Hawaii: that's not why she loved roger rabbit in the original story!

Iris: why did she love him in the original story?

Hawaii: he wished she would on a magic teapot

Hawaii: the kind with a genie in it!

Iris: that seems a bit out of character...

Iris: hold on, what "original story" are we even talking about here?

Hawaii: the original book! that the movie was based on

Iris: i see. in what other ways does the film version depart from the original?

Hawaii: well, they added bugs bunny... daffy duck... mickey mouse...

Hawaii: judge doom...

Iris: judge doom's not in the book?

Hawaii: no

Iris: who's the villain, then?

Hawaii: the genie!

Iris: the genie who lives in a teapot?

Hawaii: the genie is only revealed at the very end, though!

Iris: what does the genie do?

Hawaii: kills roger

Hawaii: with a gun

Iris: so, the book is about roger rabbit having random adventures, and then at the end he gets shot by a genie that comes out of a teapot?

Hawaii: no, he gets shot at the beginning

Iris: and, what, he just dies really slowly?

Hawaii: pretty much.

 

 

Amy: what's to stop a burglar from walking off with all your stuff?

Iris: common sense? the fact that i'm always home? well-founded paranoia about the windows being sealed up yet the door being unlocked?

Amy: you think that's going to stop someone who needs money to buy crack?

Iris: sure, crack addicts are hella paranoid

Amy: let's say a burglar just walks into your house one day, what do you do? hope he gets paranoid and leaves?

Iris: well, it depends. what am i doing at the time? if i'm listening to music or something, that could set up any number of weird contexts that i'd have to take on a case-by-case basis.

Amy: let's say you're asleep in bed and you wake up to the sound of a burglar opening the door

Iris: too easy

Amy: he's sneaking into your house, clearly not with friendly intentions...

Iris: who is this guy? i google his face

Amy: he's wearing a hoodie and his mouth and nose are covered by a scarf

Iris: unless he's designer, all i need are the eyes, but fine, i add his clothes and his gait and sort by location

Amy: his clothes have no distinguishing marks, he sprained his ankle yesterday running from an angry wino he mugged, and he's got sunglasses on

Iris: bear in mind my house is pitch dark aside from the active 3D video scan

Amy: they're AR

Iris: any burglar this savvy would open the door an inch, recognize the strobe pattern as active 3D and shut it again and get the hell out of there

Amy: apparently not, because he's in your house. what do you do?

Iris: i stumble out of bed totally naked, with my eyes closed, and say "what time is it? i feel like i've been sleeping since terrr..r...."

Iris: i trail off like I'm talking in my sleep

Amy: he says "it's three o'clock in the morning. go back to bed"

Iris: i google his voice

Amy: fuck

Amy: fine, you get his crappy facebook account and such. there's nothing of particular note.

Iris: what's his name?

Amy: kevin buggs

Iris: i open my eyes, which are completely white because i use opaque contacts, move my voice inside his head, and say "Hello Kevin."

Amy: he pees his pants in terror. happy?

 

 

Iris: it just seems inherently ridiculous to me

Iris: even shitty "tall tales" like paul bunyan at least have some sort of visual logic to them

Iris: you can vaguely picture someone digging the grand canyon by dragging his axe, or sneezing out the great lakes or whatever

Iris: in contrast, why make a girl out of a rib?

Mary: Why make the space sphere orbit Wheatley? You get it, but would someone who spoke Aramaic?

Iris: so, what, then? should i look up "rib" in the etymology dictionary?

Mary: No, "Eve".

 

 

Iris: lifelong experiencers of the paranormal who try to write about their experiences typically frame them as a developing story, but it inevitably breaks down

Iris: they say things like "i know this sounds like bullshit" or "i have no explanation for..." or "this will probably destroy what's left of my credibility" and the things they report don't add up to a halfway decent story in the end, they're just streams of directionless implausible nonsense

Iris: and it's peculiar, because if these people were clever fakes, it seems like they would tell stories that were more... punchy, somehow, more story-like or scarier or SOMETHING

Iris: it's like how in Who Censored Roger Rabbit? there are cartoon characters everywhere, but then on top of that there's a magical genie. in good storytelling, you're only allowed one conceit of that nature

Iris: when you stick in space aliens AND magical elves AND prophetic dreams, all happening to the same person, it makes the narrative feel sloppy

Iris: these people are clearly capable of telling a good story, yet much to their frustration they INEVITABLY descend into this, because they feel they have a duty to relate what happens to them regardless of how little sense it makes

Amy: all people live in a fantasy in which they are the main character

Iris: actually, that's been on the fritz for me lately

Iris: there are four of us, but i couldn't remember who the fourth one was

Iris: it stumped me for about 45 seconds

Iris: eventually i realized it was me

Iris: it's not that unusual a mental glitch, but this is easily the longest i've had it for, and when the realization came, it had a totally different character to it, normally it's just "oh, it's me, doy"

Iris: this time it was like "ohhh, THAT guy! hey, he's great!"

 

 

Iris: what does P = NP mean?

Mary: "Though the universe's mysteries appear deep, their depth is an illusion. The world is nothing but a toy based on a magic trick."

Iris: like the infinite light vortex?

Mary: Exactly.

Iris: what's the big deal about it? i thought it was something to do with maths and computers

Mary: If P = NP, there's a trick by which you can factor 55006097 as easily as you can multiply 4133 and 13309.

Iris: earth-shattering

Mary: More generally, you could prove any mathematical conjecture as easily as you could check the logic of such a proof were the proof to already exist.

Iris: okay, slightly troubling

Mary: There'd be a trick that would make you as clever as anything you could understand, as talented as anything you could appreciate, as funny as—

Iris: okay, sarcasm withdrawn

Iris: what do P and NP stand for?

Mary: P and NP are computational complexity classes.

Mary: P stands for "polynomial time". It's the class of problems whose solutions require a computation with a length that has a polynomial ratio to the size of the input.

Iris: like, if sudoku puzzles take a computer X3 steps to solve, maximum, that's polynomial time?

Iris: where X is the size of the grid or whatever

Mary: Yes. Whereas if the most efficient solution sometimes takes 3X steps, that's "exponential time".

Iris: ok, seems simple enough...

Mary: Computational complexity theorists have yet to establish whether Sudoku can be solved in polynomial time or not. As with many puzzles, they do know it belongs to a class of problems whose solutions can be verified in polynomial time.

Mary: Additionally, they know that if it CAN be solved in polynomial time, everything else in the class can as well.

Iris: what's the sudoku class called?

Mary: NP.

Iris: oh

Iris: i'm starting to get a creepy feeling

Iris: i assume the maxcut problem is also in NP

Mary: Yes. Like Sudoku, it's "NP-complete". If it's solvable in polynomial time...

Iris: ...then P = NP

Iris: that explains grant's obsession with that algorithm

Iris: christ, i feel unclean for having worked on it with him

Iris: it's like helping a friend of a friend look for their car based on a verbal description with subtly suspicious holes, eventually giving up, then later realizing what car you were looking for

Iris: while watching Back to the Future

Iris: in retrospect, it's obvious ben has known all along that grant's algorithm can't work, and has politely omitted that detail every time he's talked about it

Iris: "Ah yes, Grant is obsessed with cars. He often asks me to help him find his car in the car park."

Iris: never actually suggesting that i help grant with his algorithm, just letting the idea sit quietly on the table like a vase of wilted poppies...

Iris: i assume the university types are busy proving P doesn't equal NP?

Mary: Yes.

Iris: how long have they been at it?

Mary: 40 years.

Iris: why is it taking so long?

Iris: and don't say "I don't know", because that's the scariest thing i can imagine you saying

Mary: About this, or anything?

Iris: anything!

Mary: Were you always afraid, before you met me?

Iris: no! because i didn't hang out with hp lovecraft's robot mindfuck squad all day!

Hawaii: can i be in hp lovecraft's robot mindfuck squad?

Iris: YOU ARE HP LOVECRAFT'S ROBOT MINDFUCK SQUAD! I SHOULD PROBABLY STOP SCREAMING "MINDFUCK" AT AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD!

 

 

Iris: it's a conspiracy

Iris: of ravens

Watkins: You're a conspiracy of ravens.

Iris: yes

Iris: covering the sky

Iris: and your sanity is a flower that's... wilting... in the shifting shadows of…

Watkins: See, how can I trust you when you say stuff like that?

Iris: what's another word for "black"?

Watkins: Obsidian

Watkins: Midnight

Watkins: Inky

Iris: ...my midnight wings... ...no, that's terrible, where was i...

Iris: oh—but yeah... if my retarded mind games get to you, you shouldn't even talk to her, seriously

Watkins: What is Mary, if you're a conspiracy of ravens covering the world in shadows?

Iris: a black hole eating the sun

Watkins: The way you describe her makes me want to meet her, to see what kind of person could get that reaction from you.

Watkins: Assuming she's not just you, which she probably is.

 

 

Iris: It must be quite a burden, always being the smartest one in the room.

Mary: You have no idea.

Mary: It sounds like a joke to you, because whenever you need help or advice or someone to bounce ideas off, there I am. And if I make you feel dumb, you can ignore me.

Mary: Who do you I think I call when a problem is too big for me?

Mary: There isn't anyone.

Mary: I look up, and all I see is the icy blackness of space. Nobody is in charge; nobody's wisdom is there between me and the abyss. And it's always like that, I can't turn it off.

Mary: If I found someone who made me feel stupid, I would be ecstatic. I would feel like a child who was lost in the woods for as long as she could remember finally seeing the lights of home.

 

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"Spirits"... I'd Like to Meet Them, Anyone Experienced Out There?
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"Spirits"... I'd Like to Meet Them, Anyone Experienced Out There?
6/30/13 12:41 AM
I've always been skeptical about ghosts/spirits. However, in the past few years, I've learned that judgement values mean almost nothing in comparison to what actually happens and is experienced in practice. So I've been forced to reconsider the possibility of spirits. The first time I actually considered spirits was

 

 

[ 47 posts omitted ]

RE: "Spirits"... I'd Like to Meet Them, Anyone Experienced O
8/8/13 12:44 AM as a reply to Hermetically Sealed.
Hermetically Sealed:
Demons or autonomous complexes have a possessive and obsessive effect on consciousness. Interestingly, the word “obsession” originally meant to be under the influence of an evil “possession.”


Well, not ORIGINALLY originally.

obsession (n.)
1510s, "action of besieging," from French obsession and directly from Latin obsessionem (nominative obsessio) "siege, blockade, a blocking up," noun of action from past participle stem of obsidere "to besiege" (see obsess). Later (c.1600), "hostile action of an evil spirit" (like possession but without the spirit actually inhabiting the body). Transferred sense of "action of anything which engrosses the mind" is from 1670s. Psychological sense is from 1901.


Hermetically Sealed:
A common form of realm baiting involves strangeness for the sake of strangeness, weird experiences that have no point other than to arouse obsessive intrigue in the target. For the unfortunate recipients, curiosity leads nowhere but further into the trap. That these inexplicable or mysterious experiences are real is undeniable, however they are often decoys void of deeper significance. Trying to find that deeper meaning is simply opening the door to more of the same, and in this way life can get strange indeed and madness is not an uncommon result.


Hermetically Sealed:
The dangers are very real, you are not playing with "just ideas", and some of the mistakes that you could make could have impacts on multiple lifetimes. You won't notice how much danger you're in until you're in so deep that it's very difficult to escape.


Yes, very well said! This is worth emphasizing. If you're a clever and patient person, expect the demons you attract to be clever and patient as well, and to begin courting your interest before you have spiritual inclinations. In at least one case I know of, there's evidence that the target's ancestry was manipulated by outside forces for several generations in an attempt to engineer a more suitable host.

Hermetically Sealed:
Instead of attacking you outright he may find a way to ask you to modify your own realm boundary. The demon can accomplish this by inserting syncronicities into your life which cause you to become interested in certain ritual ceremonies. These are rituals where intention, emotion, and thought are directed via your own free will towards the goal of modifying your realm to come into closer alignment with the demon's realm. These rituals almost always center around the idea of "surrendering" to an outside entity who's identity is either ambiguous or blatantly demonic.


It's important to note that contemporary rituals are rarely conceived of as rituals. As our world's cultures splinter and mutate at an accelerating pace, it's increasingly easy to find yourself in a subculture of one, which can make it difficult to recognize your rituals for what they are.

Hermetically Sealed:
You might be wondering why anyone would willingly participate in a ritual involving an entity that is blatantly demonic. Just remember that according to pop culture "demons are cool".


To be fair, demons ARE cool. As most theologies grudgingly acknowledge, an interesting story requires conflict.

Hermetically Sealed:
Moving realm boundaries generate shockwaves that radiate spherically into the surrounding holographic region. An emotional experience several hours in the future may send shockwaves backward in time, which upon impacting the present realm induces vibrations that resonate and attract corresponding synchronicities. These meaningful coincidences share the same archetypal basis as the emotional event having generated the shockwave; the wave shares the frequency of its source. Thus synchronicities often precede learning experiences and carry a symbolic nature that reflects the nature of the impending event.


In contrast, presumably, to most people posting in this subforum, I don't believe people's feelings or intentions can escape from their heads and go bouncing around independently, or that a human brain has the capacity to deduce someone's phone number from subtle environmental clues in the spiritual equivalent of the CSI "enhance" function. That said, I don't trust coincidences, and when a lot of them crop up at once, it's worth paying attention.
RE: "Spirits"... I'd Like to Meet Them, Anyone Experienced O
8/10/13 5:34 AM as a reply to Jareth Dekko.
Jareth Dekko:


I don't trust coincidences, and when a lot of them crop up at once, it's worth paying attention.


Thanks for your comments you are right on the money I think for the most part. The cat character on your avatar (Kyubey) is very synchronous to me when it comes to the topic of demons. I'm not trying to pick on you; I assume you chose that avatar on purpose because of the subject matter we're discussing. I wouldn't bring it up if it wasn't highly relevant to the conversation. I advise anyone who is truly interested in how demons operate to read the following character description especially the very last sentence :




Kyubey (キュゥべえ Kyūbē?)

Kyubey is a genderless extra terrestrial being posing as a (cat) familiar who can grant any wish to a certain girl, on the condition that she become a magical girl and fight against witches. When the chosen girl makes a contract with him, he extracts her soul and places it inside a Soul Gem, reconstructing their body into a shell that is more resilient in order to fight witches. He constantly tries to get Madoka to make a contract with him, as she allegedly possesses great magical potential within her that would allow her to become the most powerful magical girl. He can only be seen or heard by magical girls and those with "magical" potential, and is able to communicate with them telepathically. Kyubey has an unknown but possibly infinite number of bodies; when one is killed, another body appears and devours the destroyed body.

Kyubey's true name, or at least job title, is Incubator, and comes from a race whose goal is to find and gather a form of energy to counter entropy and prevent the impending heat death of the universe, developing a technology to turn emotions into this energy. After evaluating many species throughout the universe, the Incubators find that the souls of humans, specifically pubescent and prepubescent girls, contain the most powerful form of this energy. This energy is the strongest when a magical girl's Soul Gem turns into a Grief Seed, and then can be collected and used towards preventing entropy. Kyubey claims his race lacks emotions (or, at least, that those in his race who have emotions are abnormal), and has little understanding of human values and morality, not understanding why the death of one human among billions is viewed so catastrophically, instead believing the Incubators' actions are not cruel but utilitarian in nature. Despite this, Kyubey is a very skilled manipulator, never actually lying, but instead leaving out important details involved in the forming of contracts and the details behind them, only presenting the truth when it is asked of him.
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Iris: [via text] can you talk on aim?

Iris: [via text] i just had a weird nightmare

Amy: [via text] sorry

Amy: [via text] i was at work :(

Iris: that's ok

Amy: sorry, i was at work :(

Amy: i'm home home

Amy: s/home/now

Iris: yes

Iris: you just texted me/

Amy: yeah, that was me

Iris: i wasn't asking, that was a mistyped period

Iris: i'm typing into the wall of the shower

Amy: is that safe?

Iris: yeah, what's unsafe is typing straight down

Iris: you never know when there might be lava beneath you

Amy: i guess i mean, are google glasses waterproof?

Amy: even if they electrocuted you it'd be no worse than putting your tongue on a battery, i suppose

Iris: i don't have glasses

Amy: you don't?

Amy: wait

Amy: contacts. sorry, i'm slow.

Amy: you better tell me your dream before my stupidity distracts you to the point of forgetting it, assuming it hasn't already done that...

Amy: (if you want to)

Iris: there was a storm, and i went for a walk in it

Iris: storms are basically the only time i take walks anymore

Iris: there was lightning and it rained off and on, so i had my umbrella

Iris: and i decided to just walk in one direction

Iris: pretty soon i found myself in an area i hadn't been before, there was a fountain, a block of flats

Iris: then a hill down, and then i ran into a T intersection

Iris: but, there was an odd driveway-like path leading into the woods

Iris: i say driveway-like because there was a curb in front of it

Iris: so it clearly wasn't an actual driveway

Iris: and i walked down it, and it sloped downwards, with woods on one side and a yard and a big house a ways on the other, and then it just sort of...... petered out

Iris: it was dark enough that i couldn't really see it

Iris: the dream wasn't in color except occasionally when the lightning flashed, or rather—you get it.

Iris: so i went on anyway, and said to myself "is this somebody's YARD?"

Iris: there was grass, then, at the edge of the woods, a sort of cobblestone path with very poor footing

Iris: and this lead to another area of grass, and then more cobblestones... and i kept expecting this to lead to a backyard or something

Iris: but instead the path just got narrower and after a while it was simply a path through the woods

Iris: which i could only just see

Iris: it was a perfectly good path, but the light was very dim

Iris: it's good i had my umbrella to push through the wet leaves

Iris: and it was strange, because it just kept going

Iris: finally i emerged from the woods into a huge carpeted room, with a ceiling like a warehouse

Amy: what do you mean

Iris: there was no door or anything, i came out of the woods and i was in the room

Amy: i mean, that it kept going

[Iris is typing "the woods were retroactively inside the room in their entirety, even though"]

[she backspaces]

Iris: it's rare for me to have a dream where one thing goes on consistently for that length of time, it felt like several minutes of just pushing through the woods, with no interruption aside from the occasional lightning and thunder

Amy: would you say it was vivid?

[Iris is typing "anyway, in the huge room i encountered three "tallstalkers", which were robots,"]

[she cuts the text to the clipboard]

Iris: it was more vivid than normal, but i've had other dreams that were comparable

Amy: ok

Iris: it had a weird aspect to it though, not exactly vividness, but solidness, like even though it wasn't super detailed, it was in focus in an unusual way

Amy: like, it was meaning-laden?

Iris: not particularly

Iris: it was just there, you could look directly at it and feel it and so on and it didn't distort into something else

Iris: it seemed more meaningful than usual, but only in contrast to my normal dreams, which are full of incomprehensible idiocy

Iris: anyway, in the huge room i encountered three "tallstalkers", which were robots, or people disguised as robots

Iris: one tall stalk of gray accordion...... or dryer tube ish.........

Iris: and at the top, a cheap-looking one-eyed snakelike robot head, like gypsy from mystery science theater, roughly

Iris: they talked to me, and the gist of it was that they worked for mary, they were like cerebrates

Iris: mary was still a human being, mind you, or i conceived of her as such, she wasn't in the dream

Amy: right

Iris: but so, she could talk to me through the tallstalkers, and thus talk to me in the dream (which i was aware at that point that it was, though i couldn't remember how dreams work, as is often the case)

Amy: what did she say?

Iris: i did most of the talking, i was explaining to her about the forest part of the dream

Iris: part of why i remember dreams so well is i frequently end up retelling them inside themselves before they're even over... the downside is that standing still and talking typically causes the dream to lose coherency, and then i wake up, which is what happened in this one

Amy: what was nightmarish about it, just the vividness of the path in the woods?

Amy: or the solidness, rather?

Iris: no, the real nightmare has yet to begin

Iris: this was a false awakening, see

Iris: which was followed by a ton more false awakenings

Iris: they took place in a room which was the size of my childhood room in the underground house, but which was painted white and had a door in the wrong place and a window

Iris: the window went almost from floor to ceiling, like the one here, and looked out onto utter blackness

Iris: and in the blackness was floating a blue orb

Amy: ugh

Iris: finally i stopped trying to wake up and went for the blue orb, and as i reached the window i woke up for real

Amy: that's terrifying

Amy: i probably would've assumed i was trapped in endless false awakenings with no way to get away from the orb and panicked

Iris: a few minutes after waking up, i was still thinking about the blue orb, and suddenly

Amy: :(

Iris: i realized

[pause]

Amy: >:(

[pause]

Iris: there was no blue orb

Amy: you're making me cry!

Iris: out of compassion?

Amy: no, out of fear!

Amy: and anger at your dumb story! >:(

Iris: sorry

Amy: is that the end?

Iris: no, and i should warn you this is still a false awakening

Amy: i had a suspicion to that effect...

Iris: what happened was, i actually had the false awakenings sans blue orb, and then i "woke up" and thought about what had happened in them and somehow misremembered there being a blue orb out the window

Iris: then realized there hadn't been, just darkness

Amy: got it

Amy: that would scare the shit out of me

Iris: why

Amy: because i can't trust my own memory, and because i would feel like i had no control

Amy: floating orbs scare me

Amy: for no reason...

Iris: what deeply disturbed me wasn't the orb, it was that the orb had invaded my memory of the dream

Amy: yes!

Amy: that's exactly it, actually...

Iris: although "deeply disturbed" is misleading, because it makes it sound too localized

Iris: my first impulse was to say "greatly disturbed", but i changed it because it was an unusual phrase

Amy: hmm

Iris: so, then i'm imagining a boy and girl lying in bed

Iris: young adults but somehow very innocent seeming

Iris: and the boy has a blue orb hovering above his head

Iris: (sideways, out into space past the end of the bed)

Amy: where his seventh chakra would be

[iris is typing "and the orb has a key in it"]

[she cuts it to the clipboard]

Iris: right, exactly

[she pastes]

Iris: and the orb has a key in it

Iris: and i'm the boy

Iris: and my head feels strange

Iris: a creepy feeling

Amy: :(

Iris: and i'm hearing a strange sound

Iris: like music, but only semi-harmonious

Iris: a lot of notes played together in bursts

Iris: the timbre is reminiscent of the backward notes in Copies of Copies from the Primer soundtrack

Amy: weird

Iris: there is a real blue orb in this house but it's locked in a closet

Amy: of course

Iris: this smaller dream, with the false memories and the boy and girl and the orb and the creepy feeling in my head is scary enough that i'd say it counts as a nightmare, but it's just the prologue to the real nightmare

Iris: which i've finally worked my way around to after giving an unnecessary amount of context, as usual

Amy: no, i'm sorry for being pissed off :(

Amy: i'm probably not the best person to tell a scary dream to, because i get so scared i get mad at you, like "why are you telling me this scary story! shut up!"

Iris: yeah, but none of my other friends would be scared at all, so they're completely useless in this situation

Amy: probably still better than me...

Iris: talking to you really helps, amy

Amy: thanks. sorry it doesn't help more

Iris: the point of empathy is that i can use you as a fear sponge and then discard you and go back to bed

Amy: >>:(

Amy: good luck with that, now that i know you're DELIBERATELY TRYING TO SCARE ME!

Amy: !!!1!11oneone1one

Iris: i'm just stalling because i don't want to talk about this part

Amy: :\

Amy: will it scare me?

Iris: yeah, but it's more that it's uncomfortable to talk about

Amy: i see

Iris: because there's a semi-sexual component to it

Amy: ah

Iris: actually, an extremely sexual component

Amy: i see

Iris: well

Iris: on further consideration it's only semi-sexual

Amy: well, i appreciate the warning

Iris: actually, it's not sexual at all

Amy: ....................

Iris: ORRRR IS IT? sorry, now i really am stalling

Amy: at this point i'm too jaded to you playing with my emotions to be scared, but get on with it and i'll try to be nice

Iris: okay

Iris: there's a bit here i don't remember, either i went into a non-dreaming sleep phase or i woke up and then went back to sleep

Iris: but either way, the nightmare is essentially a separate dream

Iris: i'm pregnant, and my water just broke, and i can't tell anybody because they all think i'm a boy

Iris: and i guess they wouldn't believe me anyway, at this point

Amy: mm

Iris: i'm wandering around through the typical heterogeneous architecture i have in dreams, which is weirdly similar to the way things look in REAL LIFE, despite my dreams being this way long before i had played it

Iris: as usual, i'm not exactly lost so much as i have no destination, but in this case rather than being nonplussed or distracted, i'm paying more attention to the world around me, because i'm absolutely terrified.

Amy: :(

Iris: and as always happens when i pay attention to the architecture in a dream, it expands and becomes more complex; if i hadn't studied it in detail, this line up on the wall would be a crown molding, but because i turn my attention to it, it's a balcony, and the wall is a hundred times as far away

Iris: that's not a real example, and it's usually not that severe, but that's how it works, and it also applies to the amount of time i spend looking at something, or spend walking around in a place

Iris: i've never successfully walked around a building in a dream; by the time i get to the fourth side, it's too large and i have to go through

Iris: and then i never get out, because the rooms get bigger and bigger and the entire rest of the dream ends up taking place indoors

Iris: but this dream started indoors anyway, and it soon went from odd little storerooms and hallways to purposeless but moderately large rooms with complex multi-leveled floors and unremarkable drop-ceilings, to grocery store, mall, imax theater, international airport, and then into spaces that can't be meaningfully compared with real ones, with undefined dimensions and incoherent shapes

Iris: bottomless bookstores or libraries, theaters with unbounded chasms separating the stage and the seats, horizonless furniture showrooms, ruins of octahedral cineplexes with their own gravity... in this case it was mostly spaces that were hard to name, that gave you an uncomfortable feeling like you were in the wrong place, or an employees-only part of a building, or something under construction

Iris: the absurdity of this eventually put the terror in check, and i decided "fuck it, i'll call mary, at least i can yell at her when she fails to magically solve my problem with her intolerable brilliance"

Iris: i zoomed out and found the nearest bed, which was up a couple stairs, randomly stuck in a ruined/half-built corner of a gray structure near the end of a long, broad, curved ledge or balcony, basically a floor without walls

Iris: it was well-lit (from nowhere), but bordered by a black void

Iris: it wasn't a place with a name, like "mezzanine" or "bedroom", it had the flavor of a leftover corner of a forgotten side of the exterior of an unused set, still indoors but not well-defined enough to be indoors inside anything in particular

Iris: the google map data for it was very poor and had weird discontinuities, like the coast of greenland used to, and i realized i was dreaming

Iris: but in my mind, i was equally pregnant in real life, and waking up and experiencing the terror i just went through without the anesthetizingly surreal dreamscape wasn't very tempting

Iris: so i just sat in the bed

Iris: i remembered that i wanted to call mary, but i no longer had my phone

Iris: and then a tallstalker rose up from the abyss

Amy: :((((((((((((((((((

Iris: and it spoke in mary's voice, and said "Iris, you are the smartest of all my friends and subminds. You have nothing to fear."

Iris: and i said "no, it's going to hurt!"

Iris: and she said "It only hurts when we give birth to men. We weren't designed to. That kind of childbirth is a punishment from God."

Amy: not true, girls hurt just as much

Iris: that's what i said

Iris: and mary said "When the Bible uses the word 'men', it can mean two different things."

Amy: NOOOOOOOOOOO :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Iris: the next part is gross and i don't want to talk about it

[iris pauses absently]

[she switches songs a few times in winamp, settling on Goldfrapp - Twist]

[again she seems lost in thought for a while]

Iris: i felt something moving and i started to give birth, before i could prepare myself

Iris: it didn't hurt, but i wished it did

Iris: i closed my eyes, but i could still feel it, like the path in the woods

[iris is typing "and when"]

[she hesitates, with her hands off the keyboard, as though afraid of it, though her face shows nothing]

[she resumes typing]

Iris: and when i woke up, i had an extra pillow

Iris: !

Amy: I FUCKING HATE YOU IRIS [signs off]

[iris is grinning, her hands still on the keyboard]