Thursday, July 27, 2006

White Butterflies

“Mama, what's this?”

The white haired woman looked down at her child, taking her eyes off of the shining silver necklace she was making, and smiled. In his cupped hands rested a tiny butterfly, as white as the downy feathers that still covered his wings. She bent down, her own golden wings spreading out on the dusty wood floor behind her, and carefully examined the miniature insect that rested in her son's hand.

“What do you think it is, Micheal?”

He thought for a minute, his brow wrinkling as he stared down at the butterfly. Finally, he looked up.

“I think it's a grown up feather!”

She laughed a little. “A grown up feather?”

He nodded. “Yeah! All of my feathers are baby feathers, but when they fall off they grow up and then they look like this!” His blue eyes sparkled. “Right?”

“Not quite,” she said with a smile. “This is a butterfly.”

“A butter-fly?” He sounded just as confused as he looked. “It isn't butter!”

She laughed. “No, it's not.”

“And butter doesn't fly anyway!”

“Right again! But this is still a butterfly, even if the name doesn't make sense.” She shooed him out of the little wooden house. “Now go find a flower to put it on.”

He looked back at her. “Why?”

“Because butterfly food comes from flowers. That one's probably hungry.”

“Do flowers taste good?”

“Butterflies like them.”

“Hmm...” Micheal thought about this for a minute, then wandered off towards the meadow. His mother stood in the doorway, watching him, until he disappeared behind a tree, and she turned back to her work.

Five minutes later, Micheal was back.

“Mama,” he said with a grimace, “Flowers taste bad.”






A/N: Yep, another one not even remotely related to continuity. But, I felt like writing it, so here you go!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Doukutsu Boss Yell

Ok, so I was playing this game called "Doukutsu Monogatari," which is Japanese for "Cave Story." (The translation is lame, I know, but the game is fun.) Anyway, I was fighting the final boss before the next final boss before the bonus level's boss which I've never beaten or actually even reached, and I noticed that when you beat the boss's almost-final form, which is this crazy sort of mad-scientist guy who's hair makes Einstein look like a tv anchor, he yells "Aiiiigh!"
This isn't a normal yell. For example, try saying it out loud. "Aiiigh." Sounds dumb, doesn't it? I mean, I could understand if he said "Augh" or "Aaaaah!", "Argh" or even "Aiii!" because those are all noises that humans make. But he's trying to roll them all together! It's like a frustrated screaming pirate ninja all in one!
So, not only is he deciding to make this noise, he's deciding this while his body is dissolving into a bizzare red smoke after a little amnesiatic robot's been throwing knives at him repeatedly for the past three minutes or so. I don't think that's something he came up with right then and there. No way he could do that under that kind of pressure. He must have planned it beforehand, though I have no idea why.
That brings up an interesting point. If I ever die at the hands of an amnesiatic robot after becoming evil and using massive amounts of deadly chemicals on myself, what do I want to scream? Not something cliche, like "I'll get you yet," and I'm certainly not going to mention a little dog too, as funny as that may be. Maybe something enigmatic about "You fool, you know not what you do," and then things start blowing up.
Or maybe I'll just go with "Aiiigh." It certainly caught my attention... And yet, because I was inspired by this almost-final form of this almost-final boss, it still wouldn't be original. I'll have to give this some thought. Suggestions are appreciated!