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This page, The KidVegeta Anthology/Soft Matter, is property of KidVegeta. |
Going into Somewhere Between The Ocean and The Bottom of This Glass, I approached each section (Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball Super) differently. For Dragon Ball, while I had a list of like 10 ideas, I didn't use any of them except for Blue Wolf; for DBZ, I had 4/6 of the ideas pre-planned before rewatching a second of the anime; for Dragon Ball Super, there were no ideas for it at all. I had nothing for that section at the commencement of the collection. This resulted in the split being reduced from 5/5/5 to 6/6/3.
Soft Matter was the first idea I got for a Super-era story. While anthologizing The Naptime Championships, I noted that Beerus' dream-memory of Walu and Sesami was distorted, and he was mixing up Arak and Liquiir. The only hint of Majin Walu's fate being in that story was not right. The true telling of Walu's demise had to be shown. I approached this story as an addendum to Insatiable, and indeed, to this day, I view Soft Matter as the unofficial sixth scene in that story. It was never meant to be as grand in scale as Insatiable - Walu's death comes unexpectedly, after all. The minimalistic prose style I was attempting enhanced the relational conflict the Majins are having (which was left unresolved at the end of Insatiable). Basically, Walu is jealous of Sesami for having three of Zalama's Artifacts, and she wants at least one for herself. She wants to know what that sort of power truly feels like after having seen Sesami and Majin Elhim both take in such power.
My notes for this story are as follows:
- was thinking about doing this on 7/21/21, but didn't decide to do it until 7/23/21 after realizing that the distortions in the naptime championships were too much ---> in that story, the meeting between beerus and the majins takes place in u8, not u5, and with liquiir, not arak, so it felt right to "remedy" that by showing the true tale at some point
- name given as the covetous girl on 8/28/21
12/4/21 notes:
- Hocus should take part in the story
- this takes place around 9 million before age (sesami/hocus only wake up two more times afterwards ---> 7 million before age, and 6 million before age); this story covers Sesami's sixth cycle of existence, whereas her ninth is during FMTM
12/8/21 notes:
- have Hocus and Buu stay in u7, while the girls go to u5
- in u5, they crash a nine-course smoothie party for Arak and Beerus
- Walu steals a glass from Beerus, causing him to kill her
12/24/21 notes:
- scene 1: have them come across beerus and arak by chance, and sesami only realizes that the divine energy is different later on; have Walu not be as hungry as Sesami, sort of withering away, while Sesami has become more ravenous
- scene 2: rewrite or combine with first scene
12/29/21 notes:
- have sesami realize that her and walu are slowly falling out, and she thinks it's because of the artifacts
- emphasize transience and, pace-wise, have Beerus destroy Walu extremely quickly, almost as if it happens out of nowhere, too quick to believe
- scene 2 should take place in u7
12/31/21 notes:
- Cadulle's changed to Bichibichi because that's just a ridiculous Japanese word that mimics the sound of smoothies being poured into cups
- Changed name to Soft Matter on account of the bichibichi definition on jisho
So I began working on this one after first-drafting In Search of Pork Buns. With that one's completion, all that remained of Somewhere Between The Ocean and The Bottom of This Glass were the Dragon Ball Super stories. Soft Matter was, at this time, the only Super story idea I had, so it was the only one I could work on. I didn't really pre-plan anything for it, as seen in my notes above. I came up with the story on 7/21/21, but didn't come up with my first ideas until 12/4/21. The original version was meant to have more of Hocus and Buu, but that ultimately detracted from the focus of the story. The setting had to be somewhat removed from bustling society but still make sense for Beerus to be at, and I wanted to echo the cold indifference of space first seen in Divine in Maturity here as a means to highlight Sesami and Walu's growing rift. Since there is a major food focus in this series (and especially in all three Dragon Ball Super stories), making the location a restaurant was a no-brainer.
The writing began on 12/8/21. Only got a paragraph done that day. The next evening, leading into the early hours of December 10th, I wrote another three paragraphs. After waking up later that day, however, I banged out the rest of the story in about 16 minutes, making it the thirteenth story in the collection first-drafted. All the Dragon Ball Z stories (sans Patient 240) were edited before this one, but that took up most of December. It was after Christmas when I turned back to this one, knowing that I wouldn't have time before the end of the year to finish Patient 240, but I could perhaps finalize Soft Matter.
The issue was that I needed to semi re-write the story, which of course takes much longer than another edit on an existing draft. I wasn't super happy with how the first version turned out, so I tried the second draft method utilized in the writing of Divine in Maturity, Every Turtle Has His Day, Blue Wolf, etc. of a partial re-write that preserved some sentences/paragraphs/lines of dialogue, but was also otherwise re-written from scratch. I began this on 12/27/21, but didn't get very far that day. I returned to editing on 12/30/21, and got about six paragraphs in. The next day, I wrote for much of the evening, finishing the first draft at 9:34 pm. I worked on the final draft from 10:11 pm to 11:57 pm, and posted the story to the wiki one minute later. It was the twelfth story finalized. This one was definitely rushed at the end in order to hit the end-of-the-year deadline, so we'll see if that had any effect on the quality of the writing or character work.
I expect this is the final story of mine in which Majin Walu will appear. She's a damn good Majin, so it's sad to see her go. There are opportunities for flashbacks, I suppose, but yeah, this looks like the end for her. Let's dive into this story now.
Story[]
Roughly three months had passed since the portal containing Majins Walu and Sesami had sputtered open, a gash bleeding light. They had descended upon Universe 5 swiftly, and none had been capable of standing in their way. They picked clean the carcasses of many worlds, consuming billions. All those civilizations vaporizing to candy was little satiation for the eternal hunger of a Majin.
Sesami had noticed that Walu’s appetite had waned considerably since the previous cycle. They exchanged few words, and the warmth between them seemed to be gone. Perhaps the older woman was jealous of her artifacts. As millions fell before them, transforming from screaming meatbags to candy, Sesami sensed that they were drifting apart. Walu didn’t have much to say, and so she too kept up their silence. Her appetite had only grown since she had consumed the artifacts. That Walu could not keep up was a shame, but it wasn’t her fault.
Once, after eradicating some semi-decent civilization, Sesami and Walu stood upon a cliff overlooking a ruined city, its buildings having been made of some fragile glass-like substance. The wind was whipping up a sandstorm as they picked their teeth clean and the sky darkened to rust
“Nothing still?” Walu asked.
Sesami realized where her friend’s hunger had gone. She craved Zalama’s Artifacts. But, like in their native Universe 7, Universe 5 did not seem to have an artifact–or, at least, Sesami couldn’t sense it. For her friend’s sake, she would keep searching.
Sifting through the remains of a galactic cruise ship, corpses turning to taffy and chocolate balls, the demons filled their bellies. They had no need to talk; their hunger ran its course in parallel, fiery streams. Sesami appreciated the void, where actions were all that mattered.
Just then, she perceived the slightest hint of divine energy. Teleporting to Walu and grasping her by the wrist, she flew off with great haste towards the signal. It was massive, and surely divine, though it felt different from the other artifacts. She had the slightest sense something was off.
It took them only an hour to get there. Bichibichi’s was perched upon an oblong asteroid in deep space. Liquifying, the pair slithered into the smoothie shop. Slippery, slimy things that they were, the Majins kept to the shadows, concealing their power levels, for they did not yet know the capabilities of the divine energy guarding Universe 5’s artifact.
They snuck in the back while a pair of employees carried in a crate of Jutoco milk. Up went their tentacles, and as their jaws chewed the candy to dust, they mimicked the clothing of those they had killed and stepped through the nearest half-open door. Walu tried to play it cool, but she had already conjured a straw. The air was pungent with the smell of raw fruit. Sesami licked her lips. Half a dozen workers were operating blenders and depositing the goop into a large vat in the center of the room.
Not wanting to bother with unfinished nonsense, the girls made their way to the dining room, where a waiter was attending two customers.
“Ah, Lords Arak and Beerus, this is the Protein Man shake. It comes with wild space cymen, Jughari milk, Bugavali yogurt, Zarhmelle yogurt, a splash of mogugi fruit, and three cubes of ice.”
“That sounds utterly divine. Give it here,” Beerus rasped. When the waiter handed him the drink, Walu’s hand shot out elastically and grabbed it first. The hairless kitty man restrained her by the wrist, a scowl spreading like a seeping wound on his face. “Give that back, Majin.”
Grinning deviously, Walu stuck her straw into the drink and sucked down the pearl-white smoothie. Beerus’ ears shot up; Sesami felt a pulse of divine energy radiate out from him. Lord Arak gulped down his own smoothie, licked his lips clean, and patted his bulbous belly with much aplomb. Walu beat her chest, hooted, and stuck her tongue out. That must have been a good smoothie. Sesami hadn’t seen her that animated since their previous cycle. Beerus frowned and pointed a claw at Walu. She gasped, breaking from her celebratory dance, only to dissolve away in a cloud of burning energy.
The purple one folded his arms. “I was promised a Protein Shake, and a Protein Shake I shall have.”
“Calm down, Beerus, they’ll make you another one.”
“They have one minute, or I’ll destroy them too.”
Screaming soundlessly into space, Sesami threw her arms back, energy forming in each palm. She froze, realizing that although he wasn’t looking at her, Lord Beerus’ guard was perfect. He had killed Walu with a blast no larger than a fingernail. Backing away, tears in her eyes, the energy melted from her fingertips, and she screamed at the top of her lungs, vanishing in a flash of light.
Arak rose to his feet, his great lumpy potbelly swinging, and called for the waiter. Beerus gasped, his mouth running dry (on account of all the milk and yogurt and blended juices), flung aside his ten-thousand-space-woolong smoothie (which cost a month’s pay for the average shlummy), and scanned the menu desperately for something refreshing, like water. As could be expected, he found nothing of the sort, and truth be told, there wasn’t a water vendor within fifty parsecs, which, he had been learning, was par for the course in Universe 5.
Endnotes[]
- The name was originally "Covetous Girl". That name stuck until the final editing phase, when I renamed it to be more smoothie-centric and overall cheeky.
- Walu, thinking Sesami was her good friend, would probably have expected to be given at least one artifact to hold, but Sesami's greed showed its true colors back in the fourth scene of Insatiable.
- Universe 5's artifact has been in possession of the Corvos League for quite a long time, and it's spent all of its recent history in Universe 8.
- The "bichibichi" sound is so ridiculous. I really like it also for the tie-in to the climactic moment of Every Turtle Has His Day.
- As to why Whis and Cukatail aren't there, I wanted to have Beerus unfettered for a brief moment, to see how he hams it up with the other Gods of Destruction without his attendant watching over him. It was curiosity more than anything else.
- Walu's actions echo Majin Buu's pudding incident with Beerus.
- Walu has a similar fate to Xiros in Divine in Maturity, but the way each death is handled I hope showcases the different levels of respect given to Xiros and Walu by me.
- I'm not so sure Walu's greediness was being punished as much as her impatience.
Excellent prose and style. The plotting and characterization is fine, but a bit weaker. Best part is with Beerus. His dialogue is written superbly. Perhaps could've had a sentence or two more of Sesami's feelings at the end, but otherwise, this is a strong member of the collection.
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