hey guys~! so, while I was in the process of planning out the next chapter of my other Adventure Time fic 'Miracles, Mistakes, and a Little Bit of Magic', I happened to see a prompt for the word 'irreverent' on one of the word-prompt sites I like to visit...and Marceline IMMEDIATELY came to mind!
of course, I couldn't just let such a fantastic prompt escape...and so instead of writing out the outline for my next chapter, I ended up writing a short character study drabble on Marceline the Vampire Queen.
...oops. :)
~Irreverence~
Marceline Abadeer is well-known for her sense of blatant irreverence.
It's generally nothing personal, and the few people closest to her (especially Bonnibel) have discovered quite quickly that in fact, the more she likes someone, the more she's prone to mercilessly tease - often stepping over the line in her endeavor to express her affections in perhaps the only way she knows how.
Title, rank, and social status mean nothing to the thousand-year-old-vampire -and anyway, she's a queen, for Glob's sake. She doesn't need to respect anyone.
(That kind of self-justifying reason almost manages to quiet whatever few shreds of conscience she has left...but there are still the occasional moments when she's all alone in her cave that the ghost of past-Marceline comes back to whisper in her ear; and quietly reminds her of just how flawed her own reasoning is.)
When that happens, Marceline is very quick to pick up the nearest musical instrument (preferably her axe-bass) and drown the voice of her former self in melody; ignoring what she already knows deep down inside to be the truth -that really, irreverence is just her own form of respect.
She's comfortable enough with the few friends she has to treat them so casually -and in her own special way she's letting them in, allowing them to glimpse a part of her personality that very few have ever seen.
(There are worse ways to treat someone, after all - Bonnibel should be quite thankful that all Marceline does is verbally sass! - and compared to those, her casual disregard for the sugary monarch's status is as sweet as the princess's own bubblegum hair.)
Yes, Marceline Abadeer is very, very irreverent; and yes - maybe sometimes she takes that irreverence a bit too far.
But in the end, when the dust has settled and the air has cleared, and the last few chords of deep bass-notes have faded away into the night sky...those who are closest to the undead monarch cannot help but see the truth - that no matter how irreverent she may seem, Marceline truly does care.
And that, is perhaps the greatest form of respect any of them have ever been given.
~fin
...I promise, I'll get around to writing out that next chapter soon, guys - but this was just way too tempting to resist, and way too much fun to write hehe~
as always, reviews are loved~! even just dropping a short line to say 'I loved it' would mean the WORLD to me! :)
~cinnabun