I'll Trade You This Picture For 1000 Words -- Putting the "light" back in "light side"

All right, WTH . . . it's April Fool's Day, TFN is crawling with owls, and we've had quite enough soul-corroding angst.

The only question that comes to mind for this picture is:

WHY?!

[image=http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6460/curlingiron1zq.gif]

Click the thumbnail for a larger image.

(If this is too stupid for people to work with, I'll find something else in a day or two . . . still, I have a strange feeling that some writers are actually going to want this one. )

 

So far, everything that I have yet to set down a review for has been great. I'll see what I can do about the next few images.

For now though, I finally have something reasonable for the map, though it's not really the main focal point of the story. I think I'm going to post it in another thread like you did Ophelia and link it back here because it kind of ran away with me and is going to come in installments.

 

Oh, good . . . I was *hoping* someone would reply. I have a doofy idea myself, and was toying with the idea of trying to post it tonight or to getting something else done and posting tomorrow or the next day.

Thank you for reminding people this thread exists, and sparing me the agony of the dilemma. ::weeps for joy::

Also, this thread now has more than 100 replies, some of which aren't even mine, and that means it wouldn't get auto-pruned even if it were to lie dormant for over a YEAR!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**cough, wheeeze**

. . . ha.

 

Oh, good . . . I was *hoping* someone would reply.

I've been meaning to for a few days now, but Darth Laziness sort of took over.

Thank you for reminding people this thread exists, and sparing me the agony of the dilemma. ::weeps for joy::

Oh, anytime dear! Actually, it was also kind of my fault the thread fell for not replying.

Also, this thread now has more than 100 replies, some of which aren't even mine, and that means it wouldn't get auto-pruned even if it were to lie dormant for over a YEAR!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**cough, wheeeze**

*does the over 100 posts dance* Now it's time to par-tay!!

Who's got the lomin-ale?

Edit: And here it is!

 

Nicely done, sporkbewithyou. I replied more extensively in the story thread. That map one has definitely got the best response so far . . . I'll have to think about how I can find more that inspire bunnies so well.

 

. . . all right, so I was wrong. Nobody wanted the hairdresser one. Fine! I'll just write something ridiculous about hair myself, and we'll move on . . .

*****

Hair Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Wash-And-Wear Look

A long time ago in the most charming little hair salon far, far away . . .

[A vast sea of stars serves as the backdrop for the Main Title, followed by a rollup, which crawls into infinity, clearly not feeling well, and mercifully expires.]

Hair! The Republic is crumbling under appalling retro-70's do's by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are stylists on both sides. Bad hair is everywhere.

In a stunning layered blunt cut, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capitol and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate and a natural brunette. (You can *so* see the roots if he goes too long between dye jobs.)

As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged salon with their valuable customer, two Headi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the Chancellor from an almost-certain bad perm . . . .

****

[With Obi-Wan's sunshiny highlights job *completely* ruined by a bucket of bleach, Anakin is left alone to battle Dooku. They brandish some damned sharp scissors at each other.]

COUNT DOOKU: I sense no taste in you, Skywalker. You have halfway decent hair, but you're wearing that dreadful dry-look jheri curl 'do that completely fails to complement your oval face.

[The snipping intensifies, until at last Anakin whacks off most of Dooku's bangs. Unfortunately, what's left stands straight up and curls. He now has poodle head.]

PALPATINE: [Duct-taped into a stylists chair] Good, Anakin, good. Dye him. Dye him now!

ANAKIN: I shouldn't . . . not without at least a shampoo and a rinse . . .

PALPATINE: Do it!!

DOOKU: Anakin, please, have mercy! Just a little bit off the top and sides . . .

[Suddenly Anakin snips off DOOKU's head.]

PALPATINE: Hmm. That was a little too *much* off the top . . .

ANAKIN: It'll grow back . . . wait, no it won't.

PALPATINE: Oh, who cares anyway. That poodle cut was too horrible for him to be left alive.

[ANAKIN removes the duct tape and disentangles the complicated dryer hose mechanism binding PALPATINE to the chair]

ANAKIN: I shouldn't have done that. The headless look is *so* last week.

PALPATINE: It's only natural. He gave you giant 80's Whitesnake hair--you wanted revenge. Besides, you've done it before. Remember what you told me about your mother . . . and that Kramer vs. Kramer blond bowl cut?

ANAKIN: You told me we'd never talk about that again!

****

[Later, ANAKIN wakes up in bed after a terrible nightmare. He looks down at his sleeping wife's hair to make sure it's all right, then hurries outside. PADME follows him]

PADME: What's bothering you?

ANAKIN: It was a dream . . . like I used to have about my mother, only this one was about you.

PADME: Tell me.

ANAKIN: You have . . . horrible hair. You've got these weird . . . bun-like things stuck on the sides of your head . . .

PADME: [Alarmed] And the baby . . . ?

ANAKIN: Her too. The other one ends up looking like a blond Ringo Starr-wannabe who showed up at a party 15 years too late.

PADME: It was only a dream.

ANAKIN: [Clutching her to him] I won't let these hairstlyes become real.

****

[Later, in PALPATINE's personal stylist's shop. ANAKIN walks in.]

PALPATINE: [To the attending buff-and-file nail girl] Leave us.

[ANAKIN sits down on the stylist's little rolling stool.]

PALPATINE: Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Nexxus . . . "The Dry And Color-Treated?"

ANAKIN: Uhhh, I don't think so.

PALPATINE: I thought not. It's not a story your corner barber would tell you. It's a Frizz legend. Darth Nexxus was a Dark Lord of the Frizz, so powerful and so wise he could influence the Methylisothiazolinone to smooth, heal and replenish, leaving hair manageable and super-shiny. He had such a knowledge of hair

 

Oh... my...

Seriously, ophelia. TEARS! You had me in tears!

*gasp*

That was probably the funniest thing I've read in a very, very long time. Wow.

 

Eh, thank you, L_N . . . that was definitely one of the sillier ways I've spent a Saturday afternoon. I had my shampoo bottles all lined up so I could read the text on the back . . .

Hopefully, this one will not require anyone to read the ingredients list on any household products.

[image=http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/8136/glowstone7am.gif]

Click the thumbnail for a larger image.

I can tell you that this is an image of a stone-and-mortar surface (a wall? a floor?) with a . . . thing in it.

Questions to ponder:

• Is the glowing block real, or is it a vision or fantasy in the mind of the viewpoint character?


• If it's real, what *is* that thing? Is there a "rational explanation" for its existence?
• Is it a supernatural or otherwise completely unknown object?


• Where is that stone wall it's embedded in? Is it in a prison? A walkway? An ancient tunnel?
• Does the glowing thing have a practical purpose? Does it have a purely spiritual or aesthetic purpose? If so, what is it?


• Who put that thing there?


• Who's the viewpoint character looking at it now? How did he or she find it?

 

Okay, Ophelia, THAT was hysterical as well as the one you did with... DarthIshtar? I was laughing so hard.

I'm gonna try and think of one for the hairdresser, and this week's one definitely sparked some bunnies. I'm not going to be able to post anything this week though.

 

That was hilarious, ophelia! Methylisothiazolinone? I kind of skipped over that word so I wouldn't have to try to pronounce it.

I'll try to come up with something for this picture. The last one spawned no plot bunnies at all, and the only bunny I got for the other one was the beginning of a fic I don't want to start yet...

 

Yeah, sporkbewithyou, that other silly script one was with Ish. <Palpatine>The writing of Ophelia and Ish is similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater angst. However, Ish is not afraid to kill off every. single. character. who walks into one of her stories. That is why she is more powerful. </Palpatine>

I understand if you don't have time to post anything this week. Hopefully, I soon won't have so much time to post things, either, 'cause I *really* need to be employed again. I'm getting some decent interest in employment for fall, but that's *August.* This is *April.* It's the wrong month beginning with "A," you see.

I'm glad that this week's image has sparked some interest. I never quite seem to know what's going to hit and what's going to miss.

It would be great if you posted something, Leona. <Vader>We would be honored if you would join us</Vader> Just stopping by and saying "hi" is nice, too, though.

(And I don't know why I'm channeling the Sith. Must be because we broke 55 degrees outside, and the sun is actually *on.* I mean, shining.

Winter in Michigan can make you forget that anything other than electric light exists.

Rogue_Pilot_2347 wrote: Methylisothiazolinone? I kind of skipped over that word so I wouldn't have to try to pronounce it

Well, I needed a stand-in for midi-chlorians, which have a kind of long, complicated name starting with "M" . . . I don't even know what methylisothiazolinone is, to tell you the truth. All I know is that it's listed as an ingredient in hair conditioner.

I'll try to come up with something for this picture. The last one spawned no plot bunnies at all, and the only bunny I got for the other one was the beginning of a fic I don't want to start yet...

Okay, fair enough. No worries. And thank you for letting me know you liked my thoroughly silly hair-- . . . can I call it a "hair piece?"

Right . . . I definitely need to go outside and chase around real bunnies instead of plot bunnies . . .

 

Whoa! That was cool! I definitely wasn't expecting the ending. The green stuff coming out and engulfing Felba's hand reminded me of that scene in the Matrix, where the mirror starts crawling up Neo's fingers. Definitely creepy.

I liked the opening line, too: "As you gaze upon it, it gazes back through darkness." It left me with a cold, prickling-at-the-back-of-the-neck feeling. It also made me think of that Nietzsche line about "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." Your version is creepier, though.

I found myself wondering . . . does that stone deliberately choose its victims, or will it suck in anyone who looks at it too long? Obviously dangerous as hell, either way.

And it sounds like the whole thing couldn't have happened to a better Master. Pity that poor Felba is now likely doomed as well . . . waving a lightsaber at a Jedi Master isn't a key to longevity. Even if you get the first one, there's always more where he came from, as Maul, Dooku, and eventually even Sid found out . . .

Very neat. I hadn't originally looked at that thing and saw any demonic potential . . . it was more like, WTH? I usually choose images that make me ask questions. It looks scary enough to me now, though.

 

That was great, Leona! Love that idea. now you've totally infected any idea I could come up with, I think... It's going to be hard to see that thing as anything but evil now...

 

All right. I thought of a way to not make it evil! Actually, I dreamt Ophelia posted a more complete picture of the glowing stone, and my version of the rock it's set in is what I dreamed, so here's my explanation.
______________________

?But what is it?? Aristine asked, peering curiously up at the glowing square of rock within the larger boulder.

?No one knows,? the guide said. ?Some say the Jedi put it there to warn people away.?

Aris closed her eyes and felt for the rock through the Force. No?that wasn?t right. It was something else; something good - majestic. Not a warning.

Technically, Aris wasn?t a Jedi. She?d never had formal training, or a master, or a lightsaber, for that matter. But she definitely had Force powers, and her mother, a mystic healer in a backward village on an even more backward planet, had taken it upon herself to train her daughter in the rudiments of the Force.

Her mother had died the year Aris?s training ended. Aris immediately left her home, never to return. A life as a small time healer was not what she wanted for herself.

So she had started wandering. Her first stop, four months ago, had been Coruscant. But the bustle there was too much for her after living eighteen years in a village where everyone knew everyone else, and the biggest news was that Alpho Ronz?s crops had failed for the second year in a row.

Then she had gone to Tattooine. That was the exact opposite: too barren and empty. She felt lost in the magnitude of the desert planet.

Then Aris had come to this little temperate rainforest planet. Here, she had hired a guide to take her into the wilderness.

This was what she liked: the comforting closeness of trees, the buzzing of thousands of insects, the drip-drip of the rain that fell most of the time. Aristine?s mother would have loved this.

The guide broke through her thoughts with a nervous cough. ?What would you like to do, mistress?? he said, his antennae waving anxiously above his blue face.

Aris looked up at the mammoth structure before her. No one could hope to find out what it was from this angle. It was too huge. She glanced at their surroundings, and noticed that the ground behind them sloped up, first gently, and finally, almost in a vertical slope to a peak high above the man-made structure before them.

?We?re going to climb the mountain.?

?Climb? The mountain?? the guide croaked. ?B-but no one?s ever made it up Ashtherion! It can?t be done.?

?Then we?ll be the first.? The finality with which she said the words left little room for argument, so the guide followed Aris wordlessly, wringing his hands.
_______________________

The climb was a hard one. Well over half of the waist- to shoulder height shrubs that covered the nominally rocky slope were thorn bushes, with large thorns that caught at anything and everything. More than a few times, Aris and her distraught guide had to backtrack to find a do-able route.

After nearly three hours of ceaseless climbing, the blue skinned humanoid sat down on a relatively flat rock and burst into tears. ?I am sorry, Mistress, but I cannot go further. The ascent of this mountain is impossible.?

Aris took pity on the man. Indeed, he was hardly fit for strenuous climbing, in his impractical guides? dress, and extra folds of fat against the coming winter. ?Sit here, then,? she said kindly, ?And wait for me. I?m afraid that now I?ve started up this bit of rock, it?s going to take quite a bit more than this to get me back down before I?ve seen the top.?

The humanoid opened his mouth to protest, but realized his good fortune that she wasn?t forcing him to follow her all the way up (most employers would have) and nodded gratefully. Turning her back on the guide, Aristine started up the steep slope on her own.

An hour later it started to rain. At first, just a drizzle, but finally, a downpour so heavy it made the rocks slick to the touch, and made seeing anything more than a few feet in front of Aris?s face nearly impossible. This kind of storm never lasted long,

 

Oh, that was cool! It made me think of the massive chalk shapes carved into the hills in England, or some of the huge designs made by building walls or earth mounds in the Southwest. You can only really see what those are from the air too.

The "giant carving" idea is a really great one for what that glowing rock might be--the thing has that same sense of "meaning something, but I dunno what" that a fragment of one of those huge RL designs has when you see it up close. It never would have occurred to me to "zoom out" and imagine a whole huge picture around it.

I'm strangely flattered that I get inspiration credit in your dream, though.

 

Healer_Leona: Thanks! It was fun to write

Ophelia: Also thanks. Isn't that odd, about the dream.

In case anybody's interested, I changed it a bit, and I might (note the word 'might') continue this. I have an idea, just don't know where to go with it.

 

Okay, I have an idea for the glowing stone thing that I want to post, but today I got sidetracked by the drama of my taxes. When they say you can't avoid death or taxes, it makes it sound like they're equal in some way. There's no mention of the fact that no one will come knocking on your door in the middle of the night if you cheat death.

Anyway, this week I found this image, and I have to say I really want to be that woman. I have no idea what she's even sitting on, but I want to be her anyway.

[image=http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/9347/chair3po.gif]

Click the thumbnail for a larger image.

Questions to ponder:

• Who's the babe in the chair?


• *Is* that even a chair? If not, what is it? Does it have some special power or function?


• If you could throw the chick out of the chair, who would you put in it? What would they be doing/thinking? (You could even stick a couple of people in it if you're feeling romantic, yet of course family-friendly. )


• That seems to be a pretty upscale-market chair . . . what would someone like little Ani the Mos Espa slave think if he ran into something like that? What might more (or less) fortunate characters think?


• Is there an interesting story behind how/why the chair was made? Behind where it came from?


• (I have to ask, given the history of responses to "thing" images ) Is there, by any chance, a dreadful curse on this chair?

As always, go in any direction you like. These are just starter ideas.

 

Okay, so I finished my response to the glowing stone thingy, aaaand it turned out way too long to put it here.

It's called:

On A Dark Night

It's on the Before board.

Oh, and I haven't posted this in a while: I still write open-source fanfic, and on the off-chance people want to use things, they can. Permission's not really necessary, although credit's appreciated.

 

Ophelia! Your pictures are leaving me absolutely void of anything remotely resembling a plot bunny...

I'll see if I can come up with something, though...

 

:: Maybe you could PM me information on what kind of images help you? I never know what's going to be a hit and what's going to be a miss.

 

I wanted to try this.



*soothing music*

Is the stress of the Vong War getting to you? Do you find yourself either gaining or losing weight at an unhealthy rate?

*Image flashes on the screen and begins to rotate slowly*

If so, the Alderaan Stress bed is just what you need. Sink into it?s silken cushions; feel it wrap soothingly around your body.

The Alderann Stress Bed is affordable ? just $29.95 with your prepaid order ? and is guaranteed to work. Just listen:

Jacen Solo: I tried the Alderaan Stress Bed and discovered the secretes to the Force.
With it?s help, I?m not a great Jedi who knows how to defeat the Vong and remain a light Jedi.

Grand Admiral Thrawn: The Alderaan Stress Bed is work of art that is guaranteed to
generate perfect battle plans. You can?t lose with a plan developed while lying on its soft surface.** Note: Thrawn is dead. He?s been digitally remastered with permission from his former bodyguard for the purpose of this commercial.

Cal Omas: Since being elected Chief of State, I?ve been under a great deal of stress. For a while there, I was losing my hair and weight. But now that I?ve bought
the Stress Bed, I feel ? a look ? great!

Kyp Durron: Some of you may know me as a rough and tumble rebel, but the reality is
That even I find the time to relax into the comfort of an Alderaan Stress
Chair. It gives me the decisive edge needed to win when I fight the Vong.

*flash back to picture*

Well, there you have it. The Alderaan Stress Chair really works! It?s available to ship now and comes in red, silver, and beige.

Get yours today!

**Commercial ends**

*Overlord Shimmra rubbed chin thoughtfully* And you really think that we can get people to buy this product? They won?t detect that it?ll eat them until it?s too late?

 

That's great, Kissa. I love the idea! "Do you think they'll realize the chair will eat them"... that's hilarious...

Ophelia: I'm just venting. Even if I can't always think of something, I love reading what everyone else does with the pictures. This is a great thread!