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Post by Jana Rikar on Aug 24, 2017 14:44:15 GMT
1 RP / 1750 Words
Deadline is 8/29 Noon EDT
Thanks!
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Post by Max Ironside on Aug 29, 2017 4:30:52 GMT
Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit.
You are what you repeatedly do.
— Shaquille O'Neal (the present: Baltimore)
August 28, 2017 Max stared at the assembled crowd, feeling a shiver work its way up his spine. His merchandise was spread out on a table to the side, already halfway sold out of the big-ticket items. "Are you sure about this?" The question came out before he could stop it, instantly hating that uncertainty in his voice. "It's good for your exposure, especially with that match against Aidan Carlisle you have coming up-" "I don't see why it matters," Max protested, glancing back at his newly-hired agent. "She barely seems to pay attention these days." "Precisely why you need to win over the fans. Get them in your corner before you dethrone the queen. Trust me, Max. I know what I'm doing." Wakefield clapped him on the shoulder. "And if that fails, I'll reboot the gimmicks. I think I still have the sombrero somewhere. I could hot glue pompoms to my gear. Something for the kids – make it fun for them." The snarkiness of the comments sailed right over Wakefield's head. "No. No. Absolutely not. That's unbelievably counter-productive. You want them – the company as a whole – to take you seriously. As a contender. You can't do that with a silly circus act." "I could bleach one side of my hair or paint my stubble black. Wear a bandana and play air-guitar on a weight belt?" "What?" Wakefield stared at him, "listen. I was Brad Jackson's agent for ten years, right up until he parted ways with CWF. I gave that nutbar advice that carried him through twenty championship reigns. The industry would have blackballed him back in 2003 if it hadn't been for me." "I don't know who that is," Max murmured, glancing back out at the crowd. "If this doesn't work… I don't know what else you can do. I'm not trying to be a downer here. Just realistic. I'm not Johnny Charisma. Some of them are always gonna look at me the wrong way. See that sad story. Whisper to each other 'why would you watch that freak? It's disgusting'. You can push me out there more, push me down their throats, but you can't make them wanna swallow, you know? That's their choice." Wakefield sputtered, shaking his head, trying like hell to muster a response that could counter that argument. He came up empty. Max sighed, looking once more out the window before squaring his shoulders. "Fine. Let's get this over with." He looked down at the TMNT shirt he was wearing, wondering if anyone would find it amusing. He pushed through the door, holding up his hands with a brilliant smile on his face. A ripple of noise came from the crowd as he made his way over to the table with the DWF logo on it, sitting down in the same kind of cheap folding chair that usually got bashed over his head. Reaching for a Sharpie from the pile on the table, he rolled it across his knuckles of his good hand before pulling the cap off with his teeth, very much aware of the first few sets of eyes in line watching him. He braced himself for the whispers. "Hey there, folks. I heard Jenni Drew will be here a little later – transportation issues." He glanced back to the doorway, seeing Wakefield nod. "So… who wants an autograph from the Defiant Title's number one contender?!" 
What, no chuckle? Is this thing on?
Well I guess Aidan was wrong. I'm not all that funny after all – granted she never said as much in those exact words. She painted me as a sidekick, a D-list nobody. Generally, a sidekick is meant as a buffer. Comic relief.
It's funny, I suppose, in retrospect. I lost to someone I painted in those same colors in that FAW Hardcore invitational. Never heard of Tanner Halsey before. Now I see the guy's made the finals. From zero to hero. And I suppose that could apply to you as well, if I'm going to be so bold as to connect the dots. Before a couple years ago, your name meant nothing. Before Boardwalk, before your little turn in Four Corners and the invention of this women's football league, you weren't on many lips. You claim you've been at this for ten years – me too. I've just kept to high school gyms and places that are either straight-to-DVD or YouTube only.
I feel like I should level with you, Aidan. I'd be completely full of shit if I said that I wasn't impressed. People who can paste the smile on, roll up the sleeves, and go out there like the sun is always shining blow my mind. I don't find it quite as easy to put that contempt up on the shelf. For you. For them. For those faces standing around that table, pushing merchandise at me I know they never wanted to buy. They came because the ad promised "Defiant Wrestling's top talent". They got me. I'm not really sure if Jenni ever showed up. I endured for two hours, smiling and scribbling and posing for pictures. Put a few kids in headlocks. Had some religious weirdo offer to "pray for my affliction". I've never seen you do it. I've never found any footage of you interacting with the public. I'm sure you do – face of the company and all. Maybe you just don't do it much on social media anymore.
My face hurts from smiling. My back aches from the workout I did after – had to burn off that bad energy. I'm here, behind this smile. Hiding with my sarcastic thoughts, and my acid wit, trying to be whatever in the hell they wanted me to be as I put that ink on their paper. Unimpressed, filled to the brim with uncaring. You don't want to hear this, do you? You want me to tell you how much I love them. You want me to say that I love shaking hands, signing tits, and making small talk. Like I can make any sort of impact in the ten seconds spent with these people. Fuck no. I'm just so tired of trying so hard and falling on my face every time. What's the point in pandering to them? I felt like I was a conduit, and they were all pulling from me, sucking me dry.
Strangers, that's all they are. I'll never see them again, and if I do, I won't remember. That's not me being a jerk. Just honest. I'll still apologize for what happened today. I owe them that much. I know that, even though I don't really feel it.
I don't know what's happening to me. I hate feeling this way, feeling like everything is hopeless. I lost to you the last time. James Raven managed to make me feel like pinning Coral wasn't noteworthy. I guess I should be used to the casual dismissal from the so-called champions? I'm invisible, insignificant.
There's nothing more to say about you, Aidan. Nothing more to say about us that I haven't already put out there. I dislike you and your methods. I hate the way you minimize everything but expect us to see you as this shining monument to greatness in the next breath. That's not how it works yet your rhetoric never changes.
Nora wasn't good enough. Kasey was whiny. I was a shadow. You're the best. Everyone else is garbage. They can't back up their words. They're flimsy. They're weak. They're transparent.
And you're… restless?
Yes, Aidan. I saw that tweet of yours, asking Chris Madison if he likes the places he's working at this week. You've conquered the mountain. There's nothing left for your bored, complacent ass here anymore so you've got one foot out the door. Why not just throw the title in the trash? You're not fit to wear it with that kind of attitude. If it doesn't bring you pride, you're doing everything wrong.
That's why I need to take you down, take out the trash.
(the present: Baltimore)
August 28, 2017 "You're Max Ironside, right?" The man held a clipboard, breaking the monotony. "The Handicapped Hero. One-Armed and Dangerous. Future Defiant Champion – that's me." Max looked up with a wooden smile that faded as the man laid down a manila envelope. "You've been served." He stared at the envelope before looking back up, seeing the man's back as he wove through the crowd and he didn't think twice. He vaulted over the table, grabbing the guy. "What? What the hell?" The man froze, looking down at the hand that was still gripping the arm of his jacket. "I suggest you take your hand off me before I have to call the authorities." Max's first instinct was to lash out at the guy simply for the tone in his voice, that absolute disgust written all over his face. Instead he heard the buzz of the crowd, noticed a few cell phones pointed in his direction. Ashen, ashamed, he let his hand fall away, "who… who are you?" "A process server," the man snapped, "doing my job." Before Max could interrogate him further, the man slipped away, leaving him no choice but to slink back towards the table, aware he was still being filmed. He had no idea what could possibly be inside that envelope. He had no wives, no children – had to be getting that regularly for it to even be a problem. He opened it, staring at the letters on the page. It was a restraining order. From Kasey. Zero contact. If he was seen within 100 feet, he could be arrested. It was the sort of thing meant for an abusive boyfriend or a stalker. He was neither. The letters swam in front of his eyes as he tried to shove it back into the envelope. "I…" he looked up to see strangers all around him, faces lit by the glow of cell phone screens. "I can't do this. Not today." "Max!" Wakefield's voice rang out behind him as he pushed through the crowd. He didn't stop. He didn't even look back. He had to get the hell out of here before he did something catastrophic. |
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Post by Aidan Carlisle on Aug 29, 2017 5:48:48 GMT
“Álainn?”
Aidan looked up from where she had been spinning the pink diamond studded black band around her finger. A little blush touched her cheeks as she realized she must have been sitting there in silence for sometime after he’d asked her a question. She offered a sheepish, apologetic smile.
“Sorry. ”
“I see some things haven’t changed.”
His little grin, his ridiculous red beard and goatee, his damn spiky hair. Now that she was staring at him, it hit her hard just how much she had missed it all. Of course, that made her feel even more guilty about all the time that passed. Liam, as always, wasn’t going to let that guilt set in.
“The show was good.”
He said quickly, speaking of The Bash PPV he’d come to with her.
“It was definitely something.”
She laughed, thinking back to the triple cage match.
“I’m proud of you, y’know? Always. I’ll be proud of you after Baltimore too.”
“Want to carry my Championship belt backstage with me after my match?”
He chuckled at that, and she was glad to hear him laugh.
“Might drop it, I think you’re in better shape than I am these days.”
She scoffed at that, giving a dramatic roll of her eyes. As if that wasn’t enough to make her point, she reached over and gave one of his massive biceps a squeeze.
“Right.”
“So, this Max Ironside?”
“He’s tough. He keeps at it and keeps coming back. Problem is… he’s tough in all the wrong ways, y’know? He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get that he doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get why he’s utterly unlikeable and… frankly kinda damn creepy. He wants to be ‘the good guy,’ but he’s just a goddamn twat.”
Liam nodded, then stood up from the table. He offered a hand to her without a second thought, and after a second she took it and let him help her up.
“Tell me about it on the way to the gym.”
Naturally, he already had their bags ready.
“Max, Max, Max.”
Shaking her head with each utterance of the name, Aidan dropped down to sit on an empty bench there in the gym where she’d just put in a grueling workout with a certain red-headed Irishman that a few fans might have recognized. She had to fight not to smirk as she looked at the camera, likely a cameraphone, doing the recording.
“Here we are, preparing to dance this dance once again. We’ve been here before, you and I. You with all those hopes and dreams and ambitions, and me with the superior talent there to crush it all. This second verse? It’s going to be the same as the first.”
Splashing some water from her bottle over her face, she quickly wiped it away with her towel. After a moment of thought she leaned forward and began to unwind the wraps from her hands, letting them pile up on the floor in front of her.
“You’re the perpetual underdog, the plucky ‘little guy,’ and you are there one hundred percent of your own volition. You circle there at the same level because that is where you want to be. You want to be the ones the fans cheer for, but you can’t win them over by actually fucking wrestling, so instead you flash that pity card every chance you get for the sympathy applause of a crowd hoping to see this poor downtrodden kid giving his best every time but coming up short.
“And you will always come up short. You don’t belong in wrestling, Max, and that’s a cold hard fact. It’s not because you’re handicapped, no, far from that. You work harder than everyone else in the gym, yes you do, because you have to. But all the hard work in the world is never going to replace talent, and that is what you lack.
“It’s a sad fact, but it’s true. Just because you love something and want to do it with all your heart doesn’t mean you’re good at it, or that you’ll ever be good at it. When I was little I wanted to be a cellist in a symphony orchestra, but guess what? I was never going to be more than, ‘pretty good for a kid.’ First Chair Cello was never in my future, and Defiant Champion isn’t in yours.”
Straightening, she wiped her face again, never taking her eyes off of the camera.
“You pinned Coral Rose to get this match, and I’d like to congratulate you on that, I really would, but… who in Defiant hasn’t pinned Coral? I’ve done it a few times myself, and there’s no feeling of victory in it, we both know that. You got past James Raven, though. He ran his mouth faster than his body could keep up, and now he’s got his foot so far down his throat that he’s choking on it. Good on you for that at least.”
Her tone in that was genuine, but it returned to its serious nature as she went on.
“But I am not James Raven, and I am not Coral Rose. I am the undefeated and undisputed Defiant Champion, and I have been since day one. No one who has came and went through this company has had what it took to take the Championship from me, including you. You couldn’t do it then, and you can’t do it now.
“I pay attention, Max, unlike you. I don’t browse Twitter for a few seconds and assume I know all there is to know about someone. No, I really look, and do you know what I see when I look at you? I see a man who’s already defeated himself. With every loss you take in Defiant you slip a little further down that self-pity ladder, and when you win it’s never enough to bring you back up to where you were before.
“Each show that goes by you become just a little bit more whiny, just a little bit more bitter. You sit there and you leer, you mutter to yourself about perceived insults and what you think you deserve and I wouldn’t doubt that you probably plot how to have your revenge and try to make it look like a comeback story to stroke that shriveled little ego of yours. You’re a third-rate Walder Frey, and you’re headed for the same fate, metaphorically or otherwise.”
A short silence passed as she considered whether to elaborate, but really just looking at Max was all the clarification anyone needed. At last she shrugged.
“I could apologize for not pretending to respect everyone, I suppose, but would lying be better than telling an unpopular truth? I give everyone the same fair shake to earn my respect, and if they don’t then I don’t fake it. It’s hardly my fault that next to no one in Defiant has earned it. You can be bitter about Nora Harris’ success and your lack thereof all you want.
“You can make those poorly veiled insults that you think are so clever, but Nora earned it, and you didn’t. You, like Kasey, got all up your own ass to pout when things didn’t come instantly to you, and that was what killed your chances—both of having my respect and of being something in Defiant—entirely. You, at least, stuck it out and kept trying here instead of quitting, but your attitude stayed just as shitty.
“I’ve looked past you because you didn’t make yourself something to look at to begin with. Then when you realized it, you went right back to your same ol’ routine instead of rectifying the situation and becoming something worth seeing. If you don’t want me to look past you, fucking be visible. But that’s not your style. Playing the martyr is your style.”
Her lips twitched up into that great white smirk as she stood up, finished with this little promotional spot.
“And that is just fine with me. I’ve got a Queen’s Cross that’s been waiting a long time for the next martyr to come along.”
“Ready?”
Aidan looked over at Claire where the pair of them stood outside of the pediatric intensive care unit at the University of Maryland’s Children’s Hospital. The pair of them were wearing their Mayhem jerseys for the new season, 16 and 61, the Twin Terrors. They had been looking in the window for a few moments, their fingers loosely linked between them.
Along with her jersey Claire was wearing a pair of sparkly pocketed short shorts and heels, looking like she’d just come from a nice lunch. Aidan was in the same skinny jeans and knee boots she’d worn out of the hotel that morning, and had her own jersey tied up at the waist. It felt strange to carry the Defiant Championship at the same time she had her “uniform” on.
“Of course.”
With her trademark dazzling smile, she opened the door and held it for her teammate, roommate, and best friend. There were no cameras to follow them, no one to snap pictures or take video. There were no journalists to take note of all that happened.
Indeed the only ones that knew they were there were Aidan and Claire themselves. Some things weren’t meant for public consumption. Not everyone needed to make sure their every deed was seen by someone so they could get the praise.
The nurses gave them both a glance, but quickly saw the badges clipped to each of them and went about their business. Claire spotted the sign first and lead the way back to the cancer treatment unit. It was always difficult to do this, at first, but the moment the kids started smiling, everything else melted away.
They had both done this kind of thing before on many occasions, and knew just how amazing an experience it could be. It was a strange juxtaposition to have your heart hurt at the same time your cheeks ached from smiling. But it was always, always worth it.
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