ooo :: Dreamshare oo1
[Dreamshare 1 (cut for length, not porn) : OPEN TO ANYONE]
You’ve come to the bookstore.
It presents itself as something of an amalgamation. It is at once Book’s store and also Crow’s, yet it is not limited to some combination of both. This interior is larger than either was, the lighting bright and dark, the shelves are both infinite and finite; you can’t seem to decide which it is, so it is a little of everything. Whenever you look away, out of the corner of your eye, things change. Whenever a change occurs, your brain works to accommodate the change into your sense of reality. The world adapts toward what you look for or expect of it; you, in turn, adapt to it.
Your mind attempts to rationalize this nonsense. Maybe, as always, the Sphere works in mysterious ways. That answer is not good enough, not logical enough. Something sits funny with you even while you refuse to acknowledge that your surroundings are surreal or wrong-they’re right...but not. Unable to fully justify what you’re seeing, your mind just seems to settle on ‘it is what it is’ and you move along, but there is always this feeling of things just feeling off.
In the back of your mind you know it is-or you want it to be-a dream.
At first, the books are typical: novels, cookbooks, art books, educational. Nothing specific you can pin down, but you know you recognize some. The spines have words on them, though in your dream-state you don’t actually read those words; you are just aware they exist, like anything seen in one’s peripheral. If you were to open a book, it would surely be filled with writing and yet filled with nothing. You know this without opening anything. Your mind makes up for any blanks and tells you what you should see, whether it is there or not.
The shelves get denser as you move further back into the store and they cease to be stand-alone store-shelves and instead still have some of the Tree to them-bark, twigs, some even seem to still be alive despite the shelves carved into them.
This is the Orchard. (It’s not. The Orchard is just the back of the bookstore.)
I’m looking for my book...
But these aren’t the books you’re looking for, even though you feel the ones you want should be here. All of these possess identical covers, dull covers. You pull one out. The ink stains your fingers, leaving the tell-tale giveaway of words on your hands. Gene’s words. You shouldn’t be reading this. You feel guilty. You put it back, but pull out another, compelled to read. Somewhere there has to be the one you’re looking for, the one you want. The one you remember. The one you need.
On and on through the books. This one with green glitter. This one with a dash of cigar ash between the pages. One stained in orange juice. One smelling of a woman’s perfume. The one that says everything. The one who barely writes. It drags on for ages, minutes, lifetimes, seconds. The books never seem to thin out.
You’re suddenly on the last book.
It looks new. You open it.
There is a word in blood-red on the front page. A single word in a familiar handwriting that you don’t have a name or face to go with.
SHARINGAN
Before you is a stone slab with words carved into it. It is nothing much.
The bookstore is gone. Or rather it is behind you, because you are subconsciously aware that if you want to return to the bookstore, nothing is stopping you from turning around and going back in. Somehow this sudden displacement is logical and you don’t question it. Maybe you took a walk and found this stone. You think that’s maybe what you did, except you didn’t ‘find’ the stone. It’s been here the whole time, waiting for you to visit it. Of course.
Something tells you this is Captain Planet. It doesn’t look like the actual Captain Planet-what it looks like is a courtyard in the center of a complex that includes the bookstore and is not in the bazaar-but somehow this is supposedly Captain Planet.
The stone is an old friend, a new enemy, a reflection of yourself. You don’t feel a need to examine it for inconsistencies. You’re sure this is what it looks like, though it’s possibly a little off. It’s difficult to tell. Your memory fills in the blanks again. It always does. You’re forgetting where old-memory, new-memory, and imagination intersect these days. Parts of this dream are repetitive, too, and the more you have this dream the more you’re unsure what has changed. When you wake up, so much of it is a fog.
But when you’re asleep...it’s like returning to a familiar story.
All the names on the stone are crisp, freshly carved. You’re not surprised to see any of them here. Fred. Stoneface. Gene. Seven. Lotus. Seren. Inara. Youth. Handmaiden. Bastet. Genius. Derrick. Stellaris. Lin. Apple. Crow. Promise. Boss. Toushi. Kagerou. etc... ...Fugue, others too, appear multiple times. The list goes on. Whenever you think a name won’t be there, you somehow find it. The list does not end.
Your hands are still covered in their words and their glitter and the dust from their journals. The writing won’t rub off your skin, though you haven’t even tried. It’s probably leaked into your blood now, poisoning and enriching your system. Their names and thoughts and feelings stain your skin like overlapping sheets of carbon copied text printed on your body. Everything they ever shared on the journals is preserved. Everything they ever said to you is written on you somewhere, somehow. Fragments of a human soul replicated and saved. Copied, never equal to the originals.
(You wonder whose body your words would be on if your name was on the stone. If anyone’s. Possibly no one’s. They have left a print on you, like a typewriter striking the page, but to them, you are only another sheet of lifeless paper to pass under their inked sorts.)
All in all, the company of memories feels like ‘that’s how things are.’ So it goes.
You lay back, onto the carpeted floor of your bedroom. The words are on the page again, and you watch the various inks and handwriting happily converse with each other over the journal page.
Beside you, one of the same tree-carved shelves from the bookstore seems to tower above, filled to the brim with your favorite yet indistinct novels. For some reason, Tenzou has climbed into one of the shelves, and fits, but suddenly it seems that this is something he’s done before, and always does, and you’re pleased he’s returned to his favorite nook to bed down.
Tree. Tenzou. ... The thoughts seem to collect there a moment before your dog leaps to his feet, jarring the shelf and sending a shower of books down on top of you.
((ooc: Feel free to post reactions below or, if your character would approach Bell later this week, feel free to hit me up for an action log or we can handwave that interaction))
You’ve come to the bookstore.
It presents itself as something of an amalgamation. It is at once Book’s store and also Crow’s, yet it is not limited to some combination of both. This interior is larger than either was, the lighting bright and dark, the shelves are both infinite and finite; you can’t seem to decide which it is, so it is a little of everything. Whenever you look away, out of the corner of your eye, things change. Whenever a change occurs, your brain works to accommodate the change into your sense of reality. The world adapts toward what you look for or expect of it; you, in turn, adapt to it.
Your mind attempts to rationalize this nonsense. Maybe, as always, the Sphere works in mysterious ways. That answer is not good enough, not logical enough. Something sits funny with you even while you refuse to acknowledge that your surroundings are surreal or wrong-they’re right...but not. Unable to fully justify what you’re seeing, your mind just seems to settle on ‘it is what it is’ and you move along, but there is always this feeling of things just feeling off.
In the back of your mind you know it is-or you want it to be-a dream.
At first, the books are typical: novels, cookbooks, art books, educational. Nothing specific you can pin down, but you know you recognize some. The spines have words on them, though in your dream-state you don’t actually read those words; you are just aware they exist, like anything seen in one’s peripheral. If you were to open a book, it would surely be filled with writing and yet filled with nothing. You know this without opening anything. Your mind makes up for any blanks and tells you what you should see, whether it is there or not.
The shelves get denser as you move further back into the store and they cease to be stand-alone store-shelves and instead still have some of the Tree to them-bark, twigs, some even seem to still be alive despite the shelves carved into them.
This is the Orchard. (It’s not. The Orchard is just the back of the bookstore.)
I’m looking for my book...
But these aren’t the books you’re looking for, even though you feel the ones you want should be here. All of these possess identical covers, dull covers. You pull one out. The ink stains your fingers, leaving the tell-tale giveaway of words on your hands. Gene’s words. You shouldn’t be reading this. You feel guilty. You put it back, but pull out another, compelled to read. Somewhere there has to be the one you’re looking for, the one you want. The one you remember. The one you need.
On and on through the books. This one with green glitter. This one with a dash of cigar ash between the pages. One stained in orange juice. One smelling of a woman’s perfume. The one that says everything. The one who barely writes. It drags on for ages, minutes, lifetimes, seconds. The books never seem to thin out.
You’re suddenly on the last book.
It looks new. You open it.
There is a word in blood-red on the front page. A single word in a familiar handwriting that you don’t have a name or face to go with.
SHARINGAN
Before you is a stone slab with words carved into it. It is nothing much.
The bookstore is gone. Or rather it is behind you, because you are subconsciously aware that if you want to return to the bookstore, nothing is stopping you from turning around and going back in. Somehow this sudden displacement is logical and you don’t question it. Maybe you took a walk and found this stone. You think that’s maybe what you did, except you didn’t ‘find’ the stone. It’s been here the whole time, waiting for you to visit it. Of course.
Something tells you this is Captain Planet. It doesn’t look like the actual Captain Planet-what it looks like is a courtyard in the center of a complex that includes the bookstore and is not in the bazaar-but somehow this is supposedly Captain Planet.
The stone is an old friend, a new enemy, a reflection of yourself. You don’t feel a need to examine it for inconsistencies. You’re sure this is what it looks like, though it’s possibly a little off. It’s difficult to tell. Your memory fills in the blanks again. It always does. You’re forgetting where old-memory, new-memory, and imagination intersect these days. Parts of this dream are repetitive, too, and the more you have this dream the more you’re unsure what has changed. When you wake up, so much of it is a fog.
But when you’re asleep...it’s like returning to a familiar story.
All the names on the stone are crisp, freshly carved. You’re not surprised to see any of them here. Fred. Stoneface. Gene. Seven. Lotus. Seren. Inara. Youth. Handmaiden. Bastet. Genius. Derrick. Stellaris. Lin. Apple. Crow. Promise. Boss. Toushi. Kagerou. etc... ...Fugue, others too, appear multiple times. The list goes on. Whenever you think a name won’t be there, you somehow find it. The list does not end.
Your hands are still covered in their words and their glitter and the dust from their journals. The writing won’t rub off your skin, though you haven’t even tried. It’s probably leaked into your blood now, poisoning and enriching your system. Their names and thoughts and feelings stain your skin like overlapping sheets of carbon copied text printed on your body. Everything they ever shared on the journals is preserved. Everything they ever said to you is written on you somewhere, somehow. Fragments of a human soul replicated and saved. Copied, never equal to the originals.
(You wonder whose body your words would be on if your name was on the stone. If anyone’s. Possibly no one’s. They have left a print on you, like a typewriter striking the page, but to them, you are only another sheet of lifeless paper to pass under their inked sorts.)
All in all, the company of memories feels like ‘that’s how things are.’ So it goes.
You lay back, onto the carpeted floor of your bedroom. The words are on the page again, and you watch the various inks and handwriting happily converse with each other over the journal page.
Beside you, one of the same tree-carved shelves from the bookstore seems to tower above, filled to the brim with your favorite yet indistinct novels. For some reason, Tenzou has climbed into one of the shelves, and fits, but suddenly it seems that this is something he’s done before, and always does, and you’re pleased he’s returned to his favorite nook to bed down.
Tree. Tenzou. ... The thoughts seem to collect there a moment before your dog leaps to his feet, jarring the shelf and sending a shower of books down on top of you.
((ooc: Feel free to post reactions below or, if your character would approach Bell later this week, feel free to hit me up for an action log or we can handwave that interaction))