This Is Something - Tumblr Posts
Taking your little pup to meet with some other owners/pets, but when you get there it’s a ‘dog show’ with the owners showing off just how good their pups behave doing ‘tricks’ for the others watching
Nobody I ever speak to listens and when they do they just make fun of me. I wish I could just find happiness in being alone but I need people. I can’t even remember the last time I got a proper fucking hug. It’s all I want. And yet no one likes me enough.
🪐 — IZZY HANDS for stede !
Ed was strong and practiced but Izzy was technically skilled. Izzy was properly trained. He’d had a proper teacher on the merchant ship he worked on before becoming a pirate. His late teens and early twenties filled with bruises and small cuts had turned him into one hell of a swordsman even before gaining that added ferocity. His friendship with Edward had been filled with dueling, both laughing and seriousness. Izzy kept so proper and Ed having fun and messing with him until he could earn it out of Izzy one way or another.
Stede’s comment actually earned a small huff in amusement out of Hands. “This isn’t a fucking DANCE, Bonnet,” he reminded him. “I’m trying to teach you how to not get killed. If you want to be babied, go ask Lucius to train you,” he mocked. After all, an enemy wouldn’t wait for him to pick up his sword and wouldn’t hesitate to take ground if he wasn’t paying attention.
Izzy let’s the other man hit his weapon away, shifting his stance so he’s ready for Bonnet’s attack. Instead of fully parrying it away, Izzy sidesteps, letting his sword scrape against the side, stepping to bring him closer to Bonnet. With a partial twist of his wrist, Izzy makes his hilt lock up against Stede’s blade and gripped at the man’s forearm. “Freeze.” The locking isn’t firm enough that Bonnet couldn’t actually pull away in a real fight but he wanted him to keep his arm where it was. Izzy shifted, hand curling over the back of Bonnet’s wrist at the hand gripping the sword, testing at the strength in his grip and the firmness of his wrist.
“Always stay strong here – but not too stiff. You don’t want someone to be able to just smack your sword out of your grip but –” fingers slide up to curl over the man’s hand and twisted his wrist in a small circle. “Strong but fluid. If you’re too stiff you’ll never get your sword where it needs to be in time to parry. This isn’t just a weapon. It needs to be an extension of your arm. You need to be able to move it and know where it is in space just as much as your own hand. It needs to be another part of your body.”
He stepped backwards, sliding back along Stede’s arm, hand sliding along it until he stood behind him. A boot kicked gently at one of Stede’s urging him to move it a bit into a different stance. “Budge this up and to the left a bit,” he instructed from behind the man.
THERE IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT about izzy when he draws his weapon, the man’s slight frame becoming lithe & lethal with the addition of a sword in his hand. even stede cannot help the trill of fear that goes through him when the first mate moves to deflect his advance, remembering how it had felt to take that blade deep into his abdomen. but izzy does far more than knock stede’s sword aside, instead pulling it in closer with his own & trapping his arm into place. freeze, izzy says, & it almost sounds like an order. under other circumstances, stede might have gotten angry at such a display of impudence from the other man — it often took far less than this for izzy to irritate him, after all. but he had asked for this, he reminded himself, & it would not do to cut the lesson short at the first sign of a challenge. besides, it’s not as though he truly has much choice in the matter. his arm is held firmly in place by the other man’s blade, unable to be dislodged without a rather ungraceful struggle. & stede remains still & unbreathing as izzy reaches out to touch him, his fingers moving confidently over stede’s wrist, the back of his hand, adjusting his grasp & showing him the proper tension to keep in his hand, the correct way to move his wrist, instructions pouring from him all the while. & it’s still so strange, how different this is compared to he & edward’s duels under the moonlight. those had been nothing but play, punctuated with joy. ed had been teaching him, but only casually. & stede had enjoyed it, every moment — especially when he’d managed to take the upper hand, even if those moments had usually been given to him rather than won by force. with izzy, it is a more serious affair, no easy victories to be had. & there is no hint of laughter upon his face. not that stede had ever seen so much as a glimmer of a smile grace those lips. no, izzy’s expression as he rounds behind stede & kicks his foot forward, leaving the captain stumbling for a moment before he can steady himself, is exactly as humorless & displeased as it always is. ❝ come on, man, was that really necessary ? ❞ stede protests as he finds his balance again & shifts back into his stance. ❝ surely you can show me the proper form without trying to knock me over. ❞ izzy’s kick had been decidedly unhelpful, & he finds himself wondering if this is all some elaborate joke, just a ploy to laugh at stede when he inevitably goes sprawling across the deck or worse. though he is more cautious where he places his foot down this time, up & to the left just as his first mate had said. ❝ is this better then ? ❞
angel in space who falls in love with an astronaut floating out in the void, not realizing they've been dead for years out there nor comprehending what death even is. is that anything
is this. is this anything?
image description: gideon and harrow drawn as kronk and yzma
