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hella1975 · 7 months

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hiiii haha. hello. exceptionally awkward introduction bc idrk how to start something like this so let's just jump right in. im taking a break from this account for a bit. i know i said i wanted taob out before halloween and currently im fine sticking with that deadline, but if i decide i need longer away then i will take longer away. every time ive reassured people that id never abandon a fic and updates will always come eventually i never once considered that my writing and ability to feel safe and comfortable on this site would be actively taken from me, so im not even going to apologise. i dont want this either and more importantly i dont fucking deserve it. i dont know what it is in the past year, if ive hit a certain amount of followers or 'popularity' that's made it so the natural ratio of positive to negative interactions must in turn go up, but there's been a serious uptick in weird asks for me. the annoying part is that a very small amount of them are actually objectively mean and hateful, the rest are just weird and invasive from people who seemingly dont realise that's what they're being. ive reached a point where i dont care if the intentions are good. it's not my job as a 20 year old tumblr user of all things to defend the morality of someone who couldnt even bother to come off anon. unfortunately, after blocking only one or two anons, the weird asks have decreased substantially, which says all you need to know about the fascinating and exhilarating lives led by these people, but ive also gone on to turn anon asks off entirely. this is something i actively fought against doing and had to be pushed into by my mutuals (who have been the coolest people on planet earth during this entire thing). turning off anon was a big deal to me even if it sounds silly. i felt betrayed and like id been backed into a corner because it was so vehmently something i DIDNT WANT that to feel like i had to do it anyway for my own mental health??? that sucks. so even though ive 'fixed' the problem, im still kind of reeling and uncomfortable every time i come on tumblr. i hope it's just something i need time to ease because i'll truly be devastated if this becomes 'ruined' for me. tumblr exists as the only place in the world where i am honestly every facet of myself without shame or hesitation; losing that would be insanely harmful to me. and to the people who cant appeal to the actual human behind the post, let me put that in words you can understand: we wouldn't get any more writing 😦😦😦 riots and fires and sirens, i know. so yeah. to anyone who has sent me an anon ask and you're now wondering if you were part of the problem, im firmly of the belief that you'll know if you are. when i say 'weird asks' i dont mean 'you sent me a para about your personal life just to vent or ask for advice' or 'you sent me a really deep emotional compliment about the impact me and/or my writing has had on you' - i love asks like that, so much that i put off taking a break and turning off anon solely for the joy they bring me. im sorry that it might feel like you're being punished too bc of the actions of what in reality is a HANDFUL of weird people, but this is what i feel like i have to do to feel safe and not go insane every time i log in. love you guys, hopefully ill see you soon x

#seriously another shout out to my mutuals #id particularly like to say thank you to boom who's always right there for me no matter what's happening or how insane im being #and also everyone in our little discord that wound up having to make a whole new channel for venting #bc i was there so often like 'today's weird ask isssss.... telling me about my cupsize!! rip them to shreds!!!'#hannah and theo especially being there and pushing me to finally turn off anon. war is truly over #and of course rori bc the shamelessness u show when hating on my anon asks has been genuinely really cathartic #sometimes u really do just need a rottweiler mutual to tell random people online to kill themselves 😭#okay weird oscar acceptance speechcore gratitude over. i do just rlly love my mutuals #like i went three years not telling anyone about the worse side of internet popularity for fear of looking spoiled and ungrateful #so for the first time to open up about it and be met with outrage on my behalf and people saying in fact it's MORE fucked up #than i initially realised bc ive grown desensitised to it is. yeah cathartic i guess #they are singlehandedly reassuring me of the good this cursed app still holds #so everyone thank them and send them flowers NOW #okay im done i think. see you guys soon. i truly do want to come back asap bc like i said i NEVER EVEN WANTED TO FUCKING LEAVE #SOME ASSHOLES JUST HAD TO PUT GRENADES ON WHAT I ASSUMED WERE VERY UNIVERSAL AND OBVIOUS BOUNDARIES #if you're reading this like 'ohhh fuck i defo sent something invasive lately. i thought it was a joke/we were friends'#then 1) we arent friends if you're on anon. it immediately creates a power imbalance where you know me and any necessary context #but i have no idea who you are or how much you know about me. that's already a fucked dynamic #and 2) I HOPE YOU FEEL BAD. LIKE GENUINELY I HOPE YOU FEEL AWFUL AND HAVE A GOOD LONG LOOK AT YOURSELF #okay i think that's all. ta-ra lads??? how tf do u end something like this #ive queued this to reblog a couple more times throughout the day

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houseofscribbles · 17 days

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HATSUNE MIKU? Is that you?

Some Spark L's in Miku inspired outfits!

Bonus under read more

#Monkey Wrench #Monkey Wrench OC #MW OC #Spark L #My OC's #My Scribbles #Vocaloid #Okay. Context. Since that might be important #I was talking with some friends about our OC's and someone asks 'Is Spark L more like a Taylor Swift or Hatsune Miku pop star?'#We all agreed in a heartbeat. Hatsune Miku lol #And that's how I got this silly idea #Any excuse to put Spark in cute and fun outfits :')#The Bandito one was super last second and silly. I can't stop thinking about that Sonic outfit and thought this would be funny fndhcjd #Anyways friends if you're reading this thanks for the fun idea.#You also gave me an excuse to pull my Vocaloid playlist out of years of retirement bfndjfjdjd #Love you guys

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clanborn · 5 months

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lightleap…..i miss lightleap……

#the erins just forgot abt her whole deal #in a good books series maybe nightheart abandoning sunbeam would spark a realization in her that she herself abandoned lightleap #when lightleap most needed support #or lightleap couldve been the one to leave with frostpaw and they bond over their guilt and grief or something #hence causing conflict with tigerstar’s daughter going missing and complicating tensions with riverclan #he’s justifiably angry and blaming riverclan while riverclan also deals with the sudden disappearance of their medicine cat apprentice #and the whole situation gets dire putting pressure on frostpaw and her mission and maybe splashtail takes up leadership sooner and blames #frostpaws disappearance on tigerstar #and maybe we get some context on lightleap and her emotional state and her whole red herring fight(?) she got into in the first book that #was never addressed #idk just spitballing #meowing.wav #asc spoilers

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sentientcave · 5 days

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It's wip wednesday once again. Have a little more Rugby! Just a short segment bc I'm actually getting close to finishing it and posting the whole thing. Sorry it's mostly dialogue a lot of the other stuff gets added in the editing stages lmao

We join Ripper at his office job... (Your welcome to anyone who thinks Ripper would look hot in a suit. Because he absolutely would)

You're eyeing the clock as it crawls just past 4:15, when someone knocks on your office door. "Come in," you call, reopening exel on your computer so it at least looks like you're doing something productive.

"Hey, pally," Brandon says cheerfully, throwing your door open and sitting in the chair in front of your desk. "How's things?"

A social visit? Brandon is the boss's nephew, and a right idiot. You steer clear, generally, and he's mostly left you alone thus far. "Uh. Fine. Headed out soon."

"Rugby on Friday," he says.

You frown at him. Why would he know that? "Uh. Yeah?"

His grin widens. "Your team's playin' mine. Think you've got a chance?"

You think of Simon and Johnny, and the way they can plow through the opposing team. You didn't even know Brandon played. "Uh. Yeah. Figure we do."

"Care to make it interesting?"

A bet? Is that what he interrupted your day for? "Guess I'd put a tenner on it."

He shakes his head, like you’re being ridiculous. "That wouldn't be very interesting, would it?"

He's angling for something, but it's hard to tell what, exactly. "You have stakes in mind?"

"I do. Figure if my team wins, you'll let me take you out for dinner. If yours does, we can, I dunno, switch offices? Two windows in mine. Your little houseplants might like that." He wiggles his fingers at the plants you have hanging in and sitting in front of the window (Spiderplant Georg, Pontius Pilea, and Monstera Mash. Not that you had ever told anyone in the office that you’d named them).

"Dinner?" You ask. "With you?" It's an insane notion. You barely speak to him. You don't want to speak to him.

"Course with me." He grins at you again, propping his feet up on your desk, leaning back in his chair.

You blink at him. "You're kidding."

"What, you don't think I haven't noticed the way you fill out that suit? You're a little unit, Ripley. Wouldn't mind seeing you outside the office now and again."

"I've got a boyfriend," you say automatically. "It wouldn't be anything more than just dinner."

"We'll see."

You hate him for the way he smiles at you, like he doesn't believe you for a second. You're going to have to ask yet another favour, and see if Johnny or Simon will pretend to be your boyfriend. "Well, I'll take the bet. Wouldn't mind two windows."

He sets his feet down and sticks his hand across the desk. "Can't wait to take you out. We'll have fun."

You stand up to shake his hand, glancing at the clock again. Time to go, thank fucking god. “You’re gonna lose, you know. And even if you don’t, there’s no way Simon won’t sit across the restaurant and glare at you the whole time we have dinner.” Internally, you kick yourself for saying Simon. Johnny’s the more obvious choice, and easier to approach for a favour like that too.

#Putting that earlier line in context #I might change Brandon's name it's the name Charlie M uses for terrible annoying guys and it made a good placeholder lmao #Are we finally going to see some actual rugby in this? Signs point to yes #Also lowkey thinking about connecting this AU with retirement party just for funsies #who's gonna stop me? The police?#They'll never take me alive #The good ol' rugby game #IT'S WIP WEDNESDAY BAYBEE

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unforth · 2 months

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Actually, I really wish Tumblr as a whole was less comfortable using feminizing language for gay men, especially gay East Asian men.

#unforth rambles #brought to you by the person i saw call chu wanning 'mo ran's mother' and the person who defended them #putting aside the question of accuracy re his role in mo ran's life #the words parent and father both exist yall #like idk but also wtf #see also girlboss and such being applied to gay men #idk i feel like im in the vast minority on this one #but my whole life ive seen gay men feminized in real life against their will #no matter how masc they were or wanted to be everything became fem #maybe im just to old to be with the times on why this is cute and funny abd okay #but given tumblr demographics and all #like shit like this is imo why so many women and afab nb people in fandom get accused of fetishizing #we older queers remember when doing this was considered disgusting homophobia actually #and imo it goes double or triple when they gay men in question are east asian #i really wish we could just fuckin stop #to be clear im not saying it IS fetishizing im saying i wish there was more awareness of the history of forced feminizing language #being used towars gay men in general and toward east asian men regardless of sexuality #for a lot of people i gotta think the knee jerk reaction to this kinda language being used is these context isnt teehee how cute #its ew who would say that #anyway i blocked op on the mo ran stuff but it still left a bad taste in my mouth

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mikesbasementbeets · 2 months

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it’s a little frustrating sometimes to watch people try to “debunk” gay mike evidence by quibbling over things that are. kind of beside the point? like arguing that mike’s consistently negative (or even neutral, if you want the benefit of the doubt) reactions to girls aren’t “disgust” therefore they don’t mean anything. but like 1. yeah i agree, cates gate isn’t about mike being “disgusted.” mike’s face when el kisses him isn’t “disgusted.” mike’s reaction to el, to max, to girls in general doesn’t really read to me as “disgust” either. so 2. what DOES it read to you as? incredulity? confusion? discomfort? those…. still aren’t positive reactions.

the point is that mike actively and blatantly Does Not react positively toward el kissing him. and he also Doesn’t react positively to dustin’s description of a girl being “hotter than phoebe cates.” he asks “is she cute?” with maybe preemptive incredulity (in line with will's question "girls go to science camp?") over a girl who goes to science camp being cute, or perhaps just a neutrally curious state over dustin's new girlfriend, but then dustin doesn’t say “she’s hotter than phoebe cates.” he says, “think phoebe cates. only hotter.” that’s a prescriptive statement. you want to know if she’s cute, mike? think about phoebe cates, and then imagine someone hotter than that. and mike’s expression doesn’t improve in the slightest. think about someone hotter than phoebe cates, dustin tells mike. and mike? remains confused and entirely unintrigued. no, he’s not disgusted, but the point is not his negative reaction, it’s a complete lack of any sort of positive reaction. if he’s listening to dustin, he should have, in that moment, thought of phoebe cates. and his reaction?

nothing.

(but. this is also just to say... i don’t even think it's fair to call most of mike’s facial reactions “proof” of his sexuality in any argument… i think they’re fun little easter eggs that add an extra visual element to his gay characterization. but. it’s not WHY people think he’s gay. it's funny to point out BECAUSE he's gay)

[edit: AND this is not even to mention the direct line drawn to this in season four via stobin's discussion of fast times, linking phoebe cates to 'people who like boobies.' #notmikewheeler]

#y’all want gay to mean nothing less than ‘disgusted by women’ and pretend that’s not homophobic #‘he’s kissed a girl without throwing up so he can’t be gay check mate’ maybe check your homophobia 👍#this was inspired by a bylr confession anon that i shouldn’t have seen bc i have that blog blocked but it showed up anyway. this is why #(i know i called this proof uh. two years ago but it's not 'proof' i recognize that. also not going on another tangent but. there is no One #irrefutable gay mike proof and that's also the entire point. you can point out specific things out of context and say hey i think this #points in this direction. but if you pull EVERYTHNG together and analyze IN FULL then the entire narrative only makes sense from a gay mike #perspective. imo. 'well i think this one is a reach' ok fine but if you see it all together and your only argument is 'idk it's just not #that deep' i mean. fine i guess but the burden of proof is on you then. the issue is then that no one who is against gay mike is willing #(or. um. able.) to put together a COMPREHENSIVE analysis that supports bi mke as a Full narrative without brushing a bunch of stuff aside #as 'eh idk i don't think that means anything' and instead fall back to 'it's just a headcanon i don't have to prove anything to you'#but refuse to recognize that gay mike is not actually a headcanon it's a theory. backed by analysis. we are not the same.)#idk. got annoyed might delete later 😗✌️#beets posts

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majorshatterandhare · 6 months

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Today I, an aromantic, was getting ready to attend a wedding… with Stranger on repeat.

#the mechanisms #stranger #ttbt2 #i knew what i was doing when i put it on but also i am working on an addtion to my brian-jonny foils post so i was thinking about brian #its always sad brian hours #i cant really read that song separate from him anymore. honestly not sure i ever could but. its just so unconnected from anything else.-#actaea and lyssa is pretty disconnected. but its still almost certainly on the city. alice is pretty disconnected but its a result of-#king cole’s war. the most disconnected songs are redeath. the ignominious demise of dr pilchard. drop dead. hereward the wake. and stranger-#(and frankenstein but i consider that its own thing). and redeath and drop dead are my least favorite mechs songs.dr pilchard i didnt-#really care for for quite a while. stranger has so few words in it. it’s my favorite song. but the story is minimal fron the song (ie w/o-#knowing the crane wife story) so making a story around it sort of makes sense? im having a hard time with the words here. like we expect a-#story. cause that’s what the mechs do. and stranger has a story. it just doesnt have context and so creatong that context for ourselves is-#understandable. to be expected even. hope that makes sense #side note: i think it would make sense for hereward to have been from the same place (system I guess) as the people that made-#fort galfridian. i mean hereward was more of a real person than arthur (since there was no one person arthur was based on. like thats a-#whole thing) and hereward was anglo-dutch. so it makes sense hed be related to that story somehow #its just a theory. obviously. theres nothing in the songs connecting the too as far as im aware.#OH also achilles pointed out to me the anti-amatonormative/aromantic reading of stranger and i liked that a lot #hereward was anglo-danish. not anglo-dutch. sorry danish and dutch people

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minobe-household · 2 months

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i say she isn't in an relationship going off of canon but the real ones know that's a lie. she's married. to freddy fazbear

#/J /J THIS IS A JOKE /J #for context my friend had a tomodachi life island and he put our ocs in it #they were a happy couple and also had an extremely ugly kid that we collectively decided to ship away to the abyss #minobe yuuto (senei)#you're insane if you think i'm maintagging this shit.#AND I AM NOT GOING TO FUCKING TAG FREDDY FAZBEAR.#on a time crunch so i'm just posting the og....sorry kit

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beiyuanism · 6 months

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something something "you must take that emotion and you must bury it" something something "he left me (...) so i had to bury it on my own"

#the longer i think about operation william the more i like to entertain the thought that it was a codename for their secret relationship #its a bally shame we wont get to finish the operation together literally becomes my favourite line of this entire ep in this context #it can mean so much i cant even put it into words really #also something about operation william being about a bomb #and then havers turning up with a scar that could very well be the aftermath of an explosion #id say something poetic about it but its 1 am and i wasted all my pretty thoughts on writing a silly fanfic #(i mean operation william just doesnt make that much sense to me anyway #like why would cap be working on a secret operation to build a bomb just to then bury it in the garden with the blueprints #but thats beside the point. or maybe its not. idk)#caphavers #capvers #bbc ghosts #ghosts bbc #redding weddy

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ehlnofay · 5 months

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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.”

#little girl has a kill count now!! more at 11 #for context: I altered stuff leading up to the discovery of the eye #efri and sissel went off to play in the undiscovered halls of this ancient archeological dig site #on the grounds that efri has a great sense of navigation and they'll find their way back to the group no problem.#(efri has a great sense of navigation in the wilderness.)#(introduce her to a series of roads and buildings and she is lost in the sauce.)#their friends split up to look for them after they've been missing from a while (wandering around with great interest and no sense of place #(incredibly lost)#kazari happens upon them right as they've found a necklace at the end of a dead-end passageway that - when dutifully grabbed #for archeological research purposes - ended up triggering the wall to crumble or disappear or otherwise remove itself from the equation #and efri wasn't going to just. LEAVE that opening there.#come ONN kazari that's weird!! we can't just leave it!! what if it closes up and we never ever find it again and there's incredible secrets #that the college never finds! what if we never know what's through there!#we HAVE to know what's through there!#so on they go.#and so ensue the horrors #they pass a lot of dead bodies before the main all but those ones are all immobile #also sissel is the only one to receive the psijic projection warning. which she explains to the others as a ghost telling her secrets #which efri accepts bc this seems like the kind of place that would for sure have ghosts #and kazari goes sure that tracks this place is fucking creepy can we leave now (<- is also curious but HAS to put on a show of reluctance #because clearly no-one else is going to)#(permanent babysitter of kids with the worst self-preservation instincts imaginable)#(she is so strong. living every childcare worker's nightmare)#ANYWAY #:D #normal type stuff #posting because it matches the artwork I'm also posting! look at that thing!!!#fay writes #oc tag #efri

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