Glieuaeiel's DJ

Superheroes (8:07)

To their surprise, a group of friends discover that they all have superpowers. The superpower is unique to the person. One of them can create force fields, which comes in handy when villains begin shooting energy bullets at them. Still, she barely gets up the shields in time, which makes her friends nervous enough to shout at her a bit. In the middle of a sentence, someone realizes that the villains just shot a "seminuclear bomb" at them. They all shout and panic, and the bomb goes off. From a distant perspective, you see a cylindrical shield appear around the group just in time to protect them from the blast.

Thinking they've succeeded, the villains approach the area of the ocean where the group of superheroes had been swimming. Soon after they reach the spot, the shield disappears, presumably releasing radiation poisoning into all of the villains. They all start making funny faces. I'm curious about how this movie is going to depict radiation sickness--it seems like something that would be difficult to cartoonify.

Autumn (8:07) (LUCID)

It's a beautiful fall day. I'm walking over the grass in a section of woods where all the trees are bare of leaves, and I'm not alone. There are dozens of people nearby, walking every which way, although I am traveling alone. I reach the crest of a small hill, but rather than walking down the other side, I keep on walking straight into the air. I suppose that must mean I'm dreaming, but I'm not sure I feel like doing anything about that.

On second thought . . . I do a reality check to get into the mindset of dream control. I still have to prove that I can exercise some kind of control over fire. I decide to try to use lightning. Looking at a nearby tree, I gesture at it somehow. To my surprise, with a flash and a bang, a bolt actually strikes the tree. It's on fire, now, but the fire is highly stylized. The tree is covered in a bunch of orange and black sprites--little crescent moons that randomly switch from left-facing to right-facing. I'm not sure that counts as actually starting a fire. I turn to another tree and try to hit it with lightning, too, but this time, nothing happens.

I give up on the lightning, and try to set the grass on fire with a sweeping motion of my arm. A ramrod-straight, paper-thin line of flame about a dozen feet long appears on the ground, but it doesn't interact much with its surroundings. I try to make lava from the foothills flow down through a nearby riverbed, but that doesn't really work, either.

Carefully, I look up at the clouds above me. I worry that without any trees or grass in my field of vision, the dream will start to come apart. The sky is pretty, but I look down again quickly. A little later, and without any apparent warning, the dream just stops. My vision's not black, per se, but I can't see anything.

Novice Author (8:07)

A novice author has recorded a video explaining the story behind her recent short book. She starts by reading something apparently from a writing textbook, about how it's a good idea to write the ending first, then pretend to get flustered by all the complicated detail and explain to the reader that you'll have to go back and tell it all from the beginning. I recognize that technique from a lot of the books I've read, and apparently the author does, too, because she looks up from the book to interject a short phrase meaning something like, "Just like they do in the classics!"

While the video credits are rolling, the girl's roommate comes into the room wearing a bathrobe. She's just trying to get her laundry from the machine, but as a joke the vlogger intercepts her, and in the struggle the robe comes untied. Eventually the roommate does manage to put on a pair of underwear. Then the vlogger's top comes off, too, and they sit down on the ground and start kissing. I'm pretty sure this is the first time either of them have explored this part of their sexual orientation, so, good for them!

Frags:

• A volcano goes off and we have to climb up a series of gigantic, cubical cliffs in order to escape the lava flows. The cliffs have a consistency similar to tofu. I take a few wrong turns.