Shared Silence

Last night I had a pretty trippy dream. No drugs, no nothing, just my brain going full tilt on me. I had to write it down because I was unable to do anything until I had. I wish I could draw, because I have some really amazing images in my head from this dream.
I wrote the dream down in the voice of the narrator, though in actuality, the “me” in the dream switched between being an observer, to being Yvaine to being other characters.

***

Imagine a world, much like ours - and yet completely different. In this world there are hills and trees and small cities spread around like in our world, but it is yet completely different. Everything seems a little brighter, like there is a very thin layer of crystals covering everything. 

The colours of the trees and buildings and the grass and even the people would seem out of place to us, like it has been distorted or changed somehow. (If you remember the old TV-show VR5 with Lori Singer, it’s a little like that.) In this dream world, there is an idea that everything and everyone has a specific purpose. Life is circular; you live and you die in the same pattern as before – like a never-ending circle of life, death and resurrection. You may or may not remember your previous lives, but the idea is that regardless, you live find your path and purpose much as you did in your lives before; with only small variations. The elements (fire, water, earth and wind and possibly more) have a huge effect on some (but not all) people and personalities.

There is a capital in this world. It’s crowded with different shops and people and tall, regal buildings that are gleaming in the sun light. The whole city seems to sparkle. Around and through the capital there is a single road crisscrossing the city and area around it. And here, you will now and then see a bus. It’s not an ordinary bus. It’s painted in all kinds of colours and patterns and have little trinkets glued on for decorations. It never ever stops driving, safe for picking up and letting off passengers; but even then it never stops completely, it just slows down enough for them to jump on or off. You’ll have to be quick on your feet if you decide to get on it.

The passengers could be anyone; a fisher’s wife, a child, a king. Everyone can ride the bus. Should you need to rest, you can go down below. It defies the laws of all reason and logic, because below it is bigger: Rows and rows of hallways with rooms where you can put a name tag on the door and claim it as yours for as long as you should need it. 

A young woman comes to the capital with her friend, whom she calls her sister. We don’t know whether they are actual sisters or not, but that’s not important. Our protagonist doesn’t have a name, let’s just call her Yvaine for now. Yvaine has a mark; a tattoo on the side of her neck that looks like the Celtic Tree of Life.
We can only assume it’s their first trip to the capital, as they are stunned by the throngs of people and the way they gaze upwards to look at the huge buildings. As young women sometimes do, they go shopping. They end up in a store which in this dream is identical to a H&M-store (it’s a dream, go with it). The cashier is a stunningly beautiful woman with red hair. She is smiling, but is arrogant and rude and make the young women feel out of place and embarrassed. Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched by a small group of men, sitting in a café across the street. The redhead knows about this, maybe that explains her behavior towards our protagonist and her sister.

There is something going on, a sub-current in the mood of the scene that brings us to believe that these two women are important to the onlookers somehow. The women end up in the café after being ushered there by the redhead in the store. They come to talk to the 3-4 men sitting there; they are friendly and welcoming. Yvaine and her sister immediately observes that there is something strange about their appearance:
-One is tall and thin, almost like a birch tree. He’s darkish of skin and his voice creaks slightly when he speaks.

-Another is almost as tall, and looks strong. He’s got a bit of a temper, and his entire being seems surrounded by a reddish glow.

-The third is quiet and gentle, shorter than the others, almost bald and his skin is very white, almost silver.

-There is a fourth man in the group, but we only sense him rather than see him. Like he is there by thought only. Yvaine and her sister never look at him or speak to him directly, nor he to them. He is the quiet observer, lurking just in the corner of your eye.

The scene shifts, and the two women are in some kind of amusement park or market fair. The women are enjoying themselves, but Yvaine is unsettled by the amount of attention they seem to be getting from the other people there. They stare at her. An old woman in a stall tells Yvaine that she knows her, though Yvaine can’t remember to have ever seen her before. Yvaine is special in the sense that she doesn’t remember a single thing from her previous lives, though she is well aware that she has indeed lived before. These occurrences, that someone recognize you from a previous life is not as strange in this world as it would have been in ours.

In the park there is a huge waterfall, filled with gargoyles. Some of them are sentient and are watching the two women, and eventually turn into two gorgeous women, who befriends Yvaine and her sister. No matter who pleasant they are, we the observers know that they have ulterior motives. Events lead them to the previously mentioned bus; it’s an adventure for Yvaine and her sister, and it’s why they came to the capital after all. On the bus, they again meet the strange men from earlier. They do nothing but talk and have a good time, but again there is the nagging feeling of the fourth man observing them. Since their arrival to the capital, Yvaine notices that more marks have appeared on her body. She doesn’t know what they mean, or why they are appearing, but it is a world with different laws of nature, and she brushes it away with the thought that it all has a purpose that will be revealed in time. The others on the bus notice too however, and it seems to matter to them somehow – but when she asks, they hold their tongues.

They stay on the bus for a long time – over the course of the days Yvaine talks a lot with the man with silvery skin. He’s the only one willing to actually talk with her, the others are more preoccupied with jesting and play games to pass the time. One night, on the deck of the bus, they sit together talking when Yvaine looks at the full moon.

There has always been talk about how if you look close enough, the moon will tell you stories; but Yvaine has never seen anything except for the ordinary moon – until now.

All of a sudden, she can see something on the shining surface of the moon; it looks like a lizard or a tadpole writhing and gasping for air. She somehow knows it’s connected to the silvery man, but how, she cannot say. He appears not to have noticed, and she ignores it. The next following nights it happens again; and now she can see the connection to the silvery man; he appears ill to her, his breathing is shallow though he tries to hide it.

The moon glows; now that she has noticed, the image is clearer than the first time. Yvaine realizes it’s a ghost image of the silvery man’s transformation – to what, she doesn’t know and he doesn’t say. But he knows that she knows.

The next night again, she gathers her courage to ask him about it. He tells her it’s always been a difficult transformation; that it can take years or never happen at all. Such is his life; he’s more than element, more than soul, and that is not always a good thing. The stronger your potential, the harder it is to become.

And she tells him that she understands; that she can see him there, on the surface of the moon. That she can tell that it’s painful and difficult, but that she also sees the potential of something extraordinary. The silvery man stares at her in confusion, his face screwed up in pain – and he falls forward clutching his face. He rejects her offer to help. There is nothing she can do in any case, this is a force of nature. Yvaine looks at the moon again, and the gasping lizard-like creature grows. The body becomes bigger, more powerful. Wings unfold from its back, and she knows now. As she watches, more marks appears on her body, including several Celtic-like knots on her face. A feeling of power surges through the silvery man and passes on to her, and she remembers some things now. Things are starting to make sense, and yet everything is more confusing than before.

When the silvery man rises to his feet, he looks different. His face is still recognizable, but he has changed somehow. He thanks her, though she claims to have done nothing of importance.

He says he can tell that she remembers now, and with that comes a warning. A warning not to pursue knowledge about what he is, and a warning about the fourth man.

Later, back inside the bus – in the “underground apartments” they are all gathered when the fourth man makes his appearance. He is dark and gold, shadow and light, good and evil, repulsive and seductive; all contradictions, truths and lies. His hair is a dark gold, made of snakes like a male version of Medusa.

He finally reveals the reason for his presence there; the others (the elemental men and the beautiful women) are sworn to him. He has great power like a king of sorts.

He has been searching for Yvaine, because their lives have been intertwined many times before. He firmly believes that Yvaine is his soul mate. Yvaine, who remembers them like from some almost-forgotten dream, is unsure. She can recognize them, without placing them – all of them, except for the silvery man. She feels connected to him; more than to the fourth man who has been trying to manipulate her to remember on his own terms all this time. The silvery man feels important to her, she wants to follow him though she knows she is not supposed to. The situation is serious; to make the wrong decision and follow someone who is not your destined soul mate could in worst case mean death – a ying cannot survive without its yang in this world.

***

The dream ends here (damn alarm!), and only the dilemma lingers: To follow your memories and surrender to fate’s decision, or to rebel against it and follow your instincts?

I never got an explanation to the tattoos that kept appearing on Yvaine’s body, except that she reacted to all the elements – so maybe she was some kind of mix between all of them.

The thought (one of them anyway) I woke up with, in the narrator’s (my subconscious?) voice, was this:

So imagine that this is a dream about soul mates, or about finding yourself both on your own terms and through another person. If we live many lives and we in each live phase have an idea that there is one true one that we are supposed to belong with, what happens when this is challenged?

In this life, we can fall in love several times with different persons if we are (un)lucky, and we adjust ourselves to every one of those people – hopefully to be more and better than we are on our own. The “me” you are with one person, can change slightly when you move on, and you can change slightly again when you find another person to be with.

Maybe that is your soul resonating with that person at the time.

What if, in this dream-world, you are physically unable to exist if you don’t find your other half in time? What would that do to you in terms of desperation and search?

What if you knew that person from an earlier life, but the other person didn’t recognize you? And what if you remembered your soul mate, but you didn’t resonate with him/her when you finally found him/her? What if there was another, one you were not meant to be with – that you could not be with – that made your soul sing instead?

***

I just read what I wrote and I would be lying if I said this makes any sense to me. I just wanted to share it here because it was a pretty cool dream.

I am well aware that I haven’t updated Shared Silence in quite a while. For those waiting for an update, I do apologise for that. 

Excuses are lame and should not be necessary, but I’ll try to explain anyway.

1. It’s summer. Things are happening, friends want to hang out more than usual and I even made some new friends so I have more of a social life now than I’ve had in the last 2-3 years. This is a good thing (for me)!

2. I met a man. Holy crap asdjfghasdjfghasdjfgh and I have no idea where it’s leading, but he likes Fantasy and Sci-Fi and I finally, FINALLY have someone to watch TV-shows and movies that most of my friends find “silly/childish” and “not important enough” with. He’s a big Dr Who-fan. And he’s introducing me to other stuff I didn’t even know about. I can not express how exciting that is for me. 

3. I think I might be falling in love with him and that is also a good thing (I think), because the last 2-3 years I have only had crushes on fictional characters, and well… Do I really have to explain this? Yeah I didn’t think so. 

So real life is getting in the way. However, the story still lives and I still plan on finishing it. The feedback I get from readers is still very important to me. 
I just really need a summer with real life romance.

starrysleeper:

gleeddicted:

when fics don’t update

when you’re the one not updating them

….accurate.

teamfreewilllover:

thedevilandthebeauty:

 

Praise the lord I’m not the only one!!!! *sigh of relief*

themajesticmountainscold:

moffats-army:

theuppitynegras:

siuilaruin:

aria-brook:

gentlenight:

wallflowersperk:

penchant-for-raising-cain:

“You fight like a girl.”

I’m sorry

I didn’t

realise

that 

was 

a

bad

thing

Reblogging because I’m sure the comic readers out there could add some more.

yeah

so sorry

i can’t hear you

over the sound

of me crushing my enemies

This list

was looking

a little

white

so here you go

watch tha

bodies hit

tha floor

this is the best post on tumblr, hands down

Appearance:

I am 5’4 or shorter.
I have many scars. 
I tan easily.
I wish my hair was a different color.
I have friends who have never seen my natural hair color.
I have a tattoo.
I am self-conscious about my appearance. 
I have/I’ve had/I need braces. 
I wear glasses/contacts
I’d get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free, scar-free. 
I’ve been told I’m attractive by a complete stranger.
I have more than 2 piercings.
I have piercings in places besides my ears.
I have freckles.

Family/Home Life:

I’ve sworn at my parents. 
I’ve been kicked out of the house.
I have a sibling less than one year old.
I want to have kids someday.
I have children.
I’ve lost a child.

Embarrassment:

I’ve slipped out a “lol” in a spoken conversation. 
Disney movies still make me cry. 
I’ve snorted while laughing. 
I’ve laughed so hard I’ve cried. 
I’ve glued my hands to something. 
I’ve laughed till some kind of beverage came out of my nose. 
I’ve had my pants rip in public.

Health:

I was born with a disease/impairment.
I’ve had stitches. 
I’ve broken a bone. 
I’ve had my tonsils removed.
I’ve sat in a doctor’s office with a friend
I’ve had my wisdom teeth removed. 
I’ve had surgery.
I’ve had chicken pox.

Traveling:

I’ve driven over 200 miles in one day. (I think to Hawaii/Peru via plane)
I’ve been to Canada. 
I’ve been to Niagara Falls.
I’ve been to Japan.
I’ve Celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
I’ve been to Spain.
I’ve been to Africa.
I’ve been to Italy.
I’ve been to France.
I’ve been to London. 
I’ve been to Asia. (I added this, Asia should be included, duh)
I’ve been to Australia.

Experiences: 

I’ve been lost in my city.
I’ve seen a shooting star. 
I’ve wished on a shooting star.
I’ve seen a meteor shower.
I’ve gone out in public in my pajamas.
I’ve pushed all the buttons on an elevator.
I’ve been to a casino.
I’ve been skydiving.
I’ve gone skinny dipping.
I’ve played spin the bottle.
I’ve been skiing.
I’ve been in a play.
I’ve met someone in person from the internet.  
I’ve caught a snowflake on my tongue.
I’ve seen the Northern Lights.
I’ve sat on a roof top at night.
I’ve played chicken.
I’ve played a prank on someone.
I’ve ridden in a taxi.
I’ve seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I’ve eaten sushi.
I’ve been snowboarding.

Relationships:

I’m single.
I’m in a relationship.
I’m engaged.
I’m married.
I’ve gone on a blind date. 
I’ve been the dumpee more than the dumper.
I miss someone right now.
I’ve been divorced.
I’ve had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back. 

Sexuality:

I’ve had a crush on someone of the same gender.
I’ve kissed a member of the same gender.
I’ve had sex with more than one person at the same time.
I am a cuddler.
I’ve been kissed in the rain.
I’ve had sex outdoors.
I’ve hugged a stranger. 
I have kissed a stranger.
I have had sex with a stranger.

Honesty/Crime:

I’ve done something I promised someone else I wouldn’t.
I have lied to my parents about where I am.
I’ve cheated while playing a game.
I’ve run a red light.
I’ve been suspended from school.
I’ve witnessed a crime.
I’ve been in a fist fight.
I’ve been arrested.

Drugs/Alcohol:

I’ve consumed alcohol.
I’ve smoked a cigarette.
I(‘ve) smoke(d) pot.
I regularly drink.
I’ve taken painkillers when I didn’t need them.
I’ve done hard drugs.
I’ve been addicted to an illegal drug.