#or maybe Splinter's line was a way to ensure that if the show is ever unpaused

[fanfoolishness]

Feeding Turtle-Ducks (ATLA)

Azula struggles with her memory, but her brother is there to help.  A bittersweet reflection on redemption and the sibling relationship.  References both the main ATLA series as well as The Search and LoK. 2500 words.

***

Some days time flutters past her in fragments, fallen leaves from the vine.

Azula gets… confused, now.  It is a fact that once would have needled her.  Yet she can accept it, given that she forgets the confusion as quickly as it comes, riding each wave of memory with a grace befitting Fire Nation royalty.

Today her mind stretches back, back, back.  She sees Mother’s finery hanging forgotten in the grand wardrobe, recalls trying it on after sneaking away from her boring lessons.  She breathes in the smell of her mother. The beautiful robes drag on the ground, piles of fabric cloaking her child-sized frame.  She stuffs the robes back in the wardrobe in anger and considers setting them ablaze.

She does not.  She is better than that.  Colder.  But when next she visits the wardrobe, its gilded hooks are empty, and she sinks to her knees in tears.

She gets to her feet, crouched in a fighting stance, lightning gathering to her fingertips in a fight in the middle of a boiling lake.  Her friends stare at her, eyes lowered in deference, fear, acceptance of her rule.  She has allowed herself this indulgence, this trust in their alliance.  

She is repaid by Mai’s words of love, Ty Lee’s knuckles fierce pinpricks beneath her armor, and she collapses to the ground before them like a fool.

Azula bows over herself.  Faintly she hears her name, kind whispers in a voice she knows but cannot identify.  Where is she?  She cannot say.  Time skips past her again.

Her coronation day.  She should be so proud, so proud of her perfection, her precision, her careful skill.  But her attendants are traitors and her mother whispers sadly in her ears.  She stares into the mirror through her ruined bangs.  With all her intelligence, all her skill, still she never believed her father would treat her this way.  As lesser.  As an afterthought.  

She never thought he would treat her like her brother.

Sozin’s comet flares and the fire in her veins scorches, pure and clean.  The world is quiet here, only herself and her hauntings, Zuzu and a faceless shadow in the background.  The Agni Kai boils around them, the terrible roar of flames blue and orange beneath a red sky, and she pulls out lightning from deep within herself, aims at the shadow — because she can’t bear to aim at him, not this time — or because she misjudges the battlefield — or because she wants to hurt him, but not to kill him -- or because she can’t bear for him to live and remember her like this —

She doesn’t know why she calls the lightning and sends it onward.  But she sees her brother hit the ground rolling, sparking, sizzling, his hands weak and nerveless, the smell of singed hair and skin in the air, and she thinks, I’ve won.

So why does this part always make her weep?

***

Sometimes, a flame burns brightly in her mind, and with it a blue-white clarity.  Today is a better day, and this time she does not wander, lost, through the shadow-stories of her own mind.

She remembers this place on these clear days.  She knows this quiet group of cottages near the city and the sea, where royal attendants skilled in healing and care help her and others like her.  They call it the Fireside Cove, and today she waits near the pond for her favorite visitor.

Zuko rounds the corner, stepping into the garden with a grin on his face.  He had been a tall man in his prime, but now his shoulders bend forward, his long white hair flowing more like water than flame.  His clothing is casual but rich, befitting a former Firelord.  The old scar glares as ever but Azula feels no spiteful delight, no vindication, when she looks into his face. She feels only comfort.

He sits beside her, slowly lowering himself into a lotus position.  “How are you today, sister?” he asks gently.

Azula smiles.  “Clear.”  It is the word she has chosen for those rare days, rarer now, when the mists of age depart and let her see the present, not the past.  She does not know why she bears this struggle but he does not, but she does not begrudge him for it.  She knows that she can bear it.

“I’m glad,” he says, and his lined face creases into a smile that falters.  “Yesterday was a hard day for you.  I visited, but… we didn’t really get to talk.”

Azula nods, looking into the pond.  She cannot remember it, but she trusts him to speak the truth.  “Sometimes it is so difficult to know what is here.  What is now.”  She closes her eyes.  “There are so many things I wish had been different.”

“It was a long time ago, Azula,” he says, resting a hand on her shoulder.  She leans against her big brother.  “It’s all right now.”

“But I nearly killed you,” she says reproachfully.  “I would have done it, were my technique better.”  She breathes deep.  “Have I ever apologized to you?”

“A hundred hundred times,” he murmurs, “over many years.”  He smiles fondly.

“I don’t remember,” she sniffs.  “I should remember something like that.”   She sits up straight, then inclines her head in a bow, her hands in a salute.  “I’m sorry, Zuzu.  Truly.”

Zuko takes her hands in his.  They’re gnarled and wizened, and for a moment she blinks, surprised.  Then she remembers again.  It was all such a long time ago, and yet it seems so fresh.

“I forgive you,” he says.  “And I always will.”

She nods, clinging to his words.  She suspects they will slip away again like the other memories, but maybe, maybe she can hold them this time.  She is Azula, she is royalty, she commands the words to stay writ in her mind --  And they do, for a little while, at least.

“It’s good to have visitors,” Azula declares, pulling back and straightening up despite the protests of her creaking back.  “You are not the only one, Zuzu, though you are my favorite.”

He grins lopsidedly at her, and he is seven years old again, impossibly grown up and wise in her eyes.  “I thought Kiyi and her family weren’t coming until next month.”

“Not Kiyi.”  

“Then who?” asks Zuko.  He considers.  “I’m sorry Izumi has been so busy.  I know she has not been able to visit for some time due to her duties, and as for my grandson --”

Azula waves a hand at him.  “Kiyi and Ty Lee send me letters, and the others are busy ensuring the safety of the Fire Nation, of course,” she says.  “No, I have had other visitors.”  She smiles, a small and secret smile.  “Perhaps you will think me crazy if I tell you.”

Zuko gazes at her, and for a moment she wonders if it is sorrow darkening his amber eyes.  She is unsure, though, and in the next moment the expression fades. “No,” says Zuko.  “I won’t.  You can tell me.  I promise.”

“Mother has been to visit,” Azula whispers.  “And Uncle Iroh.  They -- they tell me they are proud.”  She blinks back sudden tears, and turns away.  Perhaps she should not have told him, should not have shared their faces distant and yet so close, their words so peaceful and certain, their simple promise heartening.  Soon.  She flushes.  “Don’t laugh.”

When she does dare to look at him again, this time she is certain she cannot tell what his face shows.  His eyes are soft, bright with tears of their own, and yet he smiles back at her.  “I’m not laughing.  I’m happy for you, Azula.”

“Thank you,” she says, and then the moment splinters, shards of memory spilling out, unordered, chaotic.

***

She is different, changed, filled with mingled regret and hope as she steps, a guest, into the palace for the first time in a decade.  There is a pride in her brother and his rule, the way the people trust him without fear, something she could never have imagined as a frightened, fractured, perfect child -- 

“Azula,” Ursa murmurs. “Do you remember our little game?”

She catches her breath in the darkened recesses of the palace, her mother’s voice ringing in her ears.  She wants to resist.  She wants to snap at her mother to leave her alone. But she — she’s missed her, and she’s grown since their last meeting, and she understands now that there is a wound carried in her secret heart of hearts —

“I remember counting fire-butterflies in the garden,” Azula whispers. “Zuko would get impatient because there were so many, and he would wander off to play.”

“But you were my clever girl,” says Ursa softly. “Sitting in my lap, counting so high.  Dozens of them.  They looked like jewels at dusk, glittering in the last of the sunlight. You were so proud of yourself for counting so many.”

“I pretended they were my soldiers.  You and Father always told me I would be a great leader someday,” Azula says.  She turns away.  “But Zuko found his honor, Mother.  I lost mine long ago.”

“You are finding it.”

“I --” she tries.

“I failed you,” says Ursa, and Azula winces.  “My beautiful, clever daughter. I’m so sorry.”  Ursa’s arms around her are warm and strong, and she has forgotten what this feels like, it was so long ago and she was so small, so lost within the armor she’d created --

“I hated you,” she sobs.

“I loved you, my Azula, my fire-butterfly.”  Ursa’s voice cracks, thick with seeming sorrow.  “You were always so brilliant. I never stopped loving you.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers stubbornly, but it is a lie, and she knows her mother knows it.

***

Azula shakes her head, blinking back grateful tears.  But her mother isn’t here, and she searches the room in confusion.  The tea room.  She knows this place.

“It’s been many years,” her uncle says, brushing the floor of his shop peacefully.  “You’ve grown, Azula.”

“Or perhaps you’ve shrunk,” she jabs, but without any real venom. She watches him cautiously.  Older he might be, but he is still the Dragon of the West, as the Dai Le can attest.  It is not a battle she wants with him, but perhaps that is all she deserves.

“Jasmine tea?”

“Surprise me, Uncle.”

“Ahhh, but you have been surprised by very few things, Azula. Still, I will do my best.”  He bows to her in the style of the Earth Kingdom, and turns to prepare the tea.

“There are a few things,” she admits.  “The older I become, the more I know I do not know.”  But she cannot name these things, not yet; she does not know how to put these new feelings into words, the reconciliation with her mother, the gradual and deep respect she has grown for Zuko, the cautious, painful meetings with Mai and Ty Lee, teaching her half-sister Kiyi firebending.  She is learning so much.  

There is a long silence, broken only by tea pouring into her cup.  The scent of lotus flower fills the room.

“You are different,” Iroh observes.  “That is a surprise of its own.”

“I have had time.  I hope it is enough.”  She hesitates.  It astounds her sometimes, how much she has learned by watching and waiting, and yet how much of life remains a mystery to her.  But she wishes to know more.   “Would you care for a game of Pai Sho?”

“If you do not mind defeating a harmless old man.”

“You are as harmless as I, Uncle,” she says, but the smile he gives her is worth more than a dozen victories.

***

Voices in the garden, a face mouthing her name.  She does not understand.  She bows over her clasped hands, fire trembling at her fingertips, and lets the flames burn sweetly away.  The memories fall away, ash on the wind.

Izumi red-faced and wrinkled, her precious niece, pride of the Fire Nation.

A walk on a beach on Ember Island with Mai, her hair streaked gray, an embrace in the ocean breeze.

Ty Lee’s hand in hers, the grip stronger and softer than she remembered.

Standing beside her brother with his family, their family, gazing clear-eyed at the pyre.  Watching the flames rise for Iroh, for Father, for Mother, for Mai.  Or was it a pyre at all?  Perhaps it was Sokka in Water Tribe finery, Aang in Air Nomad regalia.  She doesn’t know  -- she cannot name them -- where is she --

***

A deep breath.  A blue-white flame dancing in her mind’s eye.  Clarity.  She is here again.

“Azula?”

An old man gazes at her.  She squints. Could it be Father, somehow scarred and bowed with age? 

She reconsiders, searching for the answer.  No.  She is certain.  There is too much kindness in the eyes.

Her vision clears, and Azula glances at her big brother, taking another breath.  “I’m sorry.  What were we speaking of?”

“You’re here again,” Zuko says, seeming relieved.  “We’re just spending time together, that’s all.”

Zuko pulls her close to him in a clumsy hug, and she chuckles, allowing him to do so for a moment before pulling back.  “Gross, Zuzu.  All of this family affection.  Isn’t it a bit much?”

“Well, you’re one of my favorite sisters,” he says seriously.

“You always were a sentimental fool.  Don’t worry, I won’t tell Kiyi if you declare me your favorite,” she scoffs.  She glances down to the blanket they are sitting on, and lets out a laugh.  “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Have not,” he protests.  “It’s for both of us to share.  I was waiting until you were ready.”  

“So you say,” she says, fixing him with a wicked glare that shifts into a sly smile.  “But I believe you.  You always were a terrible liar.”

“Someone got all the lying talent in the family,” says Zuko, nudging her in the side with a bony elbow.  “I wonder who that could be.”

“Jealous as usual?” she asks loftily.  But she reaches between them, picking out a handful of cracked corn from the bag resting on the blanket.  

“You wish,” he snorts, and he sounds just like the hot-headed young man she remembers so clearly.  He reaches down and picks up his own handful of grain.  “Bet I can get more turtle-ducks to come over than you can.”

“I have the home advantage,” she reminds him.  “They know me, Zuzu.”  They toss their handfuls together, golden corn twinkling on the surface of the still pond for an instant before the turtle-ducks begin to swim towards them. 

“They know me, too,” he declares.  The turtle-ducks cluster before them near the water’s edge, peacefully eating the offering, making happy little noises of contentment.  “I think it’s a tie.”

“Very well,” says Azula after a swift count.  Alas, he is right.  “We will see who is the victor at tomorrow’s visit, won’t we?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”   

The setting sun dances on the water in reds and golds, a brilliant gleaming in this quiet moment.  She knows not how long it will last, but perhaps that isn’t important, anyway.  The turtle-ducks splash and play before them, swimming at the water’s edge, and Azula laughs beside her brother.

#azula #zuko #azula atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko atla #atla #i'm not going to lie #i teared up like 10 times writing this #i hope the comics show her redemption #i want her to be okay #she was just a child too #ursa #ursa atla #kiyi #atla kiyi #atla the search #iroh #iroh atla #atla iroh

[novantinuum]

Crack the Paragon, Chapter 11

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences (I have upped the rating in consideration of sensitive topics I aim to depict later on.)

Words: 3000~

Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops.

Steven falls apart.

Chapter summary: In which Lapis is a flight risk, and Steven begins to doubt himself.

You can find the AO3 link in the reblogs! (I have to omit them from the original post these days to ensure this will show up in the tags.) If you enjoyed this, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well.

-

Chapter 10: Beta, Part 2

When your life has become a continually evolving string of heart pounding adventures linked together by the odd few days off, you quickly learn to fixate on the fine details no matter what the circumstance, as you never know when one of those details could be used to save everyone’s butts. Sure, it’s not like this outlook did him any favors back in the forge, but his point still stands: a Steven who isn’t constantly paying close attention to his surroundings is a Steven who can’t properly help his friends. If he’s not innately aware of everything around him, he can’t raise his shield in time. He won’t be able to pull the right tool out of his cheeseburger backpack. He can’t give a perfectly worded response to a soul in need. This is a non-negotiable fact, and the reality of what happened with Bismuth merely cements it ever more solid. Which is why— deep beyond the wandering disorientation of his current surface thoughts— he can’t help but wonder why he’s unable to pay attention to the details that actually matter right now. The individual threads of all his friends’ panic, confusion, and attempted explanation overlap and intertwine, weaving an audible tapestry of emotions. Their precise words, however, may as well have died in the wind. Mentally, he is not here. Instead, the fragmented remains of his focus choose to zero in on the wood grain pattern spread across every beam and board of the barn’s rustic infrastructure. Wholly enamored, his eyes trace a path between the dark ridges as if traversing a maze. Tree rings are super pretty, huh. He absolutely doesn’t give them the love and admiration they deserve. But as is evident from the slight musty smell and the dainty mushrooms beginning to sprout by the floor in one of the corners, some of the boards are beginning to rot. His mouth falls slightly ajar, and he stares at these fruiting bodies with such stubborn commitment that for a moment he forgets anything else was ever a priority. Have Peridot and Lapis noticed? Do they even know what wood rot is? Upon that thought, he frowns pensively, balling his fist at his chin. Hmm. Given their relative inexperience with Earth stuff, the most likely answer to that is no. He’ll have to call Dad about fixing the boards before this grows into an even bigger problem. It’d be awful if their home became unsafe to live in because he didn’t do his part to help. But then again... “What do you mean, none of you know why she did it? That just makes it worse!” “Lapis! Lapis, wait! They said she’s—“ “Let go of me!” she says, struggling in Peridot’s grasp, her water wings flaring outwards at the ready. “Don’t you get it? I can’t live here on Earth anymore, it’s not safe! None of us are safe!” Is he already too late?

Lapis’s impassioned cries continue to echo at the edge of his awareness— something paranoid about shapeshifted disguises, about the Diamonds— but his feet are still anchored to the boards below, his body all but stagnant in shock of the current maelstrom of emotions. And yet, it’s strange... while a sum of him dimly recognizes he’s still attached to reality, it’s almost as if he’s watching all of this from above himself, stuck as a passive observer to his failure. Helpless. ( C-cracked, I’m- I’m cracked, I’m split I, I can’t... feel... need... I-I need to —) Slimy tendrils of guilt slither around his heart. He wasn’t paying close enough attention to the mood. He wasn’t careful. He wasn’t convincing. He was scared that everyone would devolve into petty argument, and look what happened! He ran his mouth when he should’ve stayed silent. He caused his own nightmare. His family’s splintering apart once more, and it’s all his fault. “But it’s not like that,” Ruby hastily interjects, “I’m sure it’s not like that!” “Really? You’re seriously jumping to defend Rose, after all the lies she fed us?” Amethyst spits back. “N- no! I’m just saying, why would—“ The constant chirping chorus emanating from the birds of the nearby woods steals his fragmented focus next, and he can’t help the sense of relief that bubbles up from within as he willfully sinks into the distraction. The birds, their songs are beautiful. He wonders what they’re saying to each other... if they’re arguing about territory, warning friends about predators, or simply having a friendly conversation. Maybe his dad might be able to distinguish the difference. When he was still living in the van, they used to lay on that ratty old mattress side-by-side late at night, listening to the crashing tides and the distant squalls of birds picking at trashed food on the boardwalk. Because one of his relatives was big into birding when they were kids, Dad was always able to stake a reasonable guess on the species class based on call alone. And honestly, that’s a pretty amazing power to have. As he related earlier, it’s important to fixate on the fine details. Attention to detail can save lives. It can soften hearts. It can make or break friendships. But as he’s grown to fear, it can’t fix everything. He can’t fix everything. The blue Gem’s features twist with simmering fury. “Peridot, I told you to let me go!” she hollers, and in a single jerk rips herself away from the shorter Gem’s desperate embrace. Her wings swing like a whip behind her as her body follows the motion through. It’s enough of a shock to the system that his sense of awareness comes rushing back. He ducks, the water swishing right over his head. Something behind him snaps and clatters to the ground. Ruby presses a bejeweled hand to her face, muttering something he can’t distinguish. “‘Kay, I’m out,” Amethyst cuts in through the chaos, throwing her hands up. “Y’all are whack, this whole convo is whack, and I can’t deal with any of this right now.” Not wasting a single second, she tucks herself into a ball and super-speeds it out of the barn. Mouth caught in a tiny, helpless ‘o,’ Steven whisks around, only barely catching a glimpse of her retreat before he spots the damage. It’s one of Lapis’s morps, that wooden hanger displaying all the baseball paraphernalia. Now it lies rejected on the floorboards, one of the strings broken and the bat rolling towards Peridot’s feet. He watches, feeling lambasted with regret for his role in sparking this argument, as the green Gem’s face cripples much like the structural integrity of that meep-morp. She blinks away the threat of tears and quickly averts her gaze from the group, bending to pick up the bat before clutching it to her chest in a protective manner. The water Gem huffs and storms out of the barn as well, fists unyielding at her side. Heart pounding amidst all the uncertainty of this fraught situation, Steven scuttles after her. Come on, think! he snaps at himself, chewing pensively at his lip. There has to be a way he can still save this, a way he can stop his family from splintering apart yet again... “Lapis,” Ruby begins, delicately edging towards her. “No, stop,” she holds up a hand. Her expression— as nebulous and hard to ascertain as always— is caught at some weird nexus between blinding anger, terror, and... is that guilt he spies? “Stop talking! I’m not asking any of you to change my mind. I’m leaving, and all of you should be too!” Turning on her heels, she squares her stance and flares her wings to their full width in preparation for her flight. Just before those watery wings can beat downwards, propelling her lithe form away from his world forever, he leaps forward. Dares to grab her wrist. She sharply inhales, briefly tugging against him before she notices who the hand belongs to and falls slack in his hold. Static assails his mind as he assesses every angle of this jerk-moment decision. What on earth is he doing? (He can practically feel Ruby and Peridot’s anxious, curious gaze drilling into him from behind, and they’re not even in his line of sight. No matter what happens, this is all on him. No one else.) “I-I, um,” he stammers at first, desperately scouring his brain for the right words to say. “Please, I’m... You don’t have to be scared like this. I may have her gem, but I’m not her!” Lapis gives a shaky sigh. Her wings droop right along with her shoulders, the persistent burden of thousands of years of captivity evident within her posture. Waiting in the shadow of her silence, his focus falls on the gemstone adoring her back, that smooth, glossy teardrop. Golly, somehow it doesn’t feel that long ago at all that her gem was cracked, and— scared, angered, and confused— she lashed out in much a similar way. “I’ve always known you’re not your mom, Steven,” she says lowly, still not meeting his gaze. “This- this isn’t about that!” “Then... what is it about?” She growls in frustration, clenching her fists as she yanks her wrist away from his grip. “Have none of you been listening to me?” “Have you been listening to us?” Peridot mutters flatly from behind him.

Lapis shoots her a sour look, but continues, pacing across the grass as she speaks. “If one diamond was able to fool an entire empire into thinking she was a quartz for thousands of years,” she says, gesticulating to emphasize her words, “then- then how do we know the other Diamonds aren’t already here doing the same, already watching from a distance, just waiting to shatter us for everything we’ve done??” The sharpened words echo across the fields, familiar bird calls cut short as even nature falls silent in their sway. Steven stands motionless, her paranoia-tinted prophecy sinking in through his flesh despite all efforts otherwise, sowing roots in the darkest corners of his mind that he dare not peep into. When no one responds, the blue Gem exhales, lowering her face to the ground. “I’ve let my guard down too much here, I’ve let myself grow soft. I’m sorry, but I have to go.” He swears he hears a note of disappointment laced between the layers of her uneven breath, or perhaps it’s heartbreak. He can’t tell. Despite his usual aptitude at interpreting others’ feelings, Lapis is consistently hard to read. And it’s this very thought, this subtle dissonance from the expected in her intentions, that encourages him to reach out one last time. Her wings flare out again. Blood and hard light thrum at an almost dizzying pace through his parallel veins. It’s now or never.

“Lapis, wait!” he calls, palm open wide. “Please, please don’t leave! Not now, not like this.” Their world crystallizes into ice as he vies to meet her fears head on. There’s no sunlight, no bird calls, no wind, no Ruby and Peridot behind him. No more untimely distractions. Only Lapis, desperate and hurting amid the heart of the storm she created. She holds her wings taut, ready for flight, hovering at the edge of her metaphoric tower. Breath trembling, she glances behind. The sheer complexity of emotion Steven discovers in those sea blue irises almost makes his eyes water. Cautiously, he steps forward.

“Maybe you’re right,” he begins, fidgeting with his shirt’s bottom hemline. His fingers briefly brush against the edge of his gem as he does so, and he jerks them away in blind rebellion of this reminder. “Maybe this planet never will be completely safe. Maybe nothing ever goes to plan. But the Crystal Gems have survived this long because they stood together instead of breaking apart. A-and... I know you don’t think of yourself as a Crystal Gem,” he cuts in quickly with a placating gesture, noticing the question forming on her lips, “but please-! With everything else that’s happening, I really, really still want you in my life.”

Tightly, she wrings her fingers around her opposite arm, face dipping dolefully towards the soft soil squishing up between her bare toes. “Steven, I...” “I can’t promise you’ll be safe on Earth, but I can promise you won’t have to be alone,” he says, voice thick. “Please.” Stay, he mouths, his body nearly shaking in fear of how she’ll respond, of all the inner thoughts flooding through her mind he’ll never wholly decipher. Their gaze locks, souls laid bare to each other as they engage in a rapid-fire dialogue no other creature of this world will ever be privy to.

If you can't stay for yourself, he cries silently, can’t you stay for me?

The seconds are punctuated only by the reverberant tremor of his heartbeat, as he stands upon a precipice in wait of her pivotal, defining answer.

Eventually, her expression softens. She folds her wings, standing down.

“Fine,” she spits. “I’ll wait and see what happens... for now. But if I ever find out any of the Diamonds are inbound, or worse? I’m out of here.”

A stiff gust of wind rushes past, threading through her hair and causing her dress to undulate like mid-ocean waves. Shadow obscures her face.

“I’m not getting pulled into another war.” Giving no further explanation, she turns tail and storms past the tent, past the rickety fence bordering her and Peridot’s barn, and into the overgrown wildflower field beyond. Once she’s reached a far enough distance, she extends her wings and begins to fly, hastily disappearing beyond the tree-line. Everyone stares at the thick swath of forest she escaped to with dumbfounded shock at first, no one quite sure how to proceed after that bomb of a conversation stopper. Ruby mutters something under her breath, clear frustration coloring her voice. Behind him, he hears Peridot reverently set the bat down on the barn’s floor.

“I’m... gonna go find her, and help her calm down,” she says. Clutching her hands close to her chest, she passes him and Ruby and begins her long, flightless trek into the Beach City woods. Steven himself migrates towards the grassy patch beyond the pool, and falls to his knees amongst the dandelions growing there. Most of them are still flowering, their lithe golden yellow petals fanning out from the head. A few on a separate plant are white and puffy, though, ready to disperse seeds. He’s drawn to one in particular, a seedhead that’s already missing half of its progeny. Biologically, he knows it’s a good thing that those seeds have flown away and might get a chance to germinate elsewhere, but regardless the sight of this lonely, barren dandelion strikes a dour note. Was he wrong, asking Lapis to stay? Could she eventually heal and become happier, leaving the burden of this place? He swallows hard, gripping the balding seedhead between two fingers and decisively plucking it off the stem. A few more seeds blow off with the disturbance, their feathery parachutes falling into the arms of the wind.

Lapis...

What if his selfishness is only holding her back?

And then there’s Amethyst to worry about. There’s no point overextending the sad dandelion metaphor to fit her situation, because hers is something entirely unique. She’s still in his life, just emotionally closed-off. Bitter. Avoidant. Unfairly antagonistic to others. By inviting her out here he hoped she might take the opportunity to kick back and blow off some steam, but now, after watching her abruptly leave the group a few minutes ago, he’s worried this trip only succeeded in further stressing her out.

A gem adorned hand falls upon his shoulder then, pulling him to the present. With a startled yelp, he tosses the dandelion into the grass as he flinches away. His heart drums uncontrollably, so much so that his cheeks burn with embarrassment when it dawns on him who this hand belongs to. He sucks in a shaky breath to calm himself down before allowing himself to sink into her comfort, glancing behind to meet Ruby’s tired, kind eyes. “Hey. Are you okay?” she asks. His tongue suddenly feeling as limp and dry as all the fallen leaves beginning to sprinkle the ground, he nods his head yes. In an overt betrayal of his response, his big, stupid, puffy eyes begin to water. Hurriedly, he wipes the burgeoning tears away with the butt of his palm. Frustration bubbles at his core. Since when was he such a crybaby? He’s cried far too much lately, and he’s sick of it. He rubs harder as the tears begin to fall anyways, his bottom lip quivering as he vies with every last ounce of control he still has to not look entirely pathetic. The skin around his eyes, sensitive and raw, begins to sting from the friction. Wordlessly, Ruby wraps her hands around his wrists and leads them away from his face. His chest tightens. He fails to choke back a sob as she pulls him into her embrace, his own arms trapped between them. She buries her face into the crook of his neck, and it’s then that he realizes with a shock of surprise that she’s crying too. Her quiet tears dampen his collar; her fingers clutch at the back of his shirt. “You don’t have to pretend to be strong for us all the time,” she says softly. “I wanna be here for you too, okay? It’s just like you said... no matter what, we stand together.” “But I- I have to go find her,” he chokes out, the words sticking in his throat in the most pathetic manner. “Who, Lapis? Peridot‘s prolly fine handling her on her own.” “No, I mean Amethyst. I saw her run off, an, and she’s been so upset today, and...” “Steven,” she says, leaning away and gently lifting his chin so he can’t avoid her compassionate gaze. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and honestly? A lot of it’s been our fault. You should take a moment to rest, okay?” Grinning, she ruffles his hair. “Enjoy the breeze! Climb a tree! Kick back for once. I’ll check on Amethyst this time.”

He hoarsely whispers an ‘okay’ as he sits back on his heels in the sun and watches her run off, allowing the wind to whip through his curls. Sighing, he splays his fingers just above the grass, allowing their tips to gently tickle his palm as they brush back and forth, and futilely tries to convince himself he’s cultivated enough good into the world today to deserve this break.

#su #steven universe #su fanfic #su fanfiction #lapis lazuli #ruby #peridot #amethyst #my writing stuff #crack the paragon

[fromtheringapron]

WWE WrestleMania XXVI

Date: March 28, 2010.

Location: University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. 

Attendance: 72,219.

Commentary: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, and Matt Striker. 

Results:

1. WWE Unified Tag Team Championship Match: ShoMiz (The Miz and Big Show) (champions) defeated R-Truth and John Morrison 

2. Triple Threat Match: Randy Orton defeated Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr. 

3. Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Jack Swagger defeated Christian, Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler, Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston, Kane, Montel Vontavious Porter, Matt Hardy, and Shelton Benjamin. 

4. Triple H defeated Sheamus. 

5. Rey Mysterio defeated CM Punk (with Serena and Luke Gallows).

6. No Holds Barred Lumberjack Match: Bret Hart defeated Vince McMahon. Bruce Hart was the special guest referee.

7. WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Chris Jericho (champion) defeated Edge. 

8. Layla, Alicia Fox, Maryse, Michelle McCool, and Vickie Guerrero defeated Kelly Kelly, Beth Phoenix, Mickie James, Gail Kim, and Eve Torres. 

9. WWE Championship Match: John Cena defeated Batista (champion) to win the title. 

10. No Disqualification Career vs. Streak Match: The Undertaker defeated Shawn Michaels. Per stipulation, Michaels retired.

My Review

WreslteMania XXVI is a difficult show to sum up. It’s a pretty good WrestleMania, but also one that happens to be all over the place in tone and focus. Perhaps its reflective of how indeterminate the future of the WWE felt at the start of the 2010s. The roster was such a mishmash of eras that you’d be forgiven of not having a clue where the hell the company was going. John Cena, Batista, and Randy Orton were at the top of the card after their rise to superstardom in the 2000s, but the spotlight was still shared guys who rose to stardom in the ‘90s like Triple H and The Undertaker. Then there was a new generation of talent—The Miz, Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, etc. — bubbling in the undercard who seemed poised to rocket into the top at any moment. But wait! Time was also given to  . . . the 13-year-old feud between Bret Hart and Vince McMahon?!? Suffice to say, with the show splintering off in so many different directions, it’s not surprising it has some misfires.

Let’s start with the good stuff, though. The main event between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels is fantastic and I’m gonna throw it out there that I like it more than their match from the previous year. The stakes feel higher, the suspense level feels higher, and there’s more of a story here than just Shawn needing to beat Taker. He puts his entire career is on the line here, for heaven’s sake! And speaking of his career, like many at the time, I didn’t have a clue this would be Shawn’s last match. Most on-screen wrestling retirements are never legit, so there was plenty of basis to believe this one would be no different. But alas, this one was different, and we get about as good a sendoff as we could’ve gotten for someone who’s been dubbed Mr. WrestleMania.

On another show, the WWE title match between John Cena and Batista would’ve been the main event. Their match here is great fun. It’s actually an end of an era for the two men who were crowned as the leaders of the next generation at WrestleMania five years earlier. Batista would move on to Hollywood shortly after this and, while certainly not his last WWE run, it would mark the end of his career as a full-timer. Interestingly enough, Batista was really coming into his own as a heel at the time of his departure, even winning over fans who previously couldn’t stand him. He would resurrect his heel run in 2014 and 2019, again only for a short spell. A shame we haven’t been able to spend much time with arrogant heel ‘Tista and his impeccable designer fashion, but then I guess that’s what makes it so special.

As for what doesn’t work, I probably don’t need to go into much detail about the Bret/McMahon clash. The basics of the story are solid — Bret gets his long-awaited revenge on McMahon, with his family right by his side. It’s just not super fun to watch in execution, however well-meaning it may be. They match is dragged out much longer than it should and it takes the crowd completely out of it. Another misfire is the Money in the Bank match. This would be the final iteration of the match at WrestleMania before it becomes its own pay-per-view. It’s clear the concept needs some rejuvenation by this point as it’s now a lazy, bloated affair where everyone gets in their allotted number of spots and there are way too many participants. To cap it all off, the ill-advised decision is made to push Jack Swagger into the main event scene, an idea which would run out of gas in a matter of months.

The show seems to have some weird pacing issues as well. In the era of the Network, I’ve grown so accustom to Manias being stretched to the point of exhaustion, so it’s always little odd to go back and watch one that feels like it doesn’t have enough time. It’s almost like it’s struggling to figure out how spread out time across a card so stacked. The tag opener and Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk feel like abridged versions of the matches we would’ve otherwise gotten, while Bret vs. McMahon gets more time than either combined. Even Money in the Bank feels somewhat rushed. I’m definitely not a huge fan of WrestleMania becoming a seven-hour event, and WWE has proven they struggle with time management on longer Manias, but this is one show where it seems an extra hour absolutely would’ve been to its benefit.

At its best, WrestleMania XXVI is a nice sampler plate of eras, even if struggles to give you equal portions for all of them. The multi-generational makeup of the card ensures there’s a little something for everyone and even closes the books on a couple of legendary careers. You’re bound to dislike some it but for better or worse, and this is a cheeseball thing to say, it definitely puts the “showcase” in the Showcase of the Immortals.

My Random Notes

No joke, I really did not think this would be it for HBK and even seriously thought Taker’s streak was in jeopardy. Am I a fool for thinking that? Maybe, but I like that wrestling conned into believing it in a way it hardly ever does anymore.

I feel like the temple entrance set is something that should’ve been more impressive than it is in actuality. They just stacked LED screens on top of each other and just rolled with it. It looks like something from Minecraft.

Ah, this show reinvigorates my fond feelings for Matt Striker. Such a handsome chap! Not surprising at all he would appear on a Bachelor ripoff a whole decade later.

I chuckled at Bruce Hart being the special guest referee for Bret vs. McMahon. You just know he huffed and puffed his way into that one, much to Bret’s annoyance.

I also chuckled at Diana Hart-Smith walking down to the ring with her best “evil, vindictive femme fatale on the cover of a pulp novel” look. God bless her. She needs to write another book.

I know Rey singing Happy Birthday to his daughter is meant to be a heart-warming thing but if I were a kid in the same situation, I would be traumatized. Just think of how uncomfortable it is when a room full of people is signing at you and then think of enduring that in an arena filled with thousands of people. CM Punk did her a huge favor by crashing the moment, as far as I’m concerned.

Not saying anything new here, but the whole Spear thing with Edge is cringe as hell and it’s for the best that it’s been forgotten in the annals of his career.

I know some people like to mock Vickie Guerrero doing Eddie’s frog splash, but I personally thought it was a sweet moment while staying true to comedically heel Vickie.

The official theme song to this Mania is “I Made It” by Kevin Rudolf. A time-period appropriate choice, I must say. I feel like the dawn of the 2010s is the only time a Kevin Rudolf could be a success.

I identify myself as someone who will always be more embarrassed by John Cena haters than Cena himself and I gotta say him posing next to the guys in the front row hating his guts is fucking hilarious. Cena is funny sometimes when he just straight-up trolls.

On the Legacy fallout: The storytelling for this was weird as hell. Am I the only who remembers that one time on Raw where they teased Ted turning face and the crowd was actually kinda into it? Then they completely abandoned it for whatever reason and just had Randy be the breakout face (as if he needed it) and dunk on both Cody and Ted at WrestleMania. I feel like Cody’s AEW origin story more or less began here.

Awwwwe, this show has little baby Drew McIntyre. It’s so interesting watching this with the benefit of hindsight. I remember a lot of people Not Feeling It when he was anointed as the Chose One, and truthfully I wasn’t feeling it at the time either, but watching it back really makes you appreciate how much hard work he put in to get to where he’d be a decade later. A lot of folks were dreading the inevitable Drew world title run in 2010. The title run did happen, but it was much later and much more welcome than anyone back than anyone could’ve imagined.

#wrestlemania #wwe network #the undertaker #john cena

[tickle-her-senseless]

Important

Hey all. Just wanted to respond to questions from members of a couple of Discord servers run by the same person following a chaotic couple of days. I’m putting all the info and screenshots (minus names, pics and locations) here, so I can just direct people to this post if they have questions.

I had been intending to just head back here to Tumblr and let the situation lie, but unfortunately the reason given by the automated bot for my ban mentioned “crossing consent multiple times”. Today, friends have been sending me worried questions relating to this, so I’m concerned that the server owner may have made a similar claim in public. Now I pretty much have to say something as that’s such a serious thing to say about someone, particularly on any kind of kink scene.

The mention of consent actually relates to the server owner. Near the beginning of the lockdown, she and I were speaking a lot, she began to tease me in DMs, I responded with a piece of writing dedicated to her, we exchanged pictures - and eventually confessed a mutual attraction. We made plans for the end of lockdown, she talked about driving through Europe and showing me her favourite places. Although her English is perfect, I began learning her language through an app as I wanted to make the effort (Brits are renowned for being lazy with languages), and kept it up every day for months, amusing her with my clumsy pronunciation on calls. Sometimes she would send me explicit comments/thoughts, although I was always nervous to initiate that kind of thing.

One day she sent a message saying that she was still coming to terms with the end of her last relationship and would need to take things more slowly, as she was finding romantic sentiments (as opposed to kinky ones) hard to deal with. Naturally I replied “Of course, in that case I’ll wait for you to initiate that stuff once you’re ready”. At some point afterwards, she sent me a message out of the blue saying “I want cuddles ❤️” and I thought “oh, this is a level she’s OK with” and responded. I think it was the following day when I tried to pick up where we’d left off (without going any further, just cuddling in bed type stuff). She reciprocated and we continued. I also (in an attempt to consider her feelings) asked her if the idea of me posting an old session video on my blog for an American friend would upset her at all. Intending to reassure her about my intentions, I mentioned ”...not wanting to tickle anyone except you and saying no to all of the other UK people on the servers who are asking about post-lockdown sessions”. I also said “I do feel a commitment to you”, which (with hindsight) was probably a foolish or misleading word to use in a purely ler/lee sense.

A week later she sent a message I didn’t immediately understand along the lines of “I thought you were going to let me initiate romantic stuff, you don’t seem to have understood me at all”. I wasn’t sure what she was referring to - the recent story I’d written for her? Use of the word “commitment”? Something else? I tried to talk with her on the phone as some wires had clearly become crossed via text, but she refused for five weeks (citing not being in the right headspace), before finally calling when I sent a message explaining that anxiously waiting to mend the friendship in lockdown by myself for over a month was having a terrible effect on me mentally, and I was going to have to “throw in the towel”, wishing her luck and every happiness.

During our phone call, she claimed that the main issue had been the fluffy cuddle messages which she took to be a serious and repeated boundary/consent violation (citing her wish to avoid romantic talk). This was the last thing I expected and really shocked me. Of course I apologised frantically, repeatedly and profusely. I also said I hoped she could see how I’d made the mistake innocently and honestly when:

- she initiated it the first time, so I assumed it was something she was happy to talk about.

- when I picked up where we left off, she didn’t say “Actually, d’you mind if we don’t today?” and continued the cuddle talk instead.

She said that because she initiated it one day didn’t mean that she wanted to continue the day after - fair enough. The difficult thing to accept was the idea that she felt so violated by the attempt to carry on the next day that she found herself frozen to the point of not being able to say “actually I’m not in the mood just now” and carried on with it, and that I was at fault regardless. She even used the word “harassing” to describe it, which I found very harsh considering my inability to read minds over hundreds of miles. Especially when I couldn’t see or hear her to pick up on body language, tone of voice etc to guess that she was saying one thing but feeling a different way. She said, word for word, “It’s like when someone’s choking you and you can’t speak, you’re literally choking me!” As someone who, as a teenager, was once choked on the ground by my own father until I blacked out and lost bladder control, I did see that as a stretch at best, but chose not to challenge it as she was upset.

I also suggested that, looking back, we probably should’ve clarified exactly what was meant by “romantic stuff” when we almost certainly had different takes on it eg. I’ve cuddled after every 1:1 session I’ve ever had, even platonic ones, purely from the angle of aftercare and a sense of having shared an experience. I was told that despite our different ages and experiences of romantic love, there was only one objectively correct definition of “romantic” - hers.

We went around in circles for over four hours - I apologised over and over while explaining how I got the wrong idea and asking her to understand and forgive, while she tearfully called me a gaslighter, a consent violator, an excuse-maker, a harasser ... eventually I collapsed into tears myself (I’m ashamed to admit), totally worn down, and she softened a bit. She finally said she didn’t believe I’d done anything intentionally, and she still wanted to spend time together in the real world. We made up, spoke warmly as friends for an hour, and I left the call exhausted but relieved. After a few days’ reflection, though, I decided against ever travelling to meet her for real, as the experience had shaken me considerably - and I figured it’d be risky to meet someone in real life when I didn’t trust her completely not to accuse me over either nothing or an innocent misunderstanding. I was still wondering how to explain this to her when things got wild on the server.

A few days ago, a Tumblr user with a stated age of 18 contacted me to say nice things about my blog, which (I hope this doesn’t sound conceited) isn’t out of the ordinary. When she told me she was English and totally new to the scene, I suggested the Discord server as a place where she might make some friends (given the large UK membership) and sent her an invite link. The rest is set out in the mega screenshot saga below, which begins in the staff chat. I’m “SwiftX”, my real name is in teal, the server owner is in blue and her friend and co-moderator is in purple. All other names and locations are in black:

Before sending the last message, I actually typed out five different versions of a counter-argument before eventually deciding to step back. Being totally dismissed and lectured by two people about British labour laws and pub ID measures by two non-Brits nearly a decade my junior was irritating, yes, but the baseless suggestion that maybe I’d done something in private with the new member and was somehow “arguing against” ensuring she wasn’t a child because of that horrified me. As if I’d allow a child access to explicit content to cover my own discomfort - and anyway, I’d done no more than exchange greetings with the girl and point her towards the server, where she was actually verified and granted access to all channels by the guy in purple, not me! After a couple of hours’ contemplation, I politely asked to be removed from the moderator staff, but a disdainful response to my request prompted me to explain it, and why I was upset. Not all of what I said was necessary to say, but all of it was true:

She immediately muted me for 48 hours - “staff disrespect and degrading comments”. Not a problem, I had work to be getting on with. Late that evening, however, her friend arrived in my DMs:

Him: ...it’s creepy that a 32 year old man is potentially teasing a minor

Me: Well I can prove I haven’t teased her, her profile says she’s 18, and the person who exposed her to explicit content was you when you verified her - despite admitting to having had doubts about her age.

Him: ...I’ll drop that subject

Moderator of the year, ladies and gentlemen 🙄 Anyhoo, later that day I received a ban notification from both servers run by this owner, citing “crossing consent multiple times, guilting and being degrading along with causing several conflicts”. I was surprised to feel a flood of relief, but the consent mention really disturbed and worried me, as I’d been under the impression that the server owner had fully accepted that the earlier stuff had been an innocent misunderstanding. Later that day, good friends of mine began sending me worried DMs questioning my record and asking if I’d been inappropriate with a bunch of people, so I’m concerned that the staff may have said something that (deliberately or not) has encouraged speculation. This post is intended to be a landing page to which I can direct anyone concerned about my character so that they they can form their own opinions.

When my follower count began to take off, I became determined to avoid any kind of rift with another prominent member of the community. It’s so frustrating to watch an already niche subculture splinter into factions over needless disputes. This is why I’ve kept names etc. out of this post. If anyone suspects they might know who the server owner is, or actually knows who she is because they’re here from Discord, I would implore them not to out or target her in any way. There are two reasons:

- I don’t want to start a flaming war, I’m desperate to move on and begin improving my mental health after an awful couple of months ... I just need to protect my reputation first.

- I don’t actually think she wanted drama ... I think her genuine perception is that I’ve said something horrible to her. That’s more upsetting than the idea of her trying to smear me, to be honest. I suspect she feels like crap too, and I don’t want to add to her mental load. I honestly hope she’s OK.

Hopefully this will reassure my friends and anyone else questioning my character because of whatever’s been said in that server. I’d also hope that my history of positive interaction here, including being on great terms with everyone I’ve ever had a session with, supports what I’m saying further. It’s a shame this had to happen, but I’m trying to think positively about what lies ahead and trust in my real friends. I’d also like to thank the other members of the server staff who’ve privately sent me messages of support and sympathy having already seen the entire exchange.

[ardenttheories]

With the current update, a few pretty little thoughts have been rumbling around in my head. I definitely think that my previous theory that Dirk isn’t actually the Ultimate Self holds a little more weight with these past updates, particularly when you consider that his biggest hangup as explained by Brain Ghost Dirk is an incredible Destruction of Heart - evidence that he’s still Destroying his own sense of Self and Identity by declaring that none of them can ever have happy endings and that, ultimately, they have no capacity to be normal. 

How can you be the Ultimate Self when you’re so throroughly destroying your Self?

But that isn’t what today is about. Not entirely, anyway. No, what we’re focusing on today is a beautiful nugget of thought I had some three-ish days ago, following along the lines of what a Prince of Heart is.

Destroyers of Heart. Killers of the Self. At their worst, they eradicate all Individuality, all Identity - they create Splinters quite simply by fracturing their own Soul and splitting it up into itty bitty pieces. They take the core of a person and they snap it, crush it up, make something else and leave it behind. 

They take the very concept of a person, and they erase it from existence (as seen with Lil Cal, because we can easily say that in making Cal’s soul the individual components - Caliborn, Gamzee, Equius, AR - lose their Individuality, the things that make their existences unique, and are therefore erased entirely in place of this being that is Cal) or displace it and remove the identity (as seen with Aranea; if Brain Ghost Dirk had completed his removal of her soul, where would she have gone? Wherever she ended up wouldn’t have been her, and her whole sense and understanding of herself would have changed - or, perhaps, she simply would have been eradicated from existence).

Of course, what we have to consider as well is that a Prince of Heart’s Splinter, by warrant of being a piece of the Prince’s original soul, is also a Prince of Heart. At least in theory. 

We also have to consider that the original Prince is also the Splinter’s Self; they’re connected by Soul, fractured as it may be, and while their piece if uniquely their own and can develop as they exist, that tie never actually fades. This is why Dirk can, as his “Ultimate” Self, superimpose himself on the will of ever Splinter and take away their narrative importance. He’s the original, the strongest, and they are all simply parts of him that he can freely use. 

Except, of course, that we have one Splinter that isn’t wholly Dirk. One who has found his way into the unreality of the Candy timeline, and secured a small piece of the narrative for himself. 

Brain Ghost Dirk, for all intents and purposes, is as much a product of Jake as he is a Splinter of Dirk. Dirk is the basis, the foundation; but only so far as Jake perceives Dirk to be. Funny, how this Dirk isn’t nearly as maniacal as Ultimate Dirk. There’s more a sense of grounded acceptance than anything else, less of a hatred towards Jake as a symbiotic relation to him. There’s moments where he maybe reveals more than he wants to:

DIRK: People like us don’t get happy endings. 

JAKE: Is...is that really how dirk felt the whole gosh darned time?

DIRK: It doesn’t matter.

And, yes, this could be him brushing Jake off, a facile remark to quickly sway along the conversation towards something more relevant, but the next panel seems to hold a distinct awkwardness. Something that holds more of a confession than a callous slide along. 

This Dirk is Dirk as Jake remembers him to be. He even admits this to some degree - that he doesn’t always know which parts of him are Dirk thoughts and which are Jake thoughts. Nor does he seem to be entirely proud of the fact that it is a Dirk though. It’s not a consensus of “this is right and you should listen”, it’s “yeah, sometimes I struggle with figuring out which parts of me are you and which parts are the big man upstairs”. 

He’s definitely still undeniably Dirk. He says nothing matters because they’re gods, because the world comes first at the expense of all else, even personal happiness, and being a hero means making those sacrifices. 

But he also absolutely flirts with Jake the literal first moment he can - “Not to say the sloppy drunk look isn’t working for me, because it absolutely is” - and doesn’t that just go entirely against what Dirk does to Jake in Meat? What happened to “I’ll never let you hurt me like that again”?

He’s absolutely still Jake enough, too, to see everything in Candy as still oddly relevant. He doesn’t appear and immediately try to disappear, to make himself dissipate because he exists in an irrelevant timeline. Nor does he even suggest that this is a split timeline - that something here isn’t right and that they need to find a way to the true ending. 

What does he say instead?

DIRK: We’ve had this conversation before, dingus. I’m you. And I’m me. But I only exist because of your powers. The fact that I’m manifesting here, in the new universe, outside of a dream, is evidence in itself for just how absolutely boned you are.

DIRK: What are you doing? There’s a war happening. All of your friends are out there fighting, and you’re just here, what...dusting?

DIRK: Taking care of a house that nobody actually uses?

DIRK: You’ve been a useless sack of shit for two decades. I’m here to kick your ass back into active duty.

All things that suggest that this Dirk sees the Candy timeline as something Real and Relevant, is acting on Jake’s own personal desire to do something. This isn’t a Dirk that sees things as some wider game, or believes that there’s a point to plot and relevancy. 

He’s disconnected from Ultimate Dirk enough to host none of Ultimate’s memories and plenty of his own, and he’s enough of Jake to be mired in the unimportance of a long-dead timeline. It’s completely likely that he’s locked out of everything to do with the Meat timeline and that his existence is just another show of how immediately irrelevant things appear in Candy (he is, after all, a very irrelevant Dirk) - and that means he’s got no idea what Ultimate Dirk is trying to do. Connected enough to think like him, yes, but it’s also implied that Dirk has always sort of thought like this, that it’s not unique to Ulimate. 

He’s Dirk enough to know that sacrifices have to be made and that being a hero means not being happy, but Jake enough, it seems, to try edging towards that sort of better ending anyway. 

So, lets recap. We have a Dirk that isn’t wholly Dirk, who thinks enough like him but is still contained within the irrelevancy of Candy and not actively flipping shit about it. A Dirk who, by all intents and purposes, is still very much a Prince of Heart with suitable Princely powers, as seen from his time within the Game. A Dirk with the ability to Destroy Souls and the Self as much as any other Dirk, who is tied to the wellbeing of Jake English. 

Allow me to posit the idea, then, that Brain Ghost Dirk ends up being our hero. 

What else could possibly Destroy the “Ultimate” Self? Only another Prince of Heart could possibly be able to completely erase all imprints of Ultimate from the timeline. (Of course that isn’t true, but it’s the most poetic and, I find, the most satisfying conclusion to come across). It’s literally what they’re made to do; to Destroy the Self and all it contains even down to the infinitesimal components. 

Another Dirk, one gifted with narrative relevancy, allowed to flourish in this irrelevant timeline, already pushing towards plot without going too damn far. One with all the powers of Dirk but - so far - without the overbearing Epilogue Dirk mentality. One that’s more aligned with what we knew of Dirk before all of his corrupted development, and who will likely continue to be this way since most of him is founded on what Jake perceives Dirk to be. One who can’t suddenly go too far because he can only know what Jake knows. 

This would bring that old prophecy full circle as well. That one where Jake was meant to be the hero all along, the one to take down the big bad. Lets suggest, then, that Brain Ghost Dirk - as a facet of Jake - does the deed. It’d be poetic both in that sense, and in the sense that Dirk Destroying himself is the ultimate show of a True Prince of Heart. 

He’d have reason to do it, too. Jake’s goals are essentially his goals, and he pushes Jake to do what he’s always wanted to do but could never achieve alone. If the two timelines somehow came together, and Jake was made aware of what’d happened in Meat and who Ultimate Dirk was... There’s a chance that, combined, they’d think Ultimate Dirk is bullshit enough to need taking down. 

Or, even better. Since Brain Ghost Dirk seems not to care about the irrelevancy of this world, lets imagine he does find a relatively happy ending. One where he eventually becomes aware of “Ultimate” Dirk, or where Ultimate poses some sort of threat. As the one Dirk who’d found a happy ending, however relevant or irrelevant it might be, he might not be so willing to give it up. 

Because, hopefully, he’s enough of Jake to eventually see everything that Ultimate Dirk is doing and think it’s an unjust cause rather than a necessary one. 

It would, of course, also allow the potential for redemption. A Prince of Heart doesn’t have to actively destroy the Soul or kill it, either. That’s just one incredibly powerful, incredibly terrifying prospect of the Classpect. Brain Ghost Dirk could easily just Destroy the “Ultimate” Self. Strip Dirk back to bare basics and force him to live through the consequences of everything he’s done, confiscate the narrative and ensure that Ultimate is no longer an issue. 

He doesn’t have to Destroy everything about the main Dirk. Just the parts that are making him a villain - the same way Dirk did to himself in order to justify becoming Ultimate in the first place. 

So, while this latter part was a little more fanciful, I still think the core idea remains. Brain Ghost Dirk is still a Prince of Heart, and Princes of Heart are wired to Destroy the Self. The Ultimate Self isn’t spared from this - if anything, it’s even more at risk. It’s the conglomeration of all Selves, the perfect (supposedly) unity of Identity. A Prince of Heart can have a field day with what that means.

(The way Ultimate Dirk already has, if you consider that he’s just overwritten every other Self with his own Identity rather than become all of them in one unique bit. But again that’s me being highly skeptical that a Prince of Heart can even achieve true Ultimate Self status. Something like it, maybe, or what they think it means to be Ultimate, almost definitely. But to actually be the perfected, unique, wonderous amalgamation of Selves living in harmony? Hell no.).

He could very much be our final hero at the end of it, or at least work towards amping Jake up to that goal. I would assume that’s why he’s suddenly relevant again, why he’s managed to slip through the net. And how perfectly ironic would it be, at the end, if Dirk’s taken down by one of the Splinters he always said felt suffocating? One of the Splinters he’s told us, directly, that he’s no longer afraid of?

#long post// #ardenttheories #homestuck^2 spoilers #homestuck meta #prince of heart #I'll include this here just in case. It's an interesting thing of nothing else and could apply to Princes of Heart in the future #brain ghost dirk

[beboppop]

The first bnha thing I’ve done for a while and it’s an attempt at horror,,,,god why cw horror tw body horror, cw blood

He recognizes it immediately, it smells familiar in a way he hoped would never. The air is tinged with a metallic taste and the wood creeks louder than ever before but he looks and he sees, home. Now is not the time to relax, he berates himself. Izuku looks around at the group with him and he can’t help but cry at the amount. Five. Five different people near him- five too many because he knows- oh god he knows she’ll come and she’ll only come for him.

He knows she will not harm him but he knows all too well that she will harm all five of them. All he can do, he realizes, is buy time. He presses his sleeve to the cut on his arm and curses when the fabric absorbs it all quickly- too quickly. He looks around, searching for a door in the long endless hallway that smells too much like home but he’s not naive enough to identify it as such. All five of his friends- his family continue to talk maybe to make sense of this nonsense but it’s all so useless so he opens the nearest door and walks into it immediately.

He can hear their yells, their wants but he can’t stop because she’s coming she’s coming she’s coming

The room is nostalgic in a way where everything is on the tip of his tongue. It’s a small room with a bed by a wall and cabinets lining the wall. It would seem like a normal room if not for the way the room simply has no roof as it goes endlessly up and if he were alone he’d climb them until his knees ache but he’s not so he must face her. He must buy time.

There’s a towel by the mirror which he grabs immediately but he stops when he notices all the colorful bottles. He brings it to his nose and is assaulted by the flowery scent and all he can think about is her her her her so he douses the towel in it and rubs it on his neck and his arm and his hands and-

There’s a hand on his shoulder. He turns to and faces them. Mina’s face is notably lined with tears. Kirishima’s hands shake into fists as he looks at Izuku with red bitten lips-

Todoroki looks more shaken than usual, he’s upright and stiff but he manages to look at him straight on. Hitoshi’s not even paying attention to them, simply looking through cabinets and cabinets and he wants to stop him- stop it those are mine those are hers- but a quick squeeze has him looking at Kaachan.

Kaachan looks at him with piercing eyes, so sharp they snap him back out of his routine. He looks around at the room and it’s rotting walls, no longer as comforting as they were at first. The silence is shocking but he still can’t help but hold his breath and breathe quietly as if afraid to disturb the air itself.

He notes that everyone else manages to follow his lead and stop their erratic breathing. On any other day, he might feel happy that they trust him enough to follow his lead. All it does is remind of the danger they’re in and he can feel his grip tightening but-

“I’m- buying time she- she-“ he forces himself to spit out an explanation because they deserve to know-

There’s a croon in the distance and the sound of high heels. Like clockwork, he thinks as he watches them spin around to listen, only to watch their faces fall into confusion as the clack of heels onto the wooden floor starts to split and splinter into something of a rumble.

Hallways, he remembers, are better to run in. There’s no use in hiding.

He slowly opens the door, making sure it doesn’t creek louder than the rumble further into the hallways darkness. He motions them all to follow and they scurry out, Some muttering under their breathes and Mina definitely sniffles. He wants to yell, he wants to scream. There’s blood running down his arm and he knows that once the blood hits the floor, she’ll come running. There’s a ring- similar to the sound a grandfather’s clock makes.

Silence. Like the calm before the storm, he flinches.

Then chaos. The rumbling gets more erratic- faster and faster and definitely closer. He turns to his friends behind and he means to tell them to run but-

A small breeze brushes behind him and he knows it’s too late. She’s seen them and they’ve seen her.

“Izuku,” she croaks, “you never told me you were bringing over friends?” A drop of liquid falls into his hair.

He inhales and ignores the look of horror on his friends, the look of recognition from Kaachan. “I’m sorry mom, it must’ve slipped my mind,” he turns to her long twisted neck, eyes trailing and high until they find what’s left of her face.

In ways he wish it wouldn’t, her twisted form manages to remind him of happier times.

Her twisted neck always manages to poke at a memory of him at the playground, twisting and twirling the swings around and around and then finally letting go- laughing- mommy come look come watch it’s so fun!

Her grin stretched past her face, taking most of the space on her skull. An eye droops and stretches the paper like skin, unseeing.

The darkness of the hallways manages to make it worse as half of her body is hidden in the shadow making every movement show a new aspect to the horror show that is left of his mother.

She breathes through her glued on grin, a crack breaks through the air as she sniffs.

Slowly- always so slowly she manages to grow ever so bigger. An almost like fabric like stretch sound but he knows he knows it’s truly the leftover skin that’s somehow still attached somewhere-

“Izuku,” she croons and he wants to cry because he knows that tone he knows and maybe if closed his eyes he could pretend but-

“Izuku.” Her voice cracks like mirrors, “My son are you hurt?”

Not a sound to be heard, Izuku doesn’t dare to even breath. He watchers her long skeleton like arms, cracked in unusual ways- start patting around. Trying to find him he knows.

The realization that he can’t prevent this isn’t slow. In fact he’s already accepted it at this point, the inevitable. He cannot accept the fact that he has not done everything he can to ensure his friends survival.

So he turns to them and looks at them for what seems like years. He tried to memorize their faces, their eyes and bring up happy memories. The stench of a flowery perfume ridden with blood grows stronger but he’s not strong enough to see if it’s her hand slowly coming closer or the towel still clenched in his hands.

He slowly points down the hallways and brings up four fingers before dropping them and doing a two.

There’s a shadow beside him.

He mouths ‘run’, as a single wrinkly finger touches his bloody arm. It’s only there for a second before it’s gone and he can feel the hallway behind him start to falter- he can feel her deep inhale

He hears more than sees the rib cage erupt from her chest. Blood is still dripping from it as it comes around him- closing. Locking him into his last family member.

It drags itself back into her chest- with him along for the ride. The warmth pulse of her chest makes him want to gag and submerge himself at the same time. A horrible feeling really, not much he can do as his vision goes dark. The last to go is his hearing where he hears her screech but more importantly, he can hear them run and he grins simply too big for his own face but oh what’s the matter what’s the matter they can run he’s so happy.

An inhale and he chokes on the sludge that’s closing the wounds but oh what does it matter what does it matter.

They can run.

#the monster hidden in my home #bnha ficlet #Drabbles #drabbles #prez’swriting #btw I hate dialogue #heehee #body horror #horror #blood

[echodrops]

The Blade of Marmora Did Not Deserve This

I’m like unspeakably busy and don’t have time to really think or do anything outside of work, but by god, season 4 of Voltron is haunting my writing sensibilities so badly.

Or rather, what I should say is the portrayal of the Blade of Marmora in season 4 is bugging the hell out of me because it makes absolutely no sense.

Season 4 (and the executive producers’ interviews even) are trying to suggest this whole vision of the Blades as constant risk-takers who put their lives on the line with virtually every mission and who freely (and frequently) sacrifice themselves—oftentimes even without the promise of succeeding in the mission. They want us to buy into the idea that the Blades are so dedicated to their goal that their own lives are meaningless in comparison.

Okay, all well and good; I get that the show writers wanted to demonstrate the “darker” side of revolt, the real dangers of being rebels against a tyrant, because lord knows they’re not going to bump off the rebels we’re supposed to care about, like Rolo, Nyma, and poor furry-bait Captain Olia. We need to have some expendable people somewhere in this war, I guess.  

Except every single one of the behaviors we see from Kolivan and the Blade this season make zero sense in the context of everything else we have learned about the Blade prior-to. The kind of lifestyle season four and the executive producers are suggesting literally runs contrary to everything we were told about the Blade beforehand.

The rest is under the Read More because my sense of brevity is as nonexistent as the Voltron writers’ logic.

Kolivan is willing to leave behind anyone who fails, in some kind of bizarre survival of the fittest leadership tactic. Regris didn’t make it back to the ship in time? Too bad, so sad.

On the surface, the idea that Blades would need to leave behind fallen comrades in the event of a mission failure seems to make sense. Mission compromised? Get out. Natural thought process. EXCEPT: We’re led to believe in season two that the Blade is incredibly secretive organization, to the point that they’ve managed to last 10,000 years undetected by Zarkon, infiltrating even his highest ranks. The Druids in season two are aware of Luxite, but NOT of the fact that Luxite blades are the signature item of a larger band of rebel Galra unified under a single purpose to defeat the empire. The ONLY way Team Voltron even came into contact with the Blade at all was through Ulaz, who is deliberately called out for being reckless and doing his own thing, going against the reclusive attitude adopted by the Blade as a whole.

Now you’re telling me the Blades have just been leaving bodies lying around every time they fail? Complete with their conspicuously marked weapons and their uniform armor? All of them Galra or at least part-Galra? And this has never, I dunno, tripped any sensors for the Empire? “Sir, I think there might be a splinter group of Galra attempting to blend in with us and take down the Empire from the inside.” “Yes, the 10,000 years worth of identifiably-armored dead Galra rebel bodies we’ve collected are kind of adding up to a pattern, aren’t they?”

We’re told in season two, by the show writers themselves, that the Blade of Marmora have survived 10,000 years to continue the fight against Zarkon because they are cautious. The idea of simply leaving behind anyone who doesn’t get back on a strict time limit makes anti-sense in this context.

If your organization survives because of your ability to maintain anonymity and secrecy, leaving behind anyone—EVEN A DEAD PERSON—is entirely counter-intuitive to your very survival. Kolivan ought to have been doing the opposite of what we saw him doing in season four. He should have been out there hauling Regris and Keith back himself, if only to ensure that no evidence got left behind from their dumbass dead bodies.

This is like… assassin know-how number one. Leave no trace. Kolivan flat out says “Our organization is built on secrecy.” There is no way—absolutely no way in hell—that the recklessness exhibited by the Blade in season four could have ever produced an rebel assassin guild capable of operating under-the-radar for 10,000 years.

And okay, you might argue, maybe now that they’ve paired up with Voltron, they’re coming out of the shadows and taking greater risks, and this whole “leave ‘em where they fall” thing is just an off-shoot of the fact that they’ve given up on trying to be secretive. And see, I could almost, almost get behind that, if it weren’t for the fact that Kolivan (and the executive producers) act like Regris etc. dying is just damn standard fair. Nothing to be surprised about. No “Things have changed since we came out of hiding and now we can’t afford to worry about secrecy anymore.” The writers could have done that in like… two sentences. But did they? Nah. So will I buy that the writers are going for this more logical explanation? Nah.

The Blades regularly sacrifice themselves in the name of the mission; I believe the EPs said something like “They’re extremely invested in their dangerous goal and therefore they don’t have a tendency to live very long” or so?

The part about living very dangerous lives makes sense. That’s true. But the part about every member of the Blades being constantly ten seconds from suicide not only violates what we were told in earlier seasons—it violates basic principles of common sense too.

We see two members of the Blade willingly sacrifice themselves in season two. Ulaz’s death is abrupt and dramatic; and Kolivan summarily refers to Ulaz as a fool for revealing anything about the Blade, noting that he: “had a penchant for ignoring orders and following his impulses.” We’re supposed to get the impression that Ulaz’s sacrifice was out of the ordinary for Blade behavior. That’s why Thace’s later sacrifice comes across as noble, instead of just customary for the Blade! If killing themselves is just the Blade go-to plan, there’s nothing honorable or meaningful about Ulaz or Thace’s actions at all—but the plot deliberately codes them as noble and special. We’re not supposed to get the sense that this stuff is run-of-the-mill, and season four suggesting that it is grossly cheapens the one emotional highlight that season two didn’t massively undersell.

It’s anti-character building, honestly. The nobility that the writers lent to Thace in particular at the end of season two had a clear impact on Keith—look Keith, look at how noble and good Galra can really be! You don’t have to worry that you’re one of the evil people, because just see how wonderful and gallant the good-guy Galra are~!

Come season four? That’s all flushed down the toilet. Those losses weren’t noble sacrificial lion trope invokers. The Blades just sacrifice themselves routinely every Tuesday. Byyyeeeee.

And honestly, the thing that bugs me most about this is that it doesn’t make any common sense, either???

The Blade is a secret organization with a deeply involved and close-knit initiation process. It is a group made up entirely of Galra and part-Galra people who are a species of aliens that—if the show has told us nothing else about them—are dangerously pre-disposed to following whoever is biggest, strongest, and flashiest, without much more thought than that. Despite thousands of planets across the universe being conquered by Galra, the biggest population we’ve ever seen of them is on Zarkon’s giant ship, with all their numerous other battle cruisers and stations having a ratio of like one living Galra to a bajillion robot sentries. We also know that rebellion is basically a death sentence, and that Zarkon has been ruling steadily for 10,000 years without there being any successful mass uprising of underling Galra.

Furthermore, we know the Blade of Marmora is a SECRET organization virtually unheard of by anyone in the Empire AND that they don’t appear to be making any baby!Blades, which suggests that most Blades are not “born into the business” per se. This means that, in order to grow their organization, the existing Blade members have to be actively seeking new members. This is likely a highly involved process in which they very cautiously observe fellow Galra to hunt for those that might be willing to stand against Zarkon and become rebel fighters who can be TRUSTED not to reveal the secret of the Blade the second overtures about a rebellion are made to them.

So, with all that in mind… How can the Blade possibly afford the number of casualties implied by the behaviors exhibited in season four??? How many new recruits can they possibly have?! If the Blades don’t have a tendency to live very long—WHERE do they keep getting all these new Blades from??? IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!

Even if we work under the impression that there are a bunch of Galra and part-Galra super gung-ho about becoming rebels, and if we just agree to hand-wave the fact that the Blade is supposedly so secretive that it wouldn’t be logical for all these gung-ho rebel-wannabes to even know where to sign the hell up for the Blade in the first place, who is hosting their trials? Who is training them? Who is managing this attrition rate to make sure they’re recruiting enough people to replace the deluge of lost agents left and right? WHO IS RECRUITING?? Are you trying to tell me that a cautious, underground organization with no safety to recruit, a limited pool of people to recruit from in the first place, AND a necessarily secretive and complex induction process can honestly survive with such a ridiculously high attrition rate, people dying practically every single mission?!

Again, this is like… anti-sense. You cannot keep a rebel organization operating inside the enemy empire alive for 10,000 years without limiting casualties. When you have a limited number of new applicants and limited resources to recruit new applicants in the first place, you simply can’t afford to have a high turnover rate! Basic common sense!

That the job is extremely risky and that people are inevitably lost makes sense. But for the show writers to imply that Blades routinely have short lifespans and sacrifice themselves left and right runs contrary to the entire ideology of the Blade of Marmora as it was first introduced to us viewers.

Like literally, what the hell happened between season two, where this is how the Blade is portrayed—

Antok: The Blade of Marmora does not take chances. It's how we've survived for so long.  

Allura: It's held you back. Your caution is the reason Zarkon is still in power.

Kolivan: We would rather wait than jeopardize everything. Besides, it's too late to get someone else on the inside.

Keith: I'll do it.

Allura: What? 

Keith: I'll sneak onto Zarkon's ship. I'm Galra, so I'll be able to interact with their technology.

Kolivan: Going onto Zarkon's ship is a suicide mission. I would never command someone so inexperienced to go on a mission so dangerous.

—and season four’s “Every member of the Blade knows the mission is more important than the individual”!Kolivan? I’m really supposed to buy this bullshit? Mmkay, if you say so.

And don’t even fucking get me started on the overall level of callousness and cold detachment exhibited by Kolivan/the Blade in season four used SPECIFICALLY TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE FEEL BAD FOR KEITH (oh look, our precious baby doesn’t fit in with the lifestyle of the Blades either! They’re not giving Keith the emotional support he needs!!) so the writers have an excuse to pull him back out of the Blade when Voltron finally needs him again, because god forbid, we can’t have the part-Galra boy actually seem comfortable and happy around Galra. Gasp. Way too controversial.

#voltron #blade of marmora #kolivan #voltron meta #galra #my willingness to forgive the terribad writing grows slimmer and slimmer each season #like do they not even know their own characters #or think through any of their own decisions #is there no one behind the team going #hey guys #that doesn't match any of the previous scripts we've used and released #OH WELL #IT WILL MAKE KEITH ANGSTY #SO LET'S DO IT ANYWAY #voltron plz

[ecotone99]

[HR] I'm Coming In

Maybe something had always been wrong with Todd. What had he said again? He’d been so damn insistent. Jessica stared down under the gap of the bathroom stall. The tile was a pristine checkered pattern—only not quite, because time had allowed some kind of green and yellow something to gather on the edges of everything. She’d spotted the same colors in the cracks of the vanity. The word “rustic” came to mind, but looking at it now, perhaps that was too polite.

That hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen the tiles—almost nine months ago, before she dumped Todd. This is where they got close. The surfaces remained coated with regret, which didn’t smell a lot different from mildew, and turned everything a sickening yellow.

She’d left this chapter behind. Todd was gone. Still, there was the desire to turn back the pages for another look, even though there was nothing here for her.

But what were the goddamn words?

She knew the gist of what he always said, but the devil was in the specifics. It had more to do with how he said it, and how his language blew like smoke from his cracked lips. She felt those words on the back of her neck when they’d been in here. It was pleasant feeling the warm humidity on her skin until it went away—leaving a wet, cold patch where the statement had made contact. She could almost feel it now, sitting with her pants up on the closed toilet lid.

Todd wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but he never had it together—and God, his teeth. He must have brushed them about as often as anyone replaces their mattress. He always smelled like mold if you got too close. “I know this place,” he once told her after class. “You and me should talk. You like talking?”

She did. And one day, he lead her through a hole under the fence outside the locker rooms. Not far from where all the girls changed their clothes before P.E, there was a small separated building with a pair of double doors. “It’s been shut down for ages,” he said, “but it doesn’t mean you can’t get in. I’ve even fixed the place up.” He pulled a key from his breast pocket and opened the door, “Easy as pie.”

Indeed, when she’d first set foot past those iron doors, the place had been spotless. He flicked on the light, and the floor tiles shimmered under fluorescents. It hadn’t seemed so strange until she really thought about it—until time had formed the mold for hindsight. Todd let her sit down on the marble vanity while he leaned his back against one of the stalls. “Sometimes I like to bring the guys in here and we shoot the shit. But I think I like you, and you like talking, so well… How do you like it?”

“Not bad I guess,” she felt the corner of her mouth pull back. The glint in his eyes could’ve taken a bite out of her, “But nobody’s found you out yet? Seems too nice to be all alone.”

“It’s quiet, y’know? Don’t have to worry when you need privacy. I just always think better in silence. I’ve heard it said there’s something bad here, but I’d place any bet; nobody gives a shit about this place.”

He’d been right about that. Other than the dread of someone watching you walk in, the doors had a way of sealing out most of the world—only sometimes you could make out the patter of rain on the tin roof. Here you could say anything you wanted, and the sound would just bounce around the walls until it disappeared into them. And that would be it. Nobody would have to know, and that’s where the story would end. That’s why she’d had to come back.

They had talked about a lot of things here, and each time he had more of an unclear insistence. Todd leaned back on the vanity, and she’d sit on the opposite side. He always seemed to be off in the clouds, which she liked. “You know how some people get away with such wicked stuff? I wonder sometimes—if it isn’t just something that gets inside of people, rather than people just being evil. Have you ever wondered that?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Don’t you think life’s too much to worry yourself with that kind of stuff? It would drive me mad not having an answer.”

“Suit yourself,” he chuckled. “More for me then.”

It was the fourth stall on the right side. Strange how details stick out like that. It was that fourth stall where the evening conversation turned to something else. “Y’know Jessica, I’ve been thinking about how much I love you. You ever think about that?” Those words sent a cold resonance throughout her bones, even now. He’d said those words when he turned the key—sending a click that served as a grotesque punctuation to his sentence—tailed only by laughter, and the scuffling of his tennis shoes.

She knew full well what he’d meant by that, but it was instinctual to ask, “You don’t mean…”

He said nothing. It was all quiet aside the rain.

She saw his shadow first, then the mess of rubber and laces that were his shoes sticking under the gap of the door. I’m coming in, those shoes said in inanimate gesture. The memory of it remained stark, even in the haze of what followed. Just as ugly. Just as stained and musty as the tiles of the bathroom. She could smell his breath, feel his icy grip on her shoulders as she screamed out of rhythm with his shallow breaths.

“I thought you wanted it,” he’d said the next evening on her walk home. It played over and over in her conscious—the pain of being forced up against those cold tiles. She tried shaking him off, and would have succeeded if not for his reflexes. During a session that never seemed to end, he lay on top of her doing his dirty work. “You told me you liked it rough!”

She wasn’t listening anymore. Even with all the time in the world, that taste in her mouth would never leave. One step after another, she continued until his voice trailed off and her driveway lay within reach. She thought it was over then.

He watched her almost every day from under the shadow of the school building. He’d taken to a ritual cigar once the halls were empty and as twilight was setting in. Sometimes he’d mutter under his breath—the same unintelligible line that was much clearer when she was under him, “You will have my child.” That set her on edge, but the worst days were when he said nothing at all—just gave a show of teeth before going in for a drag. Jessica learned very quickly how to stare off into space. That at least seemed to tame his aggression—though the mark of his presence lingered like the smoke from his mouth. No wonder his teeth were so horrible.

But even though he was rarely in her line of sight, she could still smell him on her walk home. Cigars that smelled of cloves, molten plastic, and burning hair. Some nights she swore it followed her all the way through her bedroom window. Nerves, she thought. Nerves, nerves, and nothing more. But that didn’t keep her from buying a knife. One step too close, and that’s all it would take for him to lose his nuts. All the while, she knew a child was coming, and felt the onset of dread pangs with what that meant. A week later, she told her physician. The procedure, which she accepted with reluctance, ensured she wouldn’t have to worry.

It wasn’t clear in her mind—at what point the fear ended. All she remembered was waking up after a string of days and realizing he just wasn’t there anymore. Somehow it didn’t come as a complete relief.

School was over. She’d spent her days filling orders at the print shop. Not long after, the back of her mind began to itch with curiosity, and she wandered to the back of the school to see those steel doors; they always had the most unnerving look about them. One step after the next, she walked over just to be sure.

They weren’t locked.

Worse than that was feeling the stare of invisible eyes on her back.

She liked to think if they were closed, she’d have all the permission to turn around and walk down the street. She’d have permission to spend the following moments at rest on her day off. But now she was in the fourth stall staring at the ugly tiles, and thinking of how it had all happened, when she heard those iron doors creaking. A splinter of light widened across the floor. When it fell silent a little too long, she leaned forward, “Anyone there?”

More footsteps. They clunked toward her in stiff calculation. She felt like she’d heard them a thousand times before.

“Todd?”

The fluorescents jittered, and most of the bathroom fell into murky darkness. There was still the faint outline of the top of the stall above, and the black and white checkers of tile below—though all the stains were gray now that it was dim. “Whoever this is, it’s not funny. ”

Mr. Whoever on the other side was breathing slow and deep—almost inaudibly. Two narrow silhouettes shifted under the edge of the stall, and then there were two shoes facing her. Two shoes that lead to two sock-covered ankles, and then all a mystery above that. No way it was Todd though; the laces were far too neat. The leather, polished and without a scuff.

“What do you want?” she blurted, now unable to move.

“I’m coming in,” said a voice that didn’t quite sound like Todd.

Without another noise to be heard, she watched the latch on the stall turn with a slow deliberateness.

***

Shared from my book "The Mirror Opened"

submitted by /u/MidnightAuthor [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/2JRE21t

#Blogger #Story

[resultsmeasuredineffort-blog]

The Prince

I didn’t choose kingdom. I ran away from it, for more years than I’d like to recall.

The young prince lay unconscious; his chest hardly rose with the shallow breaths that vainly attempted for normality. His brown hair was golden soaked from the desert sun, the color of the earth. His hand was draped over his face, a paltry attempt at preservation.

The sun beat down on his unprotected body, each degree dragging him closer to the looming grip of death. Insects looped in and out of the parched, splintered earth. Miraculously, the desolate wasteland hummed with a myriad of lives, struggling at full capacity to live. The singularity of it all could easily be overlooked, the scene passed off as a death land, but the careful observer could see the small blinks of life taking shelter underground.

Far above the Prince’s inert body, vultures glided, lazily waiting for the inevitable. Their wide arc spiraled, closer and tighter towards the being.

Death drew near. The vultures surrounded him unimpeded by the soft breaths that still escaped his lips— a cocoon of bony feathers and the rank smell of carrion.

From far away, something approached. The only precursor was a slight rumbling of the ground, a pebble shivered. The vultures didn’t mind, and the sun ignored everything. The Prince did not realize either; he was too busy dying.

And then the pair barreled into the wake of vultures, causing it to rupture like a beaky, feathery volcano. The vultures’ screeching shattered the dry air, oddly harmonizing with the newcomers’ chortling.

As the last of the vultures hobbled away, the two figures wheezed and giggled. One was thin and lanky, like a twig, with a reddish mop on his head. His mischievous grin told he was the mastermind behind their shenanigans. His friend was portly and strong, with a warm face; he knew how to laugh. Theirs was a friendship borne of their mutual inability to act as adults. The two companions paid no attention to the burning sun, the surrounding death lands, or the fact they were clearly outcasts. Instead, they continued their constant stream of aviary jokes. They did not like vultures.

Twiggy dusted his shoulders, feeling absolutely proud of himself. Portly walked off, still jumpy from the adrenaline.

Portly suddenly ceased guffawing about the persistency of birds and made a sick sort of sound. “Uh, oh” he said, guilt seeping into his voice. He called his friend over.

“I think its still alive,” said Portly about the limp, unmoving body. Though there were few signs of life, Portly did not want to be branded as a murderer. He was only having a bit of fun with buzzards, not trying to take lives.

Twiggy’s face pulled into a disgusted grimace, “Yeesh,” he began, but quickly regained his professionalism. He wiped his hands of the metaphorical dust of the whole situation.

“Let’s take a look, what have we got here?” The lanky one was miffed at the sudden cloud over his tomfoolery, and he had no plans to take responsibility for this lost soul. He sniffed.

The Prince may have been young, but his stature was still larger than that of the scrawny architect of mischief. Corpulent Portly stood to the side, still shamefaced over the consequence of their actions.

It went without saying Twiggy was the leader of the meager syndicate. He began inspecting the fallen body, making short observations under his breath. When he lifted the Prince’s hand, Twiggy’s bravado escaped like a drop of water on the scorching earth. He loudly exclaimed and grabbed his friend to run, wanting to place as much distance between them and the terribly threatening, near dead figure.

The kinder of the two, Portly rebuked his friend. He pointed out the desperate proportions and state of the lone Prince, making a strong case on his behalf. Smoothly, he transitioned to asking Twiggy if they could take this ward into their charge. It was, after all, the morally right thing to do.

Twiggy was appalled, and his panicky voice cracked through his normally cool front.

“Are you nuts?” He asked reverberatingly, making sure his friend could hear, and hopefully, possibly grasp the full nature of the situation. Twiggy pointed out all the Prince’s flaws, which amounted to a grand total of one—the very nature of the Prince’s face.

Twiggy yelled out the obvious reason. Why his friend was so dull was beyond Twiggy’s comprehension.

Portly was unconvinced and pointed out that such a young being could not be any threat to anyone. Portly’s girthy stature might have inhibited his fear, but the same could not be said for scrawny Twiggy.

Twiggy glared up at his friend and asked Portly about the young Prince’s future.

“Maybe he’ll be on our side?” Portly asked with a hopeful smile, grasping for straws of persuasion. Something in his heart refused to let him leave the lonely being to perish alone, at the beaks of ruthless buzzards.

Twiggy brushed the dusty earth from his sleeves and shoulders, snorting and laughing darkly.

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he snorted and mimicked his friend’s nasally voice, “maybe he’ll be on our side,” when he was seized by a thought.

“Hey,” he said in a whisper of brilliance, as the thought hit him—a stroke of genius. “I got it,” he continued, raising the previously chiding finger. “What if he’s on our side? Having him around might not be such a bad idea,” the youthful confidence remerged and Twiggy was the leader once more.

He pretended as though he had never lost his cool; his ample friend ignored the plain thievery. Portly was just glad they weren’t going to abandon the individual. He iterated his joy in the form of a question, ensuring they were taking charge of the young thing.

“Of course! Who’s the brains of this outfit?” Twiggy asked, voice full of leadership and self-assured bluster. It had an interesting way of growing on one, like a wart one simply learns to accept.

“Uhh….” Portly replayed the last few minutes, and decided it was not worth it to try and reason with Twiggy. He dedicated himself to lifting the fallen Prince to shelter.

“My point exactly,” Twiggy said, arms crossed. The heat of the sun began to blister their foreheads, and the leader pointed it out.

“Gee, I’m fried. Let’s get out of here and find some shade,” Twiggy said as he wiped his forehead. They dashed off, carting the Prince with them.

Twiggy and Portly were raised in the crook of the desert’s dry arms, and the two knew exactly where that arm ended and the oasis began. They found a nice burbling river and let the Prince’s body rest beside it.

Twiggy began splashing water at the Prince’s face; Portly had laid him down under the shade of a generous palm tree. A soft breeze danced across the land, watching as three fates began to intertwine.

It took some time, but eventually enough water lodged itself in the Prince’s nose to cause him discomfort. He frowned in his comatose state and lifted his head slightly, eyes only just cracking open. The death spell fell back. The Prince gave a grunt and turned his wavering gaze to the source of the blessed annoyance. The cool water was paradise on his dry, splintered tongue.

“You okay kid?” Twiggy asked, in a half wary, half brotherly tone. The nerves only just showed.

The Prince hesitated but was still too dazed to fear the strange faces, “I guess so,” he mumbled in a gravelly voice that would have made any self-respecting desert proud.

The Prince turned his face away from Twiggy and Portly, an overwhelming guilt settling on his young brows.

“You nearly died,” exclaimed Portly with a genuine concern.

“I saved you,” Twiggy intervened, patting his chest with both hands to convey his extreme generosity.

Portly gave a disgusted snort at Twiggy’s direction, demanding a more honest story line.

Twiggy amended in a modest tone, indicating Portly’s help, albeit with an annoyed frown. He placed his hands commandingly on his hips and re-amended, “A little,” waving a casual hand in the air.

By this point, the Prince’s guilt shadowed his face entirely. He had regained enough consciousness to remember what the tugging, constant, dreadful voice was echoing. Your fault, it whispered.

The Prince ambled onto his feet and started to walk away. He hung his head, degraded, and slowly paced away.

“Hey! Where you going?” Twiggy wondered aloud. His body guard plan was quickly unravelling with each of the Prince’s steps. Twiggy was not about to watch it fall without a fight.

“Nowhere,” was the solemn response.

Something in the Prince’s tone made Twiggy pause. That was not a youthful tone. It held the regrets and agonies found only in the breasts of old men.

“Hey, he looks blue,” Twiggy pointed out eloquently, speaking out of the side of his mouth to Portly. The two friends watched the Prince’s retreating back.

And while Portly had a heart to rival his nickname, he was not always the quickest cheetah on the plain.

He squinted, wondering what his friend was talking about because it was quite obvious to him, “I’d say brownish gold,” he said matter-of-factly.

Portly glanced at Twiggy and hoped Twiggy hadn’t eaten more of those suspicious looking roots that grew at the edge of the oasis.

Twiggy was not a stranger to Portly’s gradualness and corrected his friend without pause.

“No, no, no. I mean, he’s depressed.”

“Oh,” Portly narrowed his eyes in humiliation. It passed quickly and he trotted over to the Prince and asked in a way that only he could, “Kid, what’s eatin’ ya?”

The Prince turned his head toward the sincere question and gave a look. He felt ready to spill the contents of his heart.

This was when Twiggy opted for comic relief as the cure-all and made a rather basic pun, alluding to the Prince’s strength and potential. He found his joke a highlight, and proceeded to laugh in an undignified manner, shrieking in a wheezing howl. He nudged the Prince, and repeated the pun, giggling.

The words seemed to depress the Prince further, and Twiggy began to feel the uncomfortable tension of a joke fallen flat. Too late to undo the process, he tried to cover it with an unconvincing grin. His giggling ceded to a throat clearing sound, and the Prince’s head drooped further still. Twiggy was not used to this reception, usually Portly laughed at all his jokes whether he understood them or not.

“So…” Twiggy tried to save face by changing the topic, “where ya from?”

It didn’t really help; the Prince dodged the question and began to walk again. “Who cares, I can’t go back.”

These words seemed to hit home with Twiggy, who felt them echo in his own chest.

“Ah! You’re an outcast,” he proclaimed with a confident smile, ignoring the depressed princely looks. “That’s great! So are we,” he raised both arms above his head in a welcoming manner.

Twiggy was glad things were finally going in a saner direction, that coincidentally ran parallel to his own somewhat selfish desires.

Portly cut in, not wanting to be left out of the loop, “What’d ya do, kid?”

The Prince’s face was grief, for a second before he closed his eyes and muttered, “Something terrible.” He turned his head away, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Twiggy had no qualms, “Good, we don’t want to hear about it,” he said cheerily, holding his hands across his chest.

Portly felt his friend was being a bit crass and muttered as much to his buddy. He turned and in a louder voice asked the Prince, “Anything we can do?”

The Prince looked back despondently, his golden eyes darting this way and that, “Not unless you can change the past.”

“You know kid, in times like this, my buddy here says, you gotta put your behind in your past,” Portly said in a hearty voice.

“No, no, no!”  Twiggy intervened, waving his arms again, implying Portly’s vast foolishness.

“I mean…” Portly meandered abashedly.

“Amateur,” Twiggy muttered, “Lie down before you hurt yourself.”

“It’s,” Twiggy paused for effect, “you gotta put your past behind ya,” he held his hands out like a professor.

The Prince did not waver from his sorrowful expression. Twiggy redoubled his efforts.

In a stronger voice he said, “Look kid, bad things happen. And you can’t do anything about it. Right?” The Prince looked at him with a morose face, and sadly replied, “Right.”

“Wrong,” Twiggy jumped loudly, jabbing his finger at the Prince’s face for super emphasis.

Twiggy’s face contorted to that of a lone adventurer, a single hero outcast. He swished his hands dramatically, illustrating the hordes that had ostracized him. He spoke, “When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world,” he finished triumphantly, closing his fist in a tone of finality.

“Well, that’s not what I was taught,” the Prince said, shaking his head. He wasn’t willing to be talked out of his grief.

“Then maybe you need a new lesson,” responded Twiggy, who loved challenges.

“Repeat after me,” he said cheerily, and then cleared his throat, “Hakuna Matata.”

#creative writing #long story short #tbt #humor #for the lols #prince #story time #regrets #kingdom