(no subject)
Weird dream alert.
I was a girl named Laura, generally discontent with life, and my family, which contained an annoying younger sister and a father, took me to the beach. I did something - I don't know, maybe wished really hard, it involved following a small boy with a mischievous smile, and walked away from them and saw something on the horizon. It was a smallish silver boxy shape with a gullwing door, it floated above the waves, aaand for whatever reason Darth Vader was in it.
Yeah, I don't know. *sigh*
So he was all resentful about this, said I would regret this more than any decision I'd ever made before, but since I didn't turn and go he took me with him to some other place, very outdoorsy, and left me with the small boy and these sort of vaguely nonhuman teenagers. The teenagers, mostly girls, were annoyed with the small boy, since he was supposed to have lured over more people, but he said that no one else would follow. One of the teenagers - I have a vague impression of her having red spikes or plumage - said the Emperor had wanted someone for something easy and harmless, and led me to an elevator lobby.
There was another teenager, sitting on a stool and talking on one of those phones that has a curly cord, but it wasn't curly now because she'd moved the stool as far away from the wall mount as possible, because Darth Vader was waiting for one of the elevators. He got in one and went up, and then the red teenager took me into another one, which was going down. There was a stop involving a silver tea tray.
So the red teenager took me to the Emperor, who was in a very large room with a low, very irregular ceiling, all giant sagging lumps. I think it and the floor were made of some coarse, wet rock. And yeah, it was the Empire Emperor, or he looked like it.
He was weirdly friendly in a creepy way and said that his birthday was coming up. He'd had people down here to celebrate before - and then he showed me holograms or something of elaborate plays put on by people who seemed kind of desperate - and he wanted me to plan something for him. Didn't matter what, as long as it was truly heartfelt. Then I would be allowed back to the surface and rewarded.
I said yes, of course, asked him if he minded the Wizard of Oz, he said that was fine. I went back up the elevator and there was a sort of training montage, almost, showing a little bit of the plans I was making, and I don't remember what they were. Just that I made them. At some point I got bored and took a break, and found the outdoorsy teenagers again.
They were talking about past parties, when creatures had come out of the woods and joined them. Someone had a volleyball net set up, and now they were mingling and reminiscing and drinking something bitter. Someone else was taking pictures with a flash camera, and I was in some of them, because girl-who-I-was-in-the-dream, Laura, wasn't a wallflower like I am, and she talked and listened and drank the bitter stuff, cringed at the taste, and shrugged off the way they all laughed.
Then the red teenager, who seemed to be the oldest or the leader or something, saw me and went all white and alarmed, and the others picked up on this and went quiet and stared. She said that the Emperor had set me a task, and I shouldn't have stopped and drank... whatever it was. The bitter stuff had a name, but I don't remember what. She told me that I'd have to see him again, and apologize, and that I couldn't finish the plans now. Too late. I shouldn't have drank the bitter stuff, things would have worked out great for me if I hadn't. Everyone nodded and agreed.
She pointed me towards the elevator, and I had to pick my way over these sort of tide pools. One was filled with writhing tadpoles, another with leeches, and there was this sort of sunken bridge in the leech pool, so I had to walk in ankle-deep water to cross. Leeches got on me, but I hardly cared, I was so apprehensive.
At the elevator the phone girl was there with the phone pressed to her ear - I think it was her job - and this time she wasn't at the end of the cord, she was close enough to twirl it in her fingers. She gave me a pitying look and hit some sort of controls, so I guess she also manned the elevators.
Then there was a moment like I wasn't a character in the story, I was reading it out of a book, and there was a line about the elevator breaking down, waiting a long time for it to be fixed, and finally coming dirty-looking and dark, and this time the tea service was a small paper cup with brackish water.
The moment ended and I went to see the Emperor, who was angry. He did a lot of ranting about disobedience and what he would have to do to make an example of me, so I'd never disappoint him again, and then for whatever reason a holo of young Anakin Skywalker flickered, with his voice saying something petulant about secrets, and the Emperor smiled.
And then I was back at the elevator lobby with a very large spray can, like my can of spray fixative but all in black, and the phone girl and the red teenager were there looking unhappy, and Vader came out of the other elevator, said something along the lines of how he'd told me I would regret this, and left.
The phone girl's phone never left her ear but she and the teenager propped me against the wall with my arms and legs sticking out, and I didn't resist. I took off the cap, shook the spray can, and started spraying my feet with it.
It was this colorless mist that smelled nasty and made me cough, and it made my feet blacken and wither and sort of flake off. There's not much pain in my dreams, but that burned. I stopped when everything to somewhere above the knees was ash, and a fair amount past that wasn't in great shape, since just like spray fixative it got everywhere. Then the red teenager, in goggles and and a facial mask, took the can and started focusing on my arms.
There was then a very long and confusing sequence involving a burning sensation, existential angst, surgery, limbs with little sensation, and more angst. And then in the dream I woke up and couldn't control my breathing.
There was another reading-from-a-book scene. I was not Laura, I was in a chair at a bookstore and my brother, who'd been flipping through and not reading the whole thing, nudged me because he'd found a weird part. "The girl turns into Darth Vader," he said. "It doesn't say that, but look, there's the breathing, deep voice, all in black, mask, boots, taller..." I said that I'd just gotten to that part, thanks, now let me read.
My brother wouldn't actually do that. He reads some, but he'd never point me to a section in a book.
The scene ended, and working-for-the-Emperor scenes started. I don't know if I was working something off or if I was supposed to be trapped there for an indefinite time. And I'm not all that clear about what I was doing. There was something about a round table in a swampy place, and standing while giving people who were seated around it orders. Including the little boy, who was nothing of the sort; he was supposed to go out and bring more people back. No one but the phone girl and the red teenager knew that I wasn't the original, and they couldn't tell which was which, and I stayed away from the Emperor, so there was really only one person in the dream who would talk to me.
With the logic of dreams, the original Vader disliked me less now, even if he was smug. ...I don't know what my subconscious was on. That's crazy out of character.
Then the dream got confused, probably because that was the point where I sort of woke up according to my internal clock, decided that there were still some hours left before I'd have to rush to get ready, and went back to sleep to try and continue the dream.
But there were a lot of attempts to remove some of the machinery/mask stuff while still being functional, since the spray fixative of doom had kind of half killed me. Without the... voice thing, I couldn't speak above a whisper, but I kept to that whenever I could. Without the gloves my arms and legs were this dark metal skeletal structure held together by some strange synthetic red stuff that light shone through, which was pretty alarming. And apparently I was blind without the mask, but the mask didn't have to be shaped like that. I think I eventually went with something utterly featureless.
And at some point I saved the phone girl, and she was grateful but incredibly nervous. At another point I escaped, which may or may not have involved killing the Emperor, and found myself back on the beach with my father and sister out looking for me. But I was still a seven-foot-tall masked armored figure on life support, I wasn't much like Laura anymore, and I knew I couldn't go back.
Yeah, that's another dream where I am a cyborg. This keeps happening.
It was this weird hodgepodge of elements, that dream. Very similar in structure to fairy tale stuff. You know how people who go into fairy mounds shouldn't eat the food there? Yeah. You know, with some pretty radical rewriting, this actually might make a good story.
I was a girl named Laura, generally discontent with life, and my family, which contained an annoying younger sister and a father, took me to the beach. I did something - I don't know, maybe wished really hard, it involved following a small boy with a mischievous smile, and walked away from them and saw something on the horizon. It was a smallish silver boxy shape with a gullwing door, it floated above the waves, aaand for whatever reason Darth Vader was in it.
Yeah, I don't know. *sigh*
So he was all resentful about this, said I would regret this more than any decision I'd ever made before, but since I didn't turn and go he took me with him to some other place, very outdoorsy, and left me with the small boy and these sort of vaguely nonhuman teenagers. The teenagers, mostly girls, were annoyed with the small boy, since he was supposed to have lured over more people, but he said that no one else would follow. One of the teenagers - I have a vague impression of her having red spikes or plumage - said the Emperor had wanted someone for something easy and harmless, and led me to an elevator lobby.
There was another teenager, sitting on a stool and talking on one of those phones that has a curly cord, but it wasn't curly now because she'd moved the stool as far away from the wall mount as possible, because Darth Vader was waiting for one of the elevators. He got in one and went up, and then the red teenager took me into another one, which was going down. There was a stop involving a silver tea tray.
So the red teenager took me to the Emperor, who was in a very large room with a low, very irregular ceiling, all giant sagging lumps. I think it and the floor were made of some coarse, wet rock. And yeah, it was the Empire Emperor, or he looked like it.
He was weirdly friendly in a creepy way and said that his birthday was coming up. He'd had people down here to celebrate before - and then he showed me holograms or something of elaborate plays put on by people who seemed kind of desperate - and he wanted me to plan something for him. Didn't matter what, as long as it was truly heartfelt. Then I would be allowed back to the surface and rewarded.
I said yes, of course, asked him if he minded the Wizard of Oz, he said that was fine. I went back up the elevator and there was a sort of training montage, almost, showing a little bit of the plans I was making, and I don't remember what they were. Just that I made them. At some point I got bored and took a break, and found the outdoorsy teenagers again.
They were talking about past parties, when creatures had come out of the woods and joined them. Someone had a volleyball net set up, and now they were mingling and reminiscing and drinking something bitter. Someone else was taking pictures with a flash camera, and I was in some of them, because girl-who-I-was-in-the-dream, Laura, wasn't a wallflower like I am, and she talked and listened and drank the bitter stuff, cringed at the taste, and shrugged off the way they all laughed.
Then the red teenager, who seemed to be the oldest or the leader or something, saw me and went all white and alarmed, and the others picked up on this and went quiet and stared. She said that the Emperor had set me a task, and I shouldn't have stopped and drank... whatever it was. The bitter stuff had a name, but I don't remember what. She told me that I'd have to see him again, and apologize, and that I couldn't finish the plans now. Too late. I shouldn't have drank the bitter stuff, things would have worked out great for me if I hadn't. Everyone nodded and agreed.
She pointed me towards the elevator, and I had to pick my way over these sort of tide pools. One was filled with writhing tadpoles, another with leeches, and there was this sort of sunken bridge in the leech pool, so I had to walk in ankle-deep water to cross. Leeches got on me, but I hardly cared, I was so apprehensive.
At the elevator the phone girl was there with the phone pressed to her ear - I think it was her job - and this time she wasn't at the end of the cord, she was close enough to twirl it in her fingers. She gave me a pitying look and hit some sort of controls, so I guess she also manned the elevators.
Then there was a moment like I wasn't a character in the story, I was reading it out of a book, and there was a line about the elevator breaking down, waiting a long time for it to be fixed, and finally coming dirty-looking and dark, and this time the tea service was a small paper cup with brackish water.
The moment ended and I went to see the Emperor, who was angry. He did a lot of ranting about disobedience and what he would have to do to make an example of me, so I'd never disappoint him again, and then for whatever reason a holo of young Anakin Skywalker flickered, with his voice saying something petulant about secrets, and the Emperor smiled.
And then I was back at the elevator lobby with a very large spray can, like my can of spray fixative but all in black, and the phone girl and the red teenager were there looking unhappy, and Vader came out of the other elevator, said something along the lines of how he'd told me I would regret this, and left.
The phone girl's phone never left her ear but she and the teenager propped me against the wall with my arms and legs sticking out, and I didn't resist. I took off the cap, shook the spray can, and started spraying my feet with it.
It was this colorless mist that smelled nasty and made me cough, and it made my feet blacken and wither and sort of flake off. There's not much pain in my dreams, but that burned. I stopped when everything to somewhere above the knees was ash, and a fair amount past that wasn't in great shape, since just like spray fixative it got everywhere. Then the red teenager, in goggles and and a facial mask, took the can and started focusing on my arms.
There was then a very long and confusing sequence involving a burning sensation, existential angst, surgery, limbs with little sensation, and more angst. And then in the dream I woke up and couldn't control my breathing.
There was another reading-from-a-book scene. I was not Laura, I was in a chair at a bookstore and my brother, who'd been flipping through and not reading the whole thing, nudged me because he'd found a weird part. "The girl turns into Darth Vader," he said. "It doesn't say that, but look, there's the breathing, deep voice, all in black, mask, boots, taller..." I said that I'd just gotten to that part, thanks, now let me read.
My brother wouldn't actually do that. He reads some, but he'd never point me to a section in a book.
The scene ended, and working-for-the-Emperor scenes started. I don't know if I was working something off or if I was supposed to be trapped there for an indefinite time. And I'm not all that clear about what I was doing. There was something about a round table in a swampy place, and standing while giving people who were seated around it orders. Including the little boy, who was nothing of the sort; he was supposed to go out and bring more people back. No one but the phone girl and the red teenager knew that I wasn't the original, and they couldn't tell which was which, and I stayed away from the Emperor, so there was really only one person in the dream who would talk to me.
With the logic of dreams, the original Vader disliked me less now, even if he was smug. ...I don't know what my subconscious was on. That's crazy out of character.
Then the dream got confused, probably because that was the point where I sort of woke up according to my internal clock, decided that there were still some hours left before I'd have to rush to get ready, and went back to sleep to try and continue the dream.
But there were a lot of attempts to remove some of the machinery/mask stuff while still being functional, since the spray fixative of doom had kind of half killed me. Without the... voice thing, I couldn't speak above a whisper, but I kept to that whenever I could. Without the gloves my arms and legs were this dark metal skeletal structure held together by some strange synthetic red stuff that light shone through, which was pretty alarming. And apparently I was blind without the mask, but the mask didn't have to be shaped like that. I think I eventually went with something utterly featureless.
And at some point I saved the phone girl, and she was grateful but incredibly nervous. At another point I escaped, which may or may not have involved killing the Emperor, and found myself back on the beach with my father and sister out looking for me. But I was still a seven-foot-tall masked armored figure on life support, I wasn't much like Laura anymore, and I knew I couldn't go back.
Yeah, that's another dream where I am a cyborg. This keeps happening.
It was this weird hodgepodge of elements, that dream. Very similar in structure to fairy tale stuff. You know how people who go into fairy mounds shouldn't eat the food there? Yeah. You know, with some pretty radical rewriting, this actually might make a good story.
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