I much prefer happy endings
Apr. 18th, 2017 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethhad a dream that was sort of an elaborate horror thing, but I picked out the good bits to make it happy instead.
like, there was a bit where some kind of power was making Tony Stark run the hero level equivalent of rat mazes, where people were hidden in burning houses, but if he found them then they could be rescued. But there were whole rows of houses with one end set on fire, no time to go in and out all the rooms, and no suit for fancy scanners or protection. So he was just going to run along the roof breaking things. But I had to hold onto him and be ready to pull him back, onto a nearby convenient cliff, because the roofs were traps and some would break super easy and slip out from under him.
So, horror, burning buildings full of people, but good bits, I can help Tony Stark save the day, by holding on to him. For which he was very grateful.
Also it was funny trying to hold him with hands and a convenient flag pole with legs. Pole dancing for justice!
Then there was a bit with like trickster beings that tried to lure you in to their lands, not so much hollow hills as abandoned industrial buildings. Inside there was hunger and temptation. And if what you wanted most was a donut, and you ate the donut? Now the donut can eat you. Because it's a trickster spirit, and now you're going to be too.
So the first good instead was, a guy ate, but then he could choose between forms. Choose his story, not theirs. Sure, he's changed his nature, he'll have lost some, but he'll gain something too. So someone chose... it didn't make sense on english because dream, but it was like choosing between labelled packets for sweetener or something, only the packet wrapped them and rolled them out a new person. And instead of hungry trickster they decided they were an officer's loyal something, name like Engworth. The kind of guy who is their right hand through thick and thin. So okay, they're an archetype now, but not the sort who is going to pretend to be donuts to eat people, so it's kind of progress.
But then there was Mick and Len.
Because what Mick wants most is not a donut.
And it isn't what the wolf whistle crowd think either.
Of course Len is beautiful, but Mick barely dares think about touch him. What he wants most is his partner. If his partner is back, let this world eat him, he doesn't care.
Heart hunger is kind of different. And different rules. Because this Len his heart wants? If he gets Mick, he's going to be a person. Not just taking a body for a spirit, like with body wants. Take a heart and he'll have a heart.
But even a sip of a heart, even trying to be what Mick wants him most to be, means Len would never do that. Kill his partner, so he could live? Never.
... yes I am aware of canon. It is stupidly self contradictory and I like mine better.
So me in the dream goes in and finds the two of them at this impasse. But this one's easy. Because now it's half a heart each. And we can make it easier, if we've got Barry on speed dial. And if he brings Lisa. And Sarah... who would be so very dubious, but lets believe in heroes who would try. And then everybody else who even a little bit loves him, bring them all in, anyone who, once they see him, would want him back more than commonplace temptations.
... some of them would have this exact same temptation in other forms, logically, but it's just this one spirit trying to take on the form they want, right now.
And now all they've got to do to get him out the door is get him to accept it. The heart stuff. Pretty much, get him to accept he's loved, enough we'd all take this risk for him.
Because maybe he can sip, maybe we'll all get a little bit colder and he'll come back whole, but maybe he's just the kind of hungry who'll take one of us whole. Maybe it would be our life for his.
But if the standard now is 'cares about him enough to risk dying to save him' then a whole lot of otherwise dubious heroes just got added to the mix. Because of course. That's what they risk every day.
So everyone is there for him, and he's the story we know of him, collectively, all the angles. Meaning because I'm there he remembers Doomworld, and the bull that happened instead, so he's a teensy bit conflicted and not okay with himself. He's trying to tell everyone to get out and quit risking it for an image of who they miss. And of course that persuades everyone even more that he's not just the hungry spirit. And he's even more insistent that not only is he, he always was.
His last ditch is just telling everyone they're losers cause he never loved them.
And I'm there all "Greater love hath no man"
And Mick can finish it "...than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
So Mick steps up and risks it, gives his heart, just flat out says "I love you, man"
And he starts going cold
but we don't let him, not alone.
Len's got a lot of friends, whether he likes it or not.
So we basically group hug him back to life
and when we get him back to regular reality try calling him Velveteen.
He's still got some issues. Like, if he's just the aspects of him we all loved and wanted, is he really him at all? Is the copy a good enough imitation?
I figure it's like an upload. Electric sheep.
Even if he's not the original, he's a person, so, good enough.
And he's still Cold, as in leeching heat out of people with a touch. But him and how many metas, right? Nobody much minds, they just work around.
The thing where he might not have a soul is more of a worry, but Sara's had that one fixed for her before, and knows where to go.
I like this version much better.
So, technically nightmares, but I woke up having worked out how to use them to get everyone ever back, just with maybe getting a little ate along the way. So that was fine.
like, there was a bit where some kind of power was making Tony Stark run the hero level equivalent of rat mazes, where people were hidden in burning houses, but if he found them then they could be rescued. But there were whole rows of houses with one end set on fire, no time to go in and out all the rooms, and no suit for fancy scanners or protection. So he was just going to run along the roof breaking things. But I had to hold onto him and be ready to pull him back, onto a nearby convenient cliff, because the roofs were traps and some would break super easy and slip out from under him.
So, horror, burning buildings full of people, but good bits, I can help Tony Stark save the day, by holding on to him. For which he was very grateful.
Also it was funny trying to hold him with hands and a convenient flag pole with legs. Pole dancing for justice!
Then there was a bit with like trickster beings that tried to lure you in to their lands, not so much hollow hills as abandoned industrial buildings. Inside there was hunger and temptation. And if what you wanted most was a donut, and you ate the donut? Now the donut can eat you. Because it's a trickster spirit, and now you're going to be too.
So the first good instead was, a guy ate, but then he could choose between forms. Choose his story, not theirs. Sure, he's changed his nature, he'll have lost some, but he'll gain something too. So someone chose... it didn't make sense on english because dream, but it was like choosing between labelled packets for sweetener or something, only the packet wrapped them and rolled them out a new person. And instead of hungry trickster they decided they were an officer's loyal something, name like Engworth. The kind of guy who is their right hand through thick and thin. So okay, they're an archetype now, but not the sort who is going to pretend to be donuts to eat people, so it's kind of progress.
But then there was Mick and Len.
Because what Mick wants most is not a donut.
And it isn't what the wolf whistle crowd think either.
Of course Len is beautiful, but Mick barely dares think about touch him. What he wants most is his partner. If his partner is back, let this world eat him, he doesn't care.
Heart hunger is kind of different. And different rules. Because this Len his heart wants? If he gets Mick, he's going to be a person. Not just taking a body for a spirit, like with body wants. Take a heart and he'll have a heart.
But even a sip of a heart, even trying to be what Mick wants him most to be, means Len would never do that. Kill his partner, so he could live? Never.
... yes I am aware of canon. It is stupidly self contradictory and I like mine better.
So me in the dream goes in and finds the two of them at this impasse. But this one's easy. Because now it's half a heart each. And we can make it easier, if we've got Barry on speed dial. And if he brings Lisa. And Sarah... who would be so very dubious, but lets believe in heroes who would try. And then everybody else who even a little bit loves him, bring them all in, anyone who, once they see him, would want him back more than commonplace temptations.
... some of them would have this exact same temptation in other forms, logically, but it's just this one spirit trying to take on the form they want, right now.
And now all they've got to do to get him out the door is get him to accept it. The heart stuff. Pretty much, get him to accept he's loved, enough we'd all take this risk for him.
Because maybe he can sip, maybe we'll all get a little bit colder and he'll come back whole, but maybe he's just the kind of hungry who'll take one of us whole. Maybe it would be our life for his.
But if the standard now is 'cares about him enough to risk dying to save him' then a whole lot of otherwise dubious heroes just got added to the mix. Because of course. That's what they risk every day.
So everyone is there for him, and he's the story we know of him, collectively, all the angles. Meaning because I'm there he remembers Doomworld, and the bull that happened instead, so he's a teensy bit conflicted and not okay with himself. He's trying to tell everyone to get out and quit risking it for an image of who they miss. And of course that persuades everyone even more that he's not just the hungry spirit. And he's even more insistent that not only is he, he always was.
His last ditch is just telling everyone they're losers cause he never loved them.
And I'm there all "Greater love hath no man"
And Mick can finish it "...than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
So Mick steps up and risks it, gives his heart, just flat out says "I love you, man"
And he starts going cold
but we don't let him, not alone.
Len's got a lot of friends, whether he likes it or not.
So we basically group hug him back to life
and when we get him back to regular reality try calling him Velveteen.
He's still got some issues. Like, if he's just the aspects of him we all loved and wanted, is he really him at all? Is the copy a good enough imitation?
I figure it's like an upload. Electric sheep.
Even if he's not the original, he's a person, so, good enough.
And he's still Cold, as in leeching heat out of people with a touch. But him and how many metas, right? Nobody much minds, they just work around.
The thing where he might not have a soul is more of a worry, but Sara's had that one fixed for her before, and knows where to go.
I like this version much better.
So, technically nightmares, but I woke up having worked out how to use them to get everyone ever back, just with maybe getting a little ate along the way. So that was fine.