Gift fics 10 - 18
Nov. 18th, 2007 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosieknightPart 2 of my collection project.
Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable. CH does not belong to me, but LE does.
Retail woes.
A woman with dark brown, curly hair sighs and boots up her IM program. She notices one of her real life friends, let's call the friend CH, is on. The brunette, she'll be LE for our purposes sends an IM.
LE: I want to kill the payroll people.
CH: Oh? Do I want to know?
LE: I mean metaphorically, not really.
LE: The payroll people, preparing for the Christmas shopping season, have cut the amount of money my store gets to pays its employees. This leads to everybody having fewer hours and somewhat crazy schedules. And the occasional understaffing.
CH: Ok.....
LE: Normally, understaffing doesn't really matter. We've got enough people who can pick up the slack in lots of areas in the store.
CH: Ok...
LE: However, the payroll people didn't figure a few things into their calculations of this week's payroll. 1) It's a holiday weekend - Veterans' Day is Mon. 2) There's about 2 weeks until Thanksgiving and people need to buy clothes for that. 3) A cold front went through and people are buying winter clothes 'cause it's, ya know, cold.
CH: Still with you.
LE: So, we're understaffed today... And it was bad.
CH: How bad are we talking about? Minor annoyance bad? Death Star bearing down on the planet bad?
LE: When I went in to work, the Hole o' Solitude was packed with clothes. All the roll racks we use to get clothes back out to the floor were full AND two shopping carts were filled with clothes that needed to go back out AND there was a pile on the desk AND some more clothes on the little hang bar.
LE: That's not the worst of it, though.
CH: Oh?
LE: I had to wait an entire HOUR before I ever got anyone to take some of the clothes away. And people were still going in and out of the Hole o' Solitude. I finally had to ask the closing manager for one of the big roll racks out of the back to put stuff on. One cart managed to fill the whole rack, and that was with one of my co-workers putting stuff back as I hung clothes on the rack.
LE: So, I'd say that's a Death Star.
CH: Yeah, I can see that.
End.
Fear Attracts the Fearful.
Anakin Skywalker, the Sith Lord Darth Vader, knew all about fear.
He'd lived with it for years as a slave on Tatooine. It was a constant companion during the Clone Wars. Even his time at the Jedi Temple had been tinged with some sort of fear. He inspired it among the Imperial troops he led and the Rebel forces he fought against.
Yes, Lord Vader knew fear. He intimately knew how it robbed even the brightest of minds their intellect, caused endless distractions, and wormed away in the guts of those it infected.
He felt it now. A familiar emotion, but so powerful that the sensation was nearly unrecognizable.
It was not fear for his own life. He'd long ago - as Anakin Skywalker - reconciled with the thought of his death.
It was fear for another's life... other's lives, if he were to be perfectly honest with himself.
Darth Vader stared out of the bridge of the Executor's main viewport.
There, floating scant kilometers away, a Lambda shuttle and several TIEs swarmed around a mangled Millennium Falcon.
The Imperial rescue efforts were hampered by the relative positions of the Executor and the Falcon. Tractor beams could not target the Falcon without inverting the Super Star Destroyer, but rolling the Executor would either disable the life-support systems of the smaller ship or destroy it all together.
All Vader could do was watch and feel the sick, helplessness of fear curl in his gut. Feel it echo, unknowingly on the other's part, with the fear radiating from the Falcon.
At this moment, Lord Vader and Leia Organa were united by fear.
Fear for Luke Skywalker's life.
End.
That is the price...of immortality.
I admit it; I didn't want to think about the potential repercussions of my actions in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon. I don't regret saving my dad's life - even when he's at his most irritating.
But IMMORTALITY?
Anyone who thinks about the idea for more than a few seconds can realize just heartbreaking living forever would be. You'd watch your friends, your family, and even the society you knew change and vanish before your eyes. To keep from attracting the wrong kind of attention, you'd have to constantly re-invent yourself. You'd have to learn new languages and dialects, keep getting re-educated in your career field, and create new identities for yourself - complete with all the requisite paperwork.
Not what I'd call a fun time.
My name is Dr. Henry "Indiana" Walden Jones, Jr. I'm a doctor of archaeology several times over, I've taught at various colleges around the world, and found some of the most sought after artifacts in the world.
Including the Holy Grail.
I'm also 108 years old, but look like I'm a lot younger.
I've seen two World Wars, watched humanity land on the moon, observed the dawning of the computer age - and have those things shrunk!, and survived the Great Depression, Watergate, and the 60's.
To put it plainly, I'm immortal. I have been ever since I drank out of the Holy Grail to make sure it wouldn't kill my dad.
So, 'do I fear death', as you so eloquently put it, Captain Turner?
No. No, I don't. I fear living and leaving all those I love behind. It's a fear I'm sure you understand.
Look me up on your next day on land, Captain, and we can trade stories.
See you in ten years.
This looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.
End
Acme Medicine?
Commercial girl 1: "Our product is so good; we'll let you try it for free!"
Commercial girl 2: "Wow! What does it do?"
CG1: "It gets rid of Acme!"
CG2: "I've tried other anti-Acme products, but they didn't work!"
CG1: "Our product is laboratory proven to get rid of Acme! Our company knows you've got great skin under that Acme!"
Me: "So, what does that mean for all the Loony Tunes?"
Sylvester: "They're dessspicable. That'ssss what we think."
CG 1 & 2: "..."
End.
AN: The commercial that inspired this fic was actually for AcNE medicine, but I kept hearing AcME. O.o
A Different Look at Trent.
Despite what the rumor mill had claimed, Trent had never hated Witwicky.
Trent knew he should resent Witwicky for stealing Mikaela Banes from him, but he didn't. He'd seen the way Mikaela acted around Sam, happiness radiating from her entire being. It was like she was someone completely different than who she was around everyone else, like Witwicky knew everything about her and still liked her.
Mikaela didn't have that with him, Trent knew. Hell, Trent wasn't sure if he knew everything about any of his friends, let alone the women he dated.
Despite the sting of losing Mikaela, seeing the incredible openness between Witwicky and Mikaela was heartening. If people as different as those two could have such a close bond; there was hope for the rest of world to find it also.
In truth, Witwicky probably treated Mikaela better than Trent had. Back then, the girls he dated were in awe of his status on the football team and didn't complain about his chauvinistic behavior. That behavior had been sharply curtailed once he entered the army. Trent winced, remembering. He never wanted to piss off a group of tank soldiers by insulting their lead female mechanic again. The experience had forced him to rethink a lot of his ideas about the roles of women and his treatment of them. It was a lesson Witwicky apparently learned well before meeting Mikaela.
He also had to admit, if only to himself, a level of respect for Witwicky.
Trent might've been a member of the popular crowd, but he was still well aware of how vicious the school's rumor mill was. He'd seen well-liked guys become outcasts after one of the nastier gossips had started in on them. Witwicky, in contrast, had ignored most of rumors and only responded to the worst of the personal attacks or the rumors that insulted Mikaela.
Trent grinned. The verbal barbs Witwicky used as a defense had always been funny, but they seemed funnier when aimed at the cruelest gossip mongers. He'd been free to listen to his heart's content and not have to pound Witwicky to defend his position in the school's social order.
Witwicky also had guts - not only to implicitly insult Trent to his face a few times, but to verbally spar with the gossipers. Plus, those bruises he'd been putting up with after Mission City. Trent shook his head. He couldn't think of any member of the football team who'd ever been that bruised, even after the roughest game. Witwicky's friend - Miles? Mills? Niles? something like that - had drawn the attention of the entire locker room the day Witwicky had first come back to school after Mission City. And, honestly, Trent could understand why. Witwicky looked like he'd been tackled several times by professional football players and while not wearing any padding.
He supposes that what really cemented his respect for Witwicky was the presentation by the-soon-to-be-promoted Captain Will Lennox. Lennox and his team had spoken about the events in Mission City, including the civilian minor who'd been responsible for winning the battle. During the entire discussion - save for a quick, emphatic denial that the person was NOT a jock - about the young hero, the Rangers had pointedly kept their attention on Witwicky. Especially when stating that the young man and his mechanic friend had spots on Lennox's team, if they wanted the job. The respect the Rangers had for these two people was obvious and somewhat disconcerting, once he realized who they had to be.
Trent stretched. He'd left high school respecting Witwicky, though he'd never gotten a chance to tell the other man that. Hopefully, he'd be able to talk to Witwicky at their next high school reunion, but Trent's enlistment in the Army made any future plans tentative.
He pushed thoughts of Witwicky aside, they were unlikely to meet anytime soon and he had a training course to attend.
Trent opened the door to the classroom and stopped in shock at the sight of a very familiar fellow student. "Witwicky?"
End
Linus in Spaaaaace!!!!
One of the most interesting beliefs about Lord Vader comes from Linus Van Pelt, age 7:
"Every year, on the night before Empire Day, Darth Vader rises from the most sincere Imperial Base and flies off, brining toys to all the good little children in the universe. We ought to have a good shot at seeing him! Just look around you! Sincerity as far as the eye can see! Yes, this will be the Imperial Base Darth Vader picks! It has to be!"
This is, perhaps, the most positive mythos surrounding Lord Vader. One wonders what Linus would do if he ever encounters Darth Vader.
- excerpted from The Imperial Cultural Studies Journal. The Mythos of Darth Vader. (Imperial Center University, Empire 15).
End.
10 things that should not be.
1) A LOTR wizard who is "the Pink".
2) A breeding program for Killer Rabbits.
3) Harry Potter with fuchsia and orange dyed hair, from a non-prank related origin.
4) Darth Sidious wearing bunny slippers.
5) Snoopy owning a pet.
6) Darth Vader getting pwned by Yoshi.
7) Darth Vader getting pwned by Jigglypuff.
8) Barney the Dinosaur pwning ANYBODY.
9) A LOTR wizard who is "the Neon Green".
10) Eye make-up on Sauron.
Why you shouldn't play video games while in pain...
I'm in pain. I pulled a muscle in my back sometime before lunch - don't ask me how - and it hasn't gone away. It primarily hurts when I'm trying to get in to or out of a crouching/sitting position.
Add to that the fact that I worked closing shift in the section that requires the most bending tonight and the section that I'm least comfortable in....
It's no surprise I'm not a happy camper.
So, Mister (Miss? Mrs? Do you even have a gender?) Minion of the Main Villain, the question is... Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?
End.
The OTHER Map.
Captain Barbossa's anger at Captain Jack Sparrow's theft of the map leading to the Agua de Vida was intense. The crew of the Black Pearl went about their tasks as quickly and quietly as possible, lest they attract the attention of the furious pirate captain.
It took two days before Barbossa was calm enough to approach again. And this time, the crew brought with them some welcome news.
"The wench says there be another map, cap'in. But we need to go to Florida to get it."
The captain nodded. "We leave with the tide, then!"
Majestically, the Black Pearl traversed the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The former East Indiaman followed the Gulf Stream as it headed North.
The quick voyage ended with the Pearl sneaking into the bay guarded by the Castillo de San Marcos.
The crew stealthily slipped ashore and located the best source of information to the Agua de Vida: the Tourist Information Office.
One terrified clerk later, Barbossa had a map to the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park.
"Now, according to this, the Fountain of Youth is at 11 Magnolia Avenue and off of San Marco Avenue. All right, who has the street map?"
End
Edit: Gift fics 1 - 9
Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable. CH does not belong to me, but LE does.
Retail woes.
A woman with dark brown, curly hair sighs and boots up her IM program. She notices one of her real life friends, let's call the friend CH, is on. The brunette, she'll be LE for our purposes sends an IM.
LE: I want to kill the payroll people.
CH: Oh? Do I want to know?
LE: I mean metaphorically, not really.
LE: The payroll people, preparing for the Christmas shopping season, have cut the amount of money my store gets to pays its employees. This leads to everybody having fewer hours and somewhat crazy schedules. And the occasional understaffing.
CH: Ok.....
LE: Normally, understaffing doesn't really matter. We've got enough people who can pick up the slack in lots of areas in the store.
CH: Ok...
LE: However, the payroll people didn't figure a few things into their calculations of this week's payroll. 1) It's a holiday weekend - Veterans' Day is Mon. 2) There's about 2 weeks until Thanksgiving and people need to buy clothes for that. 3) A cold front went through and people are buying winter clothes 'cause it's, ya know, cold.
CH: Still with you.
LE: So, we're understaffed today... And it was bad.
CH: How bad are we talking about? Minor annoyance bad? Death Star bearing down on the planet bad?
LE: When I went in to work, the Hole o' Solitude was packed with clothes. All the roll racks we use to get clothes back out to the floor were full AND two shopping carts were filled with clothes that needed to go back out AND there was a pile on the desk AND some more clothes on the little hang bar.
LE: That's not the worst of it, though.
CH: Oh?
LE: I had to wait an entire HOUR before I ever got anyone to take some of the clothes away. And people were still going in and out of the Hole o' Solitude. I finally had to ask the closing manager for one of the big roll racks out of the back to put stuff on. One cart managed to fill the whole rack, and that was with one of my co-workers putting stuff back as I hung clothes on the rack.
LE: So, I'd say that's a Death Star.
CH: Yeah, I can see that.
End.
Fear Attracts the Fearful.
Anakin Skywalker, the Sith Lord Darth Vader, knew all about fear.
He'd lived with it for years as a slave on Tatooine. It was a constant companion during the Clone Wars. Even his time at the Jedi Temple had been tinged with some sort of fear. He inspired it among the Imperial troops he led and the Rebel forces he fought against.
Yes, Lord Vader knew fear. He intimately knew how it robbed even the brightest of minds their intellect, caused endless distractions, and wormed away in the guts of those it infected.
He felt it now. A familiar emotion, but so powerful that the sensation was nearly unrecognizable.
It was not fear for his own life. He'd long ago - as Anakin Skywalker - reconciled with the thought of his death.
It was fear for another's life... other's lives, if he were to be perfectly honest with himself.
Darth Vader stared out of the bridge of the Executor's main viewport.
There, floating scant kilometers away, a Lambda shuttle and several TIEs swarmed around a mangled Millennium Falcon.
The Imperial rescue efforts were hampered by the relative positions of the Executor and the Falcon. Tractor beams could not target the Falcon without inverting the Super Star Destroyer, but rolling the Executor would either disable the life-support systems of the smaller ship or destroy it all together.
All Vader could do was watch and feel the sick, helplessness of fear curl in his gut. Feel it echo, unknowingly on the other's part, with the fear radiating from the Falcon.
At this moment, Lord Vader and Leia Organa were united by fear.
Fear for Luke Skywalker's life.
End.
That is the price...of immortality.
I admit it; I didn't want to think about the potential repercussions of my actions in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon. I don't regret saving my dad's life - even when he's at his most irritating.
But IMMORTALITY?
Anyone who thinks about the idea for more than a few seconds can realize just heartbreaking living forever would be. You'd watch your friends, your family, and even the society you knew change and vanish before your eyes. To keep from attracting the wrong kind of attention, you'd have to constantly re-invent yourself. You'd have to learn new languages and dialects, keep getting re-educated in your career field, and create new identities for yourself - complete with all the requisite paperwork.
Not what I'd call a fun time.
My name is Dr. Henry "Indiana" Walden Jones, Jr. I'm a doctor of archaeology several times over, I've taught at various colleges around the world, and found some of the most sought after artifacts in the world.
Including the Holy Grail.
I'm also 108 years old, but look like I'm a lot younger.
I've seen two World Wars, watched humanity land on the moon, observed the dawning of the computer age - and have those things shrunk!, and survived the Great Depression, Watergate, and the 60's.
To put it plainly, I'm immortal. I have been ever since I drank out of the Holy Grail to make sure it wouldn't kill my dad.
So, 'do I fear death', as you so eloquently put it, Captain Turner?
No. No, I don't. I fear living and leaving all those I love behind. It's a fear I'm sure you understand.
Look me up on your next day on land, Captain, and we can trade stories.
See you in ten years.
This looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.
End
Acme Medicine?
Commercial girl 1: "Our product is so good; we'll let you try it for free!"
Commercial girl 2: "Wow! What does it do?"
CG1: "It gets rid of Acme!"
CG2: "I've tried other anti-Acme products, but they didn't work!"
CG1: "Our product is laboratory proven to get rid of Acme! Our company knows you've got great skin under that Acme!"
Me: "So, what does that mean for all the Loony Tunes?"
Sylvester: "They're dessspicable. That'ssss what we think."
CG 1 & 2: "..."
End.
AN: The commercial that inspired this fic was actually for AcNE medicine, but I kept hearing AcME. O.o
A Different Look at Trent.
Despite what the rumor mill had claimed, Trent had never hated Witwicky.
Trent knew he should resent Witwicky for stealing Mikaela Banes from him, but he didn't. He'd seen the way Mikaela acted around Sam, happiness radiating from her entire being. It was like she was someone completely different than who she was around everyone else, like Witwicky knew everything about her and still liked her.
Mikaela didn't have that with him, Trent knew. Hell, Trent wasn't sure if he knew everything about any of his friends, let alone the women he dated.
Despite the sting of losing Mikaela, seeing the incredible openness between Witwicky and Mikaela was heartening. If people as different as those two could have such a close bond; there was hope for the rest of world to find it also.
In truth, Witwicky probably treated Mikaela better than Trent had. Back then, the girls he dated were in awe of his status on the football team and didn't complain about his chauvinistic behavior. That behavior had been sharply curtailed once he entered the army. Trent winced, remembering. He never wanted to piss off a group of tank soldiers by insulting their lead female mechanic again. The experience had forced him to rethink a lot of his ideas about the roles of women and his treatment of them. It was a lesson Witwicky apparently learned well before meeting Mikaela.
He also had to admit, if only to himself, a level of respect for Witwicky.
Trent might've been a member of the popular crowd, but he was still well aware of how vicious the school's rumor mill was. He'd seen well-liked guys become outcasts after one of the nastier gossips had started in on them. Witwicky, in contrast, had ignored most of rumors and only responded to the worst of the personal attacks or the rumors that insulted Mikaela.
Trent grinned. The verbal barbs Witwicky used as a defense had always been funny, but they seemed funnier when aimed at the cruelest gossip mongers. He'd been free to listen to his heart's content and not have to pound Witwicky to defend his position in the school's social order.
Witwicky also had guts - not only to implicitly insult Trent to his face a few times, but to verbally spar with the gossipers. Plus, those bruises he'd been putting up with after Mission City. Trent shook his head. He couldn't think of any member of the football team who'd ever been that bruised, even after the roughest game. Witwicky's friend - Miles? Mills? Niles? something like that - had drawn the attention of the entire locker room the day Witwicky had first come back to school after Mission City. And, honestly, Trent could understand why. Witwicky looked like he'd been tackled several times by professional football players and while not wearing any padding.
He supposes that what really cemented his respect for Witwicky was the presentation by the-soon-to-be-promoted Captain Will Lennox. Lennox and his team had spoken about the events in Mission City, including the civilian minor who'd been responsible for winning the battle. During the entire discussion - save for a quick, emphatic denial that the person was NOT a jock - about the young hero, the Rangers had pointedly kept their attention on Witwicky. Especially when stating that the young man and his mechanic friend had spots on Lennox's team, if they wanted the job. The respect the Rangers had for these two people was obvious and somewhat disconcerting, once he realized who they had to be.
Trent stretched. He'd left high school respecting Witwicky, though he'd never gotten a chance to tell the other man that. Hopefully, he'd be able to talk to Witwicky at their next high school reunion, but Trent's enlistment in the Army made any future plans tentative.
He pushed thoughts of Witwicky aside, they were unlikely to meet anytime soon and he had a training course to attend.
Trent opened the door to the classroom and stopped in shock at the sight of a very familiar fellow student. "Witwicky?"
End
Linus in Spaaaaace!!!!
One of the most interesting beliefs about Lord Vader comes from Linus Van Pelt, age 7:
"Every year, on the night before Empire Day, Darth Vader rises from the most sincere Imperial Base and flies off, brining toys to all the good little children in the universe. We ought to have a good shot at seeing him! Just look around you! Sincerity as far as the eye can see! Yes, this will be the Imperial Base Darth Vader picks! It has to be!"
This is, perhaps, the most positive mythos surrounding Lord Vader. One wonders what Linus would do if he ever encounters Darth Vader.
- excerpted from The Imperial Cultural Studies Journal. The Mythos of Darth Vader. (Imperial Center University, Empire 15).
End.
10 things that should not be.
1) A LOTR wizard who is "the Pink".
2) A breeding program for Killer Rabbits.
3) Harry Potter with fuchsia and orange dyed hair, from a non-prank related origin.
4) Darth Sidious wearing bunny slippers.
5) Snoopy owning a pet.
6) Darth Vader getting pwned by Yoshi.
7) Darth Vader getting pwned by Jigglypuff.
8) Barney the Dinosaur pwning ANYBODY.
9) A LOTR wizard who is "the Neon Green".
10) Eye make-up on Sauron.
Why you shouldn't play video games while in pain...
I'm in pain. I pulled a muscle in my back sometime before lunch - don't ask me how - and it hasn't gone away. It primarily hurts when I'm trying to get in to or out of a crouching/sitting position.
Add to that the fact that I worked closing shift in the section that requires the most bending tonight and the section that I'm least comfortable in....
It's no surprise I'm not a happy camper.
So, Mister (Miss? Mrs? Do you even have a gender?) Minion of the Main Villain, the question is... Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?
End.
The OTHER Map.
Captain Barbossa's anger at Captain Jack Sparrow's theft of the map leading to the Agua de Vida was intense. The crew of the Black Pearl went about their tasks as quickly and quietly as possible, lest they attract the attention of the furious pirate captain.
It took two days before Barbossa was calm enough to approach again. And this time, the crew brought with them some welcome news.
"The wench says there be another map, cap'in. But we need to go to Florida to get it."
The captain nodded. "We leave with the tide, then!"
Majestically, the Black Pearl traversed the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The former East Indiaman followed the Gulf Stream as it headed North.
The quick voyage ended with the Pearl sneaking into the bay guarded by the Castillo de San Marcos.
The crew stealthily slipped ashore and located the best source of information to the Agua de Vida: the Tourist Information Office.
One terrified clerk later, Barbossa had a map to the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park.
"Now, according to this, the Fountain of Youth is at 11 Magnolia Avenue and off of San Marco Avenue. All right, who has the street map?"
End
Edit: Gift fics 1 - 9
