boogieshoes | observations on Mobile, and another dream (Reply)

so i was driving in to work today, and i saw this car... with tail feathers tied to it's bumper. Mobile-ites seem to have this thing for attaching trailing things to their car. the tiger tails i understand - Auburn is the local university, and their mascot is the tiger. and these 'bumper-feathers' i understood when i passed the car, which was painted out on the door panels with (i think, i was paying more attention to driving) a NA life or battle scene or something.

the one i don't understand was the toy rat tied to *another* car's undercarriage! it was plush, but really? i'm all for jokes, but if the driver was responsible, that was non-obvious, heh.

but raptors and their prey were apparently the theme of the day - i saw a falcon or something light on one of the light poles on I10. that was kind of cool.

i've finally gotten around to reading Macx's stuff, which i'd been avoiding because a large number of her stories don't have white space between paragraphs, which makes it extra hard to read. but i've been slogging through the stuff she's put up on AO3, partly to see what the fuss is about, and mostly because it's easier to deal with the no white space thing there, and i was pleased to see i like her stuff reasonably well.

i understand she's a German native speaker, so some of the 'mushiness' factor is probably a 'lost in translation' issue, but even so, i wouldn't rate her as high as maygra or Gil Hale. worth reading? yes. good ideas, reasonable plot lines, things have consequences, all elements i like. but there's just that something missing - that little bit extra that separates the 'good' from the 'gotta read again and again'. so i'm enjoying her stories, while acknowledging i probably won't read through them again.

anyway, i'm going through the Denarios series - i skipped the 4 set in the OW, and the one that is from the CSI series only. i like CSI, but i won't read fanfic about things like that because the 'bad science' usually goes far beyond the show boundaries and right into 'flames.... flames on my face!' area. no need for heartburn, heh. BUT, i just read the mag7xCSI crossover, where the las vegas vamp leader had turned 7 kids from 10-15 into vampires and had pimped them out (with attendant abuse and conditioning) as child whores for 20-30 years.

and the idea kind of made it into my dream last night. except that it was 15 kids, 5-16 in ages, human, who had been abused and pimped out and conditioned. and instead of being rescued by vampires, they'd managed to step into some kind of time portal and end up in the OW environs, where they were found by the OW!7. i think that part was because part of the Denarios story had the vamp leader taking the vamp kids out into the desert to burn them.

the 7 had found them, rescued them, and decided to take care of them, since they needed special handling and de-conditioning. they stayed out at Chris's shack, doing the chores and stuff, including taking care of one sneaky old mare and a big goofball dog just about the same size, and got into the usual sorts of trouble.

and also, they were all wearing their modern-day clothes, which for the older girls meant barely-there midriffs and daisy duke shorts... but they were all in some sort of t-shirts and shorts combination and had the adorable dirty street urchin look down pat.

so the kids were 'doing chores' in the yard, which involved a lot of playing and getting dirty and the mare getting loose and scrambling to get her and when they finished the chores, the yard looked a little bit messier than when they began. and then the younger kids wanted to 'go to the zoo', and the oldest decided they needed some stuff from town anyway, so off they went... in their short-shorts and t-shirts and barely-there midriffs. yeah.

and of course the townspeople were saying all kinds of stuff, and so the older girls deliberately did the 'swaying hips walk' while hanging all over each other just to annoy the more uppity folks. they tried to get into the zoo, but were chased out. 'you know you're not allowed in here!' so they had to go back to the shack, but just as they came out the door - a trolley? something - hit the middle kids, and they were in bad shape. they needed to get back fast. and they were in trouble, because they weren't supposed to be off Chris's ranch.

so the oldest tells the others to go through the underground, and she'd catch up, since she still has to get supplies. which she does, and then goes underground herself, which involves a set-up like a gothed-out ThunderDome and a zillion bikers hopped up on their preferred drugs. BUT! it's underground! she has to slide down this chute, and pass some kind of test to get safe passage. and it's not a lethal test or anything, but she doesn't have time to deal with non-safe passage, so she lets herself glide off the chute and land on a chair, grabbing the back and balancing on the chair's two legs while the chair glides across the floor. i'm not sure what's going on there with the physics, but it was kind of cool. and there are bikers clapping and whistling in appreciation, but a couple come after her after she steps off the chair next to the other kids, including the hurt ones. and she faces them.

she knows it's gonna hurt, but she faces them. and suddenly they back down - Chris is there, and he comes up behind her, and hugs her, with his right hand on her left shoulder and etc. this was kind of important - a feeling of security and warmth thing. and they talk a bit, and she fesses up and says the yard is kind of a disaster. and Chris says the point of doing chores is to get the place cleaned up, not create more work for later. and she's kind of cringing, expecting to get punished, but Chris tells her 'Meg, it's all right, you're not in trouble.'

and Meg says 'so and so didn't make it...' but Chris said he did, Nathan's with him now.

and then the alarm went off. stupid alarm. i liked that secure and protected feeling, heh.

and also, OW!Chris in the ThunderDome, facing down bikers hopped up on drugs and vamp!blood... ;)

i love my dreams.

-bs