ask-tarble

[ask-tarble]

Did you know Freeza got killed off by an alternate version of your nephew? :D

...WOW! Some Super Saiyan HE is!

Well anyway. I'm not meaning to let Vegeta's moral failures overshadow Trunks-kun's momentous achievement.

I'm still fuzzy on the details, but -- I'm proud of you, kid!

[ask-tarble]

Do you have any hobbies, Tarble?

[ask-tarble]

Always happy to meet a fan! ;D

wow! i cant believe tarble of @ask-tarble signed this!

[ask-tarble]

April 9th, 2023 - Happy one-year anniversary, Tarbleheads!

[ask-tarble]

Hey tarble! How's your relationship with your brother?

Nii-san and I get along really well these days. :)

He's an odd one, but who isn't? I'm glad to have him.

[ask-tarble]

Any fond memories of your childhood you’d like to share?

Not really.

[ask-tarble]

care to elaborate on the great ape incident, or is that a sensitive subject?

[Transcripts will be in italics. Keep an eye out for non-italic paragraphs!]

[Tarble: “Oh, that. No yeah I can talk about that. Sure. No secrets, no shame.”]

[This was back during my construction days. Now, my construction team and I were great pals. They were my first exposure to comradery [sic.] and teamwork in general. We looked out for each other; the welfare of one was the welfare of all. So, naturally, I reflected their great excitement when a rare event fell upon us - a spectacular comet show was approaching! Evidently, it did not occur in every lifetime, but if you were lucky, you could see it twice. It was beyond exciting.]

[There were festivals for days beforehand, and every town had a different story about the significance of the comets. We of course party-hopped and saw the best of every place. Even I switched out of my armour and into something more festive.]

I don’t think that my explanations could do it justice. Just know that in all of my traveling, I have yet to see an event that comes close to those displays of heart, soul, and fever.

[At the time of the comets, my team and I found ourselves a beautiful spot atop a mountain. The glow of the sky gradually took priority over the dimming light of the festivals below us. And in all of this excitement, I’m ashamed to say that I forgot one crucial detail about comets ...]

[...They’re only visible because they’re reflecting starlight. An entire atmosphere of gas, scattering it every which way.]

[Tarble: “...Dear asker, I don’t know if this next bit is a stroke of profound fortune, a poleless curse of my mortal blood, -- Or just Really FREAKIN’ Embarrassing.”]

[Tarble: “Yeah I turned into a Great Ape. But I did not get far. I guess I almost immediately fell off of a cliff and hit my head really hard. I was out for the equivalent of two Earth days, I think.”]

I call it an “incident” because a festival got trampled before the unexpected ravine stole me. And I do believe that some of my teammates got hurt. At least, I got that impression from the way that only a few of them watched me gather my things when I returned to our base later. And from the way that, between vitriol and profanity, silence and sorrow, they would not meet my trembling eye.

...Oh, but this story does have an upturn. See, these were the circumstances that brought Gure and I onto the same path. 

[I woke up at the bottom of that cliff, naked, cold, thirsty, hungry, matted in dry blood, and alone. Generally, after a successful transformation, you would still have your armor. But like I mentioned, I had left it all behind. Stripped in favor of a new culture, which at the time, was beginning to look like it did not suit me.]

...You don’t have to pity me. I’m better now, obviously. But, in all truthfulness... I was nothing more than a beast then.

[The weight of nebulous confusion could not protect me from the weight of absolute conviction that I had done wrong, The blood in my hair, which in my younger years I had craved to see, could have very well been the blood of my friends. The blinding pain in my skull and the general delusion of my limbs were not salvation, but simple comeuppance for being alive.]

As I wandered, I felt that I would never return to myself. The beast who had been knocking on the innards of my chest had finally clawed out. And suddenly, I had never grown from that failed Saiyan child who had arrived here alone all those years ago.

I do remember the taste of bitter peace being ubiquitous, and continuing to rapidly bleed. Succumbing to thoughtlessness, you could say. But consider my perspective for a moment - I had never known whether to forgo my birth home who had forwent me, or to hold our honorable blood close to my breast as it is all I have and am. I had, at this time, not yet known how to be true and loving to myself, because I did not yet know which self was me.

This is where it gets, or I get, convoluted. To be clear, when I had very first arrived on that planet, I did not want to immerse myself on the foreign frontier entirely, for that would have left me fighting my own mind. Maybe everything in that mind was inculcated by those who had banished me, and so its substance should be thrown away as such - but it’s hard for one to change so much. I did not know who would remain to judge my actions. Death in life; the fresh start sounded good, but it's much too hard to kill a Saiyan. My blood is my own, after all. 

But I had not wanted to remain unequivocally true to my origins either. This new planet was my new everything, and if I destroyed it, what would I be proving to whom? I was banished for a reason. Might as well be the disgraceful misfit that my condemners had wanted nothing to do with. They didn't care what would become of me, so it was best that I just forget them. Best that I do not perpetrate their hatred for me against myself. Best that I do not view my new planet as they would view it.

But it's ironic. They kick me out for having a heart, sentimentality, a sense of value for others - and that's precisely why I couldn't, and can't, forget them.

I of course never succeeded in eradicating myself of all that had made me me. And years down the line on that planet, I had actually tried to take the first steps in learning how to love what my family had hated. Because it was not just the contempt and condemnation from others - there was hatred for myself in my very own heart, and that creates a very hostile environment to grow in. 

And, naturally, I had began to favor my home - my new planet, my teammates, my neighbors - over anything else, but who I had always been was not wholly gone. He still isn't, and I know now that that's as it should be.

ANYWAY. To return to our story: And at this point, I had not yet discovered that my transformation was a Saiyan failure (you could barely call that a rampage!). I was instead struck by the silence of the ravine and the blood in my hair. My father would have been proud, I thought. The beautiful silence of success.

But I hadn't realized that I was still living by the faraway customs of my lovely bastard kin! I wasn't prepared for this success - I wasn't prepared to rip out my roots from the nourishment of my new life. I had friends. We worked hard. We had fun.

I did later learn that even as a Great Ape I was a disappointment, and that made it all the stranger in retrospect. I couldn't seem to be good for anybody. There were tears of relief alongside deep, bitter pits of distress in my stomach. Both equally cleansing in their expression.

...I don’t mean to take up too much of your time. Let's skip to the good bit, shall we?

[This ravine was known to those already living at its base as a quarry instead, and it was a particularly fruitful mistress for a particular family of local stonemasons.]

[After the comet show, and after some time to recover from the festivities, a daughter of this house could not bear to be at home any longer. Though she was thoroughly bored of her livelihood, and thoroughly bored of this familiar quarry, hunting for ores and geodes was the only excuse she had to get out and the only hobby to her name.]

[...Now, Gure’s always had a healthy amount of FEAR, as long as I’ve known her. Seeing a hunched-over BEAST, bare and hairy, thrice her size, should have sent her running. ...I’ve tried asking her on several occasions what had driven her next actions.]

[And she’s answered in a few different ways over the years. Sometimes it was her trusty pickaxe that gave her heart. Sometimes it was the angst of youth that filled her with brash confidence.]

[Sometimes it was her longing for something new that colored her defiant to even her own instincts.]

[Sometimes, she says that she just had a feeling.]

[Gure: “...Hello?...”]

[I remember it echoing off of the walls of the ravine. Spurring reflexive action like a tobbled brick.]

[Tarble: “...Hi.”]

[I don’t know what made her reach out to me that day. I don’t know how she had the courage. But at the same time, I do understand it, same as I’ve come to understand all of the whimsy and rapids that pass under her surface. It's a spectacle only available to the blind.]

And I know enough to be terrified at what would have happened to me if she hadn't taken a chance. I do believe that she saved my life that day. She saved me from being the hopeless beast that I felt I was. It turns out that believing that you are one is all it takes. She was there to ground me then, and I've had the rest of my life to realize that my history cannot undo me, my nature cannot defy me, and it is all of me that defines me. A monster stops being a monster when you love it, I suppose. But I think that it's also when the monster realizes that it's not monstrous to just be. And I think that we could all use a little help with that.

Also... I've met a lot of people in my time. I just cannot stress enough how myopic and daft it is to still believe in monsters.

[She brought me home and fixed me up. I remember thinking about how humanizing it was to be scrubbed like an animal. As I was stuck on the irony, her family introduced themselves, and made it abundantly clear to me that I was welcome to stay as long as I liked.]

I only told Gure about the Great Ape thing at first. A lot of people had assumed that the beast had been a bizarre manifestation of divine magic, either intentional or incidental by native gods, and I never commented. If anything, I agreed. The arcane majesty of Blutz waves is something I too hold in reverence, even if my language can sometimes err on the dry scientific.

So, that's the Great Ape incident. Gure ended up coming with me when I went to reconnect with my construction crew and collect my things, and she held her composure as they and I reconciled with our present and past, all burned by my bastard truth.

I feel like I don’t even need to say it, but Gure has always been not only understanding, but healing to me. And when she has been thrown by a truth of mine, it is always mindful and relevant; even though she makes jokes of it, shes never been put off by my simply alien nature. That cheap fact has held only one significance to her:

that she is my lady of stone and I her man of the stars.

Thanks for asking!

[ask-tarble]

Yo! Ask-Tarble and His Friends Return!!

After a long and unplanned pause, Ask-Tarble returns to your dashboards once more. Tune in at around JANUARY 21 to catch the latest story from yours truly!

Thank you!

[ask-tarble]

Gure from Dragon Ball was Forklift Certified!

[ask-tarble]

*Updated July 2024*

Inbox: 10 (Temporarily closed)

M!anon: None

Have a Tarble Tuesday everyone!

[ask-tarble]

Tarble Presents: Christmas Wrapping Tutorial (X)

[ask-tarble]

What is the story of you two falling in love?

T: When we met I was actually a guest in her home. Or, refuge? I needed a place to be, and her lovely family gave me that and more. I learned a lot about what family meant, then, and I hadn’t realized how much I was needing that love and acceptance.

T: Gure and I initially bonded over our shared knowledge of, well, stone! From the ticks of geology to the physics of infrastructure.

G: It was more of what we DIDN’T know that bonded us. We saw different sides of the same stuff in our lives’s work. 

T: Remember when I showed you how to make clay bricks?

G: Of course! I can’t believe that I had never cared about clay before then. Remember how surprised you were when you saw our swirly stone walls?

T: I always just laid ‘em flat and sturdy - my profession was more pragmatic than artful, it turned out.

G: You had a prominent eye for beauty, though. No one else appreciated the copper veins in the cliffsides like you did.

T: I remember your parents having to tell us to work WHILE we talked.

G: Which was ironic. I could do that stuff in my sleep.

T: Ironic that you hated the work.

G: Oh, hate, love - what’s the difference? It was interesting in some ways and intolerable in others.

T: As much as I enjoyed the healing warmth of your family’s house, I of course had to follow you anywhere. 

G: Don’t phrase it that way! We were a team!

T: Still are!

G: And we never quit the explorer’s lifestyle.

T: We’re less nomadic now though. We have bases scattered across the galaxy.

G: And friends!

T: And some enemies too!

[ask-tarble]

Conversations with Uncle Tarble

[ask-tarble]

Thoughts on Bulma and your nephews? :)

My thoughts: I think that they're amazing people!

Can I just say that I was so shocked to discover that my Niisan lived in a family unit? Obviously I was pleased to meet my nephew when I first came to Earth, but I also knew better than to get attached. See, I pretty much learned about family from Gure's family, and I had assumed that Vegeta had not had the same privilege of discovering that a family can be more than arbitrary blood ties and obligations. Essentially, I assumed that my affections would be improper and unwarranted, and that since I had no fighting skills to pass on, there would be no reason for me to see my nephew - or even my brother - ever again.

But when I first came to Earth, I was rife with assumptions that turned out to be wrong. Remember when Son Kakarot turned my scouter to dust just from flexing? Yowch! Talk about a symbolic moment.

I was completely floored to learn that Vegeta lived with the mother of his child, and in fact they all lived together, and in fact they spoke to and connected to each other often, and in fact the mother of his child was also his wife. And also that they all loved each other.

Love in the House of Vegeta ?! Now that's just two things that have never gone together. I thought for sure that I was the only deviant.

With all that said ... well, I just cannot put into words how glad I was to find out about all of this. It's beyond lovely that Vegeta has found a wife who loves and tolerates him and now has a son and a daughter whom he spends time with. I think that camaraderie is important, and Vegeta has always been so solo; I know it could not have been easy, but I'm very proud that he's been able to make connections in this life.

AND NOW MY NEPHEW AND I HANG OUT AND PLAY MARIO KART ALL THE TIME!!!!

Well not all of the time. Maybe like, thrice a year. But that's a lot by Saiyan standards!!! Wow!!

AND OF COURSE I've been coming around a lot lately to SEE MY NEW NIECE!!

And of course I know when to leave. I don't want to outstay my welcome after all.

Dear asker, you asked me about Bulma-san first. I almost feel rude waiting until the end to answer. But honestly, I'm a little nervous speaking about her. I'm afraid that my silly little words will not do her justice.

Well, let me put it this way. If she couldn't have married a prince, then there would have been no point in her marrying at all. No one else could have ever gotten close to her level. She wouldn't have necessarily been dragged down by anyone else (you can't keep her down!), but ... well, they just wouldn't have been able to do her any favors, that's for sure. She and my brother are a match made in Hell- HEAVEN! I meant Heaven.

...But I don't want to insinuate that Bulma-san is shallow. She's not shallow, just decidedly vain and with royalty-level standards. It comes from a place of self-respect, understand?

Look at me, prattling on. What I'm trying to say is that Bulma-san is one dynamite woman. She takes great pride (a familiar theme, innit?) in her work, home, family, self, life at large - she's sure to keep everything at its best always, and she's always at her best, just out of virtue of being herself.

She's also completely vicious and even hostile. It makes me feel at home!

I think everyone knows this, but I feel the need to say it: SHE'S LIKE A WIZARD WHEN IT COMES TO TECHNOLOGY?! I do not have the time to get into it now, so do not let me - but UM? You know I asked her once if she could possibly take a look at my shattered scouter and see if she could salvage any of the ruins, and she threw her head back and LAUGHED. I sheepishly agreed that it was a ridiculous request and moved to withdraw it, but she then clapped me on the back and told me that she could build me a BETTER one, one that could catch the radio and play cartoons, one that had night vision AND heat vision. I turned her down then because - well to be plain, because I was intimidated. But I still think about that sometimes... I wonder if she could make me one that plays Mario Kart, somehow.

Anyway. She and I get along really great! I'm going to let you in on a little secret - one of her perfect idiosyncrasies is that she is very prone to flattery. It's because she's pleased that you noticed something that she already knew about herself, and she loves that you took the time to say it! I don't know how many compliments she actually gets, married to my laconic brother and all, so I'm always sure to ham it up whenever we see each other. It's a bit of fun we have. It's just impossible to run out of things to be impressed by when it comes to her, anyway!

[ask-tarble]

Were you "Popular" with female members of Gure's Species?

I've made and even lost many a good friend over the years. But Gure and I have stayed right by each other's sides since we met. I'm "popular" with her - does that answer your question?

[ask-tarble]

hm, thoughts on (if you’re familiar with them) ms chi chi and piccolo?

Oh, that Piccolo! He's definitely stoic and laconic. I'm sure he's rife with wisdom ... but I've always had trouble getting it out of him. I actually tried for a long time to find the best way to converse with him, but he just didn't seem to respond well to any of it. It's almost as if he found my dialogue to be tiresome and annoying. Huh! Well, I'm sure he appreciated the effort. I would love to have a discussion with him one day when he's up for the socialization. I don't even care what about. He just seems to know his stuff! ...Whatever it is.

As for Ms. Chichi-san - what a great conversationalist and gracious host! Her presence is definitely a strong and self-determined one, and while she seems to have an air of honor running through her, she will not hesitate to complain about anything that's bothering her. Even if it's about someone else and it may be uncouth to divulge. Makes me wonder if anyone talks about me like that behind my back. Well, if so - I doubt they could spin it into the same fiery and captivating conversations that Ms. Chichi can perpetrate.

However! She can be very ... specific! She wants things done a certain way, and you best not intervene. She especially won't have you in her kitchen asking questions about her craft while she cooks. Even if you were just trying to warn her that you lack the same appetite as the other Saiyans in her life and you're trying to save her some time and effort. And maybe your stomach from exploding. She is an EXCELLENT chef, though!

You know, it's funny you mention both Piccolo-San and Ms. Chichi-San here in the same ask like this. I'm not sure I've ever seen them in the same vicinity since I first came to Earth.

But don't let that fool you! Maybe it's not mine to share, but I feel I must - I've heard through the grapevine that Ms. Chichi-San and Piccolo-San used to be close. Apparently, a few years back, when Son Kakarot was, well, dead, his friend Piccolo stepped in to help the grieving family through their loss. He and Son Gohan evidently go way back, and so I suppose that graciousness was extended to the Son mother and her new babe. During that time, Piccolo-San was there to offer comfort, help raise the kids, and I believe help with whatever domestic chores are involved in homesteading. I can imagine him chopping and hauling firewood, for instance - he certainly has the arms for it! One is to assume that he and Ms. Chichi became close confidants in that time.

...But something about the books in Mr. Piccolo-San's possession makes me feel like there's more to that story...

[ask-tarble]

how big is it

Of course, that unit of measurement is not native to Earth, and I'm not sure the best way to convert it...