Dreams, complex
Nov. 3rd, 2019 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYesterday I got woken up by fireworks and decided to nope out of the rest of the evening and ended up sleeping... Many hours.
So, dreams.
I can't remember all the twists now. I know I got the boring back to school anxiety dream where I haven't signed up for class yet Oh Noes, except this time once I was signed up we 'discovered' I had already got my degree and there weren't any classes to do, which was somehow Worse because bonus embarrassing. Also there was a bit where 90s websites were only accessible on 90s computers at 90s speeds, which, obviously, A Bit Bad.
... I remember internet cafes. *blinks* ... so long for so little...
The actual interesting dreams though started with D&D gone horribly wrong, and A J Crowley.
So there were a bunch of us looking for jobs we could actually do, and there was what looked like a live action roleplay, where one side is paid performers and the other is like theme park guests doing a tour. So, okay, seems interesting. So we start out waiting in a room with sets of three items of about equal weight, so of course some of us start juggling. ... I am not good at juggling. But we're just fiddling around with stuff doing circus skills, and then some people come in in armour with swords and look like they're walking past us u til
swoosh
surprise attack!
Which we cope with, so then we're hired.
... but.
... the swords were really sharp. Like, really really. And, as it turns out, the blood and injuries are really real.
But so is the rest of D&D, so I try casting Cure Light Wounds.
Result: am cleric. Eeeeexcellent.
So the problem turns out to be that the whole thing is rigged to *look* like an illusion and a theme park and so forth but for the 'paid' performers it is very, very real. And we cannot get out. We are now slaves to an RPG.
... I feel I read this one in 80s books...
So we get on this kind of stupid benches bus thingy, like hop on hop off theme park transport not actual buses, and just before we pull out the gate to head to the venue, two more people turn up to apply for the job. One as played by Neal Pearson in an unconvincing wig, and on who was A J Crowley, complete with dark glasses and snake tattoo.
... I imagine he would do a bit well on the auditions, but as it was they just let him in because they were leaving already.
So we were in the last three seats on the bench and me and Crowley are awkwardly talking around Neal, who seems to be a regular actor type person here for a job and must think we're really method.
Crowley tells me about this prophecy and some thing about a dude called Jude and he marries a local princess. Only dream me is like, er, might it possibly be Jude-y? Since that is dream my name and I am acquainted with said princess. And yes it might be, but that would me it has to be me that does sex with the sometime snake demon.
... I look at him, as currently played by David Tennant, and decide I can take one for the team.
But
mostly
we need to save all these LARP people and on the bounce of the people who would be lined up to kill them, laughing, thinking it is a game.
And Crowley is up for that, like with the paintball guys, the current setup frankly feels like cheating.
I remember he's an odd sort of demon, and I get to thinking
I am a DnD cleric
I can cast Atonement.
... he does not want to end up an angel again, actually, thanks
but I point out that Neutrality is perfectly respectable as alignments go
and humans manage quite well from there
and so
I kind of redeem the demon
with a D&D spell.
*happy job well done sigh*
I don't know how that worked out. I am pretty confident they'll manage it between them. But that dream sequence ended. ... can't remember if it had started with the 'trying to run along the road but my support workers can't keep up and do a relay race of shifts' or it ended like that, but, that was annoying too, like, even dream me is going nowhere alone now, what's with that?
But then there was a bit where I and a bunch of other people were invited to a red carpet movie premiere on a rocky little planet of no particular distinction
which had a machine that gave them everything they asked for.
It actually wasn't very nice there, everything was a bit run down and there wasn't much variety, because what they'd asked for had been a bit tatty really, it just involved enough to go around.
But the machine was still there, and they could still give it orders.
Except when we got there it was set up to only take orders from one person
who was a pompous little bureaucrat
a grey man with grey dreams
drab to his very soul
and he quite liked the way the world was already.
He probably quite liked the movie even.
There were quite a few people there at the beginning but it turned out to be one of those nothing happens but it's art movies, so people started drifting away.
Me and the guy sitting next to me, who sometimes looked like Wentworth Miller and sometimes like Adrian Paul, drifted towards the door that led down to the Anything Machine.
We found the seventh Doctor down there already, in a confrontation with the locals.
While they were focusing on him I got to the box and asked it to listen to a lot more people
and then went back upstairs to get people together to say what they needed
only almost everyone had left by then
so it was like a dozen mostly teenage women, texting or chatting while the movie kept going in the background.
So I got them ina circle and gave a rousing speech about dreaming bigger and they could have anything they wanted but the first step was to ask for it
but was met with that particular silence of group projects with strangers
who might be trying to make you get religion
... which is a very dubious silence indeed.
But then a bard came in, a blues singer, as played by Jim Byrnes
and he made a song of it
where he'd sing a bunch of stuff that would make the world better
and then a chorus would be about agreeing that would be better
and people either joined in or not
like very musical voting
so I considered that a good start and went back down to see how the machine was doing
and it was doing its best, but all buried like that it wasn't hearing clear
so first I poked a hole in the ceiling so it could hear the song
now well underway and getting good participation
and the box had many new things to make
but then I suggested
why not make some bodies
and go ask people?
So it did
which was a bit horror movie because it didnt make faces to start with and the skin was a bit see through, but never mind, it's trying
but it was going to go out into the world and basically grant wishes
which, yes, dangerous
but trying to avoid the danger made everything sort of...
you know those concrete box cinemas where the acoustics and sight lines were never that great but never that terrible so nothing gets done about them?
and the bathrooms are clean, but slightly too small?
and the carpet was fine when they put it in but now there's bits worn shiny but nobody can be bothered when everything is equally shab?
and it's the only one?
so you're in a little market town everyone leaves as soon as they can, at least metaphorically, because you're actually in a small rocky planet orbiting binary red dwarf stars, only that just means the weather is always the mushy part of autumn and the plant life is bedraggled
but everyone is fed and everyone is housed and everyone has clothes even if they are the same ones as last year
so it's all okay
basically
ish
but to stop people getting dangerous with the box
they kind of make their minds
okay
basically
ish.
like all stories are the movie where nothing happens but artistically.
but the kind of artistic that shows the bathroom and the kitchen sink.
Personally I would rather unleash a new magical power of dubious limits and limited understanding
but I do actually understand why nobody else had.
Also the dream was very specific about saying: the anything box was not technically magic, because it was powered by harnessing all the energy of one of the red dwarf stars, like a dyson sphere, hooked up to a matter printer. So it was juet sufficiently advanced science.
And the users didnt want to use it up, obviously
but the star was going to be burning whether they used it or not
so that was just too timid
and the crucial part was
sure they had everything their drab little hearts desired
but their neighbours
did not.
It was the most mundane little selfish evil I've dreamed yet
not daring enough to be kind.
So those were a couple of dreams with useful parts
and not enough plot to go around
as usual.
But that was more fun than being awake
so
yaay.
So, dreams.
I can't remember all the twists now. I know I got the boring back to school anxiety dream where I haven't signed up for class yet Oh Noes, except this time once I was signed up we 'discovered' I had already got my degree and there weren't any classes to do, which was somehow Worse because bonus embarrassing. Also there was a bit where 90s websites were only accessible on 90s computers at 90s speeds, which, obviously, A Bit Bad.
... I remember internet cafes. *blinks* ... so long for so little...
The actual interesting dreams though started with D&D gone horribly wrong, and A J Crowley.
So there were a bunch of us looking for jobs we could actually do, and there was what looked like a live action roleplay, where one side is paid performers and the other is like theme park guests doing a tour. So, okay, seems interesting. So we start out waiting in a room with sets of three items of about equal weight, so of course some of us start juggling. ... I am not good at juggling. But we're just fiddling around with stuff doing circus skills, and then some people come in in armour with swords and look like they're walking past us u til
swoosh
surprise attack!
Which we cope with, so then we're hired.
... but.
... the swords were really sharp. Like, really really. And, as it turns out, the blood and injuries are really real.
But so is the rest of D&D, so I try casting Cure Light Wounds.
Result: am cleric. Eeeeexcellent.
So the problem turns out to be that the whole thing is rigged to *look* like an illusion and a theme park and so forth but for the 'paid' performers it is very, very real. And we cannot get out. We are now slaves to an RPG.
... I feel I read this one in 80s books...
So we get on this kind of stupid benches bus thingy, like hop on hop off theme park transport not actual buses, and just before we pull out the gate to head to the venue, two more people turn up to apply for the job. One as played by Neal Pearson in an unconvincing wig, and on who was A J Crowley, complete with dark glasses and snake tattoo.
... I imagine he would do a bit well on the auditions, but as it was they just let him in because they were leaving already.
So we were in the last three seats on the bench and me and Crowley are awkwardly talking around Neal, who seems to be a regular actor type person here for a job and must think we're really method.
Crowley tells me about this prophecy and some thing about a dude called Jude and he marries a local princess. Only dream me is like, er, might it possibly be Jude-y? Since that is dream my name and I am acquainted with said princess. And yes it might be, but that would me it has to be me that does sex with the sometime snake demon.
... I look at him, as currently played by David Tennant, and decide I can take one for the team.
But
mostly
we need to save all these LARP people and on the bounce of the people who would be lined up to kill them, laughing, thinking it is a game.
And Crowley is up for that, like with the paintball guys, the current setup frankly feels like cheating.
I remember he's an odd sort of demon, and I get to thinking
I am a DnD cleric
I can cast Atonement.
... he does not want to end up an angel again, actually, thanks
but I point out that Neutrality is perfectly respectable as alignments go
and humans manage quite well from there
and so
I kind of redeem the demon
with a D&D spell.
*happy job well done sigh*
I don't know how that worked out. I am pretty confident they'll manage it between them. But that dream sequence ended. ... can't remember if it had started with the 'trying to run along the road but my support workers can't keep up and do a relay race of shifts' or it ended like that, but, that was annoying too, like, even dream me is going nowhere alone now, what's with that?
But then there was a bit where I and a bunch of other people were invited to a red carpet movie premiere on a rocky little planet of no particular distinction
which had a machine that gave them everything they asked for.
It actually wasn't very nice there, everything was a bit run down and there wasn't much variety, because what they'd asked for had been a bit tatty really, it just involved enough to go around.
But the machine was still there, and they could still give it orders.
Except when we got there it was set up to only take orders from one person
who was a pompous little bureaucrat
a grey man with grey dreams
drab to his very soul
and he quite liked the way the world was already.
He probably quite liked the movie even.
There were quite a few people there at the beginning but it turned out to be one of those nothing happens but it's art movies, so people started drifting away.
Me and the guy sitting next to me, who sometimes looked like Wentworth Miller and sometimes like Adrian Paul, drifted towards the door that led down to the Anything Machine.
We found the seventh Doctor down there already, in a confrontation with the locals.
While they were focusing on him I got to the box and asked it to listen to a lot more people
and then went back upstairs to get people together to say what they needed
only almost everyone had left by then
so it was like a dozen mostly teenage women, texting or chatting while the movie kept going in the background.
So I got them ina circle and gave a rousing speech about dreaming bigger and they could have anything they wanted but the first step was to ask for it
but was met with that particular silence of group projects with strangers
who might be trying to make you get religion
... which is a very dubious silence indeed.
But then a bard came in, a blues singer, as played by Jim Byrnes
and he made a song of it
where he'd sing a bunch of stuff that would make the world better
and then a chorus would be about agreeing that would be better
and people either joined in or not
like very musical voting
so I considered that a good start and went back down to see how the machine was doing
and it was doing its best, but all buried like that it wasn't hearing clear
so first I poked a hole in the ceiling so it could hear the song
now well underway and getting good participation
and the box had many new things to make
but then I suggested
why not make some bodies
and go ask people?
So it did
which was a bit horror movie because it didnt make faces to start with and the skin was a bit see through, but never mind, it's trying
but it was going to go out into the world and basically grant wishes
which, yes, dangerous
but trying to avoid the danger made everything sort of...
you know those concrete box cinemas where the acoustics and sight lines were never that great but never that terrible so nothing gets done about them?
and the bathrooms are clean, but slightly too small?
and the carpet was fine when they put it in but now there's bits worn shiny but nobody can be bothered when everything is equally shab?
and it's the only one?
so you're in a little market town everyone leaves as soon as they can, at least metaphorically, because you're actually in a small rocky planet orbiting binary red dwarf stars, only that just means the weather is always the mushy part of autumn and the plant life is bedraggled
but everyone is fed and everyone is housed and everyone has clothes even if they are the same ones as last year
so it's all okay
basically
ish
but to stop people getting dangerous with the box
they kind of make their minds
okay
basically
ish.
like all stories are the movie where nothing happens but artistically.
but the kind of artistic that shows the bathroom and the kitchen sink.
Personally I would rather unleash a new magical power of dubious limits and limited understanding
but I do actually understand why nobody else had.
Also the dream was very specific about saying: the anything box was not technically magic, because it was powered by harnessing all the energy of one of the red dwarf stars, like a dyson sphere, hooked up to a matter printer. So it was juet sufficiently advanced science.
And the users didnt want to use it up, obviously
but the star was going to be burning whether they used it or not
so that was just too timid
and the crucial part was
sure they had everything their drab little hearts desired
but their neighbours
did not.
It was the most mundane little selfish evil I've dreamed yet
not daring enough to be kind.
So those were a couple of dreams with useful parts
and not enough plot to go around
as usual.
But that was more fun than being awake
so
yaay.