Dathan Fischer
February 10, 2021 6:58 PM
So, about that odd man-doll with a huge chin... (Sadie) by Dathan Fischer
Buzz Lightyear, it had to be said, cut a bit of a strange figure amongst the other memory-images. There were a couple of other toys, it was true, and some animals, but Buzz’s signature frozen expression was one of those things that stood out. Even so, it had taken Dathan a while to realize that it had come from his own memory. It was only after he’d gone to bed and started to drift off for the night that the realization had finally hit him, so suddenly that his eyes had popped open: Buzz Lightyear. Buzz Lightyear. That toy he’d had when he was a kid.He’d accidentally made it fly, once, he recalled, but had never told a living soul about it. Buzz, after all, was a toy. Toys could not really fly outside of the TV. He hadn’t been very old when that had happened, but somehow, he’d had a feeling he should keep it secret, even though he hadn’t known he’d been responsible for Buzz doing that.
He had always half-believed in magic, probably not least because of Buzz’s flight and a few other little things, but somehow it had never occurred to him until he and Jezebel had gotten their letters that he might be the source of it. Being able to perform magic at will had never entered his head as a possibility. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure why, but smiled fondly at the memory just the same.
He glanced at the board again later to see if anyone had seen Buzz, and found that there was a signature under his name – a very detailed signature, as it happened. Sadie Chalmers…yeah, he knew who that was. She was in his class, cute girl, really quiet thought. Maybe it was a Crotalus thing.
When he spotted her alone at a meal, he went over to the Crotalus table and smiled.
“Hey,” he said. “You said you saw Buzz Lightyear? I think that might have been mine. I had a toy like that and I made it fly by accident once, before I knew I was a wizard. Did you know what he was?” he asked curiously. If she was wizard-born, she might never have heard of Buzz in her life, which was just weird to think about, even as he acknowledged that there were probably tons of things that felt the same to wizard kids.
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Dathan Fischer
So, about that odd man-doll with a huge chin... (Sadie)
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
February 10, 2021 7:51 PM
Oh. Um. Yup? by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie noticed Dathan Fischer making his way over to the Crotalus table. That wasn’t unusual. His cousin was in her house, so they sometimes sat together for dinner. He usually sat at his own table if he wasn’t with her. She’d never seen him eating over at Aladren, which lessened her suspicions that he was going out with Ellie, even though they worked together all the time in class. So, she assumed he was coming to sit with Jezebel. Except, when she took a quick glance around the table (totally not to work out whether he’d be somewhere where she could easily watch him without it seeming like she was watching him…) she found that Jezebel wasn’t there. She had just about enough time to wonder who else in Crotalus he might be interested in talking to before it became apparent that he was heading in her general direction. A fact that got more and more specific with each passing step. Ending with him literally standing there speaking to her.For a second she wasn’t entirely sure she heard anything he said because she was so surprised that he was there at all. Luckily her brain caught on quickly enough for her to actually remember that she did, in fact, speak English and that was what he was also doing (to her!) and that it made words and those made sentences which made sense.
“Oh,” she stated articulately, as the reason for his presence became apparent. Right. The memory thing. Buzz was his. That was cute. Did she know what he was? “I didn’t realise they were memories until they told us,” she admitted, wondering whether that was supposed to be super obvious, except she hadn’t grown up with this stuff. Or was that what he meant? A recent conversation with someone who didn’t recognise a cell phone sprung to mind. “I know who Buzz Lightyear is though, if that’s what you mean?” she added, a little bit of a smile appearing on her face alongside the puzzled anxiety that she might be getting this wrong. It wasn’t like she didn’t get on okay with Esme and other magical people. In some ways, it helped her feel secure because there was no way they knew or would ever find out about her Instragramming. But it was also nice to just connect with someone who understood the things she knew about and had grown up with - the nicer parts of that, anyway. “You too?” she asked. And then realised what a stupid thing that was to say. This was why she tried to think through everything before she opened her mouth but he’d made her all nervous and babbly. “Obviously you do,” she muttered, looking back down at her salad as her cheeks glowed red. She mumbled something further in which the only words that were fully discernable were ‘sorry’ and ‘stupid.’
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Oh. Um. Yup?
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Dathan Fischer
February 11, 2021 7:33 PM
Yeah. I think I was behind that, sort of. by Dathan Fischer
At least, Dathan thought, she knew who Buzz was; that was definitely something. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he had no idea how he would have explained what Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story were to someone who was from an all-wizard family and had no idea what they had seen. He assumed they had the concept of dolls, because them not doing that seemed too strange to get his head around, but he knew he probably would have started talking way too much and ended up rambling about the plot of the movie to someone utterly uncomprehending….He also suspected that if she hadn’t known what Buzz was, Sadie might have burst into tears upon being spoken to or something else horrible like that, and he had even less idea what he would have done in that case. Probably died on the spot. That sounded like the proper response.
“Oh, no - it's okay," he said earnestly when she began blushing and mumbling. Feeling bad for upsetting her, and very sorry for her, he took a seat at the table. “It's always cool to find another one of us - people like us, who know about - not-wizard stuff, I mean. We’d be like a secret underground society, except that we don’t always know who the others are, either. We need pins or something," he joked. "I didn't know those things were memories, either, but I'm not sure that anyone did," he added thoughtfully. "Otherwise, wouldn't they have done something about it sooner? Maybe memories have never left people's heads like that before, and it's new magic," he speculated, completely inaccurately.
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Dathan Fischer
Yeah. I think I was behind that, sort of.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
February 11, 2021 8:55 PM
Oh. Um. That's neat? Or okay? Or something? by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
He was sitting down. The result of her utter idiocy was that he was sitting with her? How was that, like, an actual thing that was happening?“That sounds nice,” she smiled, when he suggested they get pins to be able to identify each other. “Not that the others aren’t nice,” she added, feeling immediately guilty given how much of her life she spent surrounded by people with magical backgrounds, “Like, my roommate, and this other girl I know, they’re always super helpful when I don’t know something,” which was a lot. And crap, did it now sound like she didn’t like talking to Dathan, when she very definitely did? “But it’s nice talking to you too. I mean, like you said, when people understand and stuff, it’s…” she realised the only word in her head was ‘nice’ and was acutely aware that using it once in a paragraph would have been enough to make her middle school teacher frown, let alone the hundred or so times she’d just done it. “…good,” she finished, almost inaudibly. He was never going to want to attempt talking to her again.
“Oh. Yeah. That’s smart,” she nodded, when he suggested that if people had known what was going on they would have sorted it out sooner, and hypothesised (thank you, Professor Marsh) about he magic involved. That led her to a hypothesis of her own… “That’s why you like hanging out with Ellie?” she guessed tentatively, “You like talking to smart people?” And Ellie was pretty. And his age. And probably formed sentences which ended in regular speaking volume and used diverse vocabulary.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Oh. Um. That's neat? Or okay? Or something?
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Dathan Fischer
February 18, 2021 7:47 PM
Stupendous? Awesome? Rad? by Dathan Fischer
For a moment, Sadie was almost talking normally...and then she seemed to notice she was doing so, and dropped down to a near-whisper again.He felt badly for her - gosh, it would be horrible to be that shy - and sort of protective toward her. Was she that shy, really, or was someone mean to her? He found it hard to imagine being that shy unless someone had been mean to him, a lot, but then, he couldn't really imagine being as shy as Sadie seemed at all....
"Yeah, there are a lot of cool people who know about magic, too," he said. "Most people here seem pretty okay, as far as I can tell? I haven't really met any who aren't cool. Everybody's so...polite."
That word popped into his head from nowhere, but it seemed the right one. Sometimes, he got a feeling about people, or heard a whisper here and there about someone, but most people were very...polite, if nothing else. That was probably the right word.
"Do you know Jezebel at all?" he asked. "She's in our House, and she's my cousin - believe it or not," he added, acknowledging the fact that he and Jazz...didn't look that much alike. If he looked at things knowing they were related, he thought they actually did have something similar around their faces, but at first glance...Even back home people sometimes acted like biracial families were hard to grasp or something, though when he glanced again at Sadie, he wondered if she might not get it pretty clearly - he wasn't going to assume, because people could look all sorts of ways, but he thought she looked like she might be part-Asian. And really pretty. "We both turned out to be wizards, it was kind of weird, and now my cousin Gus is here, too. Now I guess I'll always wonder if my brothers and sisters would have been witches and wizards, if I'd had any. But I don't, and that's not the point," he reminded himself. "But yeah. Jezebel is cool."
"Huh?" Dathan knew that wasn't the right response, as he had understood Sadie's question perfectly well. "Ellie? Ellie's cool. It's...you know, she's smart, but she doesn't let on that she notices that I'm kind of...less smart," he said with a grin, acknowledging the truth and hoping it didn't come across as a request for sympathy or reassurance or anything, because it wasn't. He didn't think he was stupid, but he knew he wasn't all that smart, either. "I'm just guessing wild about the memory stuff, everyone gets lucky and gets something right every now and then, right?"
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Dathan Fischer
Stupendous? Awesome? Rad?
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
February 18, 2021 8:25 PM
Yeah, you are by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
“Yeah,” Sadie agreed when Dathan confirmed that people were, at least, polite. It was easier when he said things she could just agree with, even if that had kind of been her own point in the first place. She also noticed that he hadn’t really met any that weren’t cool. There were a couple of possibly interpretations of that. One was the ‘really’ allowed room for one or two exceptions. The other that he was equating ‘cool’ with ‘chill.’ Seeing as he had followed it up with ‘polite’ that seemed possible. At least she was passing for chill, in the form of polite. Probably. She guessed that was something.“I believe you,” she stated, way more earnestly than she probably should have. Because that was just a turn of phrase. “I mean, I sort of figured from like roll-call and stuff,” she added, hoping to sound a little more normal. “Uh, I don’t really know her. She seems nice though,” she added hastily, not really based off anything more than Jezebel never having been actively horrible to her, and that being the polite thing to say. “I just don’t…” talk to many people. No, that sounded way too pathetic. Though Dathan could probably figure that out for himself.
“My brother turned out… non-wizard,” she stated, hesitating around the word ‘normal’ which still wanted to come to mind first. Much to their mom’s relief. She wasn’t sure how she would have taken having to write both of kids out of their happy, snappy family narrative. “I’m not sure I really get how it works,” she admitted, given that he had a bunch of cousins – people less related to him than her brother was to her – who had turned out to also be magical. It clearly ran in families except when it didn’t.
“I don’t think-“ she began, about to say she didn’t think he was un-smart but then realising he hadn’t said that either, and not wanting to somehow accidentally end up saying she thought he was stupid. Which given her luck with opening her mouth would be how that went. “She sounds nice,” she changed tack, back to Ellie.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Yeah, you are
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Dathan Fischer
February 20, 2021 7:30 PM
*blushes* by Dathan Fischer
"Fair point," said Dathan with a grin when Sadie pointed out that roll call could and had given her a clue as to his and Jezebel's relationship. "Jezebel and Gus have two last names, but one of them is..." He realized that he had no good way to end that sentence. He was sure he had had a way to end that sentence somewhere in his head, but now he didn't and that was a problem. "The same as mine." He frowned slightly to himself. "I think that was supposed to go somewhere funny, or at least somewhere...less obvious," he confessed. "But then I forgot where that was." He chuckled, a little self-consciously. "Sorry about that, I don't know where I was going with...that."He wasn't entirely sure where Sadie had been going with her remark about Jazz, either, but mentally shrugged it off and smiled at her. "Yeah, she's nice," he agreed. "You should talk to her sometime - I mean, if you want to, I guess." It sounded kind of like he was giving her orders or something, which wasn't what he was trying to do. It didn't seem like something to just randomly do, but he thought Jazz might need more friends, and he thought now that Sadie seemed like she could use some, too.
"Me, either," he admitted freely when Sadie said she didn't really get how magical inheritance worked. "I guess - yay science! Except with magic. Science magic! I don't know," he concluded with a chuckle.
"Yeah," he agreed about Ellie being nice. "Have you talked to her before?"
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Dathan Fischer
*blushes*
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
February 20, 2021 8:42 PM
Hey, that's my move by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
"It's okay," Sadie assured Dathan when he suggested that his mouth had run off without the thoughts to back it up. It felt odd, to offer either reassurance or forgiveness, because both seemed completely unnecessary, especially coming from her, but it was just what you said in that situation, regardless of whether or not you, as a person, were in any way relevant. "Happens to me all the time," she confided more quietly. Half of her whether Dathan might be faking his own bumbling to try and make her feel less bad about hers, but he seemed too honest, and she also wasn't sure that anyone would go to such elaborate lengths to make her feel better. He probably just had tripped over his own thoughts. The difference was he was confident enough to just admit it and shrug it off."Yeah, I will do," she nodded, regarding talking to Jezebel. She hoped some legitimate excuse to do that cropped up so that she could keep that promise without just doing the social equivalent of cold calling her housemate. She imagined just walking up to her and trying to start a conversation just for the sake of being friendly, and just about wanted to die at the mere thought of it.
She found herself grinning (prompting her to bring her hand to her mouth, and to dip her head so that her hair swung forward a little) at science-magic, and she wasn't even sure why. Maybe just the way he said it, and the fact that he was laughing too.
"Professor Wright could probably explain it," she ventured, her smile still in place as she looked back up, "In like... a lot of detail," she added, her voice just slightly suggesting that 'a lot' meant 'waaay too much.' And which probably meant his explanation would not work particularly well on Sadie.
"Oh, uh...no," she admitted, her smile dipping some as he asked if she knew Ellie, wondering if she sounded stupid for having an opinion on a person she had never spoken to. Ellie just seemed like she had a lot of fun when she worked with Dathan, but Sadie was aware that that basically sounded like she had been watching him, which would be a bad thing to admit. "But, like you said, people are generally chill. And I wouldn't want to be rude about your... friend?" she checked.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Hey, that's my move
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Dathan Fischer
February 21, 2021 11:02 AM
Should we share, or should I figure out something else? by Dathan Fischer
Sadie was definitely someone you had to pay close attention to, if you were going to have a conversation with her. She was so soft-spoken, for one thing, and it felt like he, at least, had to make pauses for her to speak in - she wasn't going to just take them. Dathan felt altogether big and clumsy, like he needed to be extra-careful with her, like she was a fragile fine porcelain vase and it was very important that he not knock her over."Hey, at least we tried, right?" he asked rhetorically. It was, after all, about as much as he guessed people could reasonably ask; if someone had a problem with that, they could just...go away, he guessed.
Dathan chuckled appreciatively at the expression of faith in Professor Wright's ability to explain the science magic, happy that he was pretty sure Sadie had almost laughed. She'd definitely smiled, even if she'd covered her mouth up, which was a shame. It was obvious she hadn't exactly been joking about the professor, but he was pretty sure she had been using understatement a little, and that was funny. "Poor guy," he said. "I think he's probably - you know - an okay guy - at least, I hope he is - but he's...got a lot of details. I might understand half of what he says on a really good day? I wonder if he and Professor Skies just sit around the staff room talking Latin together when they aren't teaching. Though it's kind of weird to think of them not teaching, honestly," he admitted. "In Teppenpaw, Professor Xavier comes into the common room sometimes and sits around and anyone can talk to him, and sometimes his little girl's there, too - does Skies do anything like that? I just imagined her holding...top-secret dance parties and making you all swear never to tell or anything," he joked. It was a funny mental image, but he thought he might be too stunned to laugh if it turned out to be true....
The word 'friend' was pronounced as a question. Sadie seemed to do that thing people did where they sounded like they were asking questions even when they weren't, but he thought this one might actually be a question. "Yeah," he said after a moment's thought. "At least I hope so, I hope I'm not just totally annoying her whenever we work together." And, now that he thought of it, he also hoped he wasn't annoying Sadie right now. He was in a talkative mood, but he had not previously thought about how he might be annoying her. "Plus friends are cool. Want to be friends?" he asked, taking refuge in audacity to see if she reacted in a polite way that nevertheless conveyed that she actually wanted him to go away and leave her alone.
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Dathan Fischer
Should we share, or should I figure out something else?
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
February 21, 2021 7:03 PM
I'm not sure it's on brand for you by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Just trying your best was not a philosophy Sadie was very familiar with. You had to make sure your best was good enough, because if at first you didn't succeed, you might never get another shot, and people would probably be mad at you. Luckily, Dathan's comment didn't seem like it needed much of a response."Oh, he is!" Sadie nodded, as Dathan suggested Professor Wright was probably an okay guy, feeling a little bad about laughing at him when he had always been so nice to her. Still, the image Dathan painted of him and Professor Skies sitting around in the staff lounge was just too funny. "Totally," she confirmed, with a slighly guilty smile. She could see what he meant about them being casual - it was hard to believe they did anything that wasn't totally serious. She tried picturing Professor Wright in jeans, or Professor Skies in pyjamas. Neither image worked. The image of Professor Xavier sitting around in Teppenpaw with his daughter totally did though, and got an 'aw' from her. She was ready to shake her head 'no' and confirm that Professor Skies definitely was not like that, when Dathan presented an even funnier image. "No. Definitely not," she stated far too quickly, avoiding his eye. She leant in a little, so that this time he could hear her when she dropped to a whisper. "If I tell you about those, I have to kill you," she warned him with a grin, wondering who this funny person who made jokes and chatted like it was easy was.
"Oh my god," she laughed a little incredulously as Dathan just outright asked if she wanted to be friends. "You just walk up and say that to people?" she asked, as if he had just declared that he frequently wrestled dragons or downed unlabelled potions with his breakfast.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
I'm not sure it's on brand for you
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Dathan Fischer
February 24, 2021 7:10 PM
I don't think I have a brand. by Dathan Fischer
Yes! He had done it! She smiled properly! She made a joke! Dathan grinned, too, before he pulled an obviously fake nervous expression.“My lips are sealed,” he said, leaning in a bit to match the whisper. “No one will ever hear from me about your secret wild side,” he added with a wink.
The reaction to his taking refuge in audacity gave im the impression that the answer to the spontaneous question was probably ‘no,’ but she also sounded just…surprised. Which was fair, he guessed. He had, after all, just done something a little…unusual, to put it mildly, that was true. He probably should not have done that, it had looked pretty…weird, he guessed. This was one of those examples of why just doing things when they popped into his head, without taking time to try to think about them a little, was not usually what one would consider a smart move, as far as ideas went….
“Not really,” he admitted with a shrug. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never tried it before, anyway – it’s definitely a way to know the answer to your last question, right? Plus, you’ve already seen…well, one of my thoughts, anyway, and confirmed the crazy Crotalus dance parties, and threatened to kill me, so technically I still haven’t walked up to anyone at random and just said that. So,” he concluded with a shrug, endeavoring to play it cool.
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Dathan Fischer
I don't think I have a brand.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
February 26, 2021 6:54 AM
It's another great thing about you by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
“Not mine!” she giggled, as Dathan talked about her secret wild side, “Professor Skies’s!” She was about to protest that she did not have a secret wild side, but… well, #SadieLake was not a #WildChild (that was more her brother’s territory whilst she was much more #SugarAndSpice) - but claiming that she didn’t have a whole other identity, or a much different personality than the one everyone here saw… That came a little too close to an uncomfortable truth.“Okay, you got me there,” she admitted, still smiling at him, as he intellectually out manoeuvred her. It wasn’t exactly a tricky thing to do, but somehow she didn’t feel like she minded with Dathan. Maybe because they were just clearly messing around. And because whether or not she was the brightest bulb, he actually seemed to like her. She wasn’t totally sure why, although she had to admit that the person she was leaning into tentatively being around him seemed like she might be fun…
Would he get bored when he realised it wasn’t something she had, just something he was making happen? Was she being fake like she had been all the time before coming here?
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think it worked out this time,” she smiled, trying to push down the automatic wave of self-doubt, though her smile faltered a little. “If you want to be friends?” she stated, her voice still turning it into a question, her deep brown eyes searching his face for any hint that she should doubt this, “I accept.”
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
It's another great thing about you
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Dathan Fischer
February 26, 2021 7:11 PM
Aw, you're, you're very nice. by Dathan Fischer
“Su – u – ure,” said Dathan slowly, with another wink, as Sadie claimed that the wild side belonged entirely to Professor Skies and not at all to herself. Truthfully, he couldn’t really imagine Sadie Chalmers doing anything too wild and crazy, dancing on tables and throwing streamers or whatever people who had wild sides did, but they were just joking around and there was no need to be too accurate in all that.As the conversation went on, he thought that that was something Sadie could do with more of in her life. She seemed like such a sweet, quiet, serious little person – like a little bird, or her jackalope last year – he remembered her jackalope had been a shy one. Did it take after her, or had it just been the fates arranging for a really good pairing?
“Great,” he said when Sadie said his strategy had worked after all. Maybe she had just been taken aback? It didn’t matter much, he guessed; he’d greet her and maybe sit with her in class a few times, and could figure out from there if she actually wanted to be friends or was just humoring him now. “Great! It’s always a good day when you make new friends, right?” he said with a smile.
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Dathan Fischer
Aw, you're, you're very nice.
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