Post by handbaskets on Sept 10, 2022 20:59:29 GMT -5
Author’s note: Sign language does not have a lot of conjunctions or prepositions by nature. I purposely left the grammar at the end of this post stilted and awkward to reflect that. Only leaving them where I felt it was unavoidable.
To say that Helena Handbasket was boiling with rage would be an understatement of orders of magnitude. The Atomic Blond had started blindly swinging on her way out of the ring and had continued tiredly swinging at anything in her path all the way up the ramp. The bell of disqualification was like a jump start to a second wind. She’d even head-butted Meeks in a fit of anger when the other woman came to check on her. Damnit, Crash! Lou! DAMNIT the whole of PTSD. THE FUCK! What did TLS not just trust her to win a fucking match? So he had to come out and ‘help?’ Some fucking help. She’d ended up nailed by Alice and the whole fucking match had gone the way of the goddamn dodo. She was definitely taking out her fit of temper on everyone in her way, ‘friend’ and enemy alike.
After literally fighting her way to the back. Nadia finally grabbed her wrist, preventing her from swinging in response, and led her into the locker rooms, where her sister stepped out from behind the lockers looking confused and upset. Her stronger, taller girlfriend kept a hand on her shoulder to keep her explosive temper contained.
“So we’re going with angry right? Angry seems good. Good emotion for this situation.” Helena huffed, trying to bat Nadia’s hands away when her girlfriend went to inspect the cuts on her face. Her sister walked over to the sink in the locker room and began wetting down her face and hair. “Hey give me the shirt yeah, I’d rather not bloody up this one.”
“You don’t have to-” Nadia had started and Bas shrugged. Halsey held up a hand.
“Oi, just because ‘it’s out now’ doesn’t mean we have to ruin the illusion. You think art-house stans aren’t goin to eat up this commitment to the bit? It’s a unique selling point in a business that requires unique selling points and thrives on tricky. I’m not lettin it go. If Bas doesn’t mind?”
They exchanged a look and Bas made an ‘I won’t stop you’ motion.
Nadia just pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. Bas pulled off her ring shirt and offered it over to her sister, who was wrinkling her nose but pulling off her own shirt to change. After a moment, she pulled a pocketknife out and stepped over to use her fingers to measure the placement of the cuts on her sister's cheek and forehead.
Bastila held still to allow for it and Halsey grit her teeth, quickly and cleanly using the sharp blade as she replicated the cuts on her own face. After grimacing and grunting, Halsey set to smacking her own cheek and forehead, making the blood flow and dragging it up into her hair and down onto her neck, she blotched some across her pants and checked her appearance. She looked blood and sweat-soaked, all properly scuffed up.
With a wave the talking twin marched out the room to go make the usual after-match statements and press junket comments.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bas had always had trouble with concentration. Hyperfocus was one thing, when something got trapped in her brain it was stuck there until it let her go. But the rest of the world? Just kind of went by in a fog. Today it was attempting to juggle, normally she just turn her mind off and let her body sort of flow in the repeated patterns needed for juggling. Usually it would all melt away and she could finish the exercise easily, but last night she’d watched the old movie He Man and the Masters of the universe with her older sibling Riley and her twin.
The tune the master key made had gotten stuck in her head. It fascinated her, the concept of a singing key leading to interdimensional travel. Her limbs kept wanting to mimic the pattern of the music in her mind, leading to her dropping sandbags again. Her mother turned and rapped her hand with a meter stick. She could see the twitching in her mother’s eye, her brain just naturally picking up on little details even as it connected them to the song in her head.
Bas grunted and shook her hand out, pugnaciously sticking out her seven-year-old jaw. Her sister giggled and began humming the same tune from the movie.
“Wwwwwoooonnnnnn ddooo do do.”
Her sister received a smack across the shoulder with the meterstick and she huffed, crossing her arms. Clearly, their mother was fed up with their shenanigans. Kealy rolled her eyes at her two children.
“I keep telling you both that you need to focus and work. It’s bad enough one of you is as useless as a broken toy. Bastila you need to stop distracting your sister. You can’t be the star of the show and need to just work on being the best part of the show you can be.”
The remark stung, being called broken as if she was ever allowed to forget she wasn’t normal. That she couldn’t sing, shout, or express herself. It was infuriating and Bas wanted to lash out, she wanted to scream. Her small hands went to a book but before she could throw it, or start any sort of fight that would probably result in her getting spanked red, white black, and blue by that meter stick her mother rolled her eyes again, waving her hand.
“Just go, the both of you, just leave. Lesson over tonight since you’re such ungrateful brats that can’t pay attention.”
Halsey pulled Bas away and stuck her tongue out at their mother, giggling about it as Kealy turned to leave the room.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------
When Bastila woke up, she couldn’t move, it felt like she’d had a lead transfusion. Her limbs were stiff and heavy, her vision was blurry in the dark of her bedroom. Sitting on her chest was a large creature wreathed in shadows with a distorted triangular head. To gleaming void eyes stared directly into whatever passed for her soul as its form flickered and stretched, sibilant hissing noises echoed in the small bedroom, nothing that made sense but everything that was entirely terrifying.
Bastila thrashed and tried to squirm, her endocrine system dumping every chemical it could think of and a few only known to pigeons into her body to run rampant to provoke any kind of a response from her body. The creature stared, leaning down as glistening white teeth appeared, she could feel the heat and slim dripping from the newly exposed maw.
Then the screaming started. Not hers, that she was sure, but Nadia was pulling her up into a sitting position as she gathered herself, the adrenaline dump leaving her shaking and breathing hard. Nadia made soothing nonsense noises at her, Kayla rolled over from the other side and kissed her cheek.
“Remember to breathe puff.” Nadia mumbled, using the cutesy nickname her girlfriends had for her.
“Should we?” Kayla started, but the screaming coming from the other room stopped and Kayla shook her head.
“I think that Lyric has that under control.”
Bastila wished she could communicate with them, her shaking hands were making sign language hard, it was difficult to hold her fingers in the right position. She managed to convey to them that she would fine, but they still didn’t let her up, holding her close. Nadia reached above her head, pulling a book off the shelf that doubled as their headboard.
“I know you don’t like to just sit in the silent dark after that, so how about I read to you?”
Bastila nodded, Nadia’s voice was soft and soothing as she read from one of Bas’s favorite books, Going Postal by Terry Pratchett.
___________
It took Halsey about half a minute to realize the screams reverberating around the room were coming from her. Granted it was comforting to know that any sane person’s reaction to the thing that had been sitting on her chest. She had that going for her, which was good. Lyric was helping her sit up and shushing her, Halsey grunted.
“I’m alive, I think. I’m pretty sure this is far too pleasant to be hell and the feckin thin that escaped an edgelord’s wet dream didn’t ensnare me livin essence. We’ll see if you end up meltin, it’s a bit too soon to tell.”
Lyric chuckled and kissed her cheek. “I’m not goin to melt, luv, but let me take your mind off of it.”
Later that morning.
Halsey sat down, handing Bas a can of energy drink and setting a bottle of Kratom on the table. Bas washed down the kratom with the drink and made a face.
*Tastes like wood elf cum.*
“IIIIII’mmmm goin to ignore the implications of that phrase. I have to be on a plane iun a few hours. Da’s closin down PWV and I’m the child who can stare at the camera’s and look supportive and sad. Still got to do that promo video for Harmon Egan, man who handed his style a picture of a used cotton swab and currently on an undefeated streak.”
*Actually, I was thinking, given that he’s you know. Maybe I could?*
Bas had pointed to her own chest, and Halsey’s eyes widened. She nodded. “Oh! Yeah! Sure. I mean, yeah. Yes. Good idea. Come on. I’ll set up the camera!”
-----------------------------------------------------
Bas sat in the room that most of them had their computers, laptops and various nerdy gizmos. It was lined with nerd memorabilia, including a replica of the Master Key from the He-man movie, sitting in a corner. She was wearing the get up, all ready to ‘speak’ as Helena Handbasket.
-Harmon. Sadly, you found me in one of my uncontrollably bleak moods. Where I pull back, stare into space. Mark time in increments measured in loneliness.-
Here Helena makes a couple of hand gestures, speaking in BSL and another short hand form of sign language, twisting her hand up near her heart and closing her fingers indicating being lonely.
-Hard to string thoughts together. I could write out every letter.-
Here she does just that, Helena’s hands still shaking flash through the air, writing letters.
-That takes effort. You get shorthand. Hah, shorthand.-
A smarmy grin at her own pun.
-I do not have a lot to say. Excited? Absolutely. Knew we’d have this match. As soon as I signed up. You. Me. OCW? Same. Hotshots. Winning streaks. Makes for good press. Good match-up. Obvious similarity.-
Helena brushed a hand through her hair and then gestures at the astrix-shaped scar on her neck. When talking about the rematch, she makes the hand sign for triumph. She fidgets a bit more, sign language by way of a spastic doofus, before starting up again.
-I attacked you. Don’t blame my sister. I wanted rematch against Crash. I got that. Just. Business. I have dozens of questions. Why? How? When did that happen?...None of them too important You like Starwars? There’s a race called the Echani. They believe that when you fight someone. You can see. Heart. Soul. A genuine conversation. I believe that. Reason why I fight. When I fight. I can speak. Express myself. Monday Night I will test myself. Against. You. Have real conversation. I have watched you fight. You are good. Similar styles. Striker. Submissionist. Things we both are. Watch you win fatal four-way. Clever hail Mary. Mary does not answer all hails. Me? Clever too. Fast. Strong. Beat Jamie, can beat you. Experience. Will be edge of my sword. You. Three Match Career. Me? Much longer. Throw your best at me. I look forward to the conversation.-
Helena grins again, reeling in her shaking hands as she was gesturing wildly, truly genuinely excited about this fight. Reaching out she clicks the camera off.
Merrie Melodies Present: Salvador Dali Hates The Sound of Silence
To say that Helena Handbasket was boiling with rage would be an understatement of orders of magnitude. The Atomic Blond had started blindly swinging on her way out of the ring and had continued tiredly swinging at anything in her path all the way up the ramp. The bell of disqualification was like a jump start to a second wind. She’d even head-butted Meeks in a fit of anger when the other woman came to check on her. Damnit, Crash! Lou! DAMNIT the whole of PTSD. THE FUCK! What did TLS not just trust her to win a fucking match? So he had to come out and ‘help?’ Some fucking help. She’d ended up nailed by Alice and the whole fucking match had gone the way of the goddamn dodo. She was definitely taking out her fit of temper on everyone in her way, ‘friend’ and enemy alike.
After literally fighting her way to the back. Nadia finally grabbed her wrist, preventing her from swinging in response, and led her into the locker rooms, where her sister stepped out from behind the lockers looking confused and upset. Her stronger, taller girlfriend kept a hand on her shoulder to keep her explosive temper contained.
“So we’re going with angry right? Angry seems good. Good emotion for this situation.” Helena huffed, trying to bat Nadia’s hands away when her girlfriend went to inspect the cuts on her face. Her sister walked over to the sink in the locker room and began wetting down her face and hair. “Hey give me the shirt yeah, I’d rather not bloody up this one.”
“You don’t have to-” Nadia had started and Bas shrugged. Halsey held up a hand.
“Oi, just because ‘it’s out now’ doesn’t mean we have to ruin the illusion. You think art-house stans aren’t goin to eat up this commitment to the bit? It’s a unique selling point in a business that requires unique selling points and thrives on tricky. I’m not lettin it go. If Bas doesn’t mind?”
They exchanged a look and Bas made an ‘I won’t stop you’ motion.
Nadia just pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. Bas pulled off her ring shirt and offered it over to her sister, who was wrinkling her nose but pulling off her own shirt to change. After a moment, she pulled a pocketknife out and stepped over to use her fingers to measure the placement of the cuts on her sister's cheek and forehead.
Bastila held still to allow for it and Halsey grit her teeth, quickly and cleanly using the sharp blade as she replicated the cuts on her own face. After grimacing and grunting, Halsey set to smacking her own cheek and forehead, making the blood flow and dragging it up into her hair and down onto her neck, she blotched some across her pants and checked her appearance. She looked blood and sweat-soaked, all properly scuffed up.
With a wave the talking twin marched out the room to go make the usual after-match statements and press junket comments.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bas had always had trouble with concentration. Hyperfocus was one thing, when something got trapped in her brain it was stuck there until it let her go. But the rest of the world? Just kind of went by in a fog. Today it was attempting to juggle, normally she just turn her mind off and let her body sort of flow in the repeated patterns needed for juggling. Usually it would all melt away and she could finish the exercise easily, but last night she’d watched the old movie He Man and the Masters of the universe with her older sibling Riley and her twin.
The tune the master key made had gotten stuck in her head. It fascinated her, the concept of a singing key leading to interdimensional travel. Her limbs kept wanting to mimic the pattern of the music in her mind, leading to her dropping sandbags again. Her mother turned and rapped her hand with a meter stick. She could see the twitching in her mother’s eye, her brain just naturally picking up on little details even as it connected them to the song in her head.
Bas grunted and shook her hand out, pugnaciously sticking out her seven-year-old jaw. Her sister giggled and began humming the same tune from the movie.
“Wwwwwoooonnnnnn ddooo do do.”
Her sister received a smack across the shoulder with the meterstick and she huffed, crossing her arms. Clearly, their mother was fed up with their shenanigans. Kealy rolled her eyes at her two children.
“I keep telling you both that you need to focus and work. It’s bad enough one of you is as useless as a broken toy. Bastila you need to stop distracting your sister. You can’t be the star of the show and need to just work on being the best part of the show you can be.”
The remark stung, being called broken as if she was ever allowed to forget she wasn’t normal. That she couldn’t sing, shout, or express herself. It was infuriating and Bas wanted to lash out, she wanted to scream. Her small hands went to a book but before she could throw it, or start any sort of fight that would probably result in her getting spanked red, white black, and blue by that meter stick her mother rolled her eyes again, waving her hand.
“Just go, the both of you, just leave. Lesson over tonight since you’re such ungrateful brats that can’t pay attention.”
Halsey pulled Bas away and stuck her tongue out at their mother, giggling about it as Kealy turned to leave the room.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------
When Bastila woke up, she couldn’t move, it felt like she’d had a lead transfusion. Her limbs were stiff and heavy, her vision was blurry in the dark of her bedroom. Sitting on her chest was a large creature wreathed in shadows with a distorted triangular head. To gleaming void eyes stared directly into whatever passed for her soul as its form flickered and stretched, sibilant hissing noises echoed in the small bedroom, nothing that made sense but everything that was entirely terrifying.
Bastila thrashed and tried to squirm, her endocrine system dumping every chemical it could think of and a few only known to pigeons into her body to run rampant to provoke any kind of a response from her body. The creature stared, leaning down as glistening white teeth appeared, she could feel the heat and slim dripping from the newly exposed maw.
Then the screaming started. Not hers, that she was sure, but Nadia was pulling her up into a sitting position as she gathered herself, the adrenaline dump leaving her shaking and breathing hard. Nadia made soothing nonsense noises at her, Kayla rolled over from the other side and kissed her cheek.
“Remember to breathe puff.” Nadia mumbled, using the cutesy nickname her girlfriends had for her.
“Should we?” Kayla started, but the screaming coming from the other room stopped and Kayla shook her head.
“I think that Lyric has that under control.”
Bastila wished she could communicate with them, her shaking hands were making sign language hard, it was difficult to hold her fingers in the right position. She managed to convey to them that she would fine, but they still didn’t let her up, holding her close. Nadia reached above her head, pulling a book off the shelf that doubled as their headboard.
“I know you don’t like to just sit in the silent dark after that, so how about I read to you?”
Bastila nodded, Nadia’s voice was soft and soothing as she read from one of Bas’s favorite books, Going Postal by Terry Pratchett.
___________
It took Halsey about half a minute to realize the screams reverberating around the room were coming from her. Granted it was comforting to know that any sane person’s reaction to the thing that had been sitting on her chest. She had that going for her, which was good. Lyric was helping her sit up and shushing her, Halsey grunted.
“I’m alive, I think. I’m pretty sure this is far too pleasant to be hell and the feckin thin that escaped an edgelord’s wet dream didn’t ensnare me livin essence. We’ll see if you end up meltin, it’s a bit too soon to tell.”
Lyric chuckled and kissed her cheek. “I’m not goin to melt, luv, but let me take your mind off of it.”
Later that morning.
Halsey sat down, handing Bas a can of energy drink and setting a bottle of Kratom on the table. Bas washed down the kratom with the drink and made a face.
*Tastes like wood elf cum.*
“IIIIII’mmmm goin to ignore the implications of that phrase. I have to be on a plane iun a few hours. Da’s closin down PWV and I’m the child who can stare at the camera’s and look supportive and sad. Still got to do that promo video for Harmon Egan, man who handed his style a picture of a used cotton swab and currently on an undefeated streak.”
*Actually, I was thinking, given that he’s you know. Maybe I could?*
Bas had pointed to her own chest, and Halsey’s eyes widened. She nodded. “Oh! Yeah! Sure. I mean, yeah. Yes. Good idea. Come on. I’ll set up the camera!”
-----------------------------------------------------
Bas sat in the room that most of them had their computers, laptops and various nerdy gizmos. It was lined with nerd memorabilia, including a replica of the Master Key from the He-man movie, sitting in a corner. She was wearing the get up, all ready to ‘speak’ as Helena Handbasket.
-Harmon. Sadly, you found me in one of my uncontrollably bleak moods. Where I pull back, stare into space. Mark time in increments measured in loneliness.-
Here Helena makes a couple of hand gestures, speaking in BSL and another short hand form of sign language, twisting her hand up near her heart and closing her fingers indicating being lonely.
-Hard to string thoughts together. I could write out every letter.-
Here she does just that, Helena’s hands still shaking flash through the air, writing letters.
-That takes effort. You get shorthand. Hah, shorthand.-
A smarmy grin at her own pun.
-I do not have a lot to say. Excited? Absolutely. Knew we’d have this match. As soon as I signed up. You. Me. OCW? Same. Hotshots. Winning streaks. Makes for good press. Good match-up. Obvious similarity.-
Helena brushed a hand through her hair and then gestures at the astrix-shaped scar on her neck. When talking about the rematch, she makes the hand sign for triumph. She fidgets a bit more, sign language by way of a spastic doofus, before starting up again.
-I attacked you. Don’t blame my sister. I wanted rematch against Crash. I got that. Just. Business. I have dozens of questions. Why? How? When did that happen?...None of them too important You like Starwars? There’s a race called the Echani. They believe that when you fight someone. You can see. Heart. Soul. A genuine conversation. I believe that. Reason why I fight. When I fight. I can speak. Express myself. Monday Night I will test myself. Against. You. Have real conversation. I have watched you fight. You are good. Similar styles. Striker. Submissionist. Things we both are. Watch you win fatal four-way. Clever hail Mary. Mary does not answer all hails. Me? Clever too. Fast. Strong. Beat Jamie, can beat you. Experience. Will be edge of my sword. You. Three Match Career. Me? Much longer. Throw your best at me. I look forward to the conversation.-
Helena grins again, reeling in her shaking hands as she was gesturing wildly, truly genuinely excited about this fight. Reaching out she clicks the camera off.