Hey, everyone... So this little one-shot will be pretty..., well, weird, but in an interesting way. Based on a dream I had on the night of March 13, 2014 (Not yet at the Ides of March) /-D
Disclaimer: This story will have a 'collage' of characters from all kinds of companies and studios, from DC to Disney. I own none of these characters, am making no money off of this, and no copywriting infringement is intended.
"Say, this amusement park is the greatest!"
One of my friends were laughing along as we looked at all the extravagant and whimsical a carnival can give someone. I mean, really! Imagine a park with no admission ticket, no need to feel like whatever ride you take is too kiddie or too intense. Sure, my cousins and I still had to pay if we wanted souvenirs or treats, but it was all minimal.
Perhaps that would make you think that it was the cheap price that made the park so popular, but no... More often than not, I would see my heroes past through the streets, taking autographs, having conversations, and of course, their were crowds of fans, of all backgrounds yearning to talk to their beloved characters.
One girl had a love for princesses, they'll see their shining heroines from Tiana to Merida. There was Harry Potter performing some simple charms, always trying to stay modest, but of course that can't happen. Indiana Jones would be out there in the open to talk of his latest 'tall tales'. Bilbo Baggins would walk around with the still-meek persona, as well as his enigmatic sense of humor... And, of course, the famous Ahsoka Tano was entrancing all genders and age groups with her beloved voice and feminine can-do attitude.
What can you say? It was a comic-con-er's dream come true. The characters, not the movie or show producers, but the characters themselves were in the flesh-and-blood...
More importantly, all those underrated heroes were there too. The ones who you see on TV that just act so common, yet work so well. You know all those heroes and characters from the franchises that just don't get the awards, attention, or charisma it deserves; the franchises that make you feel all alone and make break-down in questioning, "Is what I like wrong? Does that make me wrong?"
Never again! Those characters that have been hated when they should be adored... Now they're beloved. People can't get enough of them and want to be with them as much as they want to be with the characters that do get the overdue limelight.
Yes, this was a place that people would dream of visiting. A place that fangirls and fanboys would escape to if there was a place. It made online media seem like a thing in the past when instead of playing a videogame of where your hero gives you a tutorial; here, you can finally eat lunch with them like they're your long-time friends.
The stretches of the maze blazed without any haze for neon lights were aglow this night.
I couldn't help but laugh when I saw fangirls tumbling to give Kili and Fili a kiss on..., just about anywhere... I remembered when I first came to the amusement park where the franchise characters were modest... Not many, oddly enough, were spreading the word like, "Hey dawg, there's this land where you can hug your nerd crush or have a romantic dance with the princess or prince that..., you didn't tell anyone so you didn't show how creepy you were..."
Anyways, it started out as a niche no one wanted to reveal. Who wouldn't? You could talk, walk, and love the characters that became your role model or were the one's you wanted to be so badly... Of course, this wasn't something you wanted to share. You just wanted to keep it for yourself...
But then, for some, desire kicked in... They began inviting all kinds of people (and yes, including those gossipers) to meet those underrated heroes. Why...? It's obvious when you think of it... They wanted those characters, their unloved friends, to be loved; to be shone that they are important, priceless, lovable people that should be loved, loved, loved...
Yes, that wish finally would become realized. Every franchise character was loved equally and..., it did good and bad... It made that wish on how those characters I love become loved..., but socially speaking, that love they give can't pass around. The daughter of Blackbeard, Angelica wasn't open to discussing her adventures with the witty Captain Jack Sparrow with me, but would rather mug in front of all the fans.
Spiderman was that awkward teenager anymore that I related so much with, so much that I wanted to go to and say, "If you knew you're fanbase, you wouldn't ever have to feel alone." Yeah, I tried doing the same thing with Batman, but he still remained hidden from site... How was he 'loved equally' as everyone else? Well, fans know his tricks and can find him, without alerting the populace like trumpeting oliphants... As fans of his bat-chise, they knew his tricks like never look away when you're in a conversation with him. At that tome, he will probably slip away into the Gotham alleys like he always does.
And if one could make out the "Suite Life of Zack and Cody", where Zack is the one full-of-himself and Cody the one who doesn't get enough credit... Now, it might as well been called "The Suite Life of Zack and Zack". It just wasn't right anymore.
Okay, as I said, the characters I originally loved to be with, always dreamed of talking to..., were not as fulfilling after a while. After years and years of visitors skyrocketing from the thousands to the tens of millions, a conversation became impossible to talk to with my heroes... It just couldn't be done anymore! You were lucky for them to smile at you since so many fans became their 'friends', which was really just another face to them...
I began feeling like nothing, despite all energy, despite the dreams coming true, despite the perfect theme park anyone can dream for... I knew it was not the same...
It wasn't the same!
One day, I passed a hundred ads for the franchises, thousands of product booths were opening up..., and instead of meeting the characters, they would just walk over and overhanging balcony, wave, then dump their photos and autographs they hastily made to the screaming fans... But it wasn't as it used to be...
Oh, I always wanted people to see Lux Bonteri as a person, not a bland cardboard cutout, not a walking plot device... I got what I wanted, but now he has changed from what I pictured him and a lot of the heroes like him.
Even the originally popular characters were becoming full of themselves. Indiana Jones would be too lazy in showing off his whip skills that he would accidentally hit people with it, then go uncared for the bleeding fan.
Same went with Harry Potter. At first he made charms that would charm the crowds that flocked to him, but then suddenly that was no more. He would start hitting people with crude spells to get a laugh out of everyone. Unlike what would happen in Hogwarts, he went unpunished... So, naturally, he stopped becoming the beloved Harry Potter but the arrogant Harry Potter...
And then, it became scary... Luke Skywalker started to cut fans' arms off in order to "revisit the classic scene from Empire Strikes Back, when the same happened to me"...
This wasn't the Luke Skywalker I knew...
And there was Frodo Baggins, poor Frodo! He wasn't that vulnerable worried hero that didn't know if he could survive the Eyes of Mordor... He would play pranks with his One Ring he carried... After all, he didn't worry of the Nazgûl armies if he had a fan army ten times bigger than theirs... Yeah, sounds funny, but he was so popular that his personality that everyone originally came to love was destroyed by... by those same people who came to love him.
I watched a set come out based on the Lego Movie, where the minifigures come to life..., but they acted so out-of-character..., for it didn't take any hard time for Emmet to believe he was 'The Special' when he was already made as The Special by millions of willing fans.
The characters would become sinister and sadistic. They would push the fans. Spit on them... Even kill them sometimes - MY HEROES! - and yet, still get away with it as if it were nothing.
I looked at 'The Special', remembering how much he was special when he believe he was a nobody... And then a voice made me lachrymose: "This isn't you're dream anymore."
My mind found itself inside a haunted maze of infinite proportions, black, and this time overcrowded... It didn't have that perfect effect as it used to have. "This is what you always wanted, but never given... Now, it's what you hate." The voice was chilly... It was brooding...
"My heroes..." I spoke to myself. "My heroes are losing their charisma... and becoming evil..."
"THEY ARE EVIL!" The voice said inside. "They're only focused on themselves. There's no longer a story applied to their lives since they have nothing more than fame... They're nothing because their everything..."
This was true... This was right, ha ha! If I stopped making them popular, they'll go back to a point where they had to work to make me smile... Make me think... I must..., as hard as it is, I must destroy what makes them great.
And like a flick of a switch, I took away what iconized them, cut off their mikes from speaking to the large wave of fans, I took it all away... The whip that made Indiana Jones so famous, I stole... He still would have his personality that I always loved.
No longer did Merida have her arrows, but just a bow... Now she'll have to make her own arrows, rebecoming the tomboy I knew her as...
I did the same with everyone else. They had to go! They had to loose their popularity, stop looking at themselves in the mirror with pride but instead smash it to insignificant pieces...
Yes, I was making difference! I was making them back into the heroes, not full-on celebrities!
The parks started to become empty when they lost their iconography! Yes, the franchises will be mine and only mine to enjoy and cherish! THEY BELONG TO ME!
The theme park was rusting, losing it's paint, becoming underrated... It was a ghost town now... The heroes weren't arrogant anymore..., nor proud... But..., depressed...
Yes, depressed... They didn't have the fervor anymore. They didn't have the desire to stop what was making them sad... They didn't have the 'Happily Ever After' anymore... They now had the personality I so related to, but no muse to make themselves happy... As if it were real life, where it was hard to keep happiness... Of course, when that happened..., there was no escapism that the characters I based my moral compass on were living the crummy lives I was living... The crummy lives all fans live..., in that they had nothing to look forward to than the fantasy they made into their reality...
And it wasn't the same!
Of course, I felt guilty of what I done because now all I can base my life one was either low self-esteem or high self-esteem as these characters have... Except now, they're so low that they don't try to get out it... They don't be the heroes but well up into the past when it was effortless to be loved...
I saw my hero, Ahsoka Tano, sobbing on the curb and decided to sit down next to her... I didn't tell any of my heroes that I destroyed what drew the crowds to them. It didn't matter! They were my friends and can only belong to me!
But, watching Ahsoka cry so much, I knew I did something wrong... I destroyed them, not revitalized them... "I used to be somebody... Now I'm starving for attention that can't come anymore." She languished...
I placed an arm over her, but that just brought back emotions of guilt... I made her feel this sober! What was supposed to be a dream of peaceful, well-deserved living and conformity for these heroes was becoming a nightmare - for all of us! They were all but my friends, but they were never the same... Especially the underrated, that became loved to death...Revitalized personality, crushed muse.
They were nobodies... I made them somebodies... Now I made them nobodies again... But no matter what, when they were nobodies, when there was so many people who stuck their nose up on them and ignored what I saw was special, they were somebodies... They were somebodies for me... Now..., only for me...
These are my heroes, the nobodies.
Chilling story, at least for me... I'm sorry if the pacing seemed off or confusing, but remember this was a dream... And compared to all the other dreams I had, this one, oddly, made the most sense... It had a story and moral, it wasn't just a mess of thoughts as most dreams were...
Either way, I wrote this fic for my own satisfaction... To remind myself that there is such a thing as loving a franchise to death, even for the underrated ones that deserve much higher ratings.
- ItsATrap101