Dream and dream version 2
Nov. 19th, 2012 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI dreamed an adventure and then the dream decided it didn't like any of the endings from there so it backed up and had another go.
I was a Chinese woman with a Chinese boyfriend. He was a famous magician, with a stage magic act. He did acts in huge venues and sold out. Then he went missing. I went looking for him, and I met a younger Asian magician, an Indian guy with an Indian girlfriend. She feared he might be targeted next, so we teamed up. We got along so well by the time I found out I was pregnant there was a coin flip chance who the father was. But the young man was indeed in danger, because he owed a debt he had no hope of repaying. He'd given my boyfriend to the people he owed, some very scary Japanese guys with a lot of tattoos and a Samurai theme to go with their business suits. That bought him some time, so then he handed me over to buy some more. I told him I was pregnant and he seemed to decide that made it an even better idea. The Japanese guys were all, try something, we dare you. I opted out of fighting because pregnant. So they decided I could follow one of them around and do working for him, and it would count against the interest on the Indian guy's debt. Then they sent him out to continue his quest for big enough audiences he could get enough money to pay back what he'd borrowed to set himself up in magic in the first place. His rival, my boyfriend, had probably chosen to fight, and was most likely dead. And his very nice girlfriend didn't know about any of this.
The dream decided at that point there were no good endings from there. So it backed up and had another go.
In this version I was an ethnically Chinese woman who was adopted from China as a baby. Now an adult, I went looking into my background, hoping to find some family. I found my biological father was a famous magician, with a stage act. While researching him, I met a younger magician, an Indian man who was a very smooth talker. I thought things were progressing well; he thought he'd had his fun. I gathered my dignity and left. I kept looking for my biological father, and my interest in the family medical history became more acute when I found I was pregnant. I tried to contact the Indian guy, but he'd blocked my calls and told his security people to keep me away. But I was determined this child wouldn't be left in the dark about their family, so I kept on trying.
I finally caught up with him just when he was meeting a lovely young Indian lady for a date. He'd taken her to the same place we'd been on our first date. So I was very especially cool towards him when I walked up to him and asked to talk, and when he completely blanked me, I said I needed to discuss a failure of contraception. The lady looked startled, and the man tried to play it off with comments about crazy fans. She looked my calm self over and then got very frosty at him and broke off the date. He tried to dissuade her, but she stalked off with her back very straight. Dishonourable intentions were of no interest to her. So then he turned around and was really pissed off at me. He didn't care if I was pregnant, and he said it was probably some other man's anyway. Which was a bloody cheek when he knew my romantic history and how I'd been waiting for someone with serious intentions, and he'd persuaded me that was him. The more angry I got the more cold I was to him, and the more hotly furious he was. Eventually he tossed me a gold coin, a big heavy thing of no denomination I could name, and said that should settle things, now we were even. Then he stalked off.
I was greatly unamused. But I kept the thing, because it was quite large and heavy and appeared to be actual gold, with an intricate carving of someone's head on one side and a pattern I couldn't quite make sense of on the other. It's big enough to maybe be a medallion or something. It was far too interesting to throw out because the guy who gave it me was an ass.
Then I caught up with my biological father and found out rapidly that magic was real and his stage magic persona was more of a cover to allow him to travel a lot. Secretly he was on missions to combat bad spirits. Also he was a monk, which somewhat explained the problems that lead to me being adopted. He was sort of ashamed about how I came to exist, but really very ashamed that he didn't get his act together and look after me. He said he'd gone looking but I'd already been adopted by then. Very cute baby, very fast adoption.
So I gave him benefit of the doubt and decided we could probably get along.
But then a lot of Japanese guys turned up, with a business samurai look, acting like bodyguards before their principal arrives. The Chinese magician recognises them and gets worried. He asks me if I've had dealings with them before, and I say no. He asks if I'm sure. Any deal, even a small thing. It might not have seemed important at the time. But they would have given me a token, a big gold shiny thing...
Still I'm sure I didn't deal, but shiny thing sounds familiar. I show him the gold coin, and he reaches for it... then hesitates, looking grim and worried. Then there's an announcing sort of cymbals noise and he snatches the thing, going pale and sweaty.
A man appears in the midst of his bodyguards, ignoring the usual requirement for doors. He looks like he stepped from the picture on the wall, like ink casually strolled out from painted clouds. He has long white hair and a long white beard and some long grey sleeves on a very long robe. Come to think, he looked kind of like Gandalf if redone as an elegant Japanese guy. He was very clearly a mage at least, or possibly something even more magical. And when he looked around and saw the Chinese man he got this odd sort of pursed lips considering face, one that kind of turned into a smirk around the edges, like he was trying to be serious but couldn't avoid gloating. He said this wasn't who he expected, but this would do. This would very much do.
So my biological father got taken as a slave because of another man's debt, and I got very angry indeed.
But I couldn't start a fight, even if I thought I'd do well against serious men with paired swords. Pregnant. No getting hit allowed. Still, I shouted and stamped and made a scene. The older guy ignored me entirely, leading my father back to the painting, but the bodyguards got annoyed. Two of them grabbed me. They had these blank expressions and when their boss told them to get rid of me I was coldly sure he didn't mean to just push me out the door. Suddenly I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. It seemed imperative to get free of them, so I struggled, but it was equally important not to get hit, so I couldn't do much. My need and desperation burst out of me, and the men went flying. Then and there I realised that not only was magic real, it was hereditary. I also realised my learning curve would need to be very steep indeed to survive this discovery.
The Japanese elder turned around with a considering look to him. The bodyguards circled me cautiously. And then the Indian man came back.
I very briefly had hopes of an ally, but he just snapped and sneered, mocked the swordsmen for being worried about this "little bitch". He came forward to grab me and tried to push me to the old guy, which the swordsmen did not like. A confused three way scuffle ensued, much to the old man's amusement. Then the Indian guy yelled he was only trying to pay him, and the old man waved his guards aside. "By all means, let him." He seemed to think it a very good joke, getting paid double.
I tried to appeal to the Indian guy for help, reminded him I was pregnant with his child, but the man just sneered and seemed to think this an excellent reason to sell me to slavery elsewhere. He shoved me towards the elder.
But now my biological father tried to fight for me. He dropped the token, the elder let go of his arm, and the Chinese mage-monk stepped up and called up some interesting shiny Chinese magic. The Indian guy scoffed and asked if 'Grandpa' really thought he could take him on. He called up Indian magic. Epic conflict of iconic imagery was about to kick off. But the old Japanese man was frowning, and looking at my belly. He stepped around the Chinese man, no longer trying to grab him, circling around towards the Indian guy instead. Indian mage was whiny now, said he'd tried to pay him and it wasn't his fault if he couldn't collect. But the Japanese guy berated him for treating life so lightly. A child on the way, and he thought to make the mother pay his debts? Getting an enemy to take the fall for him would have been a good trick, but this he was trying had no honor. And it was a foolish waste! A child of two such lineages? Who knows what they could do!
So now the bodyguards were shifting around to protect the elder, who was trying to grab the Indian guy who had actually made the deal in the first place. Indian guy was trying to fight everyone at once. And my bio father the monk had to sigh and offer a way out, because taking refuge in Buddha would be a pretty good idea for the other guy right around now. But Indian guy was having none of it and the fighting kicked off.
Then the dream got a bit bored and concluded that it would all work out in the end and I would end up with the pretty Indian girlfriend, happily ever after.
I am not used to dreams that get bored and try to edit things to get away from heterosexual cliches, but the end result was very shiny.
I kind of like how everyone was from a bunch of ethnicities, but I don't like how none of them got names. I like the different art and magic styles there are to draw on once magic goes international. Dream set up has potential. Don't know why it would all be set in England though. Possibly it could give it something about heritage you can't quite get away from, old conflicts and old debts, interacting with new assumptions. Kind of makes it weird that there were all these stadium magic act bits, like all these Asian people are the ones having the plot but they're on stage for white people while they do it. Very meta.
I was a Chinese woman with a Chinese boyfriend. He was a famous magician, with a stage magic act. He did acts in huge venues and sold out. Then he went missing. I went looking for him, and I met a younger Asian magician, an Indian guy with an Indian girlfriend. She feared he might be targeted next, so we teamed up. We got along so well by the time I found out I was pregnant there was a coin flip chance who the father was. But the young man was indeed in danger, because he owed a debt he had no hope of repaying. He'd given my boyfriend to the people he owed, some very scary Japanese guys with a lot of tattoos and a Samurai theme to go with their business suits. That bought him some time, so then he handed me over to buy some more. I told him I was pregnant and he seemed to decide that made it an even better idea. The Japanese guys were all, try something, we dare you. I opted out of fighting because pregnant. So they decided I could follow one of them around and do working for him, and it would count against the interest on the Indian guy's debt. Then they sent him out to continue his quest for big enough audiences he could get enough money to pay back what he'd borrowed to set himself up in magic in the first place. His rival, my boyfriend, had probably chosen to fight, and was most likely dead. And his very nice girlfriend didn't know about any of this.
The dream decided at that point there were no good endings from there. So it backed up and had another go.
In this version I was an ethnically Chinese woman who was adopted from China as a baby. Now an adult, I went looking into my background, hoping to find some family. I found my biological father was a famous magician, with a stage act. While researching him, I met a younger magician, an Indian man who was a very smooth talker. I thought things were progressing well; he thought he'd had his fun. I gathered my dignity and left. I kept looking for my biological father, and my interest in the family medical history became more acute when I found I was pregnant. I tried to contact the Indian guy, but he'd blocked my calls and told his security people to keep me away. But I was determined this child wouldn't be left in the dark about their family, so I kept on trying.
I finally caught up with him just when he was meeting a lovely young Indian lady for a date. He'd taken her to the same place we'd been on our first date. So I was very especially cool towards him when I walked up to him and asked to talk, and when he completely blanked me, I said I needed to discuss a failure of contraception. The lady looked startled, and the man tried to play it off with comments about crazy fans. She looked my calm self over and then got very frosty at him and broke off the date. He tried to dissuade her, but she stalked off with her back very straight. Dishonourable intentions were of no interest to her. So then he turned around and was really pissed off at me. He didn't care if I was pregnant, and he said it was probably some other man's anyway. Which was a bloody cheek when he knew my romantic history and how I'd been waiting for someone with serious intentions, and he'd persuaded me that was him. The more angry I got the more cold I was to him, and the more hotly furious he was. Eventually he tossed me a gold coin, a big heavy thing of no denomination I could name, and said that should settle things, now we were even. Then he stalked off.
I was greatly unamused. But I kept the thing, because it was quite large and heavy and appeared to be actual gold, with an intricate carving of someone's head on one side and a pattern I couldn't quite make sense of on the other. It's big enough to maybe be a medallion or something. It was far too interesting to throw out because the guy who gave it me was an ass.
Then I caught up with my biological father and found out rapidly that magic was real and his stage magic persona was more of a cover to allow him to travel a lot. Secretly he was on missions to combat bad spirits. Also he was a monk, which somewhat explained the problems that lead to me being adopted. He was sort of ashamed about how I came to exist, but really very ashamed that he didn't get his act together and look after me. He said he'd gone looking but I'd already been adopted by then. Very cute baby, very fast adoption.
So I gave him benefit of the doubt and decided we could probably get along.
But then a lot of Japanese guys turned up, with a business samurai look, acting like bodyguards before their principal arrives. The Chinese magician recognises them and gets worried. He asks me if I've had dealings with them before, and I say no. He asks if I'm sure. Any deal, even a small thing. It might not have seemed important at the time. But they would have given me a token, a big gold shiny thing...
Still I'm sure I didn't deal, but shiny thing sounds familiar. I show him the gold coin, and he reaches for it... then hesitates, looking grim and worried. Then there's an announcing sort of cymbals noise and he snatches the thing, going pale and sweaty.
A man appears in the midst of his bodyguards, ignoring the usual requirement for doors. He looks like he stepped from the picture on the wall, like ink casually strolled out from painted clouds. He has long white hair and a long white beard and some long grey sleeves on a very long robe. Come to think, he looked kind of like Gandalf if redone as an elegant Japanese guy. He was very clearly a mage at least, or possibly something even more magical. And when he looked around and saw the Chinese man he got this odd sort of pursed lips considering face, one that kind of turned into a smirk around the edges, like he was trying to be serious but couldn't avoid gloating. He said this wasn't who he expected, but this would do. This would very much do.
So my biological father got taken as a slave because of another man's debt, and I got very angry indeed.
But I couldn't start a fight, even if I thought I'd do well against serious men with paired swords. Pregnant. No getting hit allowed. Still, I shouted and stamped and made a scene. The older guy ignored me entirely, leading my father back to the painting, but the bodyguards got annoyed. Two of them grabbed me. They had these blank expressions and when their boss told them to get rid of me I was coldly sure he didn't mean to just push me out the door. Suddenly I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. It seemed imperative to get free of them, so I struggled, but it was equally important not to get hit, so I couldn't do much. My need and desperation burst out of me, and the men went flying. Then and there I realised that not only was magic real, it was hereditary. I also realised my learning curve would need to be very steep indeed to survive this discovery.
The Japanese elder turned around with a considering look to him. The bodyguards circled me cautiously. And then the Indian man came back.
I very briefly had hopes of an ally, but he just snapped and sneered, mocked the swordsmen for being worried about this "little bitch". He came forward to grab me and tried to push me to the old guy, which the swordsmen did not like. A confused three way scuffle ensued, much to the old man's amusement. Then the Indian guy yelled he was only trying to pay him, and the old man waved his guards aside. "By all means, let him." He seemed to think it a very good joke, getting paid double.
I tried to appeal to the Indian guy for help, reminded him I was pregnant with his child, but the man just sneered and seemed to think this an excellent reason to sell me to slavery elsewhere. He shoved me towards the elder.
But now my biological father tried to fight for me. He dropped the token, the elder let go of his arm, and the Chinese mage-monk stepped up and called up some interesting shiny Chinese magic. The Indian guy scoffed and asked if 'Grandpa' really thought he could take him on. He called up Indian magic. Epic conflict of iconic imagery was about to kick off. But the old Japanese man was frowning, and looking at my belly. He stepped around the Chinese man, no longer trying to grab him, circling around towards the Indian guy instead. Indian mage was whiny now, said he'd tried to pay him and it wasn't his fault if he couldn't collect. But the Japanese guy berated him for treating life so lightly. A child on the way, and he thought to make the mother pay his debts? Getting an enemy to take the fall for him would have been a good trick, but this he was trying had no honor. And it was a foolish waste! A child of two such lineages? Who knows what they could do!
So now the bodyguards were shifting around to protect the elder, who was trying to grab the Indian guy who had actually made the deal in the first place. Indian guy was trying to fight everyone at once. And my bio father the monk had to sigh and offer a way out, because taking refuge in Buddha would be a pretty good idea for the other guy right around now. But Indian guy was having none of it and the fighting kicked off.
Then the dream got a bit bored and concluded that it would all work out in the end and I would end up with the pretty Indian girlfriend, happily ever after.
I am not used to dreams that get bored and try to edit things to get away from heterosexual cliches, but the end result was very shiny.
I kind of like how everyone was from a bunch of ethnicities, but I don't like how none of them got names. I like the different art and magic styles there are to draw on once magic goes international. Dream set up has potential. Don't know why it would all be set in England though. Possibly it could give it something about heritage you can't quite get away from, old conflicts and old debts, interacting with new assumptions. Kind of makes it weird that there were all these stadium magic act bits, like all these Asian people are the ones having the plot but they're on stage for white people while they do it. Very meta.