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+--- Thread: Not a step, just... a message in a bottle (/showthread.php?tid=1671)
Not a step, just... a message in a bottle - SkyeFire - 05-24-2009
Exerpted from “The Unauthorized
Drunkard's Walk” DVD, deleted scenes section.
OPENING SCENE: A fairly ordinary
modern bedroom. It is dark outside the windows.
MAGGIE “SHADOWALKER” Sangnoir
enters the shot and sits on the bed, looking dejected and just worn
out. She removes her sunglasses and sets them on the nightstand
beside the bed, before reachig out to:
CLOSE-UP SHOT: Maggie's fingers
lightly running over the face of what looks like an incredibly
detailed but unpainted pewter figurine that is recognizably DOUGLAS Q
“LOONY TUNES” SANGNOIR, striking heroic pose with trademark grin.
MAGGIE (pulls her hand back, appears
ready to cry): Doug, where -are- you? All this time without so much
as a clue, or a sign... I know I'm supposed to be stronger than this,
but I just feel... like I'm at the end of my rope. Like I'm running
out of faith.
MAGGIE curls up on the bed still
facing the figurine, but there is nothing about her body language
that suggests relief or rest.
MAGGIE (faintly): I need...
-something-....
CUT TO: DOUG's sleeping face, a split
second before his eyes fly open and he sits up violently, eyes wild
and chest heaving as if he's been running for his life.
DOUG: -Maggie!-
DOUG looks around wildly for a moment,
clearly disoriented, before violently throwing aside his sleeping bag
and scrambling towards his parked motorcycle and snatching his slung
helmet. The longer shot establishes that he his somewhere outdoors,
wooded. It is night and the dying remnants of a small campfire
flicker nearby.
DOUG seizes his helmet in both hands
like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver, and stops suddenly
looking confused, as if he doesn't know what to do with it now that
he has it. His confused expression slips into one of smoldering rage
building towards ignition.
DOUG (venomous intensity): -Damn
you.- I'd say 'God damn you,' but that would be -recursive-, now
-wouldn't- it? She -needs- me. I don't know how I know, but I
-know-. You screw with -my- life, okay, fine, I'm a big boy, I'll
deal. But -she needs me,- and she's being left hanging [builds to a
full shout] BECAUSE OF YOU!
DOUG stands, shaking with helpless
rage and clenching his helmet in both hands with a white-knuckled
grip as a faint breeze plays with his hair... and nothing happens.
His rage slowly, gradually, crumbles towards something more like the
beginnings of despair, and he slumps physically in parallel.
DOUG (not quite broken, but close): I
can't do a thing... and you don't care. You don't--
DOUG twitches suddenly, eyes showing a
spark of something not quite daring to be hope. He drops onto his
knees and raises his helmet like a man about to experience a
sacrament.
CLOSE-UP SHOT of Doug's face as his
eyes close.
DOUG (Japanese): Belldandy-sama,
please hear me. My beloved needs me, and I am helpless to respond.
Please... not for my sake but for hers, I beg of--
ZOOM SHOT: A faintly translucent
slender feminine finger brushes lightly across his lips. His eyes
snap open as:
BELLDANDY (faint, as from a distance,
and with hints of her Overself Voice): Never beg, Doug-san. It ill
befits one I would call a friend. What I may do is sadly limited,
but all that I can, I will – you need merely -ask.-
DOUG (obviously considering and
discarding several all-too-obvious requests in sequence): I... I
don't know. I can't -reach- her from here....
BELLDANDY (OS, very slightly amused):
But her -voice- reached -you,- did it not?
DOUG (light bulb figuratively bursting
over his head): Of course! Bell, can you--
MEDIUM SHOT: Doug looks
thunderstruck.
DOUG (slowly): ...-you- wouldn't have
had anything to do with that, would you?
BELLDANDY, still offscreen, merely
hums. Fans of late-80s rock might recognize a particular snatch
from Van Halen's “Feels so Good” DOUG grins crookedly.
DOUG: Riiiight. Gotcha.
Doug's hands play across his helmet
almost of their own accord. The keypad door opens and the
retractable speakers extend.
ZOOM SHOT: Doug's finger taps out a
selection code on the keypad, and pauses over the “Execute” key.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: as DOUG looks up,
expression grateful.
DOUG (quietly): Thank you.
BELLDANDY “sings” something that
sounds more like music than words, fading slowly away.
DOUG hits “Execute”. The music
starts, and the shot DISSOLVES in an anime-style SHOWER OF WHITE
FEATHERS....
To show MAGGIE, in the same pose we
saw her last, but now fast asleep and smiling very faintly in her
sleep, looking overall like someone who's had a thousand tons of
stress and worry taken away.
FADE OUT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Js_WUsXpxg
Leave A Light On
performed by:
Belinda Carlisle
written by: Rick Nowels-Ellen Shipley
Take
my hand
Tell me what you're feeling
Understand
This is just
the beginning
Although I have to go
It makes me feel like
crying
I don't know when I'll see you again
Chorus:
Darling
LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR ME
I'll be there before you close the door
To
give you all the love that you need
Darling LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR
ME
'cause when the world takes me away
You are still the air
that I breathe
I can't explain I just don't know
Just how far I
have to go
But darling I'll keep the key
Just leave a light on
for me
Yes I know
What I'm asking is crazy
You could
go
Just get tired of waiting
But if I lose your love
Torn
out by my desire
That would be the one regret of my life
Repeat
Chorus
Bridge:
Just like a spark lights up the dark
Baby
that's your heart
Baby that's your heart
Baby that's your heart
Darling LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR ME
I'll
be there before you close the door
To give you all the love that
you need
Darling LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR ME
'cause when the world
takes me away
You are still the air that I breathe
Darling LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR ME
I'll
be there before you close the door
I'll be all the love that you
need
Darling LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR ME...
Been MP3ing a lot of my old 80s rock
(cassette tapes, argh!), and this one was an old favorite – one
that I could actually get my -parents- and my little sisters to enjoy
in the car along with me (actually, my father showed a surprising
liking for Belinda Carlisle tunes, surprising since he didn't seem to
like anything but Glen Campbell before...). Anyway, “Leave a Light
On” got onto my MP3 player and I think it liked it, b/c it keeps
popping up in my “random” shuffle. And it's always struck me as
having a very powerful resonance with Doug's situation on the Walk –
I toyed with and discarded at least a dozen “message in a bottle”
scenarios.
Ever since the scene in DW5 where
Belldandy swears an utterly binding blood oath to always be honest
with Doug, -just to give him something to believe in when -he's- at
the end of his rope-, I've always thought that she would almost
certainly hear him, wherever he was, if he called for her desperately
enough. After all, her Overself is one of the Three steering him
along this path. And if -I-
was Bell's Overself, -I- wouldn't keep her from hearing someone she
thinks of as a friend. Would you?
Why does Maggie have a figurine of Doug? Guesswork on my part, but I'm thinking that, given her unique "vision," she might use something like that in place of a photograph for her most cherished people.
Why script format? That's just how
this one came to me.
One last thing: the Van Halen bit?
Specifically:
I'll send the message in a bottle
Trust
in the mercy of the sea
Stormy weather, oh yeah
- Logan Darklighter - 05-24-2009
(snif)
Bravo.
-Logan
- Bob Schroeck - 05-24-2009
Oh, wow.
Just, wow.
Plus what Logan said.
I would like very much to include this on the Fic^2 page, if I may.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Vindication - SkyeFire - 05-24-2009
Well, that's about the highest positive feedback I could hope for.
Honestly, I was afraid that I was pushing the boundaries of characterization, butI'm happy-joyed that it works for you, Bob (and you too, Logan, but Bob is, you know, THE Canonical Authority here
).As for posting, I would be entirely honored, Bob. Feel free, please.
Now, if y'all will excuse me, I have to go put Belinda Carlisle into rotation in Amarok.....