Carabas

I'm reading a book. There had been a series I'd loved that ended some years ago, and now the authors have put out a new prequel series featuring some of the side characters - one of them is the Magician.

Scene changes slightly - instead of just seeing words on a page, I'm now seeing the scene described in the book. The Magician and Julie are having a standoff, just arguing with words at the moment but willing to cause damage if it gets to that point. I'd been looking forward to seeing a scene with Julie. In the main series, it's established that she and the Magician had a long and complicated history, but we only actually see her once - learning more about her is the main reason I'm interested in this new series.

But Julie's personality here is drastically different than it had seemed in the main series - I actually hadn't realized this was meant to be her until just now when I heard her name (she's using two of Julia's usual aliases). Her portrayal's so different that it just seems like bad writing, like she's been reduced to a caricature. And that complicated history she had with the Magician seems to have become a standard characters-who-irritate-each-other-wind-up-getting-together plot. In the years since that first series ended, the writers have really gone downhill. So I decide I'm just going to ignore this characterization, this new series in general, and focus on the main series instead.

For (supposedly) unrelated reasons, a character on the Magician's side puts his hands over his ears and starts singing to avoid hearing what the Magician and Julie are saying.

Fragment involving Ben Affleck and people complaining about a Fantastic Four movie.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

X-Men fragment involving Erik and Charles (as played by McKellan and Stewart) having an argument about something involving a young man, a mutant who lives with them; one of them leaves with the young man. Scene changes so that this is a movie I'm watching, I'm explaining to someone who just came in that this was the last time they saw each other for 9 years. On screen, it's now some kind of opening credits for the Avengers showing various backstories, some actual Avengers characters (Loki, Banner, "Hawkguy", deliberately misspelled - nothing for Iron Man though he shows up later for the fight sequence), mostly characters made up for the dream, one guy with a Buddhist hell motif, leading into a fight sequence in New York, complete with a very dramatic soundtrack featuring classical singers.

Scene changes, ditches the TV framing. Dream's now following a man in a suit who's standing on a New York street, looking up at the Avengers flying around fighting each other, when this woman says to him, "But do they care a touch for the wedding of the moor folk?" Moor here meaning the type of land, moor folk meaning faerie folk. They hold each other's gaze for a moment, she grins, he laughs, low and strange. She continues, "You weren't thinking, were you?" She's a red-haired woman with an Irish accent, wearing a veil, though the wedding she mentioned isn't hers, and looking very out of place on the streets of New York with a bunch of flying lunatics duking it out in the background.

(Woke up. Reflected that this was obviously inspired by a conversation yesterday, about the spin-off show starting today and how I still haven't gotten around to seeing the Avengers movie, and how that must have made me subconsciously remember the X-men movie that I also haven't gotten around to seeing - completely forgetting at the time about the Affleck dream which seems to have actually kickstarted this whole superhero thing. Although I haven't seen the latest Batman either, so I guess that still fits the theme. Anyway - decided to finally get around to watching that movie before the spin-off airs, went back to sleep, and making that decision seemed to do the trick, no more superhero dreams tonight.)

Fragment involving driving to the beach with IRL acquaintances and seeing Iolaus on the side of the road, looking out over a river.

False awakening - don't remember the actual waking up part, but I was in my IRL home talking about the previous dream scene as a dream, and went on to talk about skinny dipping and Xena (separate topics). Over-steeped the tea while I was talking and went to toss it out, outside.

Outside I'm on a city street, and the trash can I use is right in front of a bookshop. Looking over the books in the window display, I start thinking about idolizing people and forgetting that they're only human, and eventually seeing their flaws and feeling let down, although you're the one who put them on a pedestal in the first place. Thinking about viewing the work and the writer separately as a balancing act, being able to see a writer's flaws as a person and to love their stories without the one contradicting the other. And the flip side of that, thinking about the stress on people who are idolized.

As I walk back to my apartment, I pass a cafe where a writer I know (a DC, no resemblance to any IRL writers I'm aware of) is sitting at a table with two women young enough to be his daughters or granddaughters. I stop to talk, and I say to him something along the lines of, yeah, you're idolized and you're only human, but the way you use your young, impressionable groupies is seriously creepy. One of the women gets up and leaves. The other stays.

But when I'm back in my apartment (which no longer bears any resemblance to IRL) and making a fresh cup of tea, I turn around and find that the woman who'd stayed is now sitting in my kitchen. I offer her a cup, she says no. She tells me haltingly that she's thinking about getting a job to support herself - maybe working for a political campaign, maybe going back to college, getting a degree and working in publishing - instead of relying on her writing.

3rd person. A military camp at night, raining hard, ground's mostly mud, the dogs and eagles used for running messages are having a rough time of it - at which point the dream switches to 1st person. I'm standing outside the dream, watching it, complaining to a woman with me about the use of animal messengers. "These people can create magic doorways linking one place to another, why are they still using messengers? Why do they even have supply lines?" She tries to say it's probably just shorthand, but I'm not impressed by this excuse. It annoys me that magic is only being used for flashy combat techniques and such when it could be put to so much better logistic use, it's a complete waste of manpower.

The next ASOIAF book comes out, and I skim the first few chapters and find a pleasant surprise: another Melisandre POV chapter. I settle in to read.

3rd person, following a woman who works at a newsstand that former president Bush II used to walk past every day as part of his routine, a long time ago. Now he's here with a bandage around his head, blood showing through, looking dazed. This happens twice. Both times he's found and picked up by his own security, but the woman is thinking to herself he 'looks the way he did in 2004,' meaning on the verge of death. The second time this happens he nearly walks into traffic, looking as if this isn't something he wants to do but is unable to stop himself. Unable to think straight, his mind is following an old routine.

A woman took me back to her home and left me to sleep, and now I'm hiding behind a door and watching her tend to a crying man, seeming to comfort him. In actuality, the scarf she wears around her hair is soaked in tears; this is how the witch feeds.

(Woke up with comparisons to Circe on my mind for that last one. Back to sleep.)

3rd person following a couple who meet for lunch every day, sitting at the outdoor tables of a cafe in a major city. He's a writer, and she used to read his stories during her breaks and tell him what she thought at lunch, but with this most recent book she finds she's got less and less time for it and finds herself making excuses: "I had a few moments in class, but..." He dislikes that she seems to feel obligated to read it, and tries to tell her there's no reason she should be spending all her free time on his writing, but when he says this out loud it just sounds like they're drifting apart. He gives her a peck on the cheek as they stand up from the table, and as he leaves he passes two women bending their heads together for a kiss.

I'm running some kind of transdimensional superhero team (though everyone here's wearing suits and ties, thank god, or casual clothes in Banner's case; no spandex in sight), and we've just encountered this reality's version of Superman, a version who grew up not on Earth but as the only living creature on a dead planet, raised by recordings, never understanding what had happened to everybody else.

I'm traveling, and attending this formal dinner. I'm seated next to this older guy who occupies some position I'm very respectful of, something to do with myth and ritual, and he asks me about what my legacy would be. I'm not a native speaker of whatever language we're using but I believe the word he used has a connotation to do with children, so I talk about being an uncle to my IRL sister's kids. (She doesn't actually have any yet.) He and the people around us seem disappointed by that answer - as if it's an acceptable answer to the question, but an indication that I'm not the kind of person they hoped I was. Then, unsure if I'm translating this accurately, I change my answer to "if the stories I tell are remembered." Now he seems much more approving.

Fragments from earlier: Taking a bunch of tourists to see a show claiming to represent old Aztec traditions, stepping back from the show while they watch, and standing next to an ancient Aztec dead man, listening to him mock the show. 3rd person, a magician who traveled and was misinterpreted a certain way by the people he met became known as 'king of kings' (my first waking association with that was Ozymandias).