fandomhigh | How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 1, 2014]

How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 1, 2014]

A distinctly soggy Anakin squelched into the Danger Shop in time to meet his class. "I don't actually expect you to be ready to do real work yet," he said, waving his hands toward the variety of exercise equipment he'd placed around the room--most in the "things to hit" range--"and I'm certainly not going to make you talk about anything you're not ready to yet. So hit something or run a lot--I promise it'll make you feel better."

He sighed at the tiny stage that was also in the corner. "Or have a puppet show. One of our visitors left sockpuppets that look like all of the citizens of this island."

The Pinkie Pie one was especially adorable.

"I didn't ask why," Anakin added, "but if you want to be ridiculous as a way to repress, well, here's your chance, and it'll only come around once. Try not to get everything too wet, but that seems to be a pretty lost cause today."

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"Yeah, you can see her bosom from New York," the Joker-puppet confided in Elsa. Believe it or not, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing."

Meanwhile, the Pam-puppet kept going in circles, getting in an "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" anytime Joker had a spare breath. It hopped over the stage and bumped into the Cheryl-puppet with an "Ooof!" It looked at Cheryl, and then looked furtively from side to side. "Hey... ya holdin'?"

The Cheryl-puppet jerked back a little, though it wasn't part of the show. Elsa pulled in a short, startled breath, and then, after a moment of hesitation, she slowly raised that hand again.

"... Holdin' what?"

She was so bad at this.

There was a tiny, muffled "shit!" from behind the curtain, and the Joker-puppet headdesked on the stage floor.

Joker did his best to recover, though. "Holdin' cocaine!" the Pam-puppet exclaimed, before going back to running in circles. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-I'm-such-a-good-role-model-for-impressionable-young-children-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"

Nice save, Joker!

"They... they will certainly grow up to be solid, contributing members of society, possibly with comfortable government jobs," Elsa offered, waving the Cheryl puppet around some more.

The Elsa puppet just shook her head, sadly.

"Suckers!" the Pam-puppet said, before running around some more and cackling.

Joker pushed the curtains open and gave Elsa an apologetic smile. "I really can't do her laugh justice," he explained, as he took the puppet off. "Or her crazy. But it's sort of comforting to know that even across all the possible universes, some things stay constant."

Elsa smiled up at him as she pulled the puppets from her hand, setting the one that was meant to be herself down in her lap.

"I think you're probably better at it than I am," she offered. "It's odd... even when one was a nun and the other was space-royalty, they were still very much... them. I wasn't kidding when I said it was reassuring, even if I wasn't completely myself at the time, either."

"Yeah, seriously," Joker agreed. "It was reassuring... and I was not at all myself, either. Seriously, give a guy legs and he loses all drive, all ambition... But anyway. Since we're on the topic... just out of curiosity... uh... Look, I get that you probably don't have a suit of armor in your armoire -- although you should check into that; it was a good look on you -- but I have to ask... The ice?"

Elsa had been really hoping he wasn't going to ask her about that.

Elsa liked to dream big.

"That's..." She pulled in a slow breath, and then gave him a wobbly, kind of uncertain smile. If she was going to come up with some sort of fantastic story about how her other self somehow got magical ice powers, now was really her last chance. "... me. That's not just something that came with the armor."

She kind of wished it had.

Joker nodded. "Okay, that's cool. Pretty sweet, actually. You're nervous, I get that -- I'm not gonna pry." He gave her a grin. "It really is pretty damn sweet, though."

"She seemed to think so," Elsa noted, giving Joker a side-eye before looking down at the puppet in her lap. Maybe she'd ask the Professor if she could keep it. "I suppose under different circumstances, I might even agree."

Very different ones.

"Thank you for not making a big deal of it."

"Well, you don't want to make a big deal about it, I don't make a big deal about it. Got some traumatic past tied up in it, I'm guessing? People after you because of it? He shrugged and gestured at the rest of the students in the class. "None of that matters, here, it seems like, but hiding is probably a hard habit to break."

"It doesn't matter here," Elsa agreed quietly. "For the number of people who have some sort of power, some kind of secret, I'm really nothing extraordinary."

At least she accepted that. She wasn't hiding, here, for fear of persecution. She was hiding because there were a million questions she didn't want to answer, and she didn't have nearly enough control to feel that she could be open about her powers without somebody getting hurt as a result.

"But hiding is all I really know."

Joker nodded. "Yeah, I get that. I mean I don't get it, not really, but, y'know, as well as someone who hasn't been there can try to understand."

He gave her a shrug. "But... you wanna know what the secret to being brave is? You just take a deep breath and do it, before you can remember to be afraid."

Edited 2014-04-02 04:10 (UTC)

Well, that was going to be difficult. Elsa was constantly afraid. She loosed a little huff of a laugh, ducking her head and looking ruefully down at the puppet in her lap.

"It seems like some version of me has that figured out already. I'm just worried about what might happen if I remember partway through."

"Well, then maybe you fail, and it sucks, and the next time it's harder. But then because it's harder, you get stronger. And you do it again. And again. And -- and this is the key -- again. And sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't, and it's hard, and it sucks, but eventually you realize you're not scared anymore. And you realize that you can't remember the last time people laughed at you, because now they're all laughing with you, and..."

He stopped, feeling a little vulnerable. "'Kay, so maybe that last bit isn't as relevant in your case. The point is, it's easy to be afraid, but being brave takes practice. Fake it until you make it."

Elsa gave him a sympathetic smile. He was getting oddly specific, there.

And it certainly explained his nickname.

"Fake it until you make it," she echoed. "Maybe I'll have to give that a try."

Of course, that would be far easier if it was herself that she was frightened for. Maybe she'd stick with Professor Skywalker's meditation exercises, instead. Barreling bravely onward when other people stood to get hurt far more than she did seemed... well...

"Thank you, Jeff."

Actually, it had absolutely nothing to do with the nickname. Complete coincidence.

"You're welcome. Oh, and, uh..." There was something else he needed to say, but he needed to do it delicately, especially since he didn't know whether Elsa... yeah.

"I... don't know when I'm going to see Sholeh again, since she's not normally in our class. If you see her before I do... She implied certain things, regarding her hopes for who I should... Well, anyway. The thing is, I don't want to disappoint anyone, and I certainly don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and I absolutely hate to dash the dreams of pretty girls everywhere, but things do have this tendency to happen. The point is, I started seeing Eleanor, romantically... and I really, really don't want that to cause any hard feelings, for anyone, and especially not for any of the girls who are completely wonderful, but their prince just isn't in this particular castle. So... if you see her before I do, could you let her know?"

Elsa looked completely baffled at that for a moment, and then a sort of fuzzy realization hit her. She blinked, and then she smiled faintly, and she was lifting her hand to stifle another giggle all over again.

"Well, I'm glad that you and Eleanor are happy," she informed him. Because, really, she could hardly fault either of them for dating, especially not after all that had happened around the island lately. What would Elsa have done anyway? She couldn't expect anybody to spend a life at arm's length from her while she shied away from anything even resembling closeness, after all. "And... as soon as I remember which one is Sholeh, I'll be certain to let her know?"

She was the... redhead? Maybe? With the freckles?

"Okay, good," Joker told her. "Just wanted to get that out there. You know, in case it was important. ...OH! One more thing I needed to ask: that voice. Alternate universe, or was that real, too?"

Elsa just smiled a little to herself at that.

"If I said that was my secret, would it drive you crazy, Joker?"

Joker considered that. "Yeah, probably. Why, do you think it's the kind of thing you're likely to do?"

"Not hugely likely, no," Elsa admitted, though she was still smiling as she slipped the little Elsa puppet back on, held it up, and sang a few lines from the song she'd made up the other week.

Yeah, she still belted it.

The Joker puppet bounced excitedly. "OOOOOOOOOOH! Encore, encore!"

"That was the encore," Elsa laughed. "We'll see about me singing more... sometime. Maybe."

But really, she was a Disney princess. She'd be caught just singing for the sake of singing eventually.

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How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 1, 2014]

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