Saturday Extras!

Prompt: Write about your favorite childhood toy.

Dana Lee wrote:

I loved my dolls and stuffed animals. I had more than I would ever admit to. (I may still have a small collection in storage in my parents basement.) One doll I remember the most was called a dream baby. It was cool because you could call a phone number and officially name your baby. I got an official certificate along with jammies with their name on them. My baby's name was Christiana. I was so proud of myself for making such a beautiful and original name. Christiana went everywhere with me for a year or so. Eventually her appearances lessened as new dolls were added to the collection.


Prompt: Write a brief biography of a know-it-all police officer who is shipwrecked on a desert island.

Pope Jon wrote:

If Officer David Albert T'Stach, or D.A. T'Stach, was nothing else, he was a man service. But if he wasn't a man of service, he was a man who had few mysteries left to solve.

Officer T'Stach was one of seven survivors of a small tour ship that ran aground on a small island somewhere in the caribbean sea. Right from the start, T'Stach had taken charge, explaining that staying near the coast was ideal. While other survivors insisted on exploring, T'Stach convinced his companions that using the wrecked boat for shelter would be best. With T'Stach leading the way, the group began to gather food, bottled water, and other supplies that were strewn around the beach from the crash.

After burning the nautical maps that had led them astray, T'Stach outlined a strategy for the team that focused on his knowledge of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, as well as his experience with not only owning every season of Survivor on DVD, but having applied on four separate occasions.

Despite his optimal sleeping arrangements based on "epidermal heat distribution" and "centered body mass flow," about which Officer T'Stach read in an online article, the other survivors decided to do things their way. Having all the thin, younger women surrounding and facing T'Stach to "focus passive and kinetic energy" while the men lay several feet away to "remotely redirect temperatures," could only be accomplished if T'Stach remain in the center, as the "warmth conduit."

Despite his obvious talent for math, science, and leadership, the seven other survivors decided to leave T'Stach, who refused to listen to their reasons for leaving. He knew they were just being envious of his intellect, and that they'd come crawling back when they realized what they were missing.

T'Stach was found dead the next day after the remaining survivors returned from a resort they'd located nearby. There were half-consumed sea urchins nearby, which are believed to been the cause of his death. One survivor recalls T'Stach stated that he'd learned how to prepare sea urchin from a man named Jin, who was also lost on an island.


Prompt: Pick your favorite and least favorite superhero. Describe what happens when they meet.

Melody Joy wrote:

Honestly, my favorite superhero team is the X-Men, but I have a hard time picking just one as my absolute favorite superhero. Plus, they are a team, which makes me feel like maybe they shouldn’t be considered individual superheroes.... So, I’ll have to go with Batman, even though parts of the latest movie left me less-than-impressed.

My least favorite superhero has always been Superman. Primarily because he has a myriad of powers that makes him the perfect superhero which to me translates as boring. But at the same time, his one and only weakness (kryptonite) is supposed to be rare, but everyone seems to have it and he always ends up almost dying despite being invincible.

Anyway.... I have to take my queue from one of my favorite YouTube channels and assume that these two would meet in a café. Let’s just call it the Superhero Café.

Superman: So.... you just did some push-ups, climbed out of the pit like the child without the rope, feared death, and then came back in time to save Gotham?

Batman: Pretty much. Why?

Superman: No reason. I’m just wondering how not having a rope tied around your waist helped you jump farther.

Batman: It’s all about fear. You wouldn’t understand.

Superman: Why wouldn’t I understand fear?

Batman: Because you’ve got all your alien powers. You don’t have to worry about falling from the top of pits or getting shot at or getting chased by the police or freezing to death or burning alive or any of that. Heck, you don’t even have to worry about not being able to see something when there’s a wall in the way.

Superman: *shrugs* What’s your point?

Batman: That you don’t know how it feels to have to rise up from the ashes to rebuild yourself. You don’t even know what it is to be human.

Superman: Perhaps that’s why I’m able to save people.

Batman: Perhaps that’s why you can’t save yourself.

Superman: What do you mean?

Batman: You have a long list of powers that most heroes would envy, but it doesn’t matter if someone has a bit of Kryptonite, because then you do become like the rest of us. But you don’t know how to live like the rest of us, and you don’t know what it is to fear for your own life. And if you don’t know how to fear for your own life, how can you know what it is to fear for the lives of others?

Superman: Are you saying it is necessary to fear in order to save?

Batman: Maybe.... But maybe it also depends on who you’re saving.

Superman: Why would that matter?

Batman: Before you can save others, you have to save yourself. In learning how to save myself, I learned how to save others. If you’ve never saved yourself, then how can you know how to save others?

Superman: Going into a burning building to rescue trapped citizens or stopping accidentally-launched nuclear missiles has nothing to do with my weakness to Kryptonite.

Batman: How can you be sure?

Superman: How can YOU be sure?

Batman: Because, I’m Batman.

(note: that got WAY more philosophical than I planned....)


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