Alex LeBlanc
Stories (2/0)
Finding 'Happily Ever After'
#MyWorstDateYou know, no one ever talks about dating or finding love from where I come from. They never talk about how they found it, and when they do, it is usually a story involving a drunken night, teenage pregnancy, and a shotgun wedding (though I give points for originality to the one couple who said they overdosed on heroine together and did it right on the hospital bed as soon as they woke up from the medications). There aren't a lot of real love stories that you hear about in my hometown that are really romantic and inspiring, so I guess it's a bit of my fault for having some standards and wants when it came to courting girls, and no one actually shared decent advice with me except what I saw in movies and TV (though I never saw any of MTV's "reality" shows). So when I moved to college and was looking for someone that I could spoil the shit out of on Valentine's Day, I had no training on social interactions except for what I learned in movies and TV. But it was not in college that I had the worst date ever, oh no, it was in college I found a way to move down to Disney World to work in an internship did I see her and started courting her, and that is where the heartache started.In the land where dreams come true, especially for a young lad with nothing but dreams and hopes for the future in his head, one can possibly see how the lad would get caught up in the pixie dust and believe that love truly is an open door. But just because it is open it does not mean it is open for everyone; case in point is Katie West. The day I saw her I knew I was crazy about her. The way she laughed, how her golden hair swayed in the wind, her smile, and the sound of her voice was the very song of a siren. A California dreamer with a passion for science and discovery; she was as interesting to listen to as she was beautiful, and we did talk as much as we could through text, through Facebook, and at class when we could. After a few months, I nut up and asked her out to Magic Kingdom to spend one of our days off together there. And boy was it a cold, awkward, and one-sided mess!To think that this girl that I could literally spend hours talking to through text and messenger I could not strike up a conversation with, even when we were sitting at a table in a quiet place in the one resort destination we and everyone else wanted to go to!? ( What's even more unbelievable, I WAS ABLE TO FIND A QUIET PLACE IN MAGIC KINGDOM TO HAVE DINNER AT AT ALL!!) Now I admit I am a social idiot and suck at making conversation, but that does not mean it is entirely my fault. Now before you turn away, let me ask you this...how the hell do you win someone over who is constantly on their phone or ignoring you!? Because let me tell you, it is not easy. Especially when the first word is "What" every time you try and talk. And I know this girl. She does not have a tragic backstory behind her and believe me, I would have known about it. Now maybe this is my fault because I never said this was a "date" officially to her, but honestly! It was clear she was not even paying attention to me the whole time. The one time she acknowledged me was when I got her a churro (her favorite treat) and she didn't even look at me but so graciously said "Thanks Allen" (and for those confused, yes my name is Alex, and I have no idea where Allen came from). And on that note, I would like to take this time to thank Katie for giving me a memory I will never forget. This was the FIRST time I ever had a terrible day in Magic Kingdom as well as the worst date I have ever been on. Well done, you.
By Alex LeBlanc6 years ago in Humans
The Fictional World and You
So as a forward warning, this essay is highly opinionated and based loosely on facts or quotes. In other words, this article does not even qualify for a half-ass source document for a liberal arts college essay. But this is a place where I hope to raise some thoughts and stir the thinking pot: Fan Fiction and how it should be used.Okay, so we all must have had some interaction regarding Fan Fiction works, whether they be good or bad. Speaking from my participation in a website known as Figment (a free-to-write site where aspiring writers come to start stories and share with a community of avid readers, writers, and dreamers) and needless to say, Fan Fiction is rampant in that website: fandoms from medieval RPG stories that share similar concepts to Game of Thrones to complete rip-offs of Doctor Who only with love interest twists (I'll leave that to your imagination. Just please don't share them; there could be children watching). Now it is not a wrong assumption to claim that this is what Fan Fiction is based off of; taking someone else's work and either making an alternate universe where difference events and outcomes happened is always an interesting concept to pondering (after all, that's what the Injustice comic book series is all about). But there is something dangerous about that kind of thinking; at least it was a pattern I have noticed while active in the Figment community. When it came to the Fan Fiction stories, many were just cardboard cut-outs of what happened in the show or followed the story-line of a character to the letter (save for a name or gender change). Now it is clear that it just a free-writing community and you are entitled to write whatever you please, but it does raise a question. "Can a writer build a series off of the world created by other writers?" For example, the Star Wars universe is MASSIVE! I mean, it's larger then anything else since the ships can literally jump to other galaxies in a manner of minutes or hours. And the Empire is massively large as well since they can clone soldiers and pump them out like cars in a factory. But if the Rebellion or the Resistance (hell, even the Galactic senate depending on what era you are more inclined toward) had to have stretched across the same scale and may be smaller in numbers does not mean that they are still present. Point is, there is possibility for stories that even the creators cannot keep up with or do not even think about.Now, yes there is such a thing as "stealing copyrighted work" and I am sure that there are laws out there that protects people's work from getting stolen, and yet Fan fiction is still getting put out there. Let me be clear: I am not trying to get people to starting dissing Fan Fiction; I myself would love to read some if it matches the fandom and the story is good. What I'm trying to get at is: is it a good idea to write stories based off of the worlds that are created by other stories even if there is no direct connection to the source material? Granted, Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga made a story regarding a group of survivors who had to live under the rule of the Governor in their book Road to Woodbury, but that seemed to have the original author involved in the creation of the story. But what if someone was to rebuild a lost series and bring it back into the modern spotlight? Not reuse the original characters but use the same rules built in the universe? Is it a good idea or a lost cause?
By Alex LeBlanc6 years ago in Geeks