dorm…” Paige trails off like she’s hesitant to continue, and half the girls lean closer to them while the other half look a little too relaxed. Ice is now glaring at KK, who’s…beaming?

“Something happened between us that night.” Paige looks at Azzi now, and even though this is what they were supposed to do the look in her eyes still takes Azzi’s breath for just a moment. She has dreamed of Paige looking at her like this for years, and now it is finally happening, and Azzi thinks she would do anything to make this all real.

Paige opens her mouth to continue, but before she can, KK jumps to her feet and squeals, and Ice throws the remote on the ground with an angry, “Fuck!”

Azzi and Paige both startle, and Azzi loves the way Paige’s hand fists up her shirt in surprise, but then the notices that all the other girls don’t seem surprised or confused at all—rather, they all seem to be having similar reactions to KK. Nika and Aubrey are even singing something, and Inês has jumped up from her spot beside Azzi to join the others in what looks a lot like a celebration. Why are they all chest-bumping each other?

Finally, Azzi finds it in herself to speak. “Guys, what…?”

KK kneels to wrap her arms around a sulking Ice and looks at them both, eyes glimmering. “Whatchu mean, what?”

“I don’t…” Paige releases Azzi’s shirt, her hand falling to the seat behind her. “We haven’t even finished telling you yet.”

“Are y’all actually this dumb?” KK asks, before squealing in Ice’s ear and then throwing herself onto the couple on the couch. “Ugh! I’m so happy for you two lovebirds.”

“Lovebirds…?” Azzi asks, but the room is too raucous for her to be heard and when she looks at Paige, all she gets is an equally confused head shake in return.

“My babies are growing up,” Aubrey says, wiping an invisible tear, and Aaliyah comfortingly pats her shoulder.

“Baby,” Amari says, smiling at the both of them, “we have known.”

“Uh,” Paige says, thrown off for once in her life. “How?”

“Because y’all are the most obvious fucking couple in the country,” Ice chips in. She is still pouting, even with Ayanna patting her on the head and Jana rubbing her shoulders.

During the past week, Paige and Azzi have been dropping a few hints here and there in the hopes that they could almost ease their friends into it before telling them, to make things more believable. But obvious? Obvious enough for all of them to know? That’s a stretch.

Apparently thinking the same thing, Paige laughs awkwardly, trying to regain some semblance of control over the situation. “We thought we were pretty good at hiding it.”

“Yeah, right.” Caroline flicks Azzi’s forehead good-naturedly. “KK and Ice have had a bet running for, like, six months now.”

At this, Azzi tenses up, and Paige turns to her, gives her a cautious, confused smile. “That long?”

“I started the bet, of course,” KK pipes in. “You two are so in love.” She sighs dreamily and then nudges Ice with her foot. “You owe me my five-hundy, girlypop.”

“You didn’t even actually win, this doesn’t count,” Ice grumbles. “We made the bet six months ago and they only started dating in March. And also, I thought they’d be way too pussy to tell us yet.”

Paige perks up at this, her unusual awkwardness gone as fast as it came. “Hey! I ain’t pussy about nothing!” and KK chimes in with her own protests of, “Girl, boo! It does too still count, you’re just a sore-ass loser!”

Azzi can’t bring herself to say anything, because their teammates believed Azzi and Paige gave been dating longer ago than this arrangement was even brought up. And that means they must have seen Azzi’s feelings for Paige, and whatever the other side of that is, and they don’t really act like a couple, do they?

“Anyway,” Ice continues, a little less pouty now, “I totally thought I’d have to walk in on you two fucking or something before you ever really came clean.”

Azzi squeezes her eyes shut. Paige’s fingernails dig into her back a little bit.

“I actually can’t believe none of us have walked in on them fucking yet,” Nika muses, and the room quiets down a little, everyone mumbling their assent.

“Maybe they’re celibate,” KK reasons, then fixes them with a look. “Are y’all celibate?”

Paige laughs, and then bends close to Azzi’s ear and mutters, “Told you so.”

For the rest of the night, Azzi’s neck is hot.

This might be more complicated than she thought.

[whereissmajor]

smajor on a beach! <3

huh…. beach is pretty empty today (wink wink nudge nudge)

[thelaurenshippen]

911 really is such a good reminder of the particularly kind of joy that is weekly, seasons-long shows with many episodes per season. every character gets a moment to shine even in a truncated season. the satisfaction of seeing characters grapple with stuff that happened YEARS ago. having multi-episode arcs and one-off arcs that are equally enjoyable. beach episodes (metaphorical). I know we're all saying this all the time but why can't more tv be like this

[rain-on-wax-feathers]

some nonhuman au designs of the gay trio,,,,,

[allygatoor]

i think it's time that we as a society realized that actually eternals wasn't bad it was just not standard marvel fare and that's okay

[creaturefeaster]

Is Elliot trans?? I saw on a post that it said "pre transition elliot" and that got me curious to whether it was about gender or some magical thing I missed knowing

Technically both heehee.

Yeah he's a trans dude. Him being trans doesn't have anything to do with magic, but the way he physically chose to transition was via magic :3

[faaun]

ok let's catch up quickly

[pythiaswine]

CAN I JUST TALK ABOUT HOW BAD I WANTED LMM TO LEGITIMIZE LAMS but i kept being let down over and over again like ughhhh. first he gives the Angelica relationship a whole song and subplot and yes it was great, the whole musical's a lyrical, compositional, choreographed masterpiece BUT WE AREN'T HERE TO DISCUSS THAT. we are here to talk about how his source material was biased because Chernow gave breath to the Angelica thing, as improbable as it was (especially compared to the probability of the Laurens/Hamilton relationship? homophobia.) but then picture it, I'm a young, naïve teenager, I'm very fixated on lams and history, I loved the Hamilton musical, was a Hamilton teen and that part of me is irreparably burned into my brain. then LMM drops this sneaky little tidbit like the beacon of wisdom his fans see him as bc he wrote a historical self-insert fanfic for broadway, he says the Laurens/Hamilton relationship was real. great! but he didn't actually put it in the musical and that disappointed me. And damn, okay, he had a few lines here and there in the off-broadway version that were cut but maybe that wasn't his fault or maybe he planned on fleshing it out more and had to cut it down to make it more palatable for the people sponsoring his ride to broadway, a pathetic excuse but it could make sense. For all that, I could have forgiven, forgotten, etc etc... but I will NEVER forget naïvely believing during the year the Hamildrops were released that we'd finally get a Laurens/Hamilton song. In April it didn't happen, I thought okay, maybe pride month. Didn't happen in pride month. Didn't even happen in September or October, or as a last-minute gay reveal in December. It just didn't happen at all. We even got some covers of songs that already existed without notable variations on the lyrics and it's like... bro couldn't have done the bare minimum and had a Laurens cover of Satisfied? That's the moment I was let down for real. I had truly BELIEVED that because he said himself that the Laurens/Hamilton relationship was real, he'd actually follow through on something that could be digested by the fans more than a forgotten tweet. but damn it hurt. absolutely no queer representation in a musical about Alexander Hamilton. bro. to play devil's advocate, there is no way to "prove" hamilton wasn't straight (eye-roll) but it's not like Hamilton: An American Musical is historically accurate in the least. It's embellished, fun, glamorous. It paints people in their best (unless you're charles lee lol) considering it's about a bunch of people who definitely were not kickass abolitionist BIPOC, but because LMM found it important to represent America today, he made the cast very inclusive to cultures and ethnicities of those these historical figures oppressed. so why can't he fictionalize the story a bit more? it's not even FICTION BRO it's literally more provable (and less problematic and more interesting) than the Angelica/Hamilton affair so WHYYYY. all i mean to say is, i was very let down and i can't appreciate the musical or LMM the same as I did when i was younger because now it gives me the straight-man ick. the "yeah they were gay!" for ++ points with the lgbtq+ fans but a severe lack of action. i hate that shit. real allies would say "fuck your homophobia, i'm publishing my art as it is even if i face backlash and censorship," because that's how shit gets done. it really really let me down, that's all, good night.

[juliareed]

Her name is Julia Thorne, merely an alias. She goes by another name, a name you're quite familiar with.

[thewhizzyhead]

okay um so how utterly shocked and/or disappointed would you guys be if I told you that the one thing that has finally convinced me to actually check out Starkid's The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals,,,was a video of the musical's closing number filled with literally all of the musical's spoilers + a plot twist and a breakdown that is clearly meant to be experienced um chronologically for it to have the most impact especially considering that it HEAVILY involves the show's two main characters and that said twist HEAVILY relies upon ummmm yea actually having watched the fucking musical properly first-

[mudstoneabyss]

Charles is the type of guy who seems like he'd want to learn about his town and its history even if it's not relevant to him so must be hard when so much of it people refuse to talk about. he doesn't have a straight answer as to what Strex's whole deal is and what's with that scientist who's mentioned in so many historical buildings who looks uncannily like him

[thesewordsareallihavetogive]

normally I'm not very critical of movies but oh my gosh. the one I just watched was so bad (I sat here for a while trying to figure out the best way to word this but the benadryl has already kicked in. no thoughts head empty). like genuinely how the fuck did this get funding. How did it make it into THEATERS?

[thelaurenshippen]

Hi there! I started relistening to the bright sessions (as one does) and had a random question come up. When did you know that Mark/Sam wasn't going to be endgame (romantically)? I know in s4 they both fall apart separately and together, but even in Safehouse pt 2 (my absolute beloved) they argue about their coping mechanisms. Did you know then that they weren't going to end up together? How did you come to that conclusion?

hey!! this is a great question - I definitely did start the show thinking they were endgame and that's mostly what I was thinking at the time of safehouse too, despite their issues. I think it was really in writing Season 4 actually, when I realized that I was no longer telling a story about two people in love working through their issues, but was instead telling a story about two people who were in love but realized they shouldn't be together in that way. I started to feel those tension points in Season 3 (I would say the safehouse episodes were a true attempt for them to learn to work through their issues), but it wasn't until planning S4 that I really made the decision.

there are a lot of things that led to this that I'll try to articulate, because the honest, simplest answer as to why the plans changed was "because it felt like they should". but if I were think back and pinpoint a few reasons for that...

there was never supposed to be a love triangle. Mark was always bisexual but he and Damien were never supposed to develop feelings for one another. but the first time we got Andrew and Charlie into a room and read through their first episode together it was like "oh, OH-kay" (which, sidebar: clearly I was writing something between them subtextually because it wasn't like Andrew and Charlie were strangers to each other - I'd watched them act ALL sorts of scenes together in acting class but the romantic chemistry popped OUT with Mark/Damien. pretty much from the second motel episode on, I was writing leaning into that dynamic). that threw a lot of spanners into the works because while I never had plans to put Mark and Damien together, I hadn't anticipated Mark grappling with feelings for someone else.

similarly, I'd underestimated just how flawed Sam was. Sam is not a bad person, but she sometimes doesn't really know how to be a person who cares about other people. when you add that to the dynamics of Damien and Joan kind of, like, hovering over Mark in various unproductive ways (for Damien, it's destructive and invasive; for Joan, she's just a too-involved older sister sometimes), Sam becomes another person who is kind of, like...controlling Mark, or trying to, because she loves him and doesn't know how to (I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm just regurgitating actual lines I wrote lol). this is not to say that her flaws make her unable to be in a relationship (Mark is also deeply flawed!) but just that their flaws clashed against each other in ways I hadn't planned.

finally: Joan and found family. in my mind, there was something grand and romantic about Sam meeting Dr. Bright so that she could be led to Mark - like they were somehow always fated to meet. in actuality, it's not that at all - instead, the bond that Sam and Joan have is just as important as the one she has with Mark, albeit different. I don't believe in soulmates personally, but I've always liked the idea that you have people out there. soulmates in a more general sense - people you click with, have a connection with. it can be romantic, familial, friendship, work or creative partnerships, whatever. I think the Bryant siblings and Sam have that. I think Sam and Mark are meant for each other but in a non-exclusive way and in a...maybe not non-romantic way, but a way that doesn't have romance at the forefront. they love each other deeply and they fit, but a romantic partnership might not be the best way forward for them. and Joan and Sam are the whole heart of the show to me in some senses. as I was writing the finale, I very intentionally ended with the two of them - both because the final appearance of every character is in order of when they first appeared, but in reverse and also because the show starts with both of them in dark, destructive places and while there's broken trust between them throughout, they ultimately help each other get better. I thought Sam's story was about finding love and it was, but that love looked differently than I had planned.

okay, god, this has gotten waaaaaay too long and rambly. I hope this answers your question? one of my favorite things/the thing I miss most about making a show like TBS is being able to shift things based on chemistry/what the actors bring/etc. so often now, I'm writing entire seasons of things and then handing them off to production, in which anything can happen! the flexibility of recording episode by episode in TBS is something I took full advantage of.

thanks for listening and relistening!!

[fideidefenswhore]

Just thought I would address this again because unfortunately, she repeats this claim in her latest book:

"Anne's own mother had lost several babies in infancy and her sister Mary had borne a son with disabilities who Anne would not suffer to be at court."

Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I (2023), Tracy Borman

There is a primary source (not that she cites one...in either...) which alludes to AB 'not suffering [Henry Carey] to be at court' (it's not terribly definitive, however...the actual quote seems speculative, it's hearsay of another speculating that she "might not" suffer him at court, actually), but it certainly doesn't mention or imply any disability, much less disability being the reason he was not wanted at court:

"Finally, I confess the four bills by Mr. Feerne, Mr. Leeke, Mr. Skydmore, and Sir Thos. Mody to be true, and that by such seditious ways I have maliciously slandered the King and Queen and their Council; for which I ask forgiveness of God, king Henry VIII., and queen Anne, and shall continue sorrowful during my life, which stands only in the King's will. "Moreover, Mr. Skydmore dyd show to me yongge Master Care, saying that he was our suffren Lord the Kynge's son by our suffren Lady the Qwyen's syster, whom the Qwyen's grace myght not suffer to be yn the Cowrte."" [John Hale, Vicar of Isleworth, to the Council.] April 1535.

It's also not clear whether it was Mary Stafford or Henry Carey that Hale was referring to when he claimed Skidmore said AB "might not suffer [them] to be in the court". Natalie Grueninger posits that it was the former:

"While most of the rumours circulating were unfounded [...] Hale was right about one thing-- in 1535, Mary Boleyn was not at court with her family." The Final Year of Anne Boleyn, Natalie Grueninger

There's a thread about this claim on TudorQ&A also:

A commenter over at the Anne Boleyn Files blog asked the same question, only referencing Carolly Erickson's Mistress Anne rather than Borman's book. I checked it out and it looks like Borman utilized Erickson's book on this particular subject nearly verbatim, although she did not cite it [...] Mary Carey and her husband did apparently have the wardship of an "idiot" heir; I assume when William Carey died this reverted to the Crown. At around the same time, however, Mary's son Henry became a ward of his aunt, Anne Boleyn. Perhaps Erickson or her researchers may have confused the two separate wardships. It would be interesting to see kb's review of Borman's book; it's clearly directed at a popular audience, and the "mentally challenged" son comment does not inspire confidence, but it has interesting things to say about Elizabeth's familia throughout her life and I would like to see a qualified scholar assess the historical veracity of the work.

So, I was not able to find any clear evidence of Mary having wardship of a disabled person. Weir's biography of Mary Boleyn mentions that "at some point in her widowhood, Mary [...] was granted wardship of one William Bailey", but I was not able to verify this anywhere. Thomas Boleyn was granted wardship of William Strongman in 1529, but again, have found nothing that suggests the ward had any disability. The only wardship of William Carey's I was able to find was that of Thomas Sharpe of Canterbury, who was described as an "idiot", maybe(?) this did revert to Mary, at some point, but no academic biographies of the Boleyns mention this.

Regardless, whether Borman did get her wires crossed on whether or not she was referring to a wardship (certainly not someone Mary had 'borne', if so), this seems egregious, not least because there was a member of the Boleyn family who was disabled and was cared for:

"In September [1535], Thomas [Boleyn] again left court and spent time in Hever, taking care of his mother who was living out her final years [...]

Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, Vol. II, 465. It was reported that, from 1519 onwards, Margaret [Butler] was unable to take care of herself or her affairs, and so Thomas moved his mother down to Hever, where he could care for her for the rest of her life.

It would seem that William [Stafford] had also petitioned Henry [VIII] for control of Thomas’ lands in Essex but Thomas had made it clear they were to go to his mother and, upon her death, his granddaughter, Elizabeth. This document suggests a far more proactive Mary [Stafford], as they had already taken possession of several properties before this document had been drawn up. Kent Archives." Among the Wolves of Court: The Untold Story of Thomas and George Boleyn, Lauren Mackay

So Anne Boleyn didn't want her nephew Henry Carey at court cause he was supposedly disabled? Just like Gregory, Borman turned a good thing Anne did for her sister into a nasty thing? What evidence does she shows for Henry being disabled, or Anne not wanting him around? And for goodness' sake, isn't it strange that some historians and fiction writers seem to hate Anne (like Borman or Weir) but can't help to end up writing about her, because, let's face it, ANNE BOLEYN SELLS! They must feel so bad for always having to return return to this woman they are so eager to portray as the Worst Human Being Ever.

Literally none, and I'm not even joking. There's no citation, no additional information or details, she doesn't even name this nephew so I don't even know if it's Henry Carey to whom she's referring, or one of the Stafford children (whose existence/survival remains disputed), or even the later Elizabethan priest, George Boleyn, dean of Lichfield, who has been erroneously labeled as the son of Viscount Rochford, George Boleyn(illegitimate at times, by marriage other times), Julia Fox has argued for the likelihood he was some distant Boleyn cousin, and I'm inclined to agree. The claim is dropped into a paragraph about the perils of childbirth to contextualize Anne's own potential fears as if from the sky:

Worse still, Anne's closest female relations had suffered an unfortunate history in this respect. Her mother had lost several babies in infancy and her sister, Mary, had borne a son with mental disabilities whom Anne would not suffer to be at court. But in her favour was the fact that her health was generally considered good, and as one observer remarked, she seemed 'likely enough to bear children.' --Elizabeth's Women, Tracy Borman

So...yeah, if who she meant here was Henry Carey, I have no idea what she's talking about, A, and B, this is the sole* "factoid" she chose to mention about their relationship? Not that she had wardship of him, not that she arranged for him to receive his education from the scholar she patronized, Nicholas Bourbon, alongside Henry Norris (the younger), Henry Dudley, and the son of Nicholas Harvey, her 'strong partisan' and the husband of her great friend, Bridget Wingfield...all signs which point to Carey being in Anne's favour. I have no idea if he was ever at court, but if there's no record of him at court while Anne was queen, does it not seem more plausible to attribute this to A) how brief that time was and/or B) that his mother was banished from court due to the marriage she had made without royal permission?

I just don't...know, with Borman, really? It'd be interesting to have the unedited interview footage from BSR because I was surprised how overall sympathetic she was towards the subject, honestly. And I can't speak to the new book, I haven't read it, but the PR push for it has centered around praise of AB as an individual, as to her character.

For Weir, I mean, she received the deal to do that fictionalized serial on the six Queens of Henry VIII, of course AB had to be included. If I'm being perfectly honest, I feel like everything she has done since Lady in the Tower has had this weird self-animus pushing behind it, guilt over having further popularized a figure she hates so implacably. Her original view ("a total bitch...she alienated so many people that that must be true") has been evident in all her subsequent works and interviews; from claiming in one in 2017 that there exists a letter extant in AB's own handwriting where she orders Lady Shelton to beat her stepdaughter (there isn't), to depicting AB in her latest novel as having been so ugly and "painfully thin" naked that it was an instant boner-killer for her poorest little meow-meow.

*I believe other sections of this book are dedicated to the Careys so hopefully she expands later...I can't remember if she does. So far in my current read she has not mentioned the wardship and it was in 1528 and the book is now in 1533, so....

[sevengoodusesofacadaver]

That scene in season 16 where Emily says “I’m giving him what he wants, Mommy” is all fun and games bc Prentiss calling herself mommy is just… so on the nose. But it’s also so much deeper than that.

When she was fairly new to the team, she was almost always the one they would use if someone had to seduce/attract an unsub. Even when she didn’t want to (in ‘52 Pickup’ when the boys all look at her expectantly and she says ‘oh, this is really gonna suck’). She didn’t want to do it but she knew their best chance of catching the guy was if she used herself as bait. She even puts herself in danger in that one bar scene in a different episode. Basically, the team expected her to use her looks and flirt with dangerous men.

Then, flashback to her days as Lauren Reynolds… I don’t even need to get into all of that because we all know how much that cost her mentally and psychologically. And then you have Derek essentially slutshaming her for it, even though the team expects that of her when it’s to their benefit.

Even if you want to take it further, when she was 15 she felt she had to sleep with someone to feel accepted, again using her body as a tool to please others. It’s something she’s been taught to do from a very young age, and was consistently reinforced throughout her career.

So yeah, I get why it felt like the natural next step during that interrogation. Without even thinking about it that hard she just starts unbuttoning her blouse and making herself more attractive to get information out of the suspect. I honestly think Douglas Bailey was the first man to ever tell her not to do it.

[etherealstar-writes]

I WANNA BE YOURS | LIONESSES X READER | PT 3

pairings: lionesses x reader

summary: in which you're accidentally added to a random group chat, not knowing they're all actually famous footballers, and obliviously end up having many of them competing for your love and attention.

part: three

part one here

✦ ——— ✦ ——— ✦

THE NATIONAL DIVING TEAM

brightness

we have training tomorrow

just a reminder

the REAL karate kid

ughh

kie

what's the bet leah and georgia

are gonna be a show off

while niamh's gonna be off in her own world

neev

hey! no need to call me out like that

i do focus

stairway

i am not a show off

willybum

me neither!

door knob

you guys need proof?

the imposter

damn

you guys got that athletic build 💪

the REAL karate kid

......

willybum

.......

stairway

.......

elton

.......

earpsy

.......

brightness

.......

neev

.......

lotte

.......

maya

.......

daily

.......

the imposter

YO

HOW MANY OF YOU ARE ON THIS CHAT??

elton

i think the rest are asleep

the imposter

are you guys all part of some cult omg

and why do you guys have like

group training together?

that's kinda sus

the REAL karate kid

honestly it's kinda fun and chaotic

lotte

are we all gonna ignore the fact that

nobbs has photos of georgia's and leah's muscles?

door knob

are we just gonna keep referring

the imposter as imposter?

or if anyone's gonna ask her name?

the imposter

your name's nobbs??

LMAO THE DOOR KNOB MAKES SO

MUCH MORE SENSE NOW 😭💀

also

my name's y/n

neev

that is such a pretty name

the imposter

thank you!

elton

you know

you never really answered

lotte's question nobbs ....

willybum

it's because i'm her favourite duh

stairway

um it's actually me

hence why she sent a photo of mine first

meado

and here we go again

✦ ——— ✦ ——— ✦

elton

oi

hello

@everyone

why is everyone so dead right now

earpsy

maybe it's the fact that we just finished training

the REAL karate kid

and because we actually have lives

elton

that's a lie and we all know it

the imposter

how was training?

neev

tiring

feeling quite dead rn

willybum

funny actually

lessi slipped and slammed

face first into the training mat

elton

that was the highlight of my day

the REAL karate kid

glad to know my misery

causes you guys happiness

rusty metal

guys

i stumbled upon the best photo ever

my eyes have been blessed

stairway

omg

bronzy in her active era??

daily

ooh do show

lotte

it's intrigued my interest now too

rusty metal

neev

LMAO

willybum

WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THIS

the REAL karate kid

CRYING RN 😭💀

elton

STOP 😭

this is a masterpiece

i'm saving this

stairway

she's a barbie gurl 💅

earpsy

PLS 💀

willybum

i'm blocking yall

stairway

your eyes just can't handle this much art

the imposter

hello friends of y/n!

i was trying to take photos of y/n

and accidentally clicked into here

neev

hello friend of y/n

the imposter

WHAT IS THAT PHOTO OF LEAH WILLIAMSON 😭

is this some kind of football fan cult??

some of your usernames are familiar in a strange way

idk why i can't seem to place it

elton

hmm quite strange

don't you all agree?

stairway

hmm very strange indeed

brightness

yes

daily

indeed

willybum

very

the REAL karate kid

where's y/n?

the imposter

standing in front of me

has no clue i'm on this chat

i'll send a photo

hang on

(lets just pretend they can see your face in the photo)

now she wants her phone back

goodbye strange strangers

elton

......

stairway

......

willybum

......

the REAL karate kid

......

neev

......

rusty metal

......

brightness

......

daily

......

doorknobs

......

meado

......

kie

......

earpsy

......

maya

......

lotte

......

lauren 1

......

stairway

the whole chat rn:

elton

i was not expecting this today-

the REAL karate kid

toone, this is literally the best

most dumbest thing you've done-

neev

honestly

lotte

my eyes have been blessed twice today

willybum

wow

the REAL karate kid

you can get my number wrong

anytime toone

part four here