Blackbird Song - Trios Tag vs TUS & EE
Nov 25, 2016 18:36:57 GMT -5
Post by Noelle Smith on Nov 25, 2016 18:36:57 GMT -5
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November 23 2016, Evening
She really didn’t know why she was doing it, other than habit. Prep, but not for her upcoming match. Noelle’s nimble fingers were turning the vegetables as she quickly peeled them, rinsed and set aside for dicing to go into the stuffing. The apples for the tart she was a little more careful with, taking her time so that she could make each peel into one long spiral strip because when she was little it was one of the few things that their mother had taught them about cooking. It’s good luck, if you can, Noelle could hear her saying that as clear as if she was standing in front of her. On the radio in the background she barely registered Lee DeWyze’s gravelly voice singing Blackbird Song, but she was humming it under her breath as she worked. Slicing them was simple, as was layering them in the tart shell and sprinkling them with a mix of flour, sugar, and cinnamon. There was a certain sage-y fragrance to the kitchen as well, she’d made a butter mixture to bake with the turkey tomorrow and paused to marvel at the fact there actually would be an honest to goodness turkey in the oven instead of that vile tofurky substitute Evan had insisted on from his holier-than-thou Vegan mountaintop.
It occurred to her that maybe she was overdoing this whole thing in some fruitless attempt to make up for the ruined holidays of the past few years even though she knew that wasn’t something anyone could really do. She sighed a little as she put everything away, there was no guarantee that anyone would even be coming over either. Jenny Knite had moved out to the West Coast for her job, and she hadn’t seen her since her birthday. Sephy… well, who knew where Sephy was really? She popped up on her own random timeframe, almost impossible to pin down. Kerry and Star had their own celebration to worry about, complete with friends, family and kids. Finishing up she left the kitchen and flipped off the lights, though she left the radio on. A hint of a smile came back as she entered the living room and sort of bonelessly flopped herself onto the couch. If she thought she could get away with it, she’d go back to the gym despite how hard she worked earlier - she couldn’t help it, downtime gave her too much time to think about random things, like now.
The smile was for Maxie, his sleeping puppy form all toasty and curled up in his puppy bed, his paws up in the air and kicking slightly. Of course then her thoughts went to the man that had given the precious pup to her, Kamijo. She’d invited him over Twitter to come down ringside to watch her match, knowing it would be quite the spectacle if he did. How could it not? The man would be drop dead gorgeous even without a drop of makeup or artifice, though honestly Noelle wondered how many people had ever been graced with that particular view. A tiny nearly devious smile grew on her full lips because it wasn’t just because she loved having him around that she’d invited him and she knew he knew it too. It was so soothing to her really that she could just say anything she liked to Kamijo and he was instantly on the same page. There was no sinking feeling inside talking to him, no feeling that no matter how much she tried to reach out and connect that the void was just too much, or rather that the person listening just didn’t honestly care. Nothing was useless, nothing was wasted, he never made her feel that what she was saying was worthless, and thus he never made her feel worthless either. The things went hand in hand.
There were a handful of people that could do that for her - simply lift her up by being in their presence. They were all exceptional, all noteable, and each of them had shown her that she meant something to them. They listened, they encouraged, they made her challenge herself to grow and be better every day. Not just a better wrestler though there was a lot of that involved, especially in the training aspect - but as a better person. Noelle yearned with all she had, to be that person that they saw in her, or saw her as. It was a journey she was willing to take every step of, no matter how tough it was. A lot of people who had been treated as she had over the course of their lives simply chose to give up, give in, become the victim - because that was easier, that was habit, or they didn’t realize things didn’t have to be the way they were.
She hated so much that she had almost fallen into that trap. Go along, to get along. Her rebelling against the mold was what had made it easy for her to actually listen to what Izzy was trying to tell everyone. Never take things face value, hear what is actually being said beneath the words, and do your research. Izzy wasn’t a horrible person for saying what she did, for making it crystal clear what her goals were. She was simply making a stand, whether people agreed with her or not and that was brave. There was darkness in her path, sure. But unlike most of the people she tried to talk to, Izzy had that one thing that made Noelle think out of everyone she’d ever heard say they wanted to burn a company to the ground, that she might very well be able to do it.
Izzy Anders had conviction. It was so easy to say you were going to accomplish a goal, to even start on that path to get there. But the real test came when the first setback happened, and Izzy had already gotten through it. Underneath she was still herself, still human, still… and she meant to keep to her chosen goals. That was something Noelle could admire very much. The question was still there though, that Izzy had asked her. What side would Noelle be on, when those fires started? Would she stand at Izzy’s side or in her path?
Noelle pushed herself up to go sit at her desk and open her laptop - she’d already very recently done her ‘tape watching’ for the Usual Suspects, but now she’d added that last match she and Karma had tried to wrestle with them and that wanted more dissecting. As far as Evan Harrison went, she doubted that there was much new to him - he was a creature of habit first and foremost despite his chameleon like ability to reinvent himself every couple of years or so, and Noelle knew him better than most, even now. That habit had led him back to Neon after all, so really… how much fundamental change had the man actually made?
She was betting on very, very little.
[Online Blog: Noelleicious.com]
It’s Not Trainspotting
Hello FGA Fans.
Well baby steps, right? That seems so strange to think at this point in my career, but it’s true. I got to thinking - I know, I know. Dangerous pass time. I thought about how much things have changed since I got started and how much they just ended up going full circle. And a lot of the crap starts and ends with one of my opponents this week, Evan Harrison nee Envi.
Remember this, from Jan 2014?
Well that's true. Neon cares about Neon. Screw that little rookie on her first match, who cares about that Noelle Smith, I'll just steal her little slice of spotlight, who cares if I double dip at the party or take that extra bite of cake, right?
My very first match, in Platinum Dynasty Wrestling see… I won. But Neon attacked me and ruined my moment. At first I really didn’t know why, and then she told me. My fans remember what happened, about how I beat her in a Street Fight, and why shouldn’t they? I bring it up when I need to as an example of what I can do when I’m pushed. One little action really when you consider that This Is Wrestling, honestly if she’d just done that and not Evan, it would have ended there. But I’ve had a nice little anecdote, a little mini Urban Legend all my own since then.
At the heart of that was of course Evan Harrison, Evan Envi, my dirtbag ex, the thorn in Molly Reid’s side, the wannabe future Pride Champion or the doormat Molly will wipe her boots on after beating his face in. Whichever, and I’m sorry really if that sounds bitter. I’m grown, I can admit that yeah - for a long time I was a little bitter about the whole thing. To hear him tell it? Everything that happened was all my fault including his own actions.
Wow, I mean really if I had that kind of power I’d be President and be driving a brand new classic car everyday and have a bunch of hot bohunks feeding me grapes as they carried my Queen’s litter down a dusty Egyptian street four thousand years ago, right? Because why not, that’s no more far-fetched than thinking I control a single action, word, or thought that belongs to that devious man.
Well my dear fans, who have stuck by me no matter what… guess what. All that mess led us right here. It’s still not what I’ve wanted which is a one-on-one match with Evan just as brutal as the one with Neon, no. But this is the second time I’ll be in a ring with you Evan, and they know what this means.
You can wear a cup, but that won’t save you because me? I’m messing up that face of yours. Consider this a warning.
#MuchLove
Noelle
PS: Stop messing with Sean, and really, really stop, ‘kay? ‘Kay.
=[off cam]=
November 24 2016
The entire place smelled of delicious food and Noelle was gently patting her face and neck with a cool towel after being in the hot kitchen. She bit her lip and reached for her phone and pulled up Twitter, as usual she ignored most of the timeline. Nothing about her upcoming match - though that wasn’t a huge surprise, it was a holiday week for one and most people would be stuffing themselves with food at a family gathering if they were lucky enough to be at one. Noelle could have gone home, but with an unpleasant sting she’d remembered the last time she’d gone and how her mother and father fawned over Evan as if he were the second coming of the risen Christ, and told her over and over how ‘lucky’ she was to have such a bright young man interested in her.
They ignored that he had already had children with another woman, the things that Ruby had whispered about Neon and ‘others’. No, they decided he was in fact the potential perfect son in law and of course her only shot at happiness.
Noelle found herself needing to relax her jaw, unconsciously having gritted her teeth at the vivid memory. Her brother Baz understood, at least but then he’d always been the most sensible of all the Smith kids. She let out a huge sigh and then started thinking about the good things that had happened in her life instead and without even trying to overthink it she sent up a little Tweet, complete with a dancing Kevin Bacon gif.
Noelle Smith @noelle_licious
I'm thankful for glitter, bedazzling, Maxie, and you @theprincekamijo
She was just about to put her phone down when she got the notice that she had a reply, and she had herself quite a girl moment when she touched the screen to open the full Tweet. She figured she must look a sight, standing there in yoga pants and a crop top with her jaw dropped at the sight of Kamijo wearing a black tux with a crisp white shirt. He looked so elegant and handsome, and she didn’t even pause to double check her reply for any typos. He’s coming over! He’s actually coming to see me! Noelle was so giddy she danced in place a moment before she replied to both him and Larry’s out of the blue comment. At least there was plenty of food and the place was picked up… and she looked down at herself and realized she had likely about half an hour to make sure she didn’t look like a scrub so she tossed the phone onto the couch and ran to get cleaned up.
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Noelle was seated on one of her kitchen chairs, long legs swinging a little as she wiggled to settle herself better. She was wearing her lavender BRUTALapparel sweatpants and t-shirt, the soft color making a wonderful contrast to her light mocha skin tone. Her bare toes gripped the bottom rung of the chair and she reached up to fluff out her hair before she licked her lips and spoke.
“Well here we are, The Usual Suspects along with the most likely to stroke out during a promo due to total hypertension overload ‘The Chief’ himself.” She was very proud of herself, because no matter how badly she wanted to sneer she kept her tone level and her expression neutral.
Noelle sat up a little straighter, her hands resting on her thighs to keep them still while she spoke firmly. “Jason, Chris, Rother… Evan. See, I like to pride myself for the most part in keeping things professional. Very, very professional when it comes to my matches. This is a passion, what I love to do, what I worked so hard to get back to… absolutely it is. All dang day it is. However, no matter how much progress I’ve made there’s that part of me that has indeed allowed me to react in a way that I’m not so proud of at the end of the day as I am with the rest of what I do. That’s life, right? Nobody is perfect always, right? But here’s the thing, the thing that’s going to be so very painfully important for you four individuals at Vertigo. You had to go and make it personal. In Evan’s case, that would be ‘again’. In the case of the Usual Suspects, they chose to fuck up… I said it… at the Five Year Anniversary show. You tried to end our match before it even began by jumping me. Then Rother couldn’t keep his nose out of our business and well, we all got counted out, didn’t we. It didn’t have to be like that, no it didn’t but here we are boo.”
For a moment her expression got saucy, and that tone was just shy of sheerly sassy before Noelle got herself back under control for the moment, a hand lifting to flit her fingers through her hair again. “You can bet that things aren’t going to go that way this time. In fact if Rother is as smart as he tells everyone that he is, he’ll have already been on the line to Vegas and gotten his bet on. Prepare for the future, recoup some losses, you know. Whatever you’re paying him is obviously not nearly enough or he’d have better suits. When it comes to couture, he’s about two decades behind, can you feel me? Not that it matters to either of you, but we all have to look at him. Ferret faced bag of hot dog slime.”
Now she let that disdain touch her features, now the glint in her eyes was a little more fiery and a whole lot less sweet. She stared at the camera for two long beats before she inhaled sharp and exhaled slow, leaving only a hint of that exposed as she spoke. “Too mean? I don’t think so, not hardly mean enough really. That win you two blew, that was ours. Johnny Karma and Noelle Smith. Instead? Nobody got it, and that bites. It was like throwing a perfectly good lollipop out a window because you didn’t want to share. Creeps… and speaking of creeps.”
Noelle slipped down off the chair, her bare feet flat on the tiled floor and her stance was firm, back straight and her features composed to a fierce expression. “Evan Harrison you are not a god. You’re not even a demi-god. You are just as human as the rest of us, you are in fact...” she paused for dramatic effect. “Mollykickable.”
The smirk, the laugh, they were all there in her eyes but she kept that fierce look going even as her hand raised and she wagged a finger at the camera, her other hand on her hip. “Of the three wrestlers on your team Evan… and this is where I give you your due, so pay attention. Of the three on your team, you are the best. Go you. No matter where you’ve fallen short in your career, you always get right back up and keep moving. You never let anything get you down for long and you come back twice as hard. You’re one of the rare guys that can actually put his ego away for a minute and analyze everything so that you don’t make the same mistakes twice, ever. All bullshit aside, you aren’t as big a dumbass as you come across when you speak. There’s an actual working brain in there when it comes to WRESTLING. If there wasn’t, Gryphon wouldn’t have taught you the Guess Who. If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t have held the gold you held as long as you did. I wasn’t there for all of it but I was there for most of it and I know the truth. When that bell rings the histrionics fall away, the slightly befuddled by actual human interaction act falls away too and what’s left is a machine that knows more about wrestling than Chris and Jason ever collectively knew. I hope that upsets them, because they deserve being upset.”
“They are in fact the two boys getting scolded by Abraham Lincoln in that skit by the Whitest Kids You Know.” Noelle shook her head slightly. “I blame you both for a lot of things. It doesn’t even matter what, really at the end of the day. I’m sort of honestly hoping that Johnny Cannon comes down the ramp and punches you both in the face so hard that they’re going to have to have a closed casket funeral.”
She clapped her hands together sharply, as if to punctuate that little statement before she started her next. “I know who you are. I know what you’ve done in the past, I proved that last time. I tried to be nice. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I tried to do things the right way. I did that because that’s who I am, and after this match is over? We’ll be even and I can just let it go. That’s a lesson I learned.”
A firm nod, her gaze never leaving the camera for an instant, as if she sought to make a real connection through it to the men she spoke about next. “As far as the two men I’ll be wrestling this match allied with… I’m sure you all know how high a regard I hold Johnny Karma in. I’ve made that clear too. So you can likely imagine how irked I’ve been watching Rother talk about his personal life in an effort to upset him. I thought he’d drop it after a bit, but he’s like a rat with the last hunk of the import cheese, the chipmunk stuffing his cheeks with someone else’s nuts. He just won’t stop! Give him the opportunity… and I know, I know. I’ve spent a lot of this little talk focused on Rother but the man is a slime, he’s Patient Zero, and I blame him. Oh I blame him!”
Noelle snapped her fingers and then pointed at the camera for emphasis. “As far as Chris Madison goes, I’ve seen more than a few of his matches, and he’s not just a wrestler, he’s a warrior. When it comes to Evan, he’s got nearly as much experience with him as I do, except his came in a wrestling ring. Frankly I envy him that.”
Noelle’s lips curved into a wry grin. “Really, if you’ve watched anything besides your own highlight vids on Youtube, you know who Madison is and what he’s capable of. The man is a modern day Lizard King, he can do anything. Don’t believe me? Just wait, I’m sure he’ll be just ecstatic to show you. Doubt him, please doubt him because then he’ll just hit you twice as hard to prove the point.”
“It should be super, super obvious really boys. You all owe a debt to Karma… and I don’t mean Johnny mostly, but well I suppose it could be said that The Usual Suspects actually do owe him for all the messed up shenanigans for a good long run now. That stops here. Now it’s not some numbers game is it, where you all get to run roughshod over Karma and know that because he’s tough that he’ll be back on his feet next week for another go. This time he’s got people who have his back, and are very, very interested in the outcome of this match going in our favor. You? You three are no team. No matter what Evan may have whispered in your ears like the modern-day Serpent in the Garden, I promise you this, the minute things go South on you he’s going to bail and if he doesn’t and you lose? You’ll eat every bit of blame. He’ll try and shove humble pie down your throats until you choke and you actually start believing that it is all your fault. Because that’s what he does. That’s the thing he’s second best at. Heaven forbid that you two, either of you actually do cost him the match because then you’ll have to deal with his idea of revenge and that’s not pretty either… but go ahead and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me - no, tell us how wrong I am about Evan, a man I know better than you ever will. How you’re so damn sure you can trust him, go on, we’re waiting....” Noelle paused for an almost uncomfortable length of time then winked. “That’s what I thought.”
Noelle reached then and turned off the camera, then picked it up to take it in where her laptop was so she could hook up the USB port and upload it. “Well that’s done at least...” Her voice was soft as she left the room, Maxie up and following her with the hope of a treat on his little puppy face.
=[tbc]=
Any character who appears in this RP does so with full permission.
Word Count - 3869