“if no art makes you feel anything, make your own art and feel something” is too raw of a line to have come from a jenna marbles video of her painting a rainbow/polka dot seahorse saying “it’s seahorse time” on a denim jacket
Why do you people feel profound thought has to come from high places? The gutter looks at the stars too
not only did you prove your point, but you showed an example of it in the same sentence
I love story polls like this because there’s this moment before you realize what it is where you genuinely consider each open. Like, what type of “trust she is there” are you? Slightly doubtful (I think)? Begging(please?)? Fearfully questioning (what if it’s a lie?)?
And then you realize it’s one internal dialogue, one story, and you’re still fully putting yourself in each moment (I can’t even see her shadow on the wall) like you need to choose just one to be suspended in forever. But you know the outcome of this story (SAY SOMETHING) and it’s not a good outcome. So you’re looking at these options as if they’re real choices for you but you know that there’s only one ending to this poll no matter how deeply you reflect on each choice.
In the end it doesn’t matter if you want to be slightly hesitant or trusting or fearful or begging. The story marches forward regardless of your vote.
Hi, all! I had a little trouble getting started, but I like where it went! You can read mine below or here (X)!
Geneva stands on the outskirts of the town she built and feels the hostility radiating from the closed doors, the shuttered windows, the empty streets. There silence echoes out to her, accuses her, and she can see graffiti over the town’s sign. She doesn’t need to see it to know what it says.
The rebellion is successful. The Queen has fallen. Wanted dead.
It’s not a new thing, to be wanted dead. She’s been wanted dead by any number of people since she was very small. At least now there’s a reason for it.
She turns her back on the town (It’s already turned its back on her.) and shakes her head. She’s not resentful – far from it.
This is what she planned, after all.
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It starts when she’s looking up (and up and up) at her brother. He’s regal and imposing, even with limbs that are too long, too thin, too weak. He changes the last part slowly, builds muscle like her father builds their kingdom, with sweat and dedication and something feral in their breast.
She looks up at him and thinks, You’re going to die. They’re going to kill you and you’re going to let them.
Turns out she’s half right. He lets his murderer put him down, lets the knife pierce his breast, lets them take the life from his eyes.
You are apparently the most powerful magical being of your time. But the thing is….you’re not. You spend the entire story trying to convince everyone that’s you’re not being humble, you’re genuinely not the person they’re looking for
the first time you tell someone that you’re not magic, they laugh. they tell you that you’re being humble. they act like announcing your utter lack of ability is modesty akin to a saint. they tell you that they’ll always believe.
‘don’t,’ you say. your hands are so empty. ‘don’t.’
they do.
—————————
the second time you say it, you say it over the crown of your best friend. he’s asking for a blessing on his way to the war. you’re so powerful, after all, a little magic on him isn’t anything you can’t afford to lose.
you whisper that, if you had any magic, it would all go into the golden strands brushing your lips. the sun catches on his shining hair.
he gives his hair away in chunks, that first month on the front lines. no one gets hurt. no one dies.
magic, they say. your hands shake when men bend at the knee to thank you for the small bits of blessing your best friend gave them.
you have not given them any part of what they carry.
———————————————————–
the third time you say it, it’s barely a whisper dropping from your numb lips. your best friend is gone, again, and your family is serving tea to the king’s knight, the highest ranking warrior in the land. he’s heard of you. he wants you by his side.
men are disappearing, he tells you, and not coming back. even if your magic is nothing more than words, they need it. they need it.
your family assures him it’s not words. it’s not words.
it’s power to change the world.
(the world is war. war doesn’t change.)
——————————–
the first time you feel magical is with the king’s knight, his hand in yours. he is looking at you like you’re the best parts of homecoming. he is looking at you like he loves you.
magic, you whisper into the lines darting across his palms. you’re magic.
‘no,’ he says, ‘darling, that’s you.’
you don’t correct him.
————————————-
(you have nightmares for a week. you don’t know why even he won’t believe you.)
(no one believes you.)
—————————————————————-
the fourth time you say it, you say it over your best friend’s grave. he’s been dead months while you’ve been playing wizard for the king’s knight. he’s been rotting in a cave on the front line, his own golden hair locked in his fists as if it could heal the blood sickness that took his life.
magic, they tell you, runs out on mortal flesh. not your fault. not your problem.
‘but, i’m not,’ you say into your lover’s chain mail. ‘i’m not.’
‘darling,’ he says, ‘it’s not your fault you are.’
—————————————————
you scream the fifth time you say it. the sky is dark with clouds and lightning. there is blood on the ground in front of you. your sword is black with it, dripping with carnage and death.
the king’s knight lies at your feet. he died believing in magic.
he died believing in you.
you scream because dying with belief in your heart doesn’t change anything. you scream because, even with magic, this war was always going to end here for the both of you. with mud sinking into the creases of your armor and the people you care about dead. dead. dead.
you scream and the sky screams back, a roar of thunder and the shriek of metal against metal. no one dares get too close to you in your grief and rage. no one dares get so close to the one who’s calling chaos from the rioting storm above them.
i wish, you say. the world trembles around the words. the ground buckles. you extend your hands out over the battlefield and let the first drops of hot, hot rain pull at the blood staining your skin. i wish no one had ever heard of magic.
your ghosts, your lover and your best friend, howl. they beg you to stop. they beg you to see how very full your hands are. they are full, for once in your life. they are full with golden light, trembling with the heat of the world held in your palms.
you don’t care. you don’t care.
i wish for all the curses to just be words, you say. the rain begins to pound down, whisking the sound of your voice into the depths of the earth. the soldiers around you clap their hands to their ears as if to block you out. they’ve already let you in when they came to you for magic. i wish for all the blessings to just be prayers. i wish the only shine in the wind came from the lakes and the rivers and the oceans.
darling, your lover’s ghost whispers. don’t.
but, just like he once did, you refuse to hear the word.
there are arrows raining down on you now, flaming arrows. they know what you are. they know what you’re doing. you invite the tips into your flesh and speak your final, damning words.
i wish love was enough.
the world rocks, arrows and flames racing across the bloodied ground. men are screaming, scrambling away from the fissures that open under their feet. just as suddenly, it stops. the rain stops. the screaming stops. the earth stands still.
magic disappears.
the story ends here, you know it does. when love is enough, there isn’t a need for poisoned apples. the prince kisses you of his own volition, without prophecy, without compulsion, without magic.
with love enough, no one needs blessings on golden hair or cursed swords. they just need each other. only that.
so maybe you were magic after all. because the second magic disappears, so do you.
