In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby IGNORE ME » Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:20 pm

It's kind of a pain to install them on phpBB, pretty much the main thing I regret with this switchover.

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby nosimpleway » Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:29 pm

More or less like this, shitty artifacted transparency and all.

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Niku » Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:11 pm

Friday wrote:didn't Niku basically do that same thing at one point

I remember logging on one day and my avatar had been changed to some anime thing I did not understand as I was not yet weebed by Esperath


i definitely did but absolutely do not remember what i changed them all to
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Yoji » Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:06 pm

I think that's the first time I used lucid dreaming techniques to stop a dream.

After some other nonsensical dream junk- including a little ghost hunting- I returned home to my little dream studio deal for a nap.

Then I noticed the animals outside my window getting upset. Then the birdhouses I hung from the ceiling started almost falling on my head. Then I saw mortar dust falling from the cracks in the ceiling as something moved through the attic. Then I saw the disembodied, soot-covered hands crawl through a hole in the ceiling and towards me.

I thought something like "this can't be happening," but somehow had the presence of mind to do my standard reality check: biting my finger. Gave it a chomp but felt nothing, so that couldn't be my real finger and that couldn't really be happening.

But I was still really scared and forced myself awake before anything worse could happen.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Büge » Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:19 am

I've been having some interesting dreams lately.

Earlier this week, I dreamed that Kylie and I were driving through St. Catharines, and we stopped at a game store that was doing curbside pickup. Outside the store was a spinner display of VHS tapes and DVDs, and I went to go browse it while we waited. A lot of the tapes were obscure Disney films and Lord of the Rings extended editions, but one tape caught my eye: an OVA titled "Detective X Gollum" which was apparently a Yoshiaki Kawajiri anime about a albino lady in a black catsuit (who is a secret agent) and she and her partner are sent by her agency into the jungles of South America to kill the head of a crime cartel.

Apparently my brain thought that was more interesting than the dream I was having, so it shifted to actually follow the agent. So after killing her way to the crime lord's compound (losing her partner on the way somehow), she discovered a beautiful pianist lady who had apparently been captured by the crime lord. There's some sexual tension between the agent and the pianist, but the agent still has to eliminate the boss. He gets the drop on her, disarms her, and is about to kill her when the pianist shoots him in the back. The agent and pianist make their escape and share a kiss as the sun rises.

After a debriefing at the agency, the agent sees the pianist off at the airport. But the agent gets a call from her superiors: the head of the crime cartel was actually a woman! The truth dawns on the agent as the pianist disappears into the crowd and through the gate.

THE END...?

And last night I had a dream where I accidentally spilled some spaghetti sauce on Data from Star Trek, and he got really mad, but it turns out it was just a publicity stunt to promote a restaurant called Binley's. Their slogan was "Binley's: It Burns!"
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Silversong » Wed Jan 19, 2022 10:11 am

I dreamt that due to an administrative error, my bank account and driver's license had been marked as belonging to a wanted felon. I found out at about 8pm, so anyone I could have called about it was closed. I was worried I'd get arrested before I figured out how to fix it.

Then I woke up and realized that's actually a pretty plausible scenario

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby nosimpleway » Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:45 pm

Alternately, your long years of rampant tax fraud have finally caught up to you.

no silver, you are the felons

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby IGNORE ME » Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:16 pm

You can't arrest Silversong, she works for the FBI.

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby atog » Thu May 19, 2022 12:41 pm

Today in dreamland: Mongrel and his tabletop miniatures buddies strike it rich peddling a form of instant-setting modelling foam/glue gun to Ukraine, to seal bullet holes in planes and fuel tankers on the go. Social media begins to fill up with images of Ukrainian warhammer nerds in flak jackets and camo wielding giant, Nerf-esque glue guns full of the stuff. One video shows a soldier filling a hole in the ground like a Boston Creme with a canister of this magical flubber, and then brushing away loose soil and sod to reveal a teller mine safely encased in instafoam. It was also getting used by field medics to stanch wounds and fix various other mishaps.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Yoji » Thu May 26, 2022 11:17 am

My son jolted awake earlier, and after a confused moment asked "...was that real snow?"

Also, my daughter has been having dreams and telling us about them. But she's still in that speech stage where she can communicate with us but is still kind of incomprehensible sometimes thanks to wobbly pronunciation and and small vocabulary. So the result is mostly details getting lost in the heartwarming moment of it all.

But robots who need new batteries seems to be a recurring theme.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Upthorn » Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:26 am

My girlfriend and I were binge-watching some science fiction show I hadn't heard of. It turned out to be four seasons long.
The first episode opens on an open-air marketplace. A set of elaborately filigreed double-doors swing out from an imposing wall. Two soldiers (one male, one female) in early middle age step out, carrying a baby girl. They are followed by an imperial scholar. They close the door behind them and begin discussing where they should go to keep her safe.

On their way to the agreed-upon hideout, they encounter an orphaned toddler boy, who is instantly fascinated with them, and sticks to them like glue. The girl exhibits some ability at magic, and the boy come to completely idolize her, wanting to be just like her in every way.

Apparently this setting's magic is one of those things where anyone can learn, but the singularity of focus required is so difficult that, most people never manage to start training. The girl exhibits a prodigious aptitude for it, and the boy is essentially normal, but has still begun at an extremely early age, and so is likely to become a once-in-a-millenium-level expert. The scholar guide them in the tropey "vague-but deep aphorism" way, but didn't start learning till college, so isn't nearly as strong as these small children. The boy is very stubborn, which is a mixed blessing, as it gives his magic raw potency, but makes it difficult to adapt to the new paradigms required to do different things. The girl, on the other hand, is extremely intelligent and creative, and so always takes to new tasks with ease, but she's also quick to abandon ideas, and has to learn patience in order to keep the effects from fizzling out as soon as they become obvious.
Each episode ends with the soldiers shuffling them all off to a new hiding place, on a different world, either because they've been in one place too long, or because the children did something overly attention grabbing.

Over the course of the first season, the boy and girl become best friends, train in magic, and they grow to roughly kindergarten age, in real-world terms. For this season, the only source of visible conflict is the conflict between the children's desired abilities, and the actual state of their abilities. It becomes apparent to the viewers that we're in a post-apocalyptic setting, where there was a vast, interstellar civilization that collapsed for unknown reasons, and every different place has a different improvised system in place to achieve local subsistence.

In the second season, the boy has become jealous of the girl. He's older, so he should be stronger, and smarter, and better than her. He's gone from her best friend to our primary antagonist, and frequently instigates situations that could kill the girl and her guardians, not because he wants them dead, but simply because he wants to prove himself stronger, no matter what. (As the first conflict of this season starts, I comment to my girlfriend that this is terrible writing, and the boy's characterization had completely changed in order to artificially shake-up the character dynamic.) The boy has stopped hiding with them, but, just as in the first episode, can track them uncannily whenever they move to a new hideout. There is a protracted scene of them competing to conjure the tallest tower, which keeps alternating between the boy's and the girl's being in the lead, before the boy starts conjuring additional obstacles to distract her or incapacitate her from continuing. This season takes us from kindergarten to early teens. The scholar's role diminishes over the course of the season, until the writers seem to have completely forgotten he exists. The season ends with the boy accepting that being second-best at something is still valuable, and rejoining the team. (Again I comment that this unrealistically sudden and drastic character shift is bad writing.)

Season three has no distinctive memorable moments, but contains gradual paradigm shifts: the boy and the girl go from children to adults, from friends to lovers, and from obeying the soldiers to commanding them. As our main characters become more aware of the world, we the audience, gradually become aware of the setting's back story: ⇳ Click to Expand Summary
galactic society started as a democratic and egalitarian federation of planets, with faster than light ships from any world to any other, and constant exploration of new frontiers, but the advent of instantaneous transportation via hyper-gate replaced interstellar journeys with a stagnant network of static connections between worlds. As people became accustomed to instantaneous transport between worlds, nobody had the patience for long journeys of exploration any more, and the boundaries of civilization solidified. As society stopped expanding, wealth and resources turned into a zero-sum game, with no new supplies coming in from anywhere. Additionally, breakthroughs in genetic manipulation allowed the wealthy to design children with radically increased mental and physical abilities, leading to a renaissance of eugenics and racism, as the well-off deliberately chose to make their children into psychopathic narcissists with no psychological barriers preventing them from exploiting others in the extreme. These new racial strata ossified into a feudalist hierarchy, with a cunning emperor assuming total authority, and restricting access, first to designer offspring, but eventually all education and technological progress, to the imperial family only. Society reached an equilibrium where nobody's quality of life improved or declined over time, and stagnated for a millenium. And then aliens breached the gate network. They had no interest in domination or politics, only access to natural resources, so they cleared humanity from vast swathes of every world, but largely ignored population centers. However, when humans sent forays out to try to regain control of areas, or steal resources, these were traced to their sources, and those sources were eradicated, much as we do when we find a trail of ants in our home. And so, the emperor, and the entire imperial court, were slaughtered... Except for two guards, one knowledge keeper, and the empress heir.
Tl;dr: society was a stagnant monarchy that got eradicated by the zerg, and our girl was the newborn heir to the imperial throne, hastily smuggled away by her two guards. Also, the palace runs on an energy source that could annihilate the galaxy if it were to destabilize, so now that she's ready, she needs to reassume control of the palace. Season finale is them returning to the gate from the first scene, and stepping back through.

The entirety of season four takes place in the abandoned imperial palace temple. The imperial hypergate opened directly into the throne room, which left them totally vulnerable to the exterminating aliens. The aliens had no interest in governing, so simply left once they had eliminated the primary source of human resistance. However, the palace has advanced technomystical automated security systems. This part gets really weird. The girl has to overcome all sorts of weird trials, which involve de-aging her guards by twenty years, duplicating herself and momentarily allow one version to die in order to merge with the palace guardian, and mysteriously having a daughter offscreen. She finally reaches the system core, and the final security barrier before she can gain full control over the palace systems is that she must tell it who the father is.

Final scene: she answers that she is the father, and is granted control over the system, and then instantly disappears, leaving the two guards with her daughter. The search the palace for her, and find only a royal knowledge keeper, who tells them that they must keep the girl safe, and rushes them back through the gate. As it fades to credits, we hear the gate clank shut, and the ambient noise and first lines of dialogue from the first episode, revealing that this whole series has been a time loop.

(Here I wake up, roll over, fall back to sleep, realize the guards must be aware of the fact that they're in a time-loop, and start dreaming progressively less coherent alternate ways for the final season to go when they get back to the palace this time)
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Büge » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:11 am

Dang. I'd watch it.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:22 pm

I'm in some kind of fast-food restaurant when the weather kicks up into some sort of blizzard/hailstorm/tornado. And then in an instant it's over, so everyone in the lobby goes to leave. I can't find my car in the parking lot, nice standard dream setting.

I find my license plate, but it's not on my own vehicle. After putzing around a couple of minutes I get the idea to check the plate again, and it's different. Yep, I'm dreaming. Well, I'd better wake up soon, I need to pee. So I try to wake up.

I'm in a the bar at some sort of grungy nightclub, wearing a coat that is somehow open up the back so that my ass is hanging out. Naked in public, nice standard dream setting. Thanks to the open back on my coat Chris Farley points out I've got a bunch of needles "like them acupuncture needles" sticking out of my spine and helps pull them out. He declines to answer what he's been doing in the meantime between his supposed death twenty-five years ago until now, but I end up concluding that hanging out in grungy nightclubs is probably about right. This is goddamned ridiculous. I still need to pee, so I'd better wake up.

This is a nature documentary about a mountainside swamp. That's a pretty neat trick, geographically speaking. At least it's something new, like, I'm not in class when there's a test I haven't prepared for, or trying to fly and my flight gives out and I fall from altitude and die. Where does the mountain get enough water to saturate the ground and make a swamp? There's mud everywhere. It's damp. Which reminds me that I need to pee. I try to wake up again.

"I appear to be in some sort of visual novel as illustrated by Bogleech." Various images flash by of centipede monsters and creatures made entirely of obtuse angles and all sorts of things that skitter and ooze, complete with dialog boxes. I can't read the text, it's going by too fast, like fast-forwarding through a scene you've already done to get to new content. "I'm sure these are all very nice people but I still need to pee." I try to wake up.

I'm in some sort of superhero sitcom, or training academy, or something. I can make wind blow in whatever direction and intensity I please. That is apparently My Thing, that I am Known For Around Here. Eventually I get the bright idea to go outside, summon a gust to blow me straight up into the air, and try to fly, only for my powers to give out. I fall from altitude and die.

This time I do wake up. I get out of bed and go pee.

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Mongrel » Sat Jun 25, 2022 3:59 pm

Captain Blowhard
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Mongrel » Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:52 pm

My brain decided to come up with a strange picaresque movie called "Homeguard", wherein Donald Trump was reelected president, began a nuclear war with Russia (as you do), and plunged the world into a nuclear winter, but where the hero of the story was... Winnie the Pooh (no, not Xi, actual Winnie the Pooh). Visually he was kind of a cross between the Disney version and the version seen in the original illustrations, though definitely closer to the Disney version.

It started out as a big political drama with loads of dialogue - something like a bad Tom Clancy adaptation, then had a long, mostly silent middle which was most of the the run time of the film, and ended with another, shorter, sequence where dialogue came back. During the bulk of the movie, Winnie becomes this strange stoic fantasy warrior-hero, wandering around this nuclear wasteland earth with all kinds of strange creatures and debased humans like some weird ass clone of Kamadi, learning and growing stronger, with fists, the blade, and eventually magic, becoming the strongest warrior and most powerful sorcerer of Winter Earth. Except he was, y'know, still Winnie the Pooh.

Bereft of his hundred-acre wood, and everyone he used to know, he ended up looking a little more tired, and his red shirt had long since been replaced by Conan-type furs and bits of armour. He carried all sorts of weapons on his back from swords to magic staves, and he sounded somewhat wiser and learned and somewhat less dopey, but... still Winnie the Pooh.

I think he spent a lot of time wandering around what used to be Russia, but which was now a land where the sky was always dark, the winds always howled, where small hamlets huddled in vast wastes of ash and snow, only occasionally punctuated by the odd castle, citadel, or city, and which was ruled by a strange Hyborean slave empire, spiced with a few odd, out-of-place Soviet motifs. Eventually Pooh-nan-di or w/e you want to call him (IIRC, he continued to call himself just "Pooh" for the whole movie) sparked a slave revolt of some kind which brought in a more just system of rule, but he didn't lead it - he was just sort of this quiet presence pushing it all into place, while occasionally duelling local warlords, champions of evil, and malignant sorcerers.

These fights were especially odd given that he still had Winnie the Pooh blob hands; but when has that ever stopped a cartoon? Also doing the think-think-think thing during magical tests of will and power, except there was far more gravitas to it now. It was even a bit grim and sinister: he'd only touch his head once while letting out the words slowly and with great resolve before annihilating some evil wizard by casting them into a pocket void dimension full of unspeakable cosmic horrors, or something. Think . Think. Think. [horrific screaming]

After all that, he made his way to North America where he was able to rest and travel among the strange kingdoms and city states which remained, scattered across the livable areas of a broken and partially-inundated land, and eventually retired, telling stories about his long and strange saga to a few who sought out his wisdom, in which he could only escape the hellscape empires of the old world by saving them.

In summation, don't fuck with Winnie the Pooh, the mightiest hero of earth's darkest age, or he will get medieval on your ass.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:41 am

Nintendo did a whole series of 'em. Nickelodeon did one. WB did one too. I guess Disney figured they'd get in on the act and make a video game where all of their IP fights each other for no readily apparent reason. In typical dream logic I move back and forth from, like, watching a preview trailer to being a part of the trailer itself. Also the game is a MOBA instead of a mascot brawler.

The premise, such as it is, was that the plucky head of some secret organization where The Kids Are In Charge and the corrupt CEO of some massive company where The Kids Are Also In Charge are in some sort of conflict. Both of these characters are live-action and in waking retrospect are probably Original Characters Do Not Steal but I'm sure somewhere on Teen Disney there are similar enough premises that they're characters somewhere.

Anyway, as part of this conflict the CEO has cloned infinite copies of Air Bud as the shock troops they need to win. Any unfilled space on either team's roster is therefore filled with a computer-controlled Air Bud. Plucky Leader is on her heels trying to find anyone who can fight on her side against an enemy with infinite resources.

"Of all the characters to choose from, you got... a friendly golden retriever who plays sports, and isn't even a villain in their own universe, as your go-to soldier?" In-universe me is sitting on some sort of bleachers along with both Plucky Leader and CEO, watching licensed characters try to brawl with a bunch of dogs. The Buds, for their part, seem to think it's a ton of fun, and their combat moves appear to be mostly pinning and licking characters into submission.

The CEO goes into a PG-rated invective rant about the genius of her plan. On the battlefield, Goofy, Pluto, and an Air Bud are all staring at one another, utterly puzzled. "And anyway, it's this basically just Kingdom Hearts?" "Yeah sort of", says the Plucky Leader, as we're both ignoring CEO at this point. "Those guys are here too. We got the Square contract."

Character portraits flash by.
Some wrinkly old guy with a goatee: XEHANORT
Some Sephiroth-looking guy: XEHANORT
Sephiroth in a long robe: XEMNAS (who is really XEHANORT)
a wooden doll in a blue cape: GENO
Sephiroth but a teenager: XEHANORT

"I'm pretty sure you're missing at least one version of that guy," I note. "I lost count," replies Plucky Leader. CEO gets in my face and screams at me because we're ignoring her, and I push her down the bleachers. Even if she's a powerful, connected, wealthy commander of a massive army, she's still like ten years old and I am an adult.

This whole idea is dumb. I walk away and wake up.

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Friday » Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:38 pm

That's not even remotely enough canonical XEHANORT's, and no, that's not a joke.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby Friday » Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:54 pm

Also this morning I had a dream I was working on my RPGmaker game again. I was introducing a new character, an enemy succubus who joins you after defeating her. Also the two existing characters were replaced by House and Wilson from the TV show House.

Anyway despite this being an RPGmaker game, each character was "acted" like it was a TV show. Somehow. Despite staying as a chibi or in-battle sprite. House and Wilson were being acted by Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard, respectively, but the new Succubus boss/party member was being acted by none other than our very own Silversong.

So the first thing she does is complain about her outfit. "This is wayyyyyy too impractical for actual combat," Silver says, as she holds up her hand as House and Wilson start combat. (Keep in mind this whole scene in being done in first person Dragon Quest style combat view, so House and Wilson are not actually visible.) "Hold on, let me change into something else."

*Succubus/Silver slides off the screen to the right, sprite not animating otherwise*

*Silver/Succubus returns, now wearing full Lolita*

"Okay this is much better," says the text box under Silver.

House: This doesn't seem much more practical for combat.

Silver: Nonsense. I'm wearing an armored bustle and bodice.

Wilson: But how will you use your seduction attacks if you're not showing off that nice magenta skin?

Silver: It's true that those skills have been disabled. However, I have replaced them with sword and rapier skills, which are much more practical.

*Sword suddenly is added to the battle-sprite*

Silver: En garde!

*Combat proceeds*

House: This is much harder because we were specced anti-seduction attacks and now this is all physical damage.

Silver: Stop whining and fight! If you want me to join you, you must prove your strength!

*The fight continues. Silver eventually scored a series of critical hits and wins*

*The game fades back to the normal map instead of game over screen*

House: Oh, it was a scripted loss.

Silver: I suppose you proved you're at least able to handle yourself. Very well, I will join you in your quest to defeat the demon lord. But no swimsuits. They are impractical for combat.

The rest of the dream was Wilson and House arguing with Silver about taking off at least SOME of her clothes so she could use her party healing sexy magic. Silver kept refusing and talking about how she would be better utilized as a frontline fighter.
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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:00 pm

You might miss out on Silver's Healing Bosoms magic but once the infinite number of Air Bud soldiers attack you'll be grateful for her frontline tanking abilities

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Re: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams

Postby nosimpleway » Sun Jul 31, 2022 1:08 am

Pictured: Silversong

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