beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I dreamed I got a VHS tape that said it was episodes of the Highlander TV series, but when I played it half the shots were remade with different actors. Like every time the shot changed the exact same things were happening, but Tessa was south asian and Richie was two black kids.

... there was one black man that was Richie but he had a little sister he was trying to look after, which would change the center of gravity of the show in fascinating ways.

Well, fascinating to asleep me.

It was interesting because it was confronting. Oh you're reacting differently to the recast characters? How? Why? Why exactly?

It didn't recast the actual Highlander. ... I'm imagining him now as an actual Highlander.

The thing is I've heard about the new film but I can't see the point of it if it's same same.

I did have the thought that the only really interesting thing they could do with it was to make it Heather who lives. Just set it up like we're getting an exact remake but then have the Kurgan kill Connor and have his lady love wake up Immortal and spend the rest of the time on how her perspective on history would be different but in the background of the gender flipped revenge narrative. Or keep it Ramirez that died but have Heather break up with Connor and have them bump into each other down through the ages but like he's a guest character in the story of her life? Or just... fix the gender imbalance in the original story and therefore give it an all new story.

There are a lot of things in common in the already told stories.

Fanfic does interesting things when it shifts the perspectives. We could do so much more with that.



In other news my sleep watch thinks I actually got six hours sleep today but it is adding the one and a half hours right after midnight with the hours I got after the parcel arrived at lunch time so I feel I could be better rested. Still more sleep than I managed yesterday though. If my me could just decide when night is and that sleep happens in hours not minutes that would be grand.

Or if there was a real life Ring of Sustenance. That would be grand too...

This evening's dream involved
getting swallowed by a hellmouth
(teeth teeth so many teeth)
with the Legends, so Ray, Nate and John were there, but everyone got split up
until I was just sticking with John
but gradually becoming less and less sure he was in fact actual John
which, in Hell, could be seriously Consequential.

Hell was a lot more like a going out of business sale in a department store than Dante wrote it
but it was otherwise pretty themey by floor.

The basement was cold and flooded
and I stopped the lift before we got drowned
but then had to decide
stay with and support (probably) John
or leave (that) him
and either way gamble with belonging down there.


I woke up thinking I should reread the Inferno

... but possibly the Niven version...

Today I dreamed I went in the kitchen and found eggs frying
and John Constantine had turned up in actual person
not solely to make breakfast.

So I dreamed acute embarrassment
as if I had sent a fan letter that somehow convinced him there was an emergency.

I mean he is known for turning up to be seen by his writers, but breakfast would be new.



I also dreamed that Ianto Jones was interviewing new applicants for Torchwood
by booking them all in the same hotel, including him, so he could see what they were like outside the formal interview context
and then there would be test/games.

Only then the Hulk turned up and there was a lot of machine gun fire for real, which was rather out of scope for a first interview, though admittedly a fair view of the actual job.

Jonathan from Buffy tried to resolve the situation by using a love spell on Hulk, because he is known for protecting the one he loves.
Unfortunately it turned out magic users had tried it before, so now Hulk was not only not in love, but *deeply pissed off* with Jonathan in specific and particular, which was not going well.

Honestly the applicant who never emerged from their room and seemed to be playing computer games with the sound turned right up was probably having the most surviveable life.

... until Hulk turned the whole whole hotel into something with a flip lid anyway.



Waking up feeling like you accidentally pulled the fire alarm and now everyone you most respect is outside in their sleepwear seeing you in your lack of sleepwear and they all know why
cannot be recommended actually.

Neither can the knowledge that if actual adventure called I'd have to be just that apologetic about it, given relative abilities etc.



If I was writing it though this would be the beginning and the point of the story would be like those Doctor Who episodes where he meets a bunch of random people on a bus or something and it turns out if they work together even random ordinary people can do great things.

... or it would be Midnight. But John Constantine is actually who you want around for Midnight. So that works out.

My achievements did not pop up today. Once again I have done A Dance Of Masks and not got the achievements for it. Not the fighty ones and not the ordinary ones. It is frustrating and annoying.

I only loaded to see if they would and to go back a bit to get some loot I missed last night. Had to go back to the previous autosave and then go put my buffs on again. Which took less than an hour.

Today's Labyrinth t shirt is so long it is only not a dress because of what would happen if I bend over. It's a good t shirt though. There's suddenly a lot of them to choose from, it's neat.

I dreamed this morning of a very old pub called The Holly Man. ( Read more... )
The part where twelve people sit down together and chat to set the world to rights is the interesting things about pubs. So making it that small was sort of concentrating the interesting bits.

Still wondering what would happen if the Holly Man turned up
especially if he found some very unholy people at dinner.




Now I am awake and must admit it and get on with my day. New food arriving this evening because some of it wasn't there on Sunday. But some nice stuff for lunch is available. I keep forgetting how nice eggs with a bit of cheese can be. Or I could run the dishwasher and have the soup bowls with the lid ready again.

... kind of missing the idea of someone cooking it for me, but I haven't gone indoors at a pub for longer than it takes to order for over five years...

I can tell it's september again because I keep having that dream
where I am trying to sign up for a class
but I can't take the class
because I didn't finish a class
which I went to for one lesson
and somehow completely forgot about
and now I need to do exams
and to do exams I have to wander around the school in my dreams that is smushed together from every school I ever attended but especially the stairs bits and where I had to go around the out of bounds places by going up or down a floor
and getting lost
and then teachers catch up with me to tell me all about the classes I missed or screwed up
and
like
at what point do we stop having that dream?



... so of course I just reread the Scholomance books this week.
... didn't make the dreams more interesting but did make a nice contrast of could be worse.

I fell asleep with the light on and my watch telling me to stand every hour. I took off the watch eventually but that was a lot of interrupted sleep I wasn't expecting.

My most recent dream before waking:
I was with Captain Picard and Riker, Picard series editions, and we were trapped in the Abyss, trying to find portals out.
Portals looked like flatscreen TVs at sizes up to and including Battle Cruiser ( Read more... )

So, I woke up knowing if I could get up the lift far enough I could follow Jack Harkness home to Cardiff,
but also that I'd somehow have to warn him to keep the refugees contained and keep an eye on them,
which seems rude now I'm awake but also one of the big conundrums.

I'd also have to close the door I made before Cybermen could get to it, and that would mean staying on the Abaddon side.

And then of course Captains Riker and Picard would need to go back to the abyss to pick up the rest of their friends, and this route out wasn't quite a way home for them, unless we could get all the way back before Susan got a message to her Grandfather. Then there's a lift home waiting.

Tidy.



The exact sort of mega crossover that happens in dreams and goes meaninglessly messy when you try and write it, but, for the characters, tidy.


Writing it down sounds tidy and plotty but dreaming it was all just
Run.

I do have my dreams trained well though, if they know they can always Run to Jack.

I have gone quiet for like a month. Must start typing again even if it's nothing much.

My dreams haven't been great lately even as plot hooks, but they have got some nice interrupts for when they go a bit nightmare.

For instance, ( Read more... )


The other annoying dream was when I was wandering around nice little cul de sacs of bungalows and I found the one I wanted to visit but it appeared empty, so I figured I'd wait outside, only I was really tired so I had a lie down, in a fort made of wheelie bins. And then the neighbours came out to stare at me, as they would. But I was too tired to do a different plan.

So then John Constantine of the Waverider showed up, and had a lie down to hug me. He'd brought a big black suitcase to fill the gap in the wheelie bin fort so we could just have a rest there. Nice.

... logically any story with John Constantine in it is about to be significantly Not Nice. A regular sort of a place full of bungalows is a perfectly good setting for a John Constantine. He'd be a bit out of his setting, since its more suburban feeling even if it's in the middle of town, and who does suburban fantasy? But you could have themes of aging and disability. Probably something would offer a Deal so you'd not have to put up with whatever made you need a bungalow in the first place. There might be an offer of eternal youth, but at Horrible Cost, and it not lasting hardly any time anyway because, I don't know, partied too hard now they look partiable.

So okay, having a lie down outside a bungalow can be turned into a plot hook if you try really hard.

But the basic dream of Inappropriate Resting and Social Embarrassment got short circuited by A Friend Arrives, so, you know, nice.

If my dreams continue to insist I have superpowers and superhero friends that'll be a lot nicer.



Probably helps that I got actual sleep all in a row for the first time in a week. Being asleep in the daytime doesn't work very well, much better sleeping in evenings.

I dreamed there was a bunch of scam artists who bought a compound half way up a mountain, left it on the market so people would come up to see it regular, so they've filtered for rich enough people already, and then when they got there they would be greeted by 'formerly dead loved ones' and conned into staying and pouring all their money in etc etc etc. The people running the scam were trying to pitch this as some kind of past lives thing where you can wake people up to who they shared a soul with and then you can see your loved ones again. But once Torchwood got involved it became clear it was all just shimmers.

Not even mind control, just illusions, internet searches, and basic cold reading bastards.

So I dreamed Ianto Jones but in the most unwelcome context so far.

Also dreamed I knocked them all out and zip tied them and called Jack to call the police. Shimmers were Torchwood business but everything else could just get arrested.

I dreamed their entire plan fell apart because they'd been relying on people caring too much to fight back when their 'loved ones' were threatened. Someone just being done enough to stun them all and let the powers sort it out really ruined their day.

See this is almost a Torchwood shaped plot but it's too close to three others I can think of, it'd need new ground to cover. New bits of people to explore. Otherwise holo!Ianto and House of the Dead and the cult stuff in Believe all hit the high points already.

Still. Bunny.

I dreamed a convention got a dose of Seeing What We Want To See
and of course I saw Captain Jack Harkness
but also me in the cool coat of Captain Jack Harkness (no stripes).

Then The Doctor arrived, 13, and fixed it with a flickery green light,
which was necessary but awwwww.
( Read more... )

Now I am awake and remembering it was possible to buy the Actual Coat at auction and I think there are still sites that sell screen accurate cosplay versions
but
on me the effect is... different.

... long swooshy coat on short undynamic person...
*sigh*

Ah well.

I don't write my dreams down much lately because they're just a mush of anxiety stuff that makes no plot.

Like today's was dreaming I had somehow booked two conventions in sequential weekends and the second one I didn't even know what fandom it was for, I just followed the instructions in my calendar and ended up at a con hotel with endless corridors and tangled layout but you still had to go outside to get between useful bits, and in the dream someone got in my bag while I was in the queue for the reg desk and then I woke up and had to check everything was where I left it.

Boring! Yet stressful in every part!

The other day I dreamed one that stuck with. There were headlines the other day about how ageing happens in a rush at two ages, which seemed interesting because Pathfinder does it that way but the ages were different. https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/aug/14/scientists-find-humans-age-dramatically-in-two-bursts-at-44-then-60-aging-not-slow-and-steady Haven't read it yet but the idea got into the dream and

I dreamed everyone looked kind of in their early twenties until a particular birthday when they retired and boom, all the ageing all at once. Tada instant old. And they got moved into new apartments, small, and given new food, which could be basic nutrition porridge or really cheap fish fingers or something. So this person in the dream's friends made them much nicer fish fingers, on the theory it was about what old people could eat. But the much nicer fish fingers got taken off the old person's account because actually it was that every pensioner got allocated a specific number of resources society was willing to give them, and that amount was divided up to stretch across their projected lifespan, and the dream was super scared of the resources running out early, because old people were incredibly restricted by these reduced stretched allocations, but they'd never even heard of one who had lived longer than their resource.



See if this was a Young Adult book then there'd be conspiracies and shenanigans and eventualky political upheaval and improvement, or at least finding a way to work around the resource limit a bit. But that's because YA is about growing up into a functioning member of society and finding your power.

This dream story was about dropping off a cliff where they were no longer seen as functioning members of society because suddenly they need more than they can make and are super restricted in what they can do and get moved physically so they're around other people like them and not the people who can still do stuff. It's like the opposite of empowering YA in every way.

So that's just a nightmare.



Boring nightmares are boring though.

Today I got about six hours sleep
and woke up from a pretty intense anxiety dream
about going for a walk to the duck pond
on my own.

also in my summer pyjamas that are Short

and it was getting dark out
which I havent really experienced for some years because all the support happens at light oclocks.

I like the nice walks with support but it feels somewhat unfair that asleep me isnt getting Adventures just slightly more stressful walks.



Before asleep times today I did two loads of laundry and relistened some Doctor Who.
Big Finish version 2021 did not predict Brexit and also was not polite about Europe.
It's so weird every time we catch up with imaginary future.
Keeps on turning out to have been imaginary past with a funny hat on.

The Harvest was good and interesting.
The Light At The End had good bits but the more multi Doctor a story gets the less time it has for anything ither than intro outro.

I got Tuesday tasks done and successfully made appointments so it was a pretty winning day.

I also dreamed GDL was at the park doing a sort of impromptu Q&A for a picnic of tiny children who had decided they recognised him from voice work but were somewhat fuzzy on the fact fiction distinction. Like sure they could see he was not his character because he was not two dimensional yellow or fuzzy, but they kept asking about the other characters as if they were co workers like the muppets.
So that was cute.

I need more sleep.

Today's dream had many down sides
but I did like the bit where the undead contract killer
realised the harm he did went far beyond his individual victims
and set out to make amends
by testifying against his employers
from beyond the grave.

We had to get an old school video camera in because the digital ones go glitchy as heck around the undead apparently.

And we had to video his testimony because as soon as he was all done confessing he just moved on.



A lot of the rest of the dream involved being trapped in the house I grew up in but with bonus demons, who the other people in the house were *sure* could achieve redemption if they just stopped, like, all the other stuff they were doing.

But the fixing things by resolving them, not fighting, and the peripheral involvement of Benton Fraser, because he knew enough about ghosts to get it already, was interesting bits.

a dream about dreams, specifically a headset which had been invented
that could give you whichever dream you wanted,
but nobody used it for porn.

So of course when I got the headset I'm like
but what if ...

so, ordered up a dream about !person
... got a dream about !person finalising our divorce.

... that would indeed prevent use of device for much fun...

it was funny though.


I mean imagine AI that, if you tried to use it for... what humans usually use new tech for... just had a discussion about boundaries and or restraining orders...