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Jun 28, 2023 18:55
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:50 |
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The Goblin Queen Word count: 1314 I was never the best drag queen in our little kingdom. I wasn’t even particularly good. But I’ve been lurking around the catwalks for a long time now, longer than some of these skinny dryad bitches have been alive, and I’ve seen first-hand what star power looks like. It’s the power to command a room with your walk alone; the power to enchant a crowd with your eyes. It looks like witchcraft, except it isn’t, because I’ve seen witches and they’ve got nothing on a good queen. I don’t, either. But Beryline does. She just doesn’t believe it. “I can’t do it,” she stammers, pacing back and forth behind Club Megalixer’s sequined curtain. Teal hairs fly out of the twin buns on the sides of her wig as she shakes her head. “I can’t go out there like this!” “Like what?” I ask, though I already know the answer. It’s the same one she gives whenever she gets nervous, which is all the Seraph-damned time. “Like this!” She gestures up and down the length of her little body, which doesn’t take her long. “Like a goblin!” It’s a good thing the wizards in the front room are going so hard on the strobe-spells, because otherwise Beryline might see me roll my eyes. “Nobody cares about that.” “Yes they do! You know the history of these clubs—no goblin has ever won a walk-off at Megalixer, not once in seventy years. It’s all people like you!” She’s stressed and scared, so I know she doesn’t mean it to sting, but it absolutely loving does. I’m a rich, star-white high elf with legs as long as my lifespan, and this broken system is built to reward me for that. Yet despite sixty years of strutting my way through a scene stacked in my favor, I never managed to win a walk-off at Megalixer, either. I never even placed. So even though I know the system is gryphon-poo poo, and I want to see it torn for Beryline and every amazing queen, it still hurts to know I couldn’t win a hand when I was dealt the best cards. But that’s not what matters right now. What matters is the queen who needs me. With a long, dramatic sigh, I drop to one knee to look Beryl dead in the eye. “Now, listen, girl, because I am only gonna say this once. Okay?” She wipes away a tear with such effortless grace that it doesn’t even smudge her eye-liner. “Yeah…” “I’ve been at this drag poo poo so long that my first heels were made of mastodon tusks, so I’ve seen a lot of girls come and go. High elves, drow elves, dryads, demons—I’ve even seen a giant queen, and you know her fat rear end could not fit in the club.” That gets a laugh out of Beryl. “Shut up.” “Girl, I swear to the Seraph, her rear end was so big she had dragons nesting between those cheeks. But she still slayed the competition at Club Ultima every year until she retired.” “She did?” “You’re drat right.” At least, I think that’s how it happened. It’s honestly hard to remember; I was snorting a lot of pixie dust in those days. Thankfully, I’ve never been one to let the truth get in a way of a good story, so it doesn’t really matter. “She won every year because her drag was max level, and so is yours. I mean, come on, just look at this.” I flick the lines of beads dangling from the shoulders of Beryl’s sleeveless tunic. “You sewed this poo poo yourself, and you beaded it. That’s crazy!” “Yeah, but you picked the colors…” “Because I loving love a split complementary color scheme, and you’re the only girl in this place who’s got the guts to pair green skin with teal and magenta.” She tugs on one of her sleeve covers with a half-smile. “I’m the only girl in here with green skin.” “Exactly. Nobody else in here looks like you, which means nobody else can do what you do. And when you can own that and beat the other bitches at their own game? I mean, look at this tiny little waist!” I circle my hands around her corset, thumbs and fingers touching with room to spare. “Snatched so tight, even a lamia couldn’t wriggle through it. And your face?” I raise a finger like I’m going to touch her make-up and she throws up a defensive hand. “Don’t, it’s perfect!” she says. “Exactly! A face beat for the gods, and you didn’t even have to beat a god to get it.” Which proves she isn’t stupid, thank the Seraph, because I have known some queens who thought they literally had to beat the gods to level up their makeup. I love all my sisters, I swear I do, but some of these bitches are too stupid for idioms. “Now turn around, look at yourself in that mirror over there, and tell me you see what I see.” “Do I have to?” I stand up to my full height, which makes me twice as tall as Beryl even with her towering heels. “Miss Beryline, if you do not stand in front of that mirror and acknowledge your own greatness, I will take this long leg of mine and put it in your rear end throat-first.” She winces with an exaggerated clench. “That sounds like something you’re into.” “You’re a hundred years too young to know what I’m into. Now move.” I put my knee between her shoulder blades and nudge her forward. She stumbles, but she catches herself in front of the mirror like the professional I know she is. “See the girl in that mirror?” I say, pointing in the mirror. “The one who’s cute, funny, and fierce as a harpy in heels? Do you want to be the one to tell her she’s not good enough to compete?” “I…” “That girl in there needs you, Beryl. I’ve known her a long time and I know she wants to go out there and slay like the true queen she is. Are you gonna tell her that she can’t do it?” “No, but—” “Are you gonna tell her she shouldn’t even try?” She gnaws her lip, then turns and meets my eye with the saddest look I’ve ever seen in my life. “Do you still want to try?” “Me?” I bite back a pained laugh. “I’m too old to be judged by children.” “I’m serious, Juniper.” “So am I.” My head feels heavy, even without a wig weighing it down. “I’ve had my try. A lot of tries. And they didn’t work out.” It’s so hard not to throw myself a full-blown pity party here, but pity will help me even less than it helps her. I did a lot of thinking before I gave away my dresses and put away my make-up, and I know I made the right decision for me. Losing hurt, but more than that, it stole the strength I needed to succeed at other things—like being there for people I believe in. “My drag days are over, Beryl. I shot my shot, and I don’t regret missing.” I pat her on the wig, taking extra care to straighten her buns on the way up. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here to see you hit.” Big, sloppy tears well in her eyes. “You really mean that?” “I really do,” I say, and it’s the honest truth. “Now go out there and slay.” The announcers call her name. She draws in a halting breath, smiles at me, and heads for the stage. Some tiny part of me still wants to follow her, if only to feel the lights on my skin one last time, but it’s not my time anymore. It’s hers, and she’s gonna win, because she is a motherfucking queen. 
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Jul 3, 2023 06:08
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I’m in, gimme one of the remaining toxxabloxen
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Dec 6, 2023 06:01
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If You Don’t Know What Italian Ice Is, You Should Probably Google It Before Reading This Story 1699 words Diagnosis: Restless Leg Syndrome Harris was standing in the kitchen with a coffee in his hand when his husband uttered the last words Harris ever wanted to hear: “I need the van today for work. Do you think you can drive the stick?” An anxious thrum took hold of Harris’s heart. He mentally stomped it down (with a little physical stomp to loosen his legs) and pasted on a confident grin. “Only if you don’t mind me street-racing.” “I’d like to see you try.” Jacob let out one of the easy laughs that had drawn Harris to him in the first place. “Maybe you’ll even win if you can keep your foot off the dash.” Harris tried to laugh, too, but it came out all wrong. It was the dying wheeze of a downed horse on a racetrack: the last gasp of an animal who had no business trying to go fast. Harris did not need to go fast, either. He needed to relax at home, where he could walk around freely to stop the crawling feeling in his legs. Thankfully, he didn’t need to go anywhere today. Just a few chores and a little cooking, and no stalling Jacob’s new car on the highway. “You’ll be fine.” Jacob patted Harris on the smooth dome of his head. “And it’ll be good for you to practice when you go to Rita’s.” Harris’s chest seized. He’d completely forgotten that it was the last day of summer: the last day to get a delicious swirl of custard and Italian ice at Rita’s. Harris had been enjoying the layers of sweet cream and shaved ice ever since he was old enough for solid food, and the last day of the selling season marked an all-important occasion for his family. It didn’t even matter what flavors were available, though they definitely had preferences. Harris’s dad liked vanilla and black cherry; his sister liked vanilla and root beer. Their mom liked chocolate custard with chocolate ice, which everyone found a little disgusting, but Rita’s was a judgment-free zone. It wasn’t like Harris had a leg to stand on, either; his legs were unreliable and his favorite flavor was cotton candy. Life and time had come between Harris’s family, stretching its fibers across ages and coasts, but Harris still believed in the end-of-summer ice cream. How could he not? Sure, he didn’t have much of a relationship with his parents anymore, and he spoke to his sister about as often as he spoke to his accountant, but the annual ice cream feast transcended all of that. It was too sweet, too soft, too sumptuous to ignore. He had to have it—he would do anything. Even drive a stick. — Rita’s didn’t open until noon, so Harris had to spend four hours obsessing over the impending drive. According to Maps, Rita’s was less than two miles away. Reaching it required two turns: one right and one left, not counting the turn out of the driveway. The right would be easy, but the left into the parking required stopping in the middle of a busy street and turning across oncoming traffic. With no signs or lights to help, it would just be him, the car, and two legs that felt like they were filled with spider eggs whenever they couldn’t move. When the time came, Harris made his way outside and sized up his ride. It was a cool car, he couldn’t deny that. A Toyota GR86, brand new in Electric Blue, with a honey-comb grill and a duckbill spoiler that looked like something out of The Fast and the Furious. It wasn’t an expensive car, but it was a rare edition, and it wouldn’t be easy to replace if Harris wrecked it. Harris clutched his keys and took a deep breath. “I can do this,” he said to himself. “That gelati is mine.” The Rita’s website said they had cotton candy in stock today, but he wasn’t the only man of culture in this town. Even on ordinary days, the opening rush could be brutal, but on the last day of the season? If he didn’t quit standing around, he’d be lucky to get anything but cherry. Harris had to duck to get in the car—a treat for a short guy—and his rear end dropped missing-stair deep into the seat. The pedals felt far away, too, especially the clutch. The unfamiliar rectangle sat to the left of the brakes and gas, and it was the primary reason he couldn’t put his foot on the dash to keep his leg from crawling. Car size and safety were two other compelling reasons, but those had never stopped him before. Only now, without a choice, did Harris have to keep both feet on the ground like a chode. He went through the checklist of tasks for starting the car. Left foot on clutch; right foot on break; right hand on stick. He jammed both pedals down to make sure they were in position, then started the car. The engine came to life with a tiger purr, sending chills through Harris’s spine. He wasn’t scared; he could do this. “Clutch down, breaks down. Now reverse.” He shifted the stick into position, then gently lifted his foot off the break. The car began to roll backward with a shudder. His heart screamed at him to stop; his legs screamed at him to move. He apologized to both and slowly backed out to the bottom of the driveway. Backing up wasn’t so bad with a camera showing him his every wrong turn. What the camera couldn’t show him was what he did with his feet to make the electronics start screaming as the car stalled to a stop. “poo poo,” Harris hissed. Jacob had promised him he couldn’t hurt the car by stalling it, but it was still terrifying to have a multi-ton monster go dead under your feet. He grit his teeth, depressed the pedals, and started the car. That got him to the bottom of the driveway, where he was safe to put the car in first and move forward. Clutch down, break down, eyes forward, break up, rolling forward, spiders rolling from his legs, and— Beep! Another stall. “gently caress!” His leg had gotten itchy again and he’d moved too soon. Another try. First gear again: clutch down, break up, gas down, clutch up, but slower. Somehow that worked, and Harris was moving. He resisted the urge to fist-pump and guided the car towards the first turn. He rolled up to the corner and brought the car to an honest-to-god stop. In the world of automatics, he would’ve rolled through that right turn without a care in the world, but he had a gear change ahead and needed to think. At least no one was behind him oh poo poo there was someone behind him. A staggeringly tall F150 loomed behind him like a chrome-plated predator. It was almost a blessing that Harris couldn’t see the driver’s face, because it would clearly be reflecting animal fury at being forced to stop. “Sorry!” Harris said, as if the driver could hear him. His heart beat; his leg itched. He promised them both extra ice cream and checked for oncoming cars. There weren’t any, which would’ve been a nice way to buy time, so he had to clutch in and apply a little gas and clutch out and— BEEP! The car died. The truck honked. “Sorry! Sorry!” Harris scrambled to restart the car from the third humiliating stall of the day. It came alive fast, thank God, and he actually managed to get it moving. His heart kept on bouncing as he shifted the car into second, and then third, but at least the constant movement of the clutch satisfied his leg’s relentless desire to move. That movement, coupled with sheer adrenaline, kept him going the entire mile it took to reach his destination. Rita’s waited before him, its red-and-white awning promising the kind of dessert delights that would make his entire family drool. All he had to do was make one more turn. He crawled to a stop, blinker pointing towards paradise. Cars rushed past him on the south side of the road. He just needed an opening, any opening, and he could make the turn. But he wasn’t getting one, and the waiting was starting to hurt. It was already twelve forty-five: he’d spent longer than he realized sitting at the light, and even longer to psyche himself up and get into the car. The cotton candy might be sold out already. Were all the flavors sold out already? It was the last day of the season; stranger things had happened. Cars kept coming, one after the other. “Come on, come on!” His miserably manic screamed at him to jump and run, to abandon the car and dance in the streets where they could finally be free—or at least let them rest on the god-damned dash. The wave of cars broke. It was a gap of a second, maybe less, but it meant movement and candy and he was loving going for it. Clutch down. Break up. Gas down. “Let’s go!” The engine screamed, drowning out his voice, and he lurched across the street with the grace of a drunken elephant. But he made it, thank God, and he pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car with a sigh of relief that emptied his whole chest. Getting out of the car and stretching his legs might’ve been the best feeling of his life, except for the moment five minutes later when the teenaged cream-jockey handed him the platonic ideal of a gelati. The vanilla peak had been piped to perfection, its matte finish full of inviting air bubbles, and the brilliant blue beneath had the unnatural hue that promised sweet cotton candy. It was glorious in every way: a triumph of creation. And he’d earned it. He held it up to his face and took a selfie, then sent it to Jacob with a smiley face. Made it, he texted. Great job , Jacob texted back. Ready for the drive home? Harris’s legs twitched. gently caress.
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Dec 11, 2023 04:47
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WEEK 593: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING THIS IS A NO LOSS/NO NEGATIVE MENTION WEEK BECAUSE JESUS DIED ON XMAS FOR YOU’RE SINS Happy Holidays, one and all! No matter what God you do or do not believe in, Capitalism is here to remind you that it’s the gift-giving season, and you need to give gifts to others. But hey, you might get a gift, too. Isn’t that be nice? This week, I want you to write selfishly: give yourself the coolest, sickest, most amazing gift you can imagine, then write me a story about what you’d do with it. I don’t want you boring me with ‘meaningful gifts’, though, like the return of lost loved-ones or the solution to your existential problems. This is a capitalist holiday, and I want you to give yourself some material goods and wasteful experiences, and I want you to have fun. No expenses, no guilt. Just an extremely good time for the holidays. So go ahead, Thunderdome: treat yourself to that Italian vacation you’ve always wanted, or that Batmobile or that mansion or that anteater (please Jesus), and write me a story about what you would do with it. Because really, how often do we let ourselves imagine absurd luxuries in earnest? We all deserve a little fun every once in a while; what better time than the holidays? Word limit: 1000 Deadline: Sunday at 11:59 PST, or whenever I wake up in the morning to shut it down. No erotica/no fanfic, though I’m not sure how you’d pull that off EDIT For clarification: 1) I wrote this prompt in the hopes that you guys would go autobiographical, but if you’re in a situation where you can’t or don’t want to think about something totally frivolous, you can write a story about a character getting an awesome gift, too. 2) You don’t need to worry about downsides if you don’t want to, or even reality! Maybe you’ve always wanted to dance in a famous ballet but you have like six kids and also you can’t dance. Your gift to yourself can be shoes that make you into an incredible dancer, and also they come with a competent babysitter who doesn’t charge and can be trusted implicitly and your kids love them, too. Don’t get bogged down in logistics on this one; this is your chance to handwave away hardship for a minute and do something you’ve always wanted to do. Take it! Nae fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 07:20
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The Dome is Closed!
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Dec 18, 2023 16:38
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:50 |
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Congrats to all who participated in this week’s dome! I don’t remember how to format a winner’s post or any of that poo poo, and I’m too lazy to look it up, so I’ll just say the winner is: curlingiron! curling’s story satisfied the prompt and functioned as its own story, which was not something everybody could handle this week. That’s fine with me, since this is a no loss/no dm week, but I still gotta reward the good stuff and my co-judge agrees. To that end, we’re also handing out an HM to derp for ‘several wishes,’ but FYI derp, next time I judge, if I see you do stream of consciousness again, I’ll come to your house and DM you by force. Crits: chili: Hey. I remember these things! This story followed the prompt on a week when some struggled and I genuinely felt the excitement and fun. The singing section didn't quite land for me, since it felt like a reference to something I wasn't getting. Still, all in all, I'd have to say this story made me want to blurp. Carl Killer Miller: This satisfied the gift portion of the prompt, but it really lost the elements of fun I was looking for. Prose was decent, though, and I enjoyed some of the imagery. Beep-Beep: A fun concept and a useful gift! It felt like the story was just getting started when things ended. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the whole thing had been condensed to the opening third or so, and the rest of the time explored the convention of selves. Kaom: This is how I expected a lot of the entries to read: more like laundry lists than narratives, but with heart and excitement that shows the author's enthusiasm for the gift. This doesn't function that well as a story, but for satisfying the prompt, I feel like I got my money's worth. Albatrossy Rodent: It satisfies the prompt and also has a decent enough narrative arc, but it could’ve used another round of editing for pacing and general tightness. I am a big Zelda fan (hence the avatar), though, so you get some serious points with me personally for that. As for the title, I once submitted a paper for english class called 'A Paper For All Seasons', so I'm clearly into for that kind of bullshit. The Cut of Your Jib: One of the many TD stories I've read where my first thought is 'I'm too dumb to understand it', and that dumbess gives way to relief when I realizes no one else can understand it, either. Was it a movie being filmed? What was going on? derp: I think the beginning is a little too off-tone for what I was looking for, though I guess we all have different definitions of 'fun.' And honestly, I can't say I disagree with the sentiments expressed. The rest of the story is interesting enough and relatable enough that it elevates the piece beyond the questionable intro, but on a week when other people hit the prompt better, I can't give this piece the win. curlingiron: The clear winner for me. Solid tone, solid structure, fits the prompt, and was genuinely a joy to read. It made me want to hatch a baby dragon in a little nursery (and to buy nutrient-rich gold coins, which is my favorite story detail of the week). Thranguy: Cool concept, but pretty dry compared to some of the other entries. It feels like a chunk of exposition you'd get as part of a larger scene, rather than a story that stands on its own.
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Dec 18, 2023 20:46
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