#which empties 100 spaceships a day | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

faithinthefuture28 · 5 years ago

Text

Larry songs timeline & what it tells us about the evolution of their relationship

**These are all just my interpretations but the more I listen to the music they wrote, the more it all fits together. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THROUGHOUT THE YEARS THEY’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT WRITING “AUTOBIOGRAPHICALLY” AND “FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE”

I deffo missed some songs but these stood out to me:

2013

L-Strong: Love isn’t easy (waves trying to break it) but what we have means something and it’s worth fighting for. read: love is only for the brave (Think of how much love that’s been wasted...there’s nothing i’m running from...i don’t care, I’m not scared of love) And we bring out the best in each other so lets not throw this away (i’d do anything to save it...when i’m not with you i’m weaker).

H-Happily: I want to fight for us too bc we’re on fire and our love is powerful af. ik we have to do stunts and stuff (and if (s)he feels my traces in your hair, sorry love but I don’t really care) but what we have is insane and fuck everyone else bc you’re MINE and i’m YOURS at the end of the day (i wanna be the one who holds you when you sleep). Together, we’re magic so just be with me so happily

H-Something Great: ****this song is very straightforward so i won’t explain it much***** (i want you here with me like how i pictured it so i dont have to keep imagining... We’re better off together here tonight). Written as a longing for what could be if they dont have to suppress the relationship. (script was written...want to rip it all to shreds) Louis’ response (you’re all I want so much it’s hurting) basically says “it’s not too much to ask babe, i want it too.” This has the kind of longing that ‘wouldn’t it be nice- beach boys’ which Harry has admitted is kind of a theme song.

L-Through the Dark: I know all this bs we’re going through is taking a toll on you and hurts you and i hate seeing you upset (you tell me that your sad...you tell me that you’re hurt and youre in pain and i can see your head is held in shame...i just wanna see you smile again) but I will do everything physically possible to protect you from any pain bb (i’d never let you fall and break your heart, if u wanna cry or fall apart, i’ll be there to hold ya). We’re going through this together and I will take on any responsibility needed to keep you happy. I’M WILLING TO GO THROUGH HELL TO FIGHT FOR US HARRY LOVE (entire chorus basically).

L-Better than Words: holy fuck our love is amazing can’t even describe it can i just sing to you foreva love u babycakes

L-Why don’t we go there: what if...we just forgot about the world and escaped and enjoyed each others love and rode the high??? Also sex

2014

L-Ready to Run: *******Followup to Why Don’t We Go There*********** But this time let’s escape for real bc (there’s me inside a sinking boat running out of time). Like i’m ready to get out of here and it could just be us living happily ever after (this time i’m ready to run). Honestly nothing else makes sense (without you i’ll never make it out alive...wherever you are is the place i belong). I know what i want out of life and IT’S YOU HARREH (i want to be free and i wanna be yours, i will never look back).

L-Steal My Girl: all u thirsty hoes find someone else bc Harry is MY pretty princess. Srsly ask his family. But you can still admire how he looks in those jeans. We all do. You know the ones

L-No Control: boy u fine, let’s do what lovers do IN THE MORNING. bc we can. also you own me and i am urs

L-Clouds: WE KNEW THIS WAS GONNA BE HARD SO WHY ARE YOU BEING A LITTLE BITCH (you dont like it complicated...but love is never ever simple...you are tired of all the changes, but love is always always changing). We could be great yo, just keep fighting (if we’re never coming back down, we’ll looking down on the clouds...we go and we go and we dont stop)

H-Where do Broken Hearts Go: IM SORRY LOU BABY YOURE EVERYTHING (rest of my crimes dont come close the look on your face when i let you go... the taste of your lips...is at the top of the list of things i want). H&L’s call and response at the end is basically forgiveness and acknowledgment (come on baby come and get me out, come on baby cuz i need you now)

H-Two Ghosts: *****was written around this time according to Harry******. This is fucking hard yo. We’re drained and exhausted and idk how much more we can fight for this... (it’s not you and it’s not me...sounds like something that i used to feel). That infatuation and electricity and hope that fueled our younger selves isn’t really there anymore and i’m just tired man (we’re just two ghosts swimming in a glass half empty, trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat, we’re not who we used to be...this was all we used to need). We’re empty vessels going through the motions (same eyes blue, couple more tattoos). AND WE AREN’T FUCKING COMMUNICATING (we dont say what we really mean).

2015

H&L-Perfect: so what if... we get rid of the pressure of forever? What if we just have fun doing the stupid shit we love and makes us feel alive (trouble up in hotel rooms, secret little rendezvous, things you know that we shouldn’t do). Like we won’t be out of each others’ lives, I’m still around and we can find comfort in each other and even mess around here and there (I can be the one you love from time to time). Remember how we used to be young and EXCITED (when i first saw you from across the room, i could tell that you were curious) let’s get that energy back without the responsiblity of an adult relationship. And we can keep making art lmao (if youre looking for someone to write your breakup songs about).

L-Long Way Down *****this song fkn hurts man. It’s overlooked a lot but shows so much insight**** We were...everything. And maybe that’s the problem? We’ve been through so fucking much, more than anyone our age should have to endure. (We've been in fire, Went down in the flames. We sailed the ocean And drowned in the waves. Built a cathedral But we never prayed) We didn’t know what we had. We were damn kids man. We weren’t prepared for all this. We didn’t know how powerful this would be. We didn’t know what it required of us. (We had a mountain But took it for granted. We had it all yeah. Who could’ve planned it). We didn’t know what to do with it, how to deal with it, so here we are. (We had a spaceship But we couldn't land it) We’re each other’s everything, but we can’t keep going on like this babe. (We found an island But we got stranded). I don’t want to leave you but being together is breaking us down. (Point of no return and now It's just too late to turn around) We thought we were untouchable. That love conquers all. Maybe, we were wrong. This is gonna hurt like a bitch (We built it up so high and now I'm fallin', it’s a long way down)

H-Olivia: I LIVE FOR YOU, I LONG FOR YOU, I LOVE YA. And i think i’ll always love ya. And I’m scared...of life without you (i get the feeling you’re walking out, time is irrelevant when i’ve not been seeing you, the consequences are falling now, there’s something i’m having nightmares about...dont let me go). But maybe just maybe thats okay, because you’re AIMH (you live in my imagination...i love you, it’s all i do).

L-Love you Goodbye: I fucking love you and I’ll always fucking love you but i think this is the right thing to do even though it feels so wrong (i know there’s nothing i can do to change it, but is there something that can be negotiated?) We made some goddamn fireworks together though (unforgettable together held the whole world in our hands) and do ya maybe think...we can make them just once more? (if tomorrow you wont be mine, let me give it to you one last time, baby let me love you goodbye...one more taste of your lips just to bring me back to the places we’ve been and the nights we’ve had because if this is it, then at least we could end it riiiiight). ********in the interview with our FAVE Gwen Garcia, she asked if it’s better to say goodbye and end a relationship that’s not feeling right or keep trying even if your heart’s not in it. Harry responds with “I think it’s better to say goodbye...but sometimes if youre trying to protect..” Then Louis cuts him off and says “you’re going deep aren’t you”, brushing the question off as a joke but imho i think there was pain in that answer. Then Harry continues “if you’re not 100% in it, I think it’s better for both parties if you say goodbye”. And Louis adds a “yeah” at the end.********

H-Walking in the Wind: I know this is scary but i think we can do it, (you said to me do you believe i’ll be too far? if youre lost just look for me you’ll find me) I think because youre AIMH and i’m always in yours, it’ll be good for us. And look at us being mature, we’re killing it babe. We can live our separate lives and grow on our own. We dont need to make it messy and hurtful. We’re on the same page. (the fact that we can sit right here and say goodbye means we’ve already won. A necessity for apologies between you and me, baby there is none). At this point, we’re kinda part of each other right? So it’s healthy for us to be apart for a bit. (it’s not the end, i’ll see your face again... i know we’ll be alright...just close your eyes and see i’ll be by your side any time you need me). And you’ve helped me grow into the person I am, and I you, so that’s cool as hell, right? (you will find me in places that we’ve never been). We had a TON of fun (we had some good times didnt we) so i feel okay that we’re doing this (goodbyes are bittersweet) and starting the next adventure in our lives.

H-If I could fly: I. am. yours. Louis. William. Tomlinson. (for your eyes only, i’ll show you my heart). Maybe this growth thing isn’t worth it, let me prove to you how much you mean to me (i think i might give up everything just ask me to). This is gonna be hard as shit because i’m so dependent on you (i’m missing half of me when we’re apart). I’m being honest and I’m being scared and I’m being vulnerable because I can’t lie to you and pretend I’m strong (i let my guard down, right now i’m completely defenseless). But we’re part of each other, right? (i could feel your heart inside of mine). I’ll always be here for you Lou (for when you’re lonely and forget who you are) even if for now we can’t physically be together.

L-Home: I’ve tried, Harry. I’ve tried to play pretend (told myself i kind of like her but there was something missin in her eyes). But i was lost (i was stumblin, lookin in the dark with an empty heart) because none of it was enough, none of it was YOU (it was there i sawr it in your eyes). And then i met you and you felt the same and we’re both lost souls playing pretend who found magic in each other (but you say you feel the same, could we ever be enough?) Is our love enough to overcome everything? Maybe we can be enough. Maybe I can make this enough, let me try to make it enough for you. And if we go our separate ways, know that I’m here for you no matter what. I won’t let you be lost again. (When you’re lost I’ll find a way and I’ll be your light, you will never feel like you’re alone, I’ll make this feel like home). So go. wander. find yourself. Then when you’re ready, come home.

2016-2017

H- Sweet Creature: ***Harry admit that this was the first song he wrote for the album**** We aren’t in the best place rn. We’ve been fighting (had another talk about where it’s going wrong...it’s hard when we argue, we’re both stubborn). But it’s you Louis. It can’t be anyone else. (don’t know where we’re going but we know where we belong... wherever I go, you bring me home). That’s not even a question. I’m still trying to figure out who I am, but the one thing I know is that a large part of who I am is you (we started 2 hearts in one home). And aint no way I’m losing that part of myself (when i run out of road, you bring me home). It was always you.

H-MMITH: Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready (just let me know i’ll be at the door, hoping you’ll come around). I know I need to work on myself a little more (i gotta get better, and maybe we’ll work it out) but honestly i’m getting impatient and i want things to go back to how they were and i want to be yours again (once you go without it, nothing else would do). But I can’t communicate this to you clearly so let me just put this in a song and hope you get it (we dont talk about it, it’s something we dont do) ****Harry mentioned in an interview that he expresses himself through songwriting when he can’t say the words directly to a person because it’s easier to just write it in a song than have difficult conversations*****

H-ESNY: ****honestly no idea what this song is about but it’s something to do with them fighting and not communicating and being in a weird place before their relationship is rekindled******* edit: this could be about his stepdad

H-FTDT: I MISS YOU AND I’M TOO FULL OF PRIDE TO TELL YOU DIRECTLY JUST COME BACK INTO LIFE LOU I’M LONELY AND SAD AND EMPTY AND IM NOT FUCKING FINDING MYSELF LIKE YOU SAID I WOULD (woke up alone, played with myself where were you...we havent spoke since you went away, why wont you ever say what you wanna say) So until then I sit and wait for your sorry ass to make the first move (maybe one day you’ll call me and tell me that you’re sorry too...but you never do). Also like i have to hear from other people how you are?? (i saw your friend that you know from work, he said that you feel just fine) ANd you’re sharing OUR clothes with people?? wtf just swallow your pride and call me

L-Miss You: OKAY BUT I CANT JUST CALL YOU BECAUSE I HAVE PRIDE TOO also my mates are trying to make me get over you (now i’m asking my friends how to say I’m sorry, they say lad give it ttime there’s no need to worry, and we can’t even be on the phone now). So i’m just numbing your absence with partying and drinks but CLEARLY ITS NOT WORKING (should be laughing but there’s something wrong...shit maybe i miss you...when i feel it coming up i just throw it all away, get another few shots cuz it doesn’t matter anyway...such a good time, i’ll believe it this time). This is weird bc like you were my everything but im trying to get used to this and it fucking sux (oh how shit changes, we were in love, now we’re strangers). And tbh, its scary af bc what if this is it (i’m asking myself, is it over?). BUT ALSO LIKE WTF U COULD REACH OUT FIRST YA KNOW (i’ve been checking my phone all evening).

H-Anna: wtf Louis how do you not see how much this is killing me. I miss you so much and seeing you on tv or in pics drives me wild bc you’re not mine. (I don’t want your sympathy but you don’t know what you do to me...everytime I see your face there’s only so much I can take...I guess it would be nice if I can touch your body). And idk if you’re replacing me (don’t know where you’re laying, just know it’s not with me) and we’re in SUCH a weird place rn how do I tell u you’re the loml (don’t know what I’d say if I passed you on the street...don’t know what I’d tell you if you asked me for the truth) so I refuse to put this song on the album and let you know this and give you satisfaction from knowing how gone I still am for you bc I have 0 idea how you feel (hope you never see this and know that it’s for you)

L-Always You: SO THIS IS ME SWALLOWING MY PRIDE STANDING IN FRONT OF YOU SAYING IM SORRY FOR THAT NIGHT... ok but fr i miss u i miss u i miss u i miss u and nothing else compares like i can travel the whole world and all i think about is how much more fun it was with you and the memories we shared and i wish i could just say thx fr th mmrs and move on but actually no thx actually fuck you for making me not able to enjoy my life without you. So like...come home? and wrap your legs around me? also lmao i took El to a gay bar in amsterdam for her bday lmao i miss u come cuddle me and i’ll tell you all about it

L-We Made It: looks like we made it, look how far we’ve come my baby. They saidd I bett they’ll never make it, but just look at us holding onn, we’re still togetherr, still going stronggg. Also to the fans, miss our single bed and the nights we talked about our dreams :-* also Andrew my man luv u

2018-2019

L-KMM: our love was youthful and exhilarating and fucking electric and i think it still can be. dont know what i’d do without you now H

L-DLIBYH: We’re strong babe and we’ve grown and we aren’t gonna let life drag us down. I’m doing better, you’re doing better, this is what we wanted. And now any shit we go through, we’ll go through TOGETHER

L-Too Young: Okay but looking back, that was a lot of shit we went through and we were just babies and i’m sorry for not fighting harder (i cant believe i gave in to the pressure when they said a love like this would never last so i cut you off cuz i didnt know no better) baby i tried, i tried to protect you but like it was just so much and i hate that you got hurt and i wont ever let that happen again. ALso go us for being mature and COMMUNICATING (face to face at the kitchen table, we can finally have a conversation that I wish we could’ve had before). ANd i know you’re an arrogant son of a bitch who can’t admit when he’s sorry so here let ME say i’m sorry that i hurt you darling. Like we were too young to know we had everything BUT now we’re old(er) and can realize that when we’re together, we DO have everything now and omg is this our happily ever after and we can have a daughter and name her Darcy

L-Habit: do i need to spell it out for you iiiiii aaaaaaaaammmmmmm sssssssoooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyy. But tbh i let you go because it felt right because mentally you were already out the door and i needed to give you room to grow babe. And i needed the space too (you gave me the time and the space i was out of control and i’m sorry i let you down). but like also i’ve learned i can’t escape you Styles. You’re always in my fucking heart and my fucking mind and in every essence of my being and somehow I knew that 9 years ago and it took me this long to realize how powerful this really is (guess that that i know what i already knew, i was better with you and i miss you now). Ooooh also my favorite line i wrote (took some time cuz i ran out of energy of playing someone I heard I’m supposed to be and honestly i dont have to choose anymore) like who am i kidding, im done pretending i just wanna be yoursss now

L-Defenseless: I can’t help it okay theres something about you that doesn’t let me stay away. I need you and I know that rekindling this relationship isn’t going to be easy even though it feels so so right. It’s going to be hard work (sleeping on our problems but we’ll solved them in our dreams, wake up early morning and it’s still under the sheets) and we need to communicate and solve our problems but here I am, raw and unfiltered and emotionally naked in front of you ready to lay it all on the table (not sure how to say this right, got so much to lose. NEver been so defenseless). So like this branch I’m reach out to you and you be honest with me too babe (you dont have to keep on being strong for me and you. Acting like you feel no pain, you know i know you do...I can’t get inside, when you’re lost in your pride but you don’t have a thing to prove). Be open with me. Lets talk. Let’s solve problems. Lets have an adult relationship. I’m asking for a little vulnerabiltiy babe. It’s just me. Theres nothing to be scared of

L-Walls: And here you have me in my purest form. No lies, no secrets, no insecurities to hide behind. Losing you was fucking painful but i got through it. I’ve been through hell and back and I’ve fought. And without you, I grew into the person I am. And any further growing i’m doing is gonna be with you. bc it was all for you babe. and honestly i can take anything life throws at me now. I’m strong baby. I’m fucking strong and fucking brave and fucking resilient and...fucking yours. ***** wtf is the I just hope i see you one day and you’ll say to me oh oh********

H-Golden: You are the literal sun and I’m not ready. YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD PERSON (you were way too bright for me, i’m hopeless, broken, so you wait for me in the sky). I’m scared to go through this alone, I need your comfort and your guidance (i can feel you take control of who i am and all i’ve ever known). But you’re scared to go through this with me bc you dont wanna get hurt and i’m too open so where tf does that leave us. ******this could be about coming out especially with the London AND NY secret shows where Harry added the lyric I’m hoping someday you’ll open*******

H-Adore You: You dont have to say you love me, you dont have to say nothing, you dont have to say you’re mine. I’d walk through fire for you. Just let me adore Lou. Like its the only thing I’ll ever do. read: Louis is a great person to just admire what he’s like. ALso I dont need anything back. I just dont want to hide my love for you anymore. I don’t need answers or promises. Just let me adore you. ********the music video is also basically a Louis appreciation post. He was the boy with the smile that the world took away from him. He found Harry lost and loved him and nurtured him and made him confident and allowed him to be who he wanted to be. But in doing so, Harry became big and unsatisfied and wanted to explore the world and was clearly interested in Hollywood and Rockstardom especially evident in his behavior 2014-2015. And Louis wasn’t about that life and didn’t want to hold him back. So he let him free. But they realized that they don’t work apart. Wherever they’re going, they’re going together, as the boy sails into the unknown following the fish. I see it as Harry’s version of “this one is a thank you for what you did for me” ************* I see it, I appreciate it, and I love you for it

H-Lights Up: ****fight with Louis. (What do you mean I’m sorry by the way) About coming out? About fame? (Step into the light, so bright sometimes) Either way, L is the guy driving the motorcycle in the video who makes H feel comfortable and safe until they get pulled over because SOMEONE wont let them love*******

H-Falling: What if i’m out, what if i’m someone you won’t talk about? Okay maybe I lied I do want you to claim me. Would me coming out of the closet make that hard for you? I CAN’T GO THROUGH AN IDENTITY CRISIS WITHOUT YOU LOU. I picked someone supportive and now I’m spoiled and I dont know how to be with myself. You want back in my life but what if I dont deserve it? (you said you cared and you missed me too...what i’m someone i dont want around). What if you’re better off without me? (i get the feeling that you’ll never need me again). I know youve been through so much shit because of me, things you’ve never even told me about and im afraid...that I wasn’t worth it. Am I being selfish? because either way, i want YOU (what if you’re someone i just want around). Does that make me a bad person?

H-TBSL: ****Probably when they starting talking again but it was v casual and they didn’t really discuss their relationship yet*****. I MISS U BUT I WONT TELL U THAT and its nice to talk to u again i missed your voice but if u call me baby i will kill u bc that word has weight OKAY. Like i know you just call everyone babe and darling and sweetheart but baby is FOR ME and only for me when you wake up with me and cuddle me and if you think you have any right calling me baby without giving the luxury of being in a relationship with you then piss off because that shit hurts dude. (i know that you’re trying to be friends, know that you mean it...it’s hard for me to go home to be so lonely). ALso it’s not my fault i’m like this, you literally captured my heart when i was 16 like wtf do u expect (dont blame me for falling, i was just a little boy)

H-Sunflower Vol. 6: we were babies and i was so enamored by you and you’re so bright and beautiful and i want to watch you all day and make you smile and i want you to touch my hair and call me curly and i hope im not making you uncomfortable with my heart eyes but like how are you so perfect. I hope you think i’m cool, i’m really trying but like you’re SO FUNNY and charming and everyone loves you i hope im not embarassing myself. And now it’s like 8 years later and i think i can have you again and i want you so bad but i dont wanna seem too eager and im trying to have dignity and not text you first but like also i want nothing more than to talk to you. Do you think i’m cool now? did you like my new hairstyle? Do you think i’m funny on tour? I want everything i want to be domestic again and kiss in the kitchen and i want to cook for you and as;ldfa;sdhaf i want to buy you flowers everyday and shower ur cute face with kiss. boopx28

H-Canyon Moon: Hell yea i got ma man back and i have a girlfriend named Jennifer ;) and we are domestic and even though I HATE being away from him for work (so hard to leave it) we have the 2 week rule yall then i can wrap my legs around him and after so so so long I’ll be h.o.m.e. Also did i tell you his eyes are so so blue like sky who i dont know her

H-TPWK: So we’re really doing this. We don’t need to have it all figured out. We can just be us. and happy. and dance. The world loves us babe. (Giving second chances, I don’t need all the answers and if we’re here long enough we’ll see it’s all for us and we’ll belong)

H-Fine Line: You’ve got my devotion but man I can hate you sometimes....We’ll be a fine line. Between what? love and hate? public and private? out and in the closet? each others’ and ourselves? Idk. But i’m going to swallow my pride (my hands at risk I fold) because no matter what, the worst possible outcome is not having you. And I never wanna go through that again. I know we have work to do on our relationship (spreading you open is the only way I know you). And there’s lot of unknown here (there’s things that we’ll never know) but what i do know is that i cant resist you (you sunshine you temptress) and i cant be without you ever again. I think it’ll be hard as hell. But when have we known love as anything but hard? And when have we known our love as anything but worth it? We’ll be a fine line baby. But i know, i knowww with every part of me that we’ll be alright. Because these past 10 years, we’ve been through A LOT. ANd it could have ruined us and made us cynical and cold and closed off. And I think at one point it did. But you know what we did? We fought it. We fought it together. Then we fought it individually. And we became BRAVE. And a brilliant man once said, “love is only for the brave”.

2K notes · View notes

edgythought · 5 years ago

Text

Strangers in the Bar II

Part I | Part III

Alex Turner x OC (I guess??)

Description: Two lonely people observe each other in a bar. It leads to something nice. Word count: 2,982

Warning: swearing, alcohol consumption, smoking.

A/N: Nobody wants the second part but I am posting it anyway. Maybe, you'll enjoy. If you do, let me know!

The time flew by like a super-modern spaceship through the deep void of silent space and my stay in LA was coming to an end about just as fast. I still didn't know if I liked the city or not. It was totally different from what I'd seen before, but the aftertaste wasn't that pleasurable as I thought it would be. Maybe I was a prisoner of my own superstitions and prejudices, but I will never know. Moreover, Californian weather is just not my cup of tea, I would prefer something a lot more northern than constant heat and melting asphalt. But I must admit the city has its own unique vibe you cannot casually pass by, it wipes you away with its simultaneous boldness and sneakiness.

It was a challenge for me not to think about the dancing dude I met the first night. Let's be clear, I hadn't fallen in love, but there was definitely a spark between us, even if it was a result of drinking too much. Some nights I even wanted to google him, but my drunk ass never asked for his name. His face looked familiar, like I've seen him before, but I couldn't remember for shit when and where. So, I gave googling up and continued with doing my stuff, which was a lot more important than some random guy I popped into at some bar. I thought it was a drunk adventure and this gave some assurance it will not happen again and I can move on. But I'd be lying if I said what happened didn't bother me in a way I didn't want it to.

I was always very sensitive to vibes and energy people are emitting. That feature brought a lot of pain, but also a lot of understanding, so I tried to develop it as much as I could. And what I saw and sensed that night made me think about it way too much. I saw a lonely person trying to enjoy a simple moment of happiness, but I also saw a sharp mind and a visible ache in his eyes. I totally understand it may sound like an absolute bullshit, but I got the impression we were vibing at the same frequency in some way and it would be stupid of me not to admit I would do it again without thinking. And this fact was bothering me a lot. It was something I couldn't accept, like, how can it possibly be real — to meet a guy and have such a connection with him without even speaking to one another? Bear with me, I told my friends a lot, while sharing this story with them. But could I bear with myself? The answer is not really.

My time in LA is coming to an end, I thought, it would be nice to say goodbye where I started. To finish the adventure properly and leave for good.

It wasn't much later when I saw some familiar spots I observed while smoking near the bar on my first day in LA. Those palm trees were actually fascinating in a pastel background of the twilight sky, warm and so close you may have had a chance to touch it. There was no clouds whatsoever, so I took a pic of tree silhouettes to remember this beautiful view when I'm back home. What if Los Angeles becomes my home? I thought to myself strolling down the road, searching for a sign indicating a spirit-scented place. Soon enough I saw it on the other side of the street and rushed there. It wasn't as crowded as I remember it to be, but I guess that's going to change in an hour or so. I came too early, but I desired to get wasted and nothing was standing in my way so I just followed the waitress into the bar and crawled on the stool with all the grace I managed to find in my body. The bartender asked me what I'd like to have and I ordered "Orgasm" without thinking. Dude tried to make a joke out of it but unfortunately I wasn't impressed since I heard it way too much throughout my whole cocktail-drinking life. It was only funny the first couple of times. Anyway, I came to drink and I got what I wanted in 4 minutes. I spent the time glaring around, but there was nothing unusual for my eye to catch, just a bar, millions of them around the world. The music was on point, though. I thought it was a jukebox, the one you pay to put a song on, but I was wrong. Turned out, it was one of the bartenders who was in charge of music for the night and they took turns to be a DJ. At least, that's what I heard from the bartender, when I made a remark on the music. I was quite impressed, since it's mostly jukeboxes I saw in this kind of places. I found it pretty authentic and also very encouraging for the personnel to try their chances with music. What is more LA than that?

My cocktail was tasty enough for me to distract myself with it for a while. My head was almost empty and I felt I achieved what I was striving for, so I needed to think what to do next. I was alone and a little bored. Maybe I can try to talk to someone? Just for the sake of having a conversation… - I thought - People are probably thinking I am a weirdo, I came alone and I drink alone. Well, this is who I am now and bitches shall accept that. Anyway, the drink was so delicious I finished it without realizing it. I ordered another one and decided it would be nice to smoke.

When I got out I saw the last couple of minutes of the hot Californian twilight and was left to enjoy the early night. Cicadas were singing their oddly rhythmic song and I was inhaling smoke like it was my last cigarette on earth. It was nice to feel the relaxation spread from my chest to my hands and then knees. It felt nice having nothing to worry about for a night and just do whatever your heart tells you to, even if it's totally stupid. The smoke twirled in the air above my head in irregular spirals. I watched it slowly dissolve in thick warm air, traffic noise making the whole experience a little bit ambient. I took out another cigarette and lit it from the previous one, as I had lost my lighter a few days ago and hadn't bought another one yet. I know, I know. My mind was in a weird state, I felt very calm and very nervous at the same time and I couldn't say what exactly caused it. I should probably stop drinking and smoking so much. But not today.

My cigarette was quickly coming to an end as I watched people gathering near the bar entrance for a small chat or a smoke. I went back inside to continue my contemplation with a cocktail in my hand, but I was also determined to get to know someone. Maybe, that cute bartender who served the "dancing juice" will be back? I could talk to him, at least I did last time and it wouldn't be that awkward. But I haven't seen him today yet and I wasn't sure I will, therefore I decided to concentrate on people, cruising back and forth between table area and the bar itself. Everyone seemed very comfortable and friendly, but not a one familiar face in the whole room. Suddenly, I heard a phrase that made me jump on my stool and rush to the dance floor, occupied by two young men in weird shorts.

Get on your dancing shoes!

I cannot explain why the indie tunes from 2000s made me so eager to dance, but they did and I was fine with it. I wiggled my ass to the beat, shook my head and pretended to sing the song to the boys in weird shorts. They somehow agreed to take part in my performance and the three of us had a very nice time dancing and jumping around for the next couple of songs. Soon I was very hot and went back to my place at the bar to take a sip of my drink and order a refill and some water. I went to the bathroom right after I saw the bartender nod at me, letting me know he heard what I told him, as the music was getting louder.

I was surprised to see there was no queue to the bathroom, so I used my chance not to hurry and take my time to fix my makeup and hair. I was even more surprised to see the bar crowded when I finished and I was absolutely flabbergasted to find my place at the bar occupied by some dick! Can you tell I went from 0 to 100 in a couple of seconds? My mood wasn't so great before but now it was pretty much spoiled. I saw the guy talk to the bartender and put my drink aside and my ass went off. Somehow in such situations I have a resting bitch face, which may serve an impression of me being unbothered, but it's not exactly how I felt then. I was furious because there was no other place to sit at the bar and it was just rude of the guy to sit on my stool, cause there was my drink, signifying it was occupied.

I came up to the dude and touched his shoulder to catch his attention. He turned around with half a smirk quickly changing into a look of surprise. I could feel my eyes grow in size when I saw who it was. "Is it fucking real?" - I asked myself, trying to be less shook. What an amazing coincidence, my stool at the bar was occupied by the dancing dude! - Who would have thought, am I right? — he said, fully turning to face me. — Not me, for sure. Get off my stool. — I shoo'd him from the stool but he didn't move a muscle. — Nope. You weren't sitting here when I came in, so it's mine now. — I raised my eyebrow in disbelief. — Don't be a little dick, you've seen my glass standing right here. — I will buy you another one if you get off my dick. And once we are talking about that…. — he chuckled a bit. — You can sit in my lap if you fancy. My eyes widened, I was astonished by his bold move. — Are you flirting with me? — Who knows. So, mardy bum? Are you climbing in my lap or …? — he asked, looking attentively at my face with a wide smirk, pleased with himself.

I threw my hands in the air silently and turned my back on him. I didn't fancy sitting in a random dude's lap, even if the dude was kinda hot and not actually random. Oh God, FUCK! He looked a bit different this time; his beard was trimmed and his hair was gelled back, black shirt and pants so tight I could probably see the outline of his underwear if he wore any. What a dweeb. I guess I'd recognized him instantly if I saw those pants.

Why is this so embarrassing? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wanted to sass this bitch out, but I couldn't come up with anything merely appropriate for the situation, so I decided to ignore his questions and turned to take my glass. At this exact moment a very familiar and a really slow song came on.

I somehow lost my breath and fell into a spiral of memories I had associated with the song playing for a second. I was watching people dividing into pairs on the dance floor and it broke my heart a little. I remembered my ex-sweetheart holding me tight to him while this exact song played quietly in our apartment, right after the final fight we had. I remembered the emptiness I felt then and my eyes became too watery. I am not going to cry at the bar today, I told myself. No one was going to ask me to dance today anyway, I thought, and it stroke me pretty hard. I turned to go out of the bar to have a cigarette when the dancing dude touched my hand. I looked at him, struck by the sensation. He was offering his hand to me.

"Shall we dance a little?"

I had no time to think properly and the whole situation felt a bit like deja vu. He was waiting for me to take his hand, eyes on me, wandering from hair to eyes, to boobs and back. I accepted his almost silent invitation and followed him to the middle of the dance floor.

When I'm around slow dancing in the dark Don't follow me, you'll end up in my arms

We were surrounded by different couples and that's one of the reasons I loved LA. It was just beautiful to see people simply dancing together. No one really cared what people might have thought of them, this is how it should be. He held my hands in his and as we're almost the same height I almost touched his long nose with mine. We remained silent while we were swirling in a very little space we had among all the people. His palms were soft and warm and I enjoyed his touch, even though I didn't want to admit it.

Soon enough we got even closer and danced way slower. My lips were almost on his jaw as we were almost hugging each other to a sad song. Him being so close yet so far made me puzzled in some way. I didn't want this to happen and yet here I am, staring at dude's earlobes and gelled strands of wavy hair on the neck. Pretty view, should I say. He smelled exactly the same as I remembered and I found the smell heavenly complex. This sparked an idea to spend as much time in his arms as possible, but I shooed the thought away. It would be inappropriate.

I turned my head a bit to see his face clearly. His eyes were closed, but I could sense something going on in his head. He moved easily and graciously, even with me by his side and I was pleasantly surprised to realize he led me all the time we were dancing. I smiled a little to myself. It felt good to be in his arms and I decided it won't hurt to put my head on his shoulder, so I did. I took a deep breath, inhaling his cologne and smiled again. He tilted his head a bit, so it would touch mine. I thought about how we looked like on the dance floor seen by others. We probably look like two sad people dancing to a slow song, I sassed myself and shook my head a bit. Dude asked me if I was okay and I responded "sure". That was it, the whole conversation during the dance.

Can't you see? I don't wanna slow dance In the dark

As the song was reaching its climax, we almost stopped moving at all. My hand that was placed on his shoulder slid down to his waist. He did the same with his hand, still holding mine. I liked him not pushing anything on me and appreciated the effort to be nice. It felt right to be this close to him somehow. I saw him lip-synching a little to the song and felt his warm breath on my cheek. I kept smiling as I watched his private performance. With the final phrase we stopped completely and just stood in each other's embrace for a couple of seconds longer than necessary. I didn't want to let him go. He seemed to feel the same. I blushed a bit, because it was getting awkward. Eventually, we split and I followed him to the bar.

He sat on a stool next to mine which appeared to be empty and gestured a bartender to come over. I sipped my cocktail, which I completely forgot about, to be honest. I was watching the dance floor and the dude turned to me and asked "Whatcha gonna drink, mardy bum?"

I did not expected that and took some time to proceed with the question. I looked at him, confused. "Nothing for now. Excuse me" i said and rushed to the bathroom. I didn't want to use it, however, I felt an urgent need to get away from his deep dark eyes inspecting my face. I turned on cold water and splashed some on my neck and chest to calm myself down. I guess I shouldn't have left like this, I thought, maybe I need to go back and try to have a normal conversation? I wanted to talk to someone less than half an hour ago. Oh no, there would be no conversation, darling, you will just stare at his face for an uncomfortably long time until he finds you creepy and leaves, I told myself. Well, this sucks but I have to go back anyway. I'd fancy a smoke, after all it was an experience and I definitely needed some nicotine in my system. I went out of the bathroom to finish my cocktail at the bar and found the dude's stool empty. It made me a bit sad, but I didn't say goodbye either, so it's only fair. I knocked my drink down and headed to the exit.

#alex turner #alex turner fanfic #alex turner fanfiction #arctic monkeys #the last shadow puppets #miles kane #do i wanna know #los angeles #la #oc #original character #short story #strangers in the bar

18 notes · View notes

freebooter4ever · 5 years ago

Text

old photos from my last yr in the burgh cause im feeling nostalgic

jon on the back porch of our friends lawrenceville split rowhouse, you can see how much nicer our neighbors half of the house lawn was lol, ours was so overgrown we couldnt use it, the parties and banana grilling happened on the basement door steps and the alley, the alley was this tiny space between rowhouses that was probably only a little wider than jons shoulders

my dance buddy crawling out of my third story window to the roof, you can see the christmas lights i covered my entire ceiling with inside, theres another photo of her glaring at me bc im taking an ungraceful photo of her but its not as funny as this one

Rooftops and my dance buddy who came to watch the sunset with me one last time and who i think really misses having me in the same city bc i think her hatred of the whole human race is adorable rather than offputting (shes very literary, but shes also small and cute and she can dance). ALSO the only girl (different girl) who i ever almost went on a date with held my hand and helped me onto this roof when i was trying to decide if i should move in or not, and then at the party which was kinda my trial run to see if i was a good fit for the house she and i were inseperable, and i never told my friend the landlord but that influenced wayyyyy too much of my decision to move in, like yes dude i will live in your house also how often does that friend come over bc i might marry her. of course two days later that same girl moved out of the country.

jon being adorable and napping with his kitten blanket, like he puts on this cool hipster artist act but this is him 90% of the time, the other 10% of the time is alien noises. i promise he would agree with this.

i honestly have no idea what this building is but i walked past it so many times in the southside that before i left it was high on my take a photo of priority list, i could get SO MUCH texture reference from this, like fuck thats a lot of rust and different types of wood damage and concrete crumbling, the burgh was definitely a 3D texture environment artists dream, ethan and i used to go around with his fancy camera and use it to recreate pieces in 3D with photos.

in this old 30's era gym i beat a bunch of hipsters in a mario kart tournament (easy as pie) and also won a costume contest while playing dodgeball, and got a free voucher to the fanciest hipster dining venue around, and anyway before i left the city i took jon and my bff to eat way expensive food for free and the three of us hung out in the empty gym after bc Aesthetic. there is also a photobooth roll that goes with this but we look terribly drunk in that

at the bottom of our hill in lawrenceville was two of the most important necessities: belvederes ultra dive (roller disco nights) and this theater that would pick a theme and only play those type of movies for a month so naturally, my favorite was Singing in the Rain. (at the top of our hill was my personal necessity brillobox and alex's favorite cheap vietnamese restaurant).

the main branch of the burgh library was within walking distance of the university i worked at so spent a lot of time there, but anyway wtf was up with these floors? it was like walking on glass planks of a space ship but like...steampunk spaceship bc this shit is from the early 1900's and made out of STEEL. old asshole carnegie built hundreds of libraries, do all of them have creepy steep and glass floors between bookshelves??? (ps dont do what jon is doing you can get your foot stuck ask me how i know) i had three book sections memorized: the art animation books, the oversized art animation books, and the retro mod architecture books

jon actually asked me to take a close up photo of his new belt buckle this is 100% his fault, i introduced him to all my favorite vintage stores in the burgh and his ridiculous belt buckle collection increased tenfold. this feels mccree worthy, honestly.

the number of various guys i brought to the waterfalls over the years is...higher than one would expect given my face... and each time theyd be like wow this is so romantic and its our spot now and im like YUP DEFINITELY our spot just us no one else. truth is i just loved the three hour scenic drive and the Gene And Boots candy shop on the way that carried my favorite melty mints with NO corn syrup (impossible to find outside of mom and pop type candy factories). the REAL truth is that i came here most often on my own to write than i ever took anyone romantic or friends or otherwise.

when i say ae pi always had the coolest booths during spring carnival this is what i mean (he's got wings and a construction hat and a halo bc CREATION get it??)

when our research group got moved down to the river and i spent a lot of quiet nights in the snow walking across the bridge to the southside at like three am, also that big ass thing is something to do with the steel industry but i lived here ten yrs and fuck if i know what it is

#Journal shit

6 notes · View notes

spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia · 6 years ago

Text

“Forgiveness”: A Ducktales Fanfic with Lena

Dedicated to lenasmagic, a blog on Tumblr.

“Gary, are you SURE you haven’t forgotten anything?”, Pricilla asked with that tone that implied that she was 100 % sure that Gary had most DEFINITELY forgotten something.

Gary rolled his eyes as he approached the pod door of his golden spacecraft that shined and glowed in the bright noon day sun.

“Pricilla, for the last time, I HAVEN’T forgotten anything!”, he complained, fishing in his golden pockets, his tongue sticking out in concentration.

“Really?”, she asked in disbelief, hands on her hips. She was taller than him, so it always gave him the impression that she was disappointed in him when she did that.

He was right.

“I’m telling you, I haven’t forgotten…”, Gary started, when suddenly it snapped and he realized that…

“…The keys.”, he sighed, resigned to his fate.

Pricilla closed her eyes, triumphant. “Yes, the keys. I told you so.”

“Hey, uh, your keys are here.”, a different voice suddenly rose up from the crowd of moonpeople walking around looking for their earthly… Or, well, moonly possessions.

You’d think that spotting a voice in a crowd of blue and purple aliens clad in golden armor would be difficult.

But hard as she tried, Lena Saberwing (formerly Lena De Spell, niece of one of the most evil people to ever live, but who’s thinking about that) couldn’t NOT stand out.

The teen duck with pink dyed hair that heavily contrasted with her mood, a black and grey striped shirt over a mint collared shirt that gave her a very different feel to the more simply dressed inhabitants of the planet, and most noticeably, purple eyeshadow that gave her a haunting or haunted look, depending on your perspective, stood in front of the moon people, a golden key chain in the palm of her hand.

If Gary and Pricilla knew the years of pain, suffering, self hatred and resentment buried deep in those black black pupils, they may have taken pity on the young girl, who held aloft their way back home.

But Gary and Pricilla didn’t, and space traffic WAS busy this time of year.

“Give me that!”, Gary snatched the keys, momentarily scraping Lena’s feathered palm, making her recoil for a second.

“What you deserve…”, a voice whispered, as it always did when she got hurt.

She had learned to mostly tune it out.

…Mostly.

“Hey!”, she protested, annoyed at the shabby treatment. “How about a thank you? I just helped you get off this crummy planet.”

Pricilla waved Lena’s protests off, as if they were some annoying fly or something, and not a living, breathing person… Er, Duck, in front of her.

“Whatever, young one. Let’s get out of here, Gary.”

Gary unlocked the pod and mumbled under his breath as Pricilla entered their craft.

“Gary do this, Gary do that…”, he muttered, and he lumbered inside, the door closing and the shuttle flying off into the deep unknown of space.

Gone.

Forever.

“Good riddance.”, Lena thought, and she frowned at the departing space crafts, all of which had moments ago been trying to kill her and all her friends.

Her family.

Her only family.

And they were going off scot free!

She kicked a pebble with her left green and white sneaker, annoyed at the injustice of it all!

What if someone she cared for had been hurt by these monsters?

Someone like Scrooge McDuck, or Mrs. Beakley, whom had given her another chance after all the damage she had caused?

Or someone closer to her, like her new friends Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck?

Or even worse: Her new adopted sister and lovable pain in the butt Violet Saberwing?

And Violet’s dads…

Correction: Her dads.

…Her dads. That felt… Weird.

And worst of all: What if Webby had been hurt?

Her best friend had been at the thick of the fighting, literally part of Earth’s last defense!

“But…”, Lena admitted, as she walked up to a hill overseeing the moon men spaceships. “I can’t exactly criticize others for nearly hurting my friends and family.”

Lena shivered for a moment as she got another intense flashback: A regular occurrence, but never a pleasant one.

“After all… I nearly did too.”

Oh no. She was sinking again.

And she was hearing a weird sound again.

One negative thought leads to another. Soon she’d be thinking about lying to Webby about their friendship, which would be followed by trying to steal Scrooge’s number one dime, followed by losing her body to her “loving” Aunt Magica, followed by being trapped for a YEAR as a shadow, followed by almost becoming Magica…

Lena suddenly realized that the weird sound she was hearing was her own hyperventilating, and, not wanting anyone to see, she clasped her beak with her right wind and clenched her left wing’s fist, hoping that she could force it out.

It didn’t really work, but thankfully, a distraction arose.

“So… Moon people.”

Lena had heard many distinct sounds in her life, but perhaps the driest (and right now, most thankfully distracting) sound she had ever heard was the voice of Violet Saberwing, her aforementioned adopted sister/giant pain.

Lena smiled in relief as she approached the hummingbird with a mint green shirt and average expression (though Lena had lived with her enough time to know that there was a small smile that was only reserved for her), and the two sisters stood face to face… Sort of.

Lena was very tall.

“Should that be something I should be worried about? Most kids my age are around her height.”, Lena thought, and she cringed. “Am I seriously getting angsty over my height as well?”

Violet nodded at the disappearing space craft with an educated sniff. “Must say, not only did I think that no one lived on the moon, but I didn’t think they’d be such…”

“Jerks?”, Lena offered, still frustrated with their behavior and conduct.

“I was going to say inhospitable invaders, but sure, jerks in laymans terms works too.”, Violet dryly joked (at least, Lena thought it was a joke. You could never tell with Violet).

The two stood in silence for a moment as the ships continued to lazily leave. There were MANY, MANY ships, so the evacuation would take some time.

Some people, like Lena and Violet, opted to stand and watch the ships go by. There were even those who sat on the grass and ate sandwiches, waving goodbye to the would be conquerors.

Others, though, were preparing to leave back to their homes and their sort of but not really normal lives.

Off the corner of her left eye, Lena spotted the McDuck family entering a number of sleek black limosuines.

She could see Scrooge, Webby still clinging to his chest, stepping in to the vehicle, or at least, trying to, since Dewey tried to backflip in.

She couldn’t hear anything, but she didn’t need to to see Scrooge humorously chide the energetic boy, or Webby giggle that lovable laugh of hers.

Huey was excitedly jotting down something in his Junior Woodchuck guide book (for sure all the “thrilling” moon facts he had learned in the last few hours), Della and Donald were laughing together for the first time in a decade, and Launchpad was trying to reattach the car door he had just broken.

Lena could see multiple faces in that crowd, faces she sort of recognized from the last few days, like that Darkwing what’s his name, and Gizmoduck, or faces that she had known for a long time, like Mrs. Beakly and Duckworth.

There were even faces she was only vaguely aware of, like Qucakfast and Gyro Gearloose.

But even those she didn’t recognize made her feel almost…

At home.

Like they were all one big family.

But Lena was honestly unsure if she could ever belong to that family.

What with…

“No!”, She demanded, furious with her mind. “No, I DON’T want to think about this!”

“I’m better now…”, she said to herself, but less assuredly.

For a few minutes, Lena and Violet sat silently as the ships departed, saying nothing, Lena lost in her thoughts, Violet trying her best not to think about the fact that her adopted sister was clearly suffering again.

Finally, Violet stood up and clicked her tongue.

“Welp, I’ve had all the fun one can possibly have from watching aliens enter spaceships.”

“Zero?”, Lena asked with half a smirk, looking up at her new little sister.

Violet again unleashed that small smile that only Lena got. “Around that amount.”

She looked back at her dads, who were waving at her next to the mini.

“Dad and Dad want us to come home and have a “Post Moonvasion Goulash”.”

“What the heck is that?”, Lena asked, humor laced in her words.

“Whatever it is, it’s going into our beaks. But they’re good cooks, so…”, Violet shrugged, and she started walking out.

Suddenly, she looked back at Lena, whose back was hunched and her shoulders were slumped as she stared at the lonely wet grass.

“…You… You coming?”

Hesitation could be heard, a rarity from Violet.

Not much phased the girl; she was a bit of an emotionless girl (which worried her fathers endlessly, much to her chargin).

However, if there was one thing that upset the bookworm, it was the sight of her new older sister depressed yet again.

Violet, however, was a smart kid; she knew that she wouldn’t be able to talk to Lena yet.

And if anyone could, they’d have to be particularly stubborn.

Violet knew that right now, that wasn’t her.

But she still asked an empty question, one she knew the answer to, hoping against hope that Lena would just come instead of spend the next few hours…

“You go ahead. I’ll… I’ll catch up.”, Lena breathed out breathlessly, her voice as distant as the moon that had brought upon her mood.

Violet nodded, knowing that this was to be the answer. “All right.”

She turned her back to Lena, half a sad look back.

“I’ll… I’ll keep a seat warm for you if you want to play Smash Bros.”

Lena nodded wordlessly.

“Cool.”, Violet remarked, and sighing, she began to walk up to her dads, trying to calculate how she would explain to her dads that Lena needed to feel bad again.

And for now…

Lena was alone.

Like always…

Lena was alone.

As she would always be…

Lena. Was.

Alone.

A light breeze blew gently, tickling her beak, making her wrinkle it.

Her eyes closed as she tried to breath deeply like Mrs. Beakly had suggested once.

Breath deeply, count to ten, and try to ignore the all encompassing guilt of existing.

Easier said then done.

But Lena never did do things easily, now did she?

Entering a lotus position (sort of. She needed to work on that, it wasn’t easy), Lena tried to focus only on good things.

“The past is behind me. The past is… Behind me.”, she said, shivering as she tried to ignore.

She tried SO HARD.

And she was SO TIRED.

“Think… About what you have.”, she said to herself, and she breathed deeply.

The wind blew through her hair, and she thought of Violet.

“I have a sister… And I have two dads. That’s cool. Some people have no dads. I’ve got two. Beat that.”

She took another deep breath, her words unsure.

“I have… Mrs. Beakly and Scrooge and Donald and Della and Launchpad looking after me. And I have Huey, Dewey and Louie.”

She took another deep breath, trying to ignore the terrifying feeling of inevitable depression.

“I have… Webby…”

She imagined herself grabbing hold of Webby’s hand, the friendship bracelets glowing…

Only for a strange yet familiar hand to grip her arm hard, removing the friendship bracelet in the process.

“Ow!”, Lena cried, and suddenly she saw herself back at the beach, contacting Aunt Magica.

“Aunt Magica…”, she had whispered, almost triumphantly. “I’m in.”

“This… Is your fault…”, a voice whispered.

Lena’s eyes widened and she turned to the voice, the waves crashing oddly muted, but her heartbeat pounding like a rocket launch in her ear. “Who said that? I’m… It’s not my…”

Suddenly she got smacked by an invisible hand, which flung her somewhere else.

Somewhere dark and cold.

“IT IS YOUR FAULT!”, the voice screeched, echoing and disappearing suddenly.

Turning around, Lena saw herself underground, lying to Mrs. Beakly over her allegiance.

“You lied…”

Lena looked around, searching for the voice that wasn’t there, yet also was.

“No I didn’t! I mean, I did, it’s just…”

“SILENCE!”, she got hit again, her beak throbbing now, forced tears dropping, lying on the ground, completely helpless.

“No… I…”

Suddenly she heard the tracks and the whistle.

The train was going to hit Beakly, just like last time.

“Beakly, look out!”, Lena screamed, but when she jumped at Beakly, she got hit by the train.

Waking up, she found herself in the shark she had created.

She had created.

Her fault.

Her fault

Her fau…

“Shut up!”, she shouted, eyes closed shut, but it wasn’t enough. The fingers kept pointing, pointing, pointing, changing, transforming, until they became…

“We’re friends, you beautiful idiot! I don’t care what you did!”

Lena wanted to believe that.

She HAD to believe that, it had to be true!

“Look at what you did for a body…”, the voice whispered again, leaving feedback in her ears, but Lena didn’t have time for guilt!

She had to save Webby and herself!

Sliding down like she had, she chanted “With the hand of my best friend…”

Lena glowed blue like she had then, and she could see Webby falling.

An excited smile popped on her face, redemption was right there for the taking!

“I bring about…”

But as she reached towards Webby, the invisible hand choked her, lifting her up from the ground.

Lena grasped and throttled, barely calling out Webby’s name as the duckling fell down and down and down and down…

“WEBBY!”, she screamed, tears falling, her vocal chords nearly damaged, as she got dropped down to the ground…

“TAKE. THE. DIME!”

And here she was, in the other bin, Scrooge’s fabled Number One Dime almost at her grasp, Aunt Magica ordering, demanding her to seal the world’s fate…

Her hand slowly and surely reached…

“NO!”, Lena screamed, taking her hand away, but the invisible hand pulled her back towards it.

A tug of war occurred, Lena desperately trying to go away from the coin, the invisible hand dragging her back.

“Hands off of me, you… Hand!”, Lena shouted, and with a swift tug, she got out of the hands grasp and rolled away just in time to…

It glinted in her palm, just like last time.

“…Oh no…”, Lena whispered, failing to believe that she had done it.

“But why is it so hard to believe, Lena?”, the voice echoed in her mind as she went to her knees and held her head in fear, shame and panic.

“After all…”

Webby’s body fell from the money shark down to the ground next to her.

“WEBBY! Are you all…”

But Lena couldn’t finish the question. As she turned her friend around, the haunting image of a Webby doll stared right back at her.

Lena backed away in fright, barely reaching the wall behind her, gasping and hyperventilating.

“STOP IT! LET MY FRIEND GO!”, Lena screamed at the invisible hand.

“Stop what? What you’ve been doing?”

Another smack and Lena found herself in Magica’s hands, the witch’s face turning into her own, maliciously grinning at her.

“You’ve been using her, pulling her strings…”

Lena tried to escape, but the invisible hands held her tighter as Magica forcibly entered her soul and…

All was black.

All was lost.

Her eyes, her mind, her heart…

Poisoned to the core.

And here she was in the mansion.

Nearly destroying Scrooge’s life, the once great man laying distraught on the ground.

“Mr. McDuck? You don’t have to…”, Lena tried again to help, but the shadows came tumbling down around her, a vortex opening between her feet.

“It’s your fault they almost DIED!”

A kick to the chest nearly stopped her heart and her eyes rolled up to her head and…

Silence.

Shadows.

Nothing.

Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours turn to days turn to weeks turn to months…

“YOU HURT BEAKLEY!”

A punch like a train collided with her beak.

She tasted blood in her mouth and recoiled.

“YOU HURT SCROOGE!”

Her knees tripped and she smashed down to the ground, coughing out blood, her arms wobbling as she tried to stand up.

“YOU HURT THE McDUCK CLAN! YOUR CLOSEST THING TO A FAMILY!”

Multiple punches, kicks, pokes in the eye, scratches and slaps collided, hurt everywhere and nowhere, instantaneous and everlasting, inducing hot tears of shame that melted her face, retching out her soul.

The ethereal brightly lit soul, looking like Webby, reached out her hand, and Lean, desperate for redemption, reached out her hand in return.

The friendship bracelets returned, glowing brightly, Lena’s smile returning with joyful tears, hope seemingly back…

When Webby reached in and removed her heart.

“YOU HURT ME!”, Webby screeched, and pushed her off a cliff, Lena knowing she deserved it…

“No… That’s not true… It’s… Not my…”

Wake up.

Go to sleep.

Wake down.

Go to rest.

Wake on.

Go to the light.

Wake off…

DOWN TO THE DARK.

Lena crashed down, eyes braced for impact, only to be caught by…

“Violet?”, Lena asked, Violet right there, as ever, holding her back.

Lena burst into tears and cheered, nearly squishing Violet.

She smiled gratefully as her tears made Violet’s shirt wet, the hummingbird still silent.

“Violet! Oh my god, thank goodness you’re here! I almost…”

“ALMOST WHAT? HURT VIOLET?”, The voice returned, and Lena got held back as Violet was moved away, her eyes blank and lifeless, next to Webby, her Dads, Huey, Dewey, Lewie, Scrooge, Mrs. Beakley, Donald, Della, Launchpad…

“NO! I’D NEVER!”, Lena screamed back, when suddenly she saw a giant hand reach to hurt her family.

“STOP!”, She ordered, and she shot a blinding magic blast, purple light fizzing everywhere, sparks entering her eyes.

But at least the blast…

“…No…”, she mouthed, as she saw…

Empty eyes…

Limp hands…

Cold, unmoving bodies…

They were…

Dead…

“Because of you…”, the invisible voice whispered, this time almost gently.

Lena sobbed and sobbed as she got to her knees and held her face in her hands, crying tears, crying black magic, crying blood…

“Your fault… You killed them… You always did… It was you… From the very beginning…”

Lena suddenly felt herself changing, yet somehow staying the same…

She felt different, yet familiar…

A mirror was propped up between her and a wall, and Lena looked in to see…

“YOU were the villain.”

Magica’s face stared back at her, cackling.

Lena screamed, and anger and rage consuming her, she shouted “THAT’S. NOT. ME!”

She punched the mirror, but instead of the glass shattering, Magica’s face shattered, turning into…

“Me.”, she breathed out.

“You’re right, Lena…”,the voice said, taking shape as…

“You’re not Magica…”

Lena turned around to see…

Herself.

“You’re you.”

Lena stared back at the other Lena and vice versa.

The first looked like Lena always did, but the second was… different.

Her tears were black, her eyes were soulless, and her body was scarred beyond repair…

For some reason, Lena felt compelled to touch the other Lena’s hand…

So she stepped towards her…

And…

The two put their palms together…

“You’re you…”

Lena, smiling bravely despite it all, tried to wipe the black tears off of the other Lena…

WHOOSH!

It took a moment for Lena to realize that the weird wet thing she felt on her shirt was blood…

Spewing and gushing down from a gaping hole in her heart…

A diamond knife twisting harder and harder into her chest…

The other Lena crying and laughing, smiling and frowning, joyful and distraught…

“You’re you…”, the other Lena said…

“And that’s even worse than Magica.”

Lena tried to speak but no words formed.

The other Lena suddenly pushed Lena off the cliff, her family suddenly appearing, waving goodbye as she soared down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down no hope no hope all is lost all is lost it’s over it’s over I’m lost I’m lost life lost life lost love torn love gone love lost love found love taken pain granted wishes of pain slit and desist and stop and never come back the guilt is you and you are the guilt and your actions never lose their impact you try to swim but you sink because the depths of your shame know no limit and the folly of redemption is but a tick an illusion a n empty promise like your meaningless existence daring you to be anything more than what you are but you know you can’t because to your great and everlasting fault you are no one but…

“Me”

But just before Lena can finally sink to the bottom of the sea and gain everything by losing it all…

“Hey, Lena.”

Violently waking up, as if nothing had happened, Lena gasps and turns around suddenly, the voice now not belonging to herself but to…

Louie Duck.

“…Sup?”

Lena takes a moment to visualize her surroundings.

The Moon men ships are soaring in the sky, the grass is blowing softly near her feet and Louis is standing next to her, hands in his pockets.

The nightmare is over. She really is back.

But was that a good thing?

Right now, though, she didn’t have time to process the raw trauma she had just experience, since Louie was next to her, and she wanted to get rid of him before he caught on.

Taking a deep breath and trying her best to hide the terror and resignation from her voice, Lena said “…Hey Louie.”

Louie kept his hands in his hoodie pockets, a blank expression on his face.

It was hard to tell what he was really feeling, and usually that blank expression was accurate, but one got the feeling that this time it was an act.

“So… You watching the moon people leave?”

Lena nodded, hoping that would be good enough of an answer.

“All alone on this hill?”

Apparently, it wasn’t good enough of an answer.

“I’ve gotta get rid of him!”, Lena thought, calculating options quickly. “Maybe a barb will shut him up.”

“What’s the matter?”, she asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Aren’t you busy taking over McDuck Enterprises and sending it down the toilet?”

Louie took it in stride, but Lena could tell that he was hiding his true feelings about that day. “Hey, that was last week. I’m a changed duck!”

“Wow. New Louie is only one week old and already as disappointing as old Louie.”

Lena knew she was being a jerk, but right now that was easier than sharing… All that.

Besides, she didn’t really have a relationship with Louie.

Sure, he had helped her with her nightmares, and she’d forever be in his debt for that, but that was about it.

“Oh, man.”, Lena thought, the hole in her chest hurting. “I sound like such an asshole.”

Louie however, did not take the insult that hard.

“Mind if I sit down?”

Lena did mind.

But it seemed like Louie would not take no for an answer.

Besides, she could just avoid it, she’d done it before!

So Lena patted the ground next to her, not daring to look at Louie out of fear that he’d see through her mask.

“Sit down, the grass is fine.”

So he sat down next to her, albeit with his back to her.

And for a while, the two ducklings did nothing but sit and breath, Lena’s heart hurting and Louie’s mind working overtime.

There were still a few moon people embarking their crafts, but they would all be gone soon, and Lena would have no excuse to stay.

She tried to come up with some kind of way to kick Louie out, but her mind came up with blanks, instead continuing to quietly and slowly hurl more and more guilt onto her.

Suddenly, Louie broke the silence. “…Why are you really sitting here?”

Lena didn’t want to answer.

So she said nothing.

Louie sighed. “Silent treatment?”

Lena still said nothing.

Louie sniffed for a moment, blinking at the clouds. “…Look, if you’re not going to tell me what’s on your mind, then I’ll tell you why you should tell me.”

Lena barely stifled a dark chuckle. “I should tell you? No offense, Louie, but I find it hard to believe that you of all people hold the key to making me feel less shitty.”

Louie objected to this, of course. “Come on! You’re not even willing to give me a chance to prove myself?”

“Well, let’s see: You broke the timestream, nearly losing your family, you scammed Glomgold out of his entire company, NOT that he didn’t deserve it, and, oh, there’s the little thing of taking over Scrooge’s company and almost running it into the ground in a day.” Lena scoffed and counted on her fingers.

Louie, half jokingly and half seriously defended himself. “Ok, ok, so mistakes were made…”

“Title of your autobiography.”, Lena quipped.

“I was thinking something more like “Louie Duck: Lit and Fit with Moolah in the Mint”, but sure, “Mistakes Were Made” works too.”

And again, silence fell.

For a moment, Lena thought she had avoided it for good, but then Louis spoke again, this time with a little more emotion.

“…I really could help you. If you’d let me.”

Lena sighed, knowing that the youngest duck triplet’s intentions were good, but misguided. “Look, Louie, it’s really cool of you to try, but…”

She left that sentence hanging, but Louie didn’t need the rest of it to interpret its meaning.

That didn’t stop him from insisting. “I’m telling you, I can at least try.”

Lena, tired of waiting, turned to him, anger in her eyes. Louie could also detect damp spots in said eyes, but he decided that he’d rather not die like that. “Louie, I’m serious: Stop trying.”

Louie knew that messing with Lena was a bad idea: She could get pretty mad, and he knew that he was no match physically for her.

But it didn’t stop him from staring right back, eyes narrowed with determination.

“Why? I’m tired of taking the easy route.”

Lena laughed. “Since when?”

“Since last week!”, Louie shouted back, slight emotion crawling into his voice.

“You can’t. Change. In a week!”, Lena emphasized, talking more to herself than to Louie.

“How are you so sure? How are you so sure that you can’t?”, Louie turned the tables.

Lena groaned, frustrated with his stubbornness. “Louie, you can’t help me!”

“Why?”, he shouted back, not expecting the following event.

Lena, finally out of patience, shoved him to the ground, angry tears flying off her eyes, a red face and a shaking body above him now.

“I. CAN’T. BE. HELPED!”

Realizing what she did, she turned her back to him, clenching her fists and looking down at the ground with shame.

She wished it could swallow her whole, leaving no trace.

But to her great misfortune…

She was still alive.

Louie slowly got up, dusting himself off, not averting his gaze from her hunched back and slumped shoulders.

“…No. You can’t be helped.”

Lena knew it was true, but it didn’t stop the shiver that emcommpassed her entire body.

But Louie wasn’t finished.

“You can’t be helped if you never let yourself be helped.”

“Sometimes, I really just want to deck that kid.”, Lena thought, and she turned around, pissed.

“Louie, for god’s sake, shut up…”

“No. Not until you hear me out.”

The two were in an unofficial stand still, a sort of unspoken staring contest, both refusing to break.

Lena desperately wanted to kick him out…

But at the same time, she knew that he wouldn’t leave without having his say.

Sighing, she turned her back again, and, muttering, she murmured “Fine. What do you want to say?”

Louie cleared his throat, knowing that he was now in the homestretch. He had to nail this or he’d lose his chance to help her.

And hard as it was for even him to believe, he wanted to help her.

Twiddling his thumbs, his usual confidence absent,, he started to make his point.

“As I’m sure you know, I can be kind of… Selfish and manipulative.”

Lena shook her head, failing to believe this. “Are we seriously talking about you?”

Louie quickly intervened. “Wait, wait, hear me out!”

Lena sighed and motioned for him to go on.

Louie kicked some grass and continued. “What I was trying to say is, as you know, I can be a real jerk.”

“Real asshole.”, Lena added.

“Yeah, that too.”

“And a dick.”, Lena added, now with a dry smile.

“Ok, that’s a bit much.”, Louie protested.

“And a prick, moron and cock.��

Louie dryly looked back at her. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“Oh, very.”, Lena admitted, enjoying the moment of relief.

Louie sighed. “Oh boy. Anyway, what I was trying to say, is that yes, I am all those things. And for a long time, I didn’t really think of the consequences of my actions.”

He started to get a little more serious, the memories of his past mistakes still a touchy matter.

Lena knew this, and she started to feel a little bad for barbing him so much. He too had regrets.

“I regret that. I regret tricking my family, I regret the timephoon, and I definitely regret taking over the company.”

Emotion broke into his voice, and Lena swore that she could hear a tear or two, but she refused to turn, still rejecting help.

That, and she didn’t want to embarrass him.

“I… I fucked up real bad.”

Lena snickered. “Gee, what a dirty mouth. You kiss your mother with that mouth, Lellwyn?”

“Oh, you bet! That dirty mouth didn’t even have that privilege until about 3 weeks ago! I’ll kiss her with my disgusting mouth as much as I want!”, Louie retorted jokingly, but Lena could tell that Louie really had missed his mom.

She wondered what that felt like.

Louie resumed his talk. “Anyhow… I… I didn’t realize I was wrong. I was sure that there was only one way in life for me: To scam everyone in my way, make it rich quick and live the easy life. But I see now that…”

He sighed. It was never easy to say this, but he had to for Lena’s sake.

“I see now that I was wrong.”

Lena sighed too. “Louie… You don’t have to be hard on yourself.”

Louie disagreed. “No. You’re wrong. I should be. I made big mistakes. And I need to fix them. And it will take time.”

Louie then smiled hopefully, a little at himself and a little at her. “But… Here’s the thing.”

He closed his eyes, feeling the wind in his hair. “The reason I’ve been able to live with myself… The reason I’m not just lying in my room hating myself for being suck a dick… Is because I took the first step towards redemption. Something you haven’t done.”

Lena raised an eyebrow, turning towards him. “…What are you talking about? What did I not do?”

Louie smiled softly, sympathy present in his eyes. “You didn’t forgive yourself.”

Lena gulped. In a way, she knew he was right, but at the same time…

“Louie… I can’t.”

“Why not?”, he asked, pressing her.

“I… I just can’t!”, Lena shot back, turning again, clutching herself, feeling cold.

“I… I’ve done too much. I’ve… I’ve fallen too far down.”

“No. You. Haven’t.”

Lena growled. “Louie, you don’t know what I’ve gone through.”

“Of course not. But answer me this: Did you choose to steal the number one dime?”

Lena turned to him, hands on her hips. “Uh, duh! Of course I did!”

“No, Magica did. You only did it because she told you to.”

“That doesn’t change what I did!”, Lena protested, attacking herself.

“Yes it does! You were being led astray by an abusive family figure! It’s a perfect excuse, ‘cause it’s not an excuse! It’s fucking abuse!”

Lena shook her head, not wanting to fool herself into believing. “Louie, even if that’s true…”

“Did you choose to make the money shark? Or the shadow war? Did you choose to let your body be taken over?”, Louie asked, disgust laced in his voice.

“Well…”, Lena had to admit, he was making a good point.

But she still felt so guilty.

“Well, I guess I…”

“No, no guessing. Yes or no.”

“But…”

“Yes or no.”

“Wait, I…”

“Yes. Or. No.”

“Listen, ok, it’s not that simple…”

Lena was spiraling, and Louie refused to budge.

“Yes or no, Lena! It IS simple!”

“No, it’s not!”

“Answer me!”

Lena shook and her head throbbed and her heart pounded and…

“Did you choose to be made?”

That was it. That was the million dollar question.

But the prize was most definitely not cash.

“NO, OK? I DIDN’T CHOOSE IT! I DIDN’T CHOOSE TO LIVE!”

Lena collapsed to her knees, weeping, not caring anymore who saw.

“I…”, she started weakly, her breath cold, her body aching.

“I didn’t choose to live. I didn’t ask for all of this.”

Louie stepped up to her, a look of pure sympathy painted on him. “…Exactly.”

Louie knelt down and embraced her, which surprised her. They were not huggers.

“Don’t dismember me.”, Louie asked, and Lena couldn’t help but smile at that.

“No promises…”, she said, through the tears.

Louie separated from the hug and gazed into her eyes.

“Lena… I get why you feel guilty. You almost hurt all the people you love, you helped an evil witch, and you nearly became her.”

He smiled encouragingly. “But you’re not. You were forced to do all this. You were being manipulated. Hurt. Controlled.”

Lena started listening, almost willing to accept it all.

“None of that was your fault. As you said, you didn’t ask for any of this: Magica did.”

Lena shook her head. “So what? That doesn’t absolve me for life.”

“Of course not. But…”

Louie nodded slowly. “You have something you didn’t have before. Something Magica never gave you.”

Lena stuttered out a question. “…W-What?”

“…A choice.”

The wind blew and the birds chirped and Lena took a deep breath.

“A choice?”, she asked.

Louie nodded, sitting down next to her. “I could choose to keep scamming. But I want to work hard from now on. I want to earn my riches. I want to do it the right way.”

He shrugged. “And if I don’t choose to do that, if I choose to revert to type, well… I’m choosing to be what I hate. I’m choosing to be the version I’m ashamed of.”

Lena nodded.

“I’m not saying you’re bad. ‘Cause you’re not. But if you decide that you are bad, well… You’ll never have a chance to be good.”

Louie smiled. “We’re all willing to forgive you, Lena. You’re family. But… Are you willing to forgive yourself?”

Lena hated to admit it… But he was right.

“Wow. You actually said something that didn’t piss me off.”

Louie laughed. “Yeah, I know, shocking.”

Lena suddenly hugged him.

“Woah.”, he exclaimed, surprised by this.

Lena now had happy tears. “Thanks for talking to me.”

She wiped the tears away as she separated herself from him. “…I know that… That I didn’t choose to do these things.”

She looked down in shame. “But I can’t help and feel like I did.”

Louie nodded. “The only way out is to forgive yourself. You’re not even giving yourself a chance to get better.”

Lena fearfully asked the question that terrified her: “…What if I still go bad?”

Louie sighed. “You won’t. You’re better than you think you are. You helped us all eve under Magica’s control. You’re a great person. Now it’s time to let yourself be that person.”

Lena looked back at the clouds.

Forgiving herself couldn’t be easy..

She still felt all the things she had done… No. All the things she had been forced to do.

Well… If that’s the case…

Then she hasn’t had a chance to actually BE bad.

Which mean, in a sense…

“I have a blank slate.”, she uttered quietly.

And if that was true…

Then…

Then there WAS hope.

If she had a blank slate, then she had just as much of a chance of ending up good as she did ending up bad.

For the first time in her life…

Lena had a choice.

Lena could try again.

One more chance.

Tears flowed down as Lena realized she could be who she wants to be.

She COULD.

And, despite spending so many years in the company of magic, that was the most magical thing she had ever seen.

“There really is still hope…”

Lena slowly stood up, following the last alien ship as it began to leave.

Closing her eyes, she projected all the mistakes she had made.

All the terrible things that she was forced to do.

Magica wasn’t her…

She was an illness.

To fight an illness, one must accept that it isn’t who they are.

But also…

To choose to fight it.

Lena could see that she could be good.

But she could never be good, be happy…

If she didn’t forgive herself.

A hand softly landed over her heart.

“…I didn’t choose to be like that. And I choose not to be.”

She closed her eyes tight. “From now on… I choose to be me. The real me.”

She smiled.

“I give myself… A chance.”

And that’s what she did, as her guilt flew away to the moon, far far away.

And as one last tear flowed down, Lena felt it.

Hope.

It would take time… Time to heal. To discover herself. To shut the voice down.

But…

One day…

She’d be good.

And she’d be happy.

And she’d be… Herself.

And that was truly magical.

#ducktales #ducktales fanfiction #Lena #lena ducktales #ducktales louie #ducktales season 2 #violet sabrewing #lena saberwing #saberwing sisters #moonvasion #lenasmagic

19 notes · View notes

sciencespies · 6 years ago

Text

9 ways today's society is like the one that filled Earth with garbage in WALL-E

https://sciencespies.com/humans/9-ways-todays-society-is-like-the-one-that-filled-earth-with-garbage-in-wall-e/

9 ways today's society is like the one that filled Earth with garbage in WALL-E

More than 10 years after it was released, watching Pixar’s film WALL-E today is a chilling experience.

The backdrop of WALL-E and EVE’s robot love story is a dystopian society where humans have abandoned Earth to their trash and left robots to clean up while they cruise space.

When the much-loved animation came out in 2008, it was a bittersweet warning to use less, move more, and stop staring at the damn screen.

But we obviously didn’t heed it too well, because as of 2019, we already have an uncomfortable amount in common with the futuristic humans aboard the Axiom spaceship.

The one thing the film’s creators were way off on? The timeline. WALL-E is set in 2805 (humans left Earth in 2105), but according to some key measures, we might not be that far off in reality.

Here are nine signs we’re going down the same path as the humans in WALL-E.

1. We can’t stop buying stuff

Thanks to technological and social advances, every day more people are moving out of poverty and into the consumer class. We’re also living in a more peaceful time than ever before. What do we do with all that extra time, energy, and money?

We consume.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

The average US household now owns 300,000 things; 10-year-olds in the UK have 238 toys – but only play with around 12 of them. We shop so much, we increasingly have to rent off-site storage units. And then every few seasons we throw it all out and start again.

With the internet opening up new avenues for consumption – shopping on Instagram, influencer-inspired buying, and now even publishers telling us what to buy – it’s not hard to imagine how our desire to buy new things is overwhelming the planet.

The Buy n Large tagline “Too much garbage in your face? There’s plenty of space out in space!” playing on loop in WALL-E could easily apply.

We never see the humans of the film before they leave Earth for the Axiom, but based on the waste and omnipresent advertising they leave behind, it’s safe to say they liked to shop, too.

youtube

So is there a way to keep shopping and avoid that fate? Probably not – in the United Nations’ (UN) draft Global Sustainable Development Report 2019, researchers argue that this consumerist system isn’t compatible with protecting the planet.

“Economies have used up the capacity of planetary ecosystems to handle the waste generated by energy and material use,” the report explains.

2. We’re drowning in our own waste

The major plot line of WALL-E is that Earth has been overrun with garbage, making it unsuitable for plant or animal life. The WALL-E robots were tasked with cleaning it up, while humans enjoyed a five-year off-planet cruise (which, spoiler alert, ended up lasting centuries).

While we may not have city-sized trash mounds today, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem with the waste we’re spewing out into the environment.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Pollution is already one of the leading causes of death worldwide, killing 9 million people each year and predicted to get worse. A World Health Organisation study last year found that 93 percent of children on the planet are now breathing in polluted air.

With plastic waste and rubbish choking our plants and animals, and human-induced climate change increasing ocean acidification and forest fires, the planet is becoming a less friendly place for life – even our own fertility rates are dropping.

And it’s only going to get worse, with China soon refusing to take in any of the nearly 4,000 shipping containers of waste the US sends each day for recycling.

3. We’re dominated by mega companies

In WALL-E, society has become dominated by a mega conglomerate punfully called Buy n Large, or BnL. By the time Earth is abandoned, BnL has become so omnipresent, it not only covers cities with its advertisements and discarded products, but also owns the spacecraft humans leave on. It also has the power to declare global emergencies.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Today, there are just a handful of megacompanies that have huge power of the rest of us and our futures, capable of driving fake news, opioid crises, and covering up climate change.

In fact, just 100 companies are responsible for 71 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

And while the whole space thing might sound futuristic, don’t forget retail giant Amazon not only sells billions of products to consumers all around the world, its founder Jeff Bezos also owns Blue Origin – an aerospace company that aims to help facilitate ‘private human access to space’.

(Blue Origin)

4. We’re lonely, despite being more connected

Humans are more connected than ever before thanks to technology, and yet we also report feeling more isolated than ever. In many parts of the world, we’re having less sex and birth rates are dropping. Twenty-two percent of millennials say they have “no friends”.

This type of empty connection is mirrored in WALL-E, where the robots are more human than the humans are.

On the Axiom, humans have digital screens perpetually beamed in front of their faces that allow them to video chat, but we don’t see any intimate family groups. No one touches (until WALL-E and EVE come along), and we don’t see couples together, or parents with children – toddlers are raised by AI in classrooms.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

5. Obesity is on the rise

Okay, this one’s obvious – one of the most striking things about the humans in WALL-E is that they’re all fat. Just look at how the Axiom’s captains have changed since the mission launched.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

To be fair, space reduces muscle mass and makes you puffy.

But we’re not on a dissimilar path of weight gain. Obesity rates have nearly tripled since 1975 and are still increasing.

In the film, it probably has something to do with the fact that people no longer walk. Even as babies, they use self-driving hoverchairs to get them around.

That isn’t so far fetched – with self-driving car technology moving out of the lab, and people more sedentary than ever before, it’s not hard to imagine us all sitting back and letting technology drive us around.

And then there’s this photo, taken in Walmart in 2015:

(mlevid/Imgur)

In fact, BMW has already made something that looks suspiciously like the WALL-E chair, their ‘personal mobility concept’ vehicle i-REAL.

youtube

6. We can’t stop staring at screens

I’m not just talking about social media here, but also Netflix, YouTube, Hulu… While we do use technology to connect with friends and family across the globe in ways we couldn’t in the past, the average adult today consumes five times more information daily than a counterpart in 1986.

We’re also watching close to eight hours of TV a day. Our binge-watching has even become an environmental issue.

The humans in WALL-E are just a small step up from this, with their screens now projected in front of them all the time – giving them 24/7 access to ads, entertainment, and shopping.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

In one telling scene, two friends are chatting to each other online but never realise they’re actually right next to each other. Another woman only realises there’s a gigantic pool on the cruise ship after her screen is interrupted by WALL-E getting in her way.

Sound familiar?

7. We feel useless

In a crucial line in the film, the Axiom’s Captain B. McCrea tells the autopilot “I don’t want to survive, I want to live.” Up until that point, the only thing he’s done himself is read out the morning announcements.

The rest of the humans on board don’t seem to work at all. They’re purposeless – their roles replaced by technology and their home planet destroyed. Even back on Earth, WALL-E was left behind just cubing up waste and moving it from one place to the next.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Many of us don’t feel much more productive. A 2015 poll in the UK revealed that 37 percent of Brits think their job is meaningless. And scientists have predicted that roughly half of all jobs will be replaced by technology – not centuries from now, but in the next 20 years.

On top of that, we often feel powerless in the face of the climate crisis, with our best attempts at action dwarfed by the negative impacts from industry and government.

8. Going to space might be our only chance of survival… if you can afford it

The Axiom wasn’t taking people offshore as a humanitarian act – it was a ticketed, luxury cruise. There’s no mention of other evacuation missions from Earth, so if we assume the Axiom is all that’s left, what happened to the humans who couldn’t afford a ticket?

Probably the same thing that will happen, and is already happening, to those of us who aren’t rich enough to be protected from the worst effects of climate change.

Going to space is one option for human survival if our planet becomes so hot that it’s no longer habitable. But even with reusable rockets, space is expensive, and there won’t be room for everyone.

9. There’s still hope

As depressing as the film may be, there’s still hope for humanity. Life starts to bloom again on Earth. The antics of WALL-E and EVE wake up the passengers from their mindless scrolling. Captain B. McCrea fights back.

(WALL-E, Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

And there’s hope for us, too.

Yes, the outlook is bleak, but the science is clear – we can turn this ship around. Every degree of warming we can avoid will save lives, will protect ecosystems.

Perhaps the biggest difference between us and the humans in WALL-E is that we’re not useless – yet. We might feel it, but we still have a role to play in stopping the coming climate crisis.

In turning around our mindless consumption. In remembering that we vote governments in to serve our interests, not to protect the status quo. And we shouldn’t be scared to vote them out.

This is why we’re striking today. There is no news worth covering that could possibly be more important than reminding society that we still have a voice, and we still have power.

This article is part of ScienceAlert’s special climate edition, published in support of the global #ClimateStrike on 20 September 2019.

#Humans

2 notes · View notes

xxx-cat-xxx · 7 years ago

Text

A hand upon my forehead

A short ´n sweet little Peter - Irondad sickfic cause you all deserve it. Reblog or leave comments if you like it, I´m moving flats, have been packing boxes all weekend and crave some human interaction.

Mild fever and emeto here, very faint mention of painkiller overuse, but really, this is mostly fluff. Have a good start into the week, everyone!

“Mr. Stark, why aren´t you in bed?”

Tony startles when Peter´s voice interrupts him in the middle of solving a rather tricky equation. He glances up from the screen he has been bent over for the past hours.

The kid is leaning against the workshop´s doorway, eyes barely open, light brown curls sticking out in all directions. He has clearly just woken up. There´s a nasty bruise over his cheekbone that´s slowly turning purple and adds to the boys´s overall dishevelled appearance, but Tony doubts that he himself is looking any better.

“Not a night for sleeping, Pete,” he replies matter-of-factly.

Tony is always edgy after missions, and forcing himself to rest usually ends in the sort of unpleasant dreams he rather seeks to avoid. Coffee and tinkering had seemed like a more preferable choice when they had gotten back to the tower a few hours ago. However, the headache throbbing behind his eyes tells him that maybe, maybe the kid has a point.

“You...you must be tired.” Peter states, sounding a little off.

“Pfffh, a short rendez-vous with New York´s most pitiful criminals doesn´t wear Iron Man out”, he brags. “Gone without sleep for much longer in more adverse situations. My record must be somewhere at... Friday?”

“86 hours, boss. And the fact that you appear to be proud of sleep-deprivation shows that you have a serious issue with-”

“Ya ya, Mummy,” he cuts her off, facing Peter again. “Anyways, what brings you here at this ungodly hour?”

“Actually...” His protégé looks a little embarrassed. “Do you have some Advil down here? Think I´m running a fever.”

Tony swivels his chair around.

“Don´t worry, it´s not bad”, Peter hurries to add when he catches Tony´s alarmed gaze.

The older man takes a closer look at Peter. What he mistook for a casual stance in the doorway is actually an attempt of inconspicuously supporting his weight against the metal frame. The kid´s whole posture radiates tiredness, and he is a few shades paler than usual, bright red spots highlighting his cheeks.

“Friday, diagnosis?” Tony prompts, already getting up to grab the medicine. He groans when every single muscle of his body protests the sudden shift of position. God, getting old is no fun at all. He silently adds find a remedy against ageing to his mental to-do list.

“Mr. Parker´s temperature is currently at 100.6 degrees and hasn´t risen significantly during the past three hours. He is not exhibiting any symptoms of respiratory infection, so I suspect a mild virus or post-battle exhaustion as the most probable cause.”

Okay, Tony can work with that. He just needs to feed the kid some medicine and then tug him into bed. “Alarm me if the fever rises, Friday.”

“I´m okay, Mr. Stark, seriously.” Peter interferes.

“Yeah, a certain spider-lady told me the same thing a few hours ago just before passing out quite spectacularly in the middle of debrief, because she didn´t think it necessary to inform anyone about a foot-long slash wound in her abdomen. So I think it´s justified if I´m a little apprehensive right now.”

“Hey, I just came here to tell you something´s wrong, didn´t I?” Peter protests. “And how is Agent Romanov?”

“Still laid up in medical. Came to a few hours ago, Barton had to threaten her with tranquilizers to make her stay overnight. And they say I am stubborn.”

He observes suspiciously when Peter moves towards a chair and all but falls into it, gratefully accepting the glass of water Tony hands him.

“Only one, Mr. Stark?” he frowns when Tony offers him a fever-reducer.

“You´re a lightweight, be happy I´m letting you have any at all.” Tony rebuts.

“My body burns this stuff way faster than normal people´s!” he protests. “One will hardly do anything for me.”

“Okay, okay.” Tony hands out another tablet. “But that´s all you´re gonna get for the next few hours.” It´s enough if there´s one person in the room with an unhealthy relationship to all kinds of pain-numbing substances, he adds mentally, dry-swallowing two pills himself. It doesn´t escape Peter´s notice.

“Are you okay, Mr. Stark?”

“Yep,” he replies, popping the p. “Great power comes with great punch-attraction, or something like that. We fought and won a battle today, you forgot? And despite lots of rumours on the contrary, I´m still somewhat human and damageable.”

"Hmm.” Peter replies, clearly not following his mentor´s monologue. His eyes have drifted close, exhaustion taking over. Tony wonders whether he has ever been as young as the kid is looking right now.

“Hey, Pete.” He softly shakes him at the shoulder. “Nighty time, come on, let´s get you to bed.”

“Hmm.” It´s a sound of low-key disagreement this time, and Tony glimpses a spark of unease in Peter´s eyes when the boy groggily gets to his feet.

“Spit it out, kiddo,” he probes while following him through the door, trying his best not to limp. “What´s going on?”

“It´s nothing, Mr. Stark. I´m sorry.” Peter rubs his eyes while they wait for the elevator doors to open.

“Gosh, what´s that thing with teenagers and acting all mysterious?” Tony rolls his eyes. “You don´t wanna sleep, you don´t have to. Free country, free choice, all that.”

Peter looks up at him, blushing a little, but visibly relieved. Tony pretty much knows what´s going on, being intimately familiar with the motions that mind and body go through after days like these, including the desire to not being alone in an empty bed. He himself doesn´t really have a choice these days, with Pepper back in her old apartment, but he´s certainly not going to force the kid to be on his own when he doesn´t want to be.

“Movie night it is, then.” he smirks. “But I am getting the couch. Tell me, what was this Star Trek film again, the one in which they travel back into the eighties and Spock strolls around San Francisco in this hilarious beach robe...?”

They both end up on the couch, because it is by far the most comfortable piece of furniture in the living room, and despite contrary assertions, it´s clear Tony won´t let a sick kid lie down anywhere else.

The spaceship crew hasn´t even landed on earth yet when Peter is fast asleep, wrapped up tightly into a blanket, only his messy curls sticking out. Tony shoves a pillow under his head after checking his temperature and then falls back into the cushions, too exhausted to even think about getting back to the workshop.

He dozes on and off while the movie plays in the background, still too pumped to actually sleep, but oddly comfortable. He´d insist to anyone asking that his robots are all the company he needs in his life right now, thank you very much and mind your own business. But he has to admit reluctantly that it´s a nice change to have an actual human being around, even if it´s a feverish 15-year old drooling into the cushions.

The situation is faintly familiar. A few winters back he was the one laid up with a bad case of flu on this very same couch, lights dimmed, TV on, his aching head resting on Pepper´s lap - well, better not think about this now.

Peter´s fever slowly drops to around 100, but he wakes up disoriented and nauseous a few hours later, and despite the boy´s protests, Tony sits with him on the bathroom floor, awkwardly hovering behind his back when he throws up into the toilet bowl, absent-mindedly wondering when exactly he became comfortable with someone else vomiting in his immediate vicinity.

When the kid is reduced to hiccupping and spitting bile into the toilet, Tony fills a glass of water and hands it to him together with a washcloth to wipe down his sweaty face.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark”, Peter says hoarsely once he has caught his breath. “I´m sorry for this...” he trails off, cheeks coloured red from strain and embarrassment.

“No worries, kiddo.” he winks at him. “Trust me, it´s not a true battle without someone tossing cookies afterwards.”

He helps Peter to his feet, a warm feeling spreading through his chest when the boy doesn´t resist Tony´s supporting arm around his waist.

“Okay, enough adventures for today. Off to bed now, Spiderling.”

#peter parker #tony stark #sickfic #irondad #spiderson #fever #emeto #post-mission #kinda fluffy #fanfic #song: snow patrol´s lifening

418 notes · View notes

themildestofwriters · 6 years ago

Text

Meet the Cast: Babette

Tagged by the magnificent @kijilinn who tagged me in this a long time ago and I’ve been desperately trying to write up for. There’ll be one for Josephine out soon so take care of finding that one but outside of that here we go!

1. On a scale of “is occasionally forced to bathe” to “Instagram model with sponsors to hoe for” how involved is your OC’s Skincare routine?

Babette cares about her hygiene and while she doesn’t by the most expensive products available—seeing them nothing more than superfluous wastes of money—she tends to put more than the bare minimum into the products she buys. In this, she’s quite involved in her cleanliness. She keeps herself clean and tidy, grooms herself and even moisturizes often though not every day. Overall, she does care but it isn’t the most important thing in her mind and there are times when depression hits and she just can’t bring herself to care about hygiene.

2. What are your OC’s food preferences (flavours/textures/spiciness/calories/ when and how they eat) and how did they get that way?

I think I made a mention of sour lollies to a friend of mine? Nevertheless, Babette’s food preferences are actually quite interesting considering her nature as a non-human entity. She still must eat but doesn’t have to eat physical food. In fact, physical food is akin to Babette going vegetarian or vegan. Her kinds natural diet consists mainly of metaphysical energy: life energies, magical energies, mental energies, things that can be found in abundance around the universe but can be considered unethical to harvest for food. To take life energy is basically devouring souls. To take magical energy strips an important component of reality that manifests in many different ways, some positive and some negative. To take mental energy would be to drain the memories and other important brain-things of living creatures leaving them mindless husks.

However, as implied before, physical foodstuffs are a substitute. Unfortunately, she needs to eat a lot to substitute the recommended amount of energy for her to consume. If she doesn’t, then she’ll grow weak, first magically but considering she’s not entirely a physical being, it will soon to affect her physical health. She’ll grow weak and frail, decrepit as rapid onset physical aging takes place. Her hair will begin to thin, teeth falling out along with her feathers. It’s not pretty. In this, however, it means calories are of no importance to her. She physically can’t get overweight due to most of her food being turned into this substitute energy while the rest is turned to waste. This doesn’t mean she couldn’t over eat—or over drink—as she’s found. If she eats too much at once, the food cannot be digested quick enough and it will result in her vomiting up the excess.

Babette prefers savoury foods and especially meat. She could literally tear through an entire leg of ham on her own, bone and all, and she would not regret a thing—aside from the bill, probably. As an aside, she could probably do it in one bite, not that the sight of her doing so would be good for your mental health. However, while meat products are her favourite food type, she does enjoy vegetables as they add verity to her meals, both visually and in taste. They’re not as important considering their energy content relating to metaphysical energy, but she enjoys them nonetheless. Fruit as well, milk and sweets! She loves the taste of white chocolate (dark chocolate is eww), and has, much to Josephine’s exasperation, eaten an entire cake by herself because she just needed just one. More. Bite.

For texture, Babette doesn’t have much of a preference. She’ll eat a lot of things and isn’t too picky about what she eats in this regard and in most regards.

For spiciness… Babette may be a goddess, but she cannot handle too much spice. It still burns and can sometimes be a bit overwhelming for her. Lightly spiced food is fine but its not like she’d empty an entire bottle of chilly powder onto her meal before eating it. While it wouldn’t hurt her, she would still not enjoy it. At the same time, she wouldn’t enjoy her meal if it was too bland. If she’s cooking, it can be expected for her to add some home grown or otherwise hand-picked spices into the mix and, perhaps, some experimentation.

Babette eats when Josephine eats and beyond. Josephine has a healthy eating schedule and so Babette does. However, this isn’t always a constant and sometimes she just can’t bring herself to eat whether due to depression or some other reason. When she does eat, however, she eats like royalty. She finds eating messy uncouth and would prefer eating with utensils whenever possible. She does make exceptions but only with certain foods that won’t result in her needing to wash her hands afterwards. If she needs to eat chicken wings, she’ll use a knife and fork, but a burger is fair game if wrapped properly.

3. What’s something pointless/petty/unimportant that IRRATIONALLY ANNOYS THE HELL out of your OC?

To name one, it would be walking slowly in narrow pathways. She has the patience of an immortal, but it doesn’t mean much. She doesn’t want to deal with having her life slowed down and would much rather prefer spending her time at home or with others she cares about. She’s a fast walker and finds it annoying dealing with anyone going slower then her on purpose. If you’re old or injured or something like that, then that’s good, but if you’re purposefully walking slower then she’ll get pissed off. The same can apply when shopping, especially if she’s inline to check out and someone decides to take their time, needlessly—most of all, she’ll hate you for life if you decide to slow down the check-out line by making a massive scene and yelling at the clerk because they didn’t greet you right or they didn’t accept your two-years-out-of-date coupon.

4. What’s your OC’s response to being asked for money by a homeless person?

If she had money to spare on hand, she would part with it. If she didn’t, she would turn them away apologetically. Her heart goes out to them, and she would feel guilt knowing that she could do something about it but won’t. As will be mentioned for question 6, Babette doesn’t want to help any more than a human could because she knows that it would be a slippery slope that would result in her overexerting herself in her attempt to fix the universe’s problems as she had once before. It’s the strongest piece of self-control not to fix all their problems and she feels guilty.

5. Does your OC get lost easily? What do they do when they do get lost?

It’s unlikely she’ll get lost. She knows her way around a map and has a very good memory—though not a perfect one—that allows her to mentally map places with some effort. However, if she ever does find herself lost, her usual response is to try not to panic and plan. Lost in a forest? Fly above the tree line and figure out where she is. Lost in a city? Ask around. Lost in space? She has no idea and would probably attempt to find any navigation technology nearby or fly to the nearest star. While there are times where she hasn’t reacted the best, she knows what to do and acts efficiently once the initial panic is gone.

6. What would STOP your OC from Doing The Right Thing in a tense situation?

It depends on what is considered the “Right Thing”. To make it easy, I’ll base it on what Peter Parker, The Spider-Man, considers to be the “Right Thing’ which can be summarised as “With great power comes great responsibility.” In other words, if you have the power to do something good for the world, it is your responsibility to do that thing. In this, Babette is stopping herself from doing the right thing, even in a tense situation.

She has godlike power and doesn’t use it to hep the world. She purposely makes sure that she only helps as much as a human could but she’s not going to do anything more—she won’t fly over seas to solve world hunger or end tyrannical regimes or anything like that. Those kinds of things aren’t her responsibility and she forces herself to leave it to those responsible. Earth is the domain of humanity and so it’s humanities responsibility to look after the Earth and solve the problems that afflict it. She might help out occasionally but no more than a human reasonably could—unless she becomes emotionally invested, which she tries desperately not to. Of course, this isn’t just because she knows it isn’t her responsibility, but rather the knowledge that the last time she took responsibility into her own hands the galaxy was wiped of life and she doesn’t want that to happen again no matter how many aeons it took to get to that point originally.

7. Realistically, could your OC (in their normal circumstances- i.e. at their own house/battlecamp/spaceship etc.) keep a small child alive for a week if they had to? A Dog? A Houseplant? A rock with a smiley face painted on?

Yes, she could. 100%

She might not be a good role model, but she’ll keep that kid/dog/plant/rock alive until it dies from means outside her control which she’d probably attempt to fight against nevertheless because by then she’d have imprinted on the kid and unceremoniously adopted it. If it were a baby, she would raise that thing as if it were her own flesh and blood—she would tend to its needs, sing it songs at night, play and engage with it and perhaps attempt to teach it a few things. If the baby ever managed to say her name, she would probably break down crying and once the week is up there will be more tears to share as she says goodbye to the little bundle of joy. A dog? She’s more of a cat person but with such energetic playfulness and joy, she’d be hard-pressed to not start enjoying her time. With a house plant, she might just pawn that off to Josephine because its Josephine’s thing, probably the rock too.

8. If your OC had to take the S.A.T. tomorrow with one night to prep, how would they do? both emotionally and academically.

Emotionally, no fucks would be given that night or day. She’s been in more stressful situations and even if she did care about the S.A.T.s she wouldn’t worry much at all. She has a great memory and I’m pretty sure her academic knowledge is one of the few parts she’s confidant with. As for her academic results, I’d say she’d do very well. She wouldn’t score the highest she could, especially with only one night’s worth of prep—which, depending on how far she’d humour the S.A.T., she might end up pulling an all-nighter—but she would do remarkably well and score fairly high. Over all, she doesn’t care much because she doesn’t really need it. She’d probably be the most chill person in the entire building.

9. What would cause your OC to choose to do something petty/pointlessly cruel?

As of Divine Intervention Babette isn’t one to really act out if things are done to her specifically. Well, she would but only in specific situations. If someone does something to those she cares about, even if it wasn’t that bad but still caused a problem? Well… Babette doesn’t really understand “Proportional Retribution” and due to her life experiences, she might see something relatedly minor as something major and react as such. Getting physical with her girlfriend in an ill-fated attempt to court her may result in a fractured wrist, for example. Another example would be from the film Man of Steel as Babette would totally crucify someone’s truck if they threw something at her head.

10. On a scale of “Complete and Justified nervous breakdown” to “Conquer The Entire Galaxy and become an Immortal God-Emperor”, how well would your OC handle being abducted by Aliens?

…she did both.

11. What song is 100% guaranteed to get your OC beyond excited and will be sung loudly and embarrassingly, either in public or the shower?

Babette’s a singer and musician, often at times sings along to many songs when she has the energy. She plays music while in the shower and can be heard singing along with—same as with the car, where she’s either drumming along with the beat or simply singing her heart out. Singing is a passion of hers and there isn’t really a specific song that would lead her to start singing her heart out. As of 2018, she would so get into the Country Roads meme and would absolutely sing her heart out if it ever appeared on radio.

12. What perfectly-normal-to-them-thing does your OC do that confuses/pisses off/terrifies their neighbours?

Probably the things coming out of her mouth. Babette is very bad at hiding the fact that she’s a god and the things that come out of her mouth don’t help. Some would think her comments about “kids these days” as jokes at her own expense, but if the neighbours actually listen to the words coming out of her mouth, the more they’d get confused and worried. The anger in her voice; the pain; the misery; the grief; if they listened, they would hear it. That’s normal for her, isn’t it?

13. Under what circumstances would your OC appear naked in public?

Very, very specific circumstances. She doesn’t mind performing rather nsfw deeds in public and is rather excited by the prospect, but she would never do it in public. Always it will be public-adjacent where only those she’s performing these nsfw deeds with can see her. It’s unlikely that she would ever actually appear naked in public proper and is rather prudish in this situation. If her clothes were somehow destroyed, she would cover herself as best she could whether by using hands, wings or magic to obscure her form. About the only time I could think for her to appear naked would perhaps be at a nudist beach but I’m finding it a hard time seeing her appear naked of her own volition elsewhere.

14. What thing did your OC’s parents do that your OC wishes they had a better explanation for?

I would probably say… she wishes she knew why Maria and Matthew divorced—her biological parents. She doesn’t have the full picture and even when she tried to ask all she got was conflicting evidence. Maria was a bad wife, no, Matthew was a bad husband. Both don’t like each other, and Babette doesn’t know who’s telling the truth of if there’s a grain of truth to each of their stories.

15. How often does your OC “zone out” or do things on autopilot and how severe have the problems that have arisen from that been?

Sometimes when she’s playing an instrument where she’ll just zone out as she plays. Sometimes she’ll zone out when doing a menial task. She zones out in the shower, she zones out on the bus, she zones out in class, she zones out a lot. She hasn’t really done anything bad while zoned out but there have been a few times when someone’s startled her bad enough that her fight response kicks in and she attacks the “threat”. Usually, however, she’s able to catch herself before she actually injures them—unless they were an actual threat.

16. How strong or weak is your OC’s Impulse control? What’s the worst thing that happened because of their Impulsivity or inability to be so?

It depends on the subject. She is very impulsive when it comes to helping people and great self-restraint is needed to not fall down that slippery slope of helping everyone she meets. However, she’s not an impulsive buyer and is mostly in control when dealing with fighting people—she’s not going to hurt someone unless she knows for certain that they deserve it. On the other hand, when she’s dealing with the man who murdered her mother, the only thing she could think about was removing that pathetic excuse for life in the most painful way possible.

Because of her hesitance, she’s probably seen innocent people get hurt or even die. With her impulsive drive to destroy the man who murdered her mother, she’s jeopardised missions. She’s done things she’s not proud of because of her impulsiveness and there are times when she wished she were more impulsive.

17. How does your OC sabotage themselves?

Babette self-sabotage’s herself in a lot of ways. She focuses on the negative aspects of herself, completely ignoring her positive sides. She focuses too much on the bad things in life and tries to act like the good things aren’t that good. She focuses on negativity in general, especially in regard to herself and experiences. She tries to suppress herself and her emotions. She’s far to self-sacrificing, putting other’s needs way before her own. She compares herself to others and doesn’t let what other’s do inspire her to do better, instead wallowing in guilt. She’s a perfectionist who’s only satisfied when 100% of problems are fixed. Instead of dealing with her trauma she puts it off until it starts negatively effecting her love life. She deprives herself of sleep just to get away from traumatic nightmares instead of getting help. She forces herself to relieve horrible moments in her life (i.e. listening to her first girlfriend’s suicide note during Christmas). Self-generating stress and over working herself when she really just needs to take a seat.

To say the least, she’s very much into the self-sabotaging occupation.

18. What’s the trashiest item in your OC’s wardrobe, when was the last time they wore it and why do they still have it?

Babette doesn’t really have anything trashy in her wardrobe. She tends to keep it clean and clear with about the only thing she’s kept around for a long time being her necklace and a once-radioactive dress of hers.

19. How Dehydrated is your OC right now? Are they going to fix this?

At 6:50pm, she’s probably just had dinner or something so not so dehydrated. She doesn’t drink the recommended amount, but at the same time she does have a bottle of water on hand to drink every now and then. Especially in the summer when it’s uncomfortably hot, she likes water whether it’s bathing, swimming or drinking.

20. What’s your OC smell like? No, not that “Vanilla and Anxiety” evocative stuff, realistically. Body odour? What have they been touching all day? When was their last shower? Did they put on any kind of artificial scent?

Babette naturally smells faintly of burning ozone in line with her affinity for lightning. If she doesn’t bathe, then she may begin to smell offensive after a few days. It’s not as bad as others as she doesn’t have particularly bad body odour, but it’ll still a bad smell and she’ll still want a shower. Outside of her natural smells, the lingering ozone is sometimes mixed with soap or perfume or deodorant. Usually, these things will be scented in line with the forest or fruits.

She bathes at least once every two days, perhaps more depending on the weather and what activities she’s up to—and usually at night—and she brushes her teeth twice a day and flosses once a day. As it’s like… 3:02am at the time of writing this answer, she’s probably had a shower earlier and is attempting to get to sleep.

She usually only wears perfume when going to a party or out on a date.

I tag: @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz; @randomestfandoms-ocs; @rose-writes-and-drinks-tea; @ariellaskylark; @cometworks; @i-tried-and-i-loose; @pens-swords-stuff; and anyone else who wants to do this!

#oc: babette melwyn #original character #ocs #work: divine intervention #goddess #eldritch #main character #writeblr #writers on tubmlr #writing #oc wip

17 notes · View notes

bizarrewritings-blog · 7 years ago

Text

3 Words - Stucky

Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Summary: It only took 3 words to turn Bucky's world around. Normally, almost nothing could caught him off guard, but in that moment, his jaw nearly hit the ground.

Word count: 2,733

Warning: Slightly implied smut

A/N: This plays partly before, partly after Infinity War but we're gonna imagine everything went well, they won the fight and everyone is alive and friends again. Basically, let's pretend life isn't as fucked up as it is rn. Also, in this Steve and Bucky didn't had contact during Bucky's stay in Wakanda.

For already a while, Bucky's constant state had been simply Confusion. Nothing new, some would say, but it was. At least to him.

He always loved Steve. More like a brother, a best friend, but he loved him. But something has changed since he got unfreezed in Wakanda, being met with T'challa and Shuri rather than his best friend. He felt disappointed almost.

The time he spend in his little cabin in Wakanda wasn't the best as well. Of course, he loved the kids and his goats. And the peace he was finally able to enjoy, apart from the farm work. But he wasn't happy. Steve wasn't there with him and he missed him more than anything. Bucky couldn't go to anyone when those nightmares came back and he couldn't talk to anyone about the fears that still lingered inside of him. He had to suppress all that.

When T'challa brought him his new arm, he knew the peace was over. But Steve was coming. He would be able to see him again. And after all this was over, he would be able to be with him again. He felt his heart swell whenever he thought of it, a small smile creeping it's way onto his face. He couldn't wait. So he did everything to not look like a greasy, depressed man. He took a much needed shower, put on his new arm and suit before making his way over to where Steve and the others would arrive.

When Bucky saw the jet landing he could almost feel his heart exploding with excitement, the smile on his face permanent as he shifted nervously. He watched from afar as T'challa led the group towards him. Then he spotted Steve for the first time in years, and he felt his throat get dry. His hair was slightly longer, styled back, and he had grown a pretty impressive beard, his old uniform worn out. He looked so amazing, Bucky felt himself starting to sweat. He never had that kind of reaction from just seeing someone, but he did now.

As the group neared he tried redeemed himself, taking a deep breath as to calm himself, even though his heart was racing harder than it ever did before. He could hear T'challas voice the closer they got. "You have my kings guard, the border tribe," They were so close, but still haven't seen Bucky. He slowly crept out of his hiding spot. "the Dora Milaje, and-" "A semi-stable 100 year old men" He grinned, instantly walking towards Steve. The Blond smiled brightly at him before pulling him in for a hug. It didn't last long, but it was enough time for Bucky to take in Steves sweet scent. He wished they could stay like this forever. He had missed him so damn much.

"How've you been, Buck?" Steve asked with a smile after pulling away. God that smile. "Ehh, not bad, for the end of the world." Bucky joked, a small grin on his face.

After that they all prepared for the war that was about to happen. Bucky clearly wasn't ready, he was tired of fighting. All he wanted to do was to stay somewhere safe with Steve, just the two of them, like it used to be back in the 40's. But he realized he wouldn't get his wish granted as a couple of spaceships brought a mass of giant, angry aliens to Wakanda.

The fight was hard and exhausting and left all everyone physically and mentally scared, but after what felt like eternity they finally won.

*2 month later*

Most of the Avengers came back to live on the Avengers compound, including Bucky, and it was the happiest he's been in years. He finally got to spend time with Steve again. He obviously didn't have him all to himself, but he would have to accept that.

By now, Bucky had realised that the feeling he got around Steve wasn't like friendship. He had changed, just like his view on Steve. Bucky could feel his heart pick up whenever the Blond smiled at him and when Steve fell asleep next to him after Bucky joined him after another nightmare, he could burst out in tears of happiness.

What held him back from saying anything is Steve's past. To Bucky, it appeared like he was straight. He never told him anything about any attraction towards men, and hell he watched him making out with Sharon a couple years back. On the other hand, Bucky hasn't told Steve about his sudden bisexuality as well. He himself wasn't even sure if he was bi. All he wanted was Steve. But he kept silent, pushing his feelings down in fear of rejection. At least until that day, which turned his whole point of view around.

It was one of those cozy evenings where they all would sit in the lounge, maybe watching a movie, joking around and just being happy about how peaceful it finally was. Bucky would take his standard place on one of the couches, next to Steve. Their arms would brush against each other from time to time, and even the small contact made Bucky shiver. He wouldn't even listen to the ongoing conversation, his mind focused on his phone in his hands and Steve's slight touches. But when the conversation shifted to that exact man, he lifted his gaze to listen. "Come on Steve, when was the last time you had fun, mh?" Natasha, who was sitting on Steves other side, grinned. "I don't have time for relationships. Someone's gotta save the world, y'know." Steve answered, shrugging. "But come on, maybe just a little fun from time to time, nothing serious. It would do you good, you're too tense all the time." Tony joined the conversation, grinning as well. Bucky tensed in his spot as Steve chuckled beside him. He didn't want to think about his best friend/crush sleeping with a random girl. "I hate to admit, but Stark is right." Natasha went on. "What about that barista in the coffee shop this morning? He totally gave you bedroom eyes." Buckys eyes widened. He?

The rest of the team seemed just as surprised. "But Steve isn't gay?" Sam spoke from his spot on the bean bag. Steve turned to him, brows furrowed. "You didn't know?" Buckys breath quickened. There was no way he was- "I'm actually bi." Buckys jaw slacked as he started at Steve in disbelief, just like everyone else. "What?" he heard himself say, a little too loud as now everyone turned to him. He felt himself blush, slowly closing his mouth again. "Why didn't you tell me." He was actually kind of hurt Steve didn't tell him. But then Steve softly smiled at him and he forgot basically everything. "I just didn't know why it would be relevant. I just told Natasha because she was with me when I once didn't turn down a guy who flirted with me." He shrugged. Bucky just sat there staring as his hands, not knowing how to react.

"I'm bi as well." He suddenly blurted, his mouth speaking faster than his mind could think. His cheeks turned a dark shade of red when he realized what he said, his mind spinning as he thought how weird that must have sounded. His gaze lifted to Steve who was just grinning at him. "So you wanna call me out for not telling you when you didn't tell me yourself?" Bucky chuckled nervously at the irony. "Great. Now we have two bi super soldiers." Rhodey joked. "Anyone else want to out themselves? Or are two enough for today?" The room went silent. "Noone? Good, these two are acting awkward enough." Rhodey continued, pointing at Bucky and Steve. Both men laughed slightly at that.

When Bucky was making himself a sandwich in the kitchen a little later, Steve entered as well. "Hey Buck." He smiled brightly, making Bucky smile as well. "I wanted to say I'm sorry i didn't tell you about - y'know." He continued, scratching the back of his neck nervously. Bucky nodded, understanding. "I'm sorry as well. I should've told you earlier." He said, taking a bite of his sandwich. Steve smiled at him again with this goddamn smile that made his heart jump. "No more secrets from now on, alright?" Steve suggested, making Bucky gulp down his bite, the phrase 'I love you' running through his head instantly, wanting to be spoken out aloud. But he kept quiet, told Steve "Of course." instead. Steve nodded at that, padding him on the shoulder before leaving the kitchen. Bucky left out a heavy sigh, his mind dizzy. God he wanted to tell him so badly. But just because Steve was into men didn't mean that he was into him as well. He wanted to slap himself for his feelings, he hasn't fallen for someone in so long and now it had to be Steve? He knew his brain was messed up, but not that messed up.

The following night, Bucky once again woke up in the middle of the night with his chest heaving, his forehead glistening with sweat. A relieved sigh left his lips as he realized where he was, his dream not being reality. He could punch himself that after all these years, he still had nightmares about his times as the Winter Soldier.

He slowly slid out of bed, making his way to Steve's room, as usual. But this time it was different. Since he now knew Steve was bi as well, the chances that he might feel the same as he did were now higher. He took a deep breath as he stood infront of Steves room before lifting his hand, softly knocking again the door. He listened closely to the sound of ruffling sheets inside before a grumpy "Yeah?" made him open the door. He felt a little bad as he stepped inside, seeing a tiredSteve rubbing his eyes. He clearly had woken him up. Still, he didn't miss the way his heart jumped at how adorable Steve looked. All sleepy and soft, shirtless with his blanket pulled up to his broad chest.

"I-I'm sorry if i woke you up. I can leave again." Bucky mumbled, nervously picking on a loose threat of his sweatpants. "Shut up and come here." Steve chuckled, making Bucky smile. He closed the door behind him, walking over to the empty side of Steves bed and getting under the covers. He layed on his back, about 2 feet away from Steve as he stared against the ceiling. "Wanna talk about it?" Steve asked, laying on his side as his head rested on his elbow, looking down at Bucky. Bucky could feel his heart racing. "It's almost the same I've been having the last couple weeks. Nothing new." Steve nodded before dropping down beside Bucky, now laying much closer to him. Bucky could feel the heat radiating off the Blonds body and it made him want to cuddle into his side.

"Hey Buck?" Steve ripped him out of his thoughts as he stared at the ceiling as well. "Yeah?" "How did you know you were bi?" Bucky swallowed thickly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Steve was looking at him again. He clearly couldn't concentrate under his intense gaze. "I-I don't really know. Why?" Steve lifted his gaze back to the ceiling. "I dunno. Just curious." Bucky furrowed his brows in confusion. "How did you know?" "I fell for a guy, duh." Steve answered amused. Bucky felt his face heat up. "Of course." He simply replied. A calming silence filled the room after that. Bucky could still feel the heat from Steves body while he listened to his steady breathing. This was normally the point where they would either cuddle or just fall asleep next to each other. Bucky wanted nothing more than to be as close as possible to Steve, so he went for option one.

"Steve?" He asked quietly, getting a "Mhm?" as a response. "Can we cuddle?" He hated how desperate he sounded, but he smiled lightly as Steve chuckled. "Of course." Bucky immediately turned to Steve wanting to scoot closer but Steve suddenly stopped him. "I probably should put something on before this." Buckys brows furrowed. "What do you mean?" "It's a warm night. Didn't expect company." Steve answered honestly, shrugging his shoulders. It took Bucky a moment to understand, his face turning red as soon as he got what Steve meant. "Y-You're naked?" He asked, making sure he understood him correctly. Steve chuckled, amused by how flustered Bucky was, before nodding. Bucky just stared at him in disbelief. He had been laying in a bed with his butt naked crush. Steve still faced him as well, his lips curling into a sly smirk. "You want me to put something on or not?" He asked, biting his lip. Bucky fought the ought to stare at his mouth. Instead he kept his eyes on Steves as his throat went dry, his whole body feeling on fire. He wanted to say no, wanted to feel every inch of Steves skin. But he would never be able to fall asleep when Steve would be just laying beside him, completely naked.

So he swallowed thickly before croaking out a "Yeah." Steve nodded, smiling before standing up. Buckys eyes went wide as he now had full vision of Steves butt as he walked to his wardrobe to put on a pair of boxers. Buckys breath got caught in his throat as he watched the other man bent down slowly. Then it hit him. Steve was putting on a show for him. Noone takes so long to put on one piece of clothing.

"You little shit." Bucky almost growled, making Steve bite his lip again. "What was that?" The Blond asked as he turned around to get back on the bed. "You're doing this shit on purpose." Steve drpped back down beside Bucky, tilting his head to one side innocently while he grinned. "And what if I'm doing it on purpose?" He leaned forward slowly, smiling as Buckys breathing became more erratic. "For what reason?" Bucky questioned, now shamelessly staring at Steves lips which were slowly inching closer. They were already so close, he could feel Steves breath against his face as he chuckled. "Because i like you, dumbass." Buckys eyes widened, flying back to Steves to see if he was lying. "Are you serious?" Steve chuckled again. "Of course. Now stop talking and kiss me." Bucky didn't need anything else as he leaned forward, crashing his lips against Steves. He groaned into the kiss as they lips moved together, the taste of Steve even sweeter than he imagined it.

Bucky moved his hands to Steves waist to pull him closer, while one of Steves hands made it's way into Buckys hair, tugging gently. Bucky moaned softly at that, Steve taking this opportunity to slip his tongue into his mouth. Both their tongues danced together perfectly as small noises of pleasure left Steves mouth. Buckys grip on Steves waist tightened as the only way to keep him grounded. He could feel his mind spinning, the warmth he felt in his belly spreading over his whole body. Of course he had kissed multiple people already, but this was a whole new level. With Steve it felt so good, just RIGHT. Like they were made for kissing each other and noone else.

After a couple minutes Steve pulled away, gasping for air while grinning at Bucky. "Shit, if i knew you could kiss like that i would've made out with you earlier." He chuckled, making Bucky smile. "We definitely should have done this earlier. We're both surprisingly good at it." Bucky agreed, earning a laugh from Steve. "Guess I'm going to take this as an 'I like you too'?" Steve questioned, his eyes meeting Buckys. Bucky slowly lifted his right hand to lay it on Steves cheek, slowly stroking the stubble as he smiled softly at him. "I like you too." He could see the way Steves eyes lit up, a wide grin on his lips. Both leaned in to kiss again, this time more slowly and lovingly than the last one as butterflies interrupted in both their stomachs. And as Bucky felt Steve smile into the kiss, he knew he was deeply in love with his best friend.

118 notes · View notes

duhad · 6 years ago

Text

Three Pillars of Writing: A Terrible Essay by Duhad

Since I ended up spending way too long writing this in response to a largely unrelated post about fan fiction, I’m going to post this overly long soap box rant about writing on its own in the vain hope the 3 or 4 people who follow me will read this if its not hidden under 3 feet of other peoples text. -

I had a conversation with my friend Kit the other day, where I was trying to sort of argue/define an idea I had about stories fundamentally working on three central pillars. 1. Plot - The story of whats going on. The adventure/mystery/horror/romance/etc as an active and progressing narrative. 2. Characters - The central characters and their internal and interpersonal lives. 3. Setting - A mix of both world building and general attention to setting details, ranging from things as grand scoop as the history and cultures of fantasy and sci-fi worlds to as small and personal as the club scene in a big city or the neighborhood of a small town or the student body and facility of a school.

For comedies you can knock out one of these three to replace it with comedy without losing much, so long as the humor works.

In my original argument I more or less was saying that a story needs at least 2 of these to work in order to function, with one weak link not really unbalancing things, but two going out causing a collapse. But reading this I think I am coming to a more nuanced conclusion, that their are people for whom one or more of these are of much higher importance and who can over look flaws in the other one or two. That essentially each reader/viewer/player is, weather consciously or not looking for one or more of these things and the better or worse its handled, the more or less they like it. But since most people don’t really grasp this notion, they look for broader, more tangible things to explain WHY they enjoyed something or not. So for instance I have heard allot of people dismiss the works of Stephen King because he’s too long winded, to caught up on details and the daily lives of his characters and tends to meander, losing allot of steam in the middle of his books as the terrifying threats take a back seat to ‘pointless’ things like characters falling in love, falling out of love, dealing with substance abuse or stress or school or work or fascinations with silly hobbies. For people who are their for the plot, he’s a bore who needs an editor to cut out about 70% of any given new book. Especially when allot of his books end, not with a thrilling climax, but a chapter or two after that point, with the remaining characters moving forward with their lives. Yet his books sell like hotcakes because for people who pick up the books and fall in love with the characters and the worlds they live in. They get to just indulge in their stories for hundreds of pages before suddenly getting a thrill as these people they have spent the last ten to twenty hours with are suddenly thrust into terrible danger, with the fate of the lived in settings they inhabit, from whole world to tiny little communities, dangling in the balance! For another example “Rendezvous With Rama” by Arthur C. Clarke is a book I am sure about 90% of people here would HATE! Its slow, its uneventful, the characters are all consummate professionals who don’t have any drama with one another or really spent much time getting to know one another. The two most exciting things that happen are when someone we met one chapter ago almost gets seriously hurt while trying to fly a sort of winged bike and then does not and later when the Hermian colony fires a nuke at the Rama ship, but then it gets defused relatively easily with no lives lost. But I LOVE IT because it presents an utterly fascinating look at an empty alien spaceship that is unlike anything on Earth. Its strange and beautiful and endlessly fascinating to explore! And the people exploring it themselves are fascinating, not because their particularly deep characters, but because they represent a human culture that is at once recognizable and yet unlike our own. Its a setting first and for most book in other worlds. The Lord of the Rings is setting first, plot second and characters a pretty distant third, at least in the books. Fan fiction tends to be characters first, focusing on the lives and personalities of characters and their interactions with one another before anything else, though obviously their are lots of exceptions. Finally Sherlock Homes stories tend to be plot first, with the central mystery and how it gets solved being the center piece, with the characterization of Homes, Watson and a few of the central figures getting just enough attention to make us care about them and basically everything else being kept pretty out of focus unless necessary for the plot. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might go into the history of the Mormon Church in “A Study In Scarlet”, but mostly its just their to explain the motivations of Jefferson Hope and he only gets fleshed out to explain why he murdered Drebber and Stangerson, as soon as that’s done he basically just go’s to jail quietly and is never mentioned again. But that’s fine because its a story your reading for the plot, not the setting or the characters, so once the murder is resolved theres no need to keep and flesh out the characters and setting details unless their going to come up again. Which they will not. Hell Moriarty, Homes’s nemesis and biggest recurring enemy shows up in only two stories directly, the second of which he dies in and is only mentioned in a couple others as being basically just a guy who other criminals work for sometimes.

Now obviously these are only broad outlines of major elements that stories tend to work with in less tangible ways and their not the ONLY things readers/viewers/players respond to. Someone who loves plot focused stories might hate Sherlock Homes stories because they don’t like mysteries or prefer more modern characters. Someone who just wants a good character driven story might hate Bloom Into You because they don’t like the leads or just dislike anime as a medium. And someone who likes rich worlds might still hate Dune because its so dark and bloody and fatalistic. That’s fine. But I think knowing what key aspect/s of a way a story is told and where its focus is can tell you just as much about why you do or do not enjoy certain pieces of fiction as more tangible elements like it being a romantic comedy or a sci-fi horror.

And as an addendum for writers, I think knowing what you really love about stories can help you get thru allot of tricky spots. I love setting and character elements of stories, but have allot less patience for plot and so when writing I will breeze thru world building sections, people discussing culture or politics or the way things work in their sci-fi/fantasy/just plain weird setting and breezy banter dialogue. But then when it comes to moving the story forward its like, “Ahhhhhh... They uh... Do the thing and then... Uh... Hm... Time for a brake. I’ll get back to finishing this thing in a month or two.”

Before being able to crystallize by thoughts on this I would often get into trouble by setting out to write plot heavy epics, full of twists and turns and major events I knew would happen at X point in the future, but then never got anywhere in them because I found writing the quick and action heavy scenes that would get me to those big moments where just miserable and felt stilted as hell! Even now I write with my best friend and whenever she talks about these really cool ideas for things that will happen in the futures of the stories I get all excited thinking about how fun writing about how the settings and characters will change and how they will all interact with one another and how many fun scenes I can write in that new environment... And then I remember I need to actually push the story forward to that point and I suddenly get really stressed out because plotting out how that will all happen and then executing on that plot is my least favorite part of writing.

But when I wrote things for my friend’s game where it was like, “Write a history and mythology for this setting.” Or “Write two characters interacting and talking with one another in these short scenes.” Or “Come up with a type of fantasy creature or a culture or a tribe or a cult and then write about how they interact with a group of strangers.” And it was so easy and so much fun that I ended up writing so much stuff I actually got told several times to either stop or slow down because he thought I was pushing myself to hard to come up with this novels worth of setting details and short character interactions. But the truth of the matter was, I was just exhilarated to have a chance to just toss out all of these ideas I didn’t then have to tie together into a tightly constructed over arching plot!

Later I was writing a story for a comic with my best friend and though we had all of these cool ideas, it was not really coming together right. Everything was so detailed, so focused on notes about the setting and expository dialogue and aiming toward setting up for future events that it just didn’t feel right at all. So I took a brake and wrote a RPG based on the setting and spent about 100 pages just carefully building the setting and history for the universe it was set in. Then, months later, I came back to the comic and, now focusing just on the scene at hand and keeping in mind the setting I had built, I rewrote the opening chapter in a way which was SO MUCH BETTER then the first draft! Because I was no longer writing for the plot, but for the characters and the world and THAT was my jam!

Finally fairly recently, while dealing with a bout of writers block, I just for fun wrote something for my aforementioned best friend which was literally just a character looking around their weird room, commenting on some of the dumb stuff she saw and then having a conversation with her best friend. That ended up leading to a 23+ page story I am still writing with her that I find is so fun and relaxing to write I just pick it up and work on it when I am feeling stressed or down and it gets me feeling allot better! And though she is working on some long term plotting stuff for it, the thing I love about it is that, when I am writing it, its basically purely just setting details and characters.

And that’s what I want you writers out their to take away from my TED Talk today! If you find yourself getting caught up over and over again when writing, look at where you keep getting stuck and ask yourself, “Is their a pattern here? Am I getting stuck at random or is it when I try to focus too much on the world or on whats coming next in the story or when I need to write dialogue or back story that I am just grinding to a halt and not knowing what to write next?” Because I think you might well find that their is a pattern and once you know where your just breezing along and where your getting stuck, you can work to either spice up the parts you have trouble with with the things you enjoy or rework your story to focus on your strengths and down play your weakness. It might seem odd at first, but if Michael Crichton can shove long expository monologs about science into a book about a dino theme park going to hell or a Congo safari filled with intelligent apes murdering people and if Andrew Hussie can hold up his story about cosmically apocalyptic happenings to have a couple of dumb kids talk to one another about nonsense for a few thousand words, you can indulge yourself a little. Its alright, it doesn’t make you a bad creator, just one who will appeal more strongly to a particular audience.

Now that I have spent hours writing some dumb nonsense no one will ever read I will go to be- Oh wait its already morning, to get breakfast then work I guess.

As for the rest of you, go enjoy yourselves indulging in or creating whatever flavor of narrative you best enjoy!

@roxthefoxinsox @balile

8 notes · View notes

antagonist-chan · 6 years ago

Text

Another one of my favorite OCs I’ve come up with is Skull.

Skull’s from a story of mine called Stellar Grievances, which is my take on the whole Isekai genre- more specifically, the sub-genre of “people are trapped in the world of their favorite MMO” (a la Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, Overlord, or the .hack franchise). My particular spin on it is that it isn’t just the game’s players who get trapped (like in SAO or LH), or just a few players in particular (like in Overlord or .hack), but rather, the entire population of the Earth gets sent to the game world. In Stellar Grievances’ case, the titular game is a sci-fi game where there isn’t much focus on aliens- there used to be intelligent aliens, a long time ago, but they’re all gone, so it’s all humans and aliens that only have animal-like intelligence. And robots. But there are spaceships and shit. And, when I say that it’s sci-fi, I mean the kind that’s ultimately just a reskinned fantasy story, a la Star Wars, rather than a story that actually tries to make scientific sense (like Star Trek, 2001, or Mass Effect). Earth is not part of this setting, for instance. One of the playable classes in the game, the Knights, are swordsmen with psychic powers. And one of the intelligent alien races that used to be around were literal dragons. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Back to the topic of Skull herself...

Skull is introduced to the cast as this sort of cyborg zombie- a robot who was literally built around a human skeleton. That’s where she gets her name from- her head is just a skull with computer parts welded onto it. One of its eye sockets has a optical sensor embedded in it, the other’s just been left empty (since most of the cybernetics are on the left side of the skull, the right side is pretty barren).

However, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that Skull is more than just a robot using a skeleton as a base. In fact, that’s not what Skull is at all- the skeleton robot thing is just a remote-controlled drone that Skull uses to interact with the rest of the cast. Part of what makes it so obvious is that Skull is the mysterious leader. She’s not one of the main protagonists, but she is their boss and benefactor. She provides them their hyper-advanced ship, the Headstrong, which is unlike anything else that exists in the setting, and she seems to know what’s going on, why the people of Earth are now in this world, and how the two worlds were connected.

Once upon a time, Skull was a mighty dragon. And in this setting, while dragons look generally like what you’d expect dragons to look like (except, like, even bigger- these dragons are like the size of the entire god damn Chicago Metro Area), their role in the universe is... significantly more eldritch. These dragons get up to some Lovecraftian shit. They sort of bend reality just by existing, they see more of reality than we do (we humans are a four-dimensional existence- we can only see up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards, and future and past- the dragons could view eleven dimensions of reality, and had a less linear perspective of time), and most importantly of all- even though the dragons are technically extinct, they can’t really die. When a dragon “dies”, its body stops moving and begins to decompose, like anything else. But it doesn’t lose consciousness (at least, not fully- a dead dragon is less “alive” than a living one, but it’s still more “alive” than a human- while a living dragon can see eleven dimensions and humans can see four, a dead dragon can see seven dimensions, for example), and it still has some power over the world around it. Most of the dragons have given up since their “death”, just rotting around, but Skull is more ambitious. She used what power she had to gather followers, develop technology based upon her own body (part of what makes the Headstrong so advanced, it turns out, is because it’s partially made of Skull’s bones), and create a computer that could interface directly with her mind, effectively turning her corpse into a cyborg. So, as it turns out, Skull actually is a zombie cyborg, just not the one we met.

Anyways, over the course of the first major arc, Skull reveals that her fortress is actually her body. Like, it was just a massive dragon skeleton, but once she started developing tech based on her body and interfacing her mind with a computer, she started slowly converting her body into a massive starship, so she could effectively truly return to life (she’d never be as alive as she used to be, but at least she could actually move again). And after millions of years since her death, she was just about ready to launch. And so she does launch, and now, Skull is an ultra-powerful, giant, dragon-shaped zombie cyborg starship built around an actual dragon corpse that houses her consciousness. She used to be a reality-bending dragon, and she uses a robot built around a skeleton to interact with humans. And she doesn’t keep her starship body closed off- she turns her body into the headquarters of the Protectorate, which is this new government formed by the game’s players (since, remember, this is a “people trapped in an MMO” story), so her body is filled not only with stuff to keep her running, but also stuff for the thousands of visitors she gets in a day- stuff to keep their government running, stuff to entertain them, etc. And, of course, living quarters, both for members of the Protectorate who have decided to move in to her permanently (or even just temporarily), and for her followers. She’s basically a sentient, mobile, and 100% indoors city, a city that happens to be the capital of a major government.

#oc posting

2 notes · View notes

the-firebird69 · 1 year ago

Text

Two clips get back #thekingsguard

These people are idiots now there's a big scientist don't touch them and don't go within a few feet and some reason and listens because I have a sword and a horse and they can hurt you really bad and they don't listen to all day long so they ran around at night still and it's usually trumpsters and they shoot at people and stuff and they tried to find Brian cuz he's dressed up as them they're in their characters and they didn't fall for it I'll tell you what these people are stupid and what's he really going to do okay to the soldier but nothing it's just a waste of time people are fools but they are saying to go after them and stuff like that it's gross right now they're turning it up a few notches it's going to be hell for them they're going to die and their flagrant waste of time

-the shifting is done at 100 to 150 50% done it'll be done by around 3:00 a.m. low tide and all that s*** is out there already it's gross and it goes by after a while and the salt water comes in and washes it out around 5:00 a.m. and a whole bunch of air comes in and once you're done the sifting they are going to start on excavating the larger diamonds and there are four on the West Coast in this area and about four more up the coast and down one this one down the South as a total of nine they're about 1 mile they're not that big but they can get to them the others are very far down and you have to go from a tunnel and the tunnels are wet down here typical of all over and they are going to excavate those probably starting this coming morning early around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and they are constantly moving those spaceships out and they're in the 5 to 20 they've been going for 3 hours solid and it's only a quarter empty of what it was so that's not bad and that's the whole band so really at noon or to 2:00 p.m. tomorrow if they have it prepped it should be empty but they really have to prep and then start over it doesn't go constant so it takes a couple of days to do this Friday night it should be done 20 to 50 will take one day and we're back to the right on the schedule Mondays will be done with the whole shore, tonight the whole thing's going to drop and you don't have to unplug the diamonds where they pulled out the other diamonds which is up north off of Tampa and Sarasota there are three up north that whole area has dropped completely and it is gone but when they drop out way out there it's probably 25 to 30 miles the air blows around for a while before it gets here and he's going to try and blow it in and right here too cuz he's an a****** and if you deteriorate the brain stupid head it's not the same computer if you follow that and he gets it it's not like your brain which is like a baseball. And people will understand that and it's kind of a nightmare for them but that's what it is and they'll see it too Saturday and cells are in God's way for celebrating Salazar and goddess wife are celebrating because it's going to be something that they have to evacuate everybody has to move

-and there are some things that happen because of it it says the Spanish caravan and a lot of people are going to be there it's turning it's a massive a massive event in another battle and a war and fighting over it feels wow that's ridiculous and this is now he looks as we got to get out of here so the traffic to move traffic to move and a lot of people are going to be evacuating but yeah the firebird is next because of the Kia it's another special motor where you put just mechanical valves for the fuel injection and it works much better sounds a little funny but it works really well and for a lot longer time those cars have it in them now most cars have that it's a huge change and he made the fuel injection system and she did too and they fixed the pressurization problem she did that he says and she did.

-and there's more news the pseudo empire is not engaging the clones but they are fighting the warlock and finding them to be complete assholes they're just jerks they won't stop doing anything and they're having a hell of a time they're fighting each other out there right now there's a development it's kind of brewing it is about the bootleg and it's about up there it is Northern Appalachia and they're making a lot of booze and it's coming down the mountain tons of it and they're not barging it but they're bringing it in every weekend and it's coming up and the pseudo empire are threatening to halt it and they're trying to get it in there and some of them don't care if it gets in there or not like mac and he says what is the big deal with you people cutting people off it's not healthy so he doesn't like them and it's going to go on if this is turning into a war between these groups and it won't change at all and it's become a big war already but it's going to be a war everywhere and it is going to eliminate the two and it's getting worse and worse and they're not looking at anything else and they suck the war of the firebird is become immense there's an invasion plan people have gone to that Timmy Doyle is left a contingent and it's not too huge and they have specially thinks he can hold them off and we think it's going to move tonight and it has to be a huge a****** tomorrow he says I should have done that laundry today they were trying to giggling cuz it's true so it's going to be a big day tomorrow and we are going to watch as things change slowly but it is going to change a little faster once that firebird goes to New York they're going to go after the money cuz to see the one of the biggest if not the biggest money center it is the biggest money center and Trump is in trouble with money and feels like 30% of the world's wealth now and people are going to take it he's such a cheap freaking piece of s*** and he's stupid okay the man is a retard and that's what it is so ghost in New York and he gets a s*** kicked out of him and goes to Virginia and he gets beat up worse cuz he goes there and the Max come out and they get rid of him quick and Tony Stark is getting beat up too and he leaves he goes to Georgia tells his friend you're not protecting me and I said what the hell are you expect I don't have anything he laughs and says what about these Giants I said you have to watch out for the max and he knows so you send people to take a look and then he told everyone else and they finally get on it a little more and foreign has heard it so it's going to work this is great other stuff that's happening the max see the warlock and begin assaulting and the warlock now see the max because they're just doing what they're doing but faster and they can see it and it's a huge day and the Friday the 13th starts up and there is one coming up and last time I started up with a little and it's going to be intense and Halloween stuff on Halloween but there's going to be a lot of things he's going to be doing and he starts to heal finally what a nightmare you people hardly do anything and he knows that you're trying you just lose your temper for quite easily but boy get beat up and mangled and it's really no place to go and you don't have time to heal and you can run around and it's a nightmare it's like living inside a zoo and the max making that way

-and there's a few more things that are pretty big but that's huge there's a kickoff for a massive series of films and events and ancient lore that will come true it is massive it's it's more large than any I've ever seen and the dragon disappears what kind of trying to figure out how he can't figure it out he thinks he gets money and goes there and people think that might happen and it might happen with the dropping of the golf it's true too you'd have time even to hear about it.

It says you get up in the tower and it's better although it'll be windy out a helicopter could come or a car and it's true and he can't go below and we save probably can't and you might get trapped in there so it's not a bad idea we do hear that there's some ways that he gets up there we'll see if people he used to know find out that they can leave if they want to cuz a million dollars at was it Burger King. So there's a lot of stuff happening but it's going to happen soon there's more to announce bja plans to fire Trump from a bunch of jobs tomorrow and he plans to take over the area and it's not fun time and I sense is where did you f*** off you loser you want pressure I'm just going to break your neck and toss your head and acid there's some pressure you little s*** no f*** you Brian you're all done you little b**** I'm not going to sit here and be a rebel and a fighter and s*** with absolutely nothing you c********** loser you're such a f****** moron I can hardly go buy a load of paper I don't know what the f*** is in your head just so dumb. And The Rock says he's supposed to be like a leader or helper any treating like just a slave for ideas and telling people s*** so he doesn't care about you you fart you going to make this life miserable we're going to make yours miserable The Rock and miscellaneous and others say I mean really you're just a s*** head he adds.

Used to know how it is and how it works now you don't there's no team here and there's nothing here for me you're a piece of s*** this guy's a piece of s*** you just sit here and tons of money doing f****** nothing with it absolutely nothing you're useless you are useless piles of s*** you can't even get things to your people and you have some more money than anybody else you're f****** stupid I'm sick of hearing from you I'm sick of your dumb lines bja look you don't need any spaceships at all he doesn't either we're going to make sure you don't have any I can keep saying that to you cuz you keep saying this dumb s*** to me and I'm going to make it happen see the second line that's what you say you follow up with something even better he's dumb assholes you're not on my team you're not my people you're f****** stupid and you're all done and you aren't going to have ships we're going to make sure they're going to go back after him you're going to lose them

That was our son and daughter tell these cheap assholes off because wow they dumb they don't have a plan anymore and they don't have any savvy or style he's trying to run the whole thing and he has to bypass their leaders cuz they're so fried I agree too you people are spent you take too much of our time your stupid useless retards and your zombies level is high I'm ordering you dead again I'm going to have a special meeting again I can't stand you what you say Brian is so dumb you're such a f****** idiot nobody wants to work with you you're supposed to do that why would it work with you for nothing and he's not in fear for his life or he won't have anything he's just getting rid of you so that you can that's the that's the goal of course he agrees he's saying it too stupid everyday is stupid he repeats it everyday cuz you're so f****** dumb and you can hit so what it made you stupider that's what you should know

We have other stuff to announce but we're going to publish it's getting really big because these b****** want to argue about how right they are about dying and they really are right about dying they're useless

Thor Freya

0 notes