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Hi, Valarnet.

( TW: murder, ota. )

You know, when you dream you kinda accidentally caused the apocalypse, it's sort of ... freeing, really. I did a super shitty job at parking this morning, but who cares? It's pretty inconsequential compared to Hell opening up and the damned romping around on Earth.

2014, huh? Might be hard to top 2013: I made friends, I got my shit together, I got stronger than I've ever been, and I met the most incredible, beautiful, powerful force of nature in the world...and I married her. 2014, let's see what happens.

I got a photograph today. A photograph of a guy called Jude Cripp; he looks a little different from my dreams. He has a ponytail, he's a lot chubbier, but it's him all the same.

He was familiar to me, in the dreams. But not....familiar in the usual way. I saw Dracula when I was fifteen, the one with Neo in it? Dumb movie. I just wanted to see Monica Bellucci's tits. I remember something else from it, though. The guy Tom Waits played, Renfield? He wasn't a vampire like Dracula, but he worked for him. He was like someone who wasn't a vampire yet but was on his way, like a...caveman-to-human type of thing. He did stuff for Dracula, stuff the Count couldn't do himself for one reason or another. Jude was....he was like that. He was my familiar.

Or maybe I'm just crazier than ever before.

Do we know how these photos got here yet? Mine is ...

( Cut for image, viewable to all. )

I want to burn it. But I doubt I can.

Ladies and gentlemen, my beautiful wife. Who will kill me when she realizes I actually had the camera recording.

I want my brothers here.

I want the Morrison-Chávez-Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martínez-Reinhardt-Carter. We were all one, and we could rule the earth. They were like me. And worse. They were bad men in life. Child killers and deviants and serial killers and monsters and they were my brothers.

Have I gone insane?

Planning weddings is hard. I mean half of this stuff, I just don't care about. But it has to be done. Why are there like a million shades of white? When did that become a thing?

Is it thanksgiving yet? I just want to stuff my face full of food and then sleep for the rest of the day.

I swear to god, if another person's well meaning relative mentions that it's "so sad" that I don't have kids and I'm in my forties, I'm going to drop the illusion and go full High Priestess on them. I don't even know if I can have kids now, thanks, and I haven't exactly had that talk with my husband because - oh hey, I've kind of turned into a demon because of my dreams. I was too busy freaking out about the pins in my head.

I'm going to the next person that I'm barren because of weaponized airborne syphilis and see how they react.

One good thing about my job is that it's really hard to worry about my crappy dreams when I'm on shift. Way for me to see the silver lining in murders, right?

I know my dreams are real. And I know this world is real. So was my dream self a...a past life? Another world, that kind of thing? But I'm changing. I don't go out in the sun much anymore, not if I can help it. I don't eat or drink. When I sleep, I sleep upside down. And I always dream.

I can see inside minds now. I can't read thoughts, but....it's hard to explain. It's like the mind is a house, and I'm sitting in one of the rooms. It depends on the person when it comes to exploring the rest of the house. If someone's got a bad lock on the door or doesn't know I'm there, then I can move freely through the house. Sometimes I can even move the furniture, or take a few things with me. Add my own little touches. And I think pretty soon I'll be able to do more. When I enter a person's mind, a person's house, it'll stop being theirs.

It'll be mine.

But I don't know if it's what I want, yet.

When did it get to be October? It seems as though time is just flying, dear listeners.

Who has fun plans for Halloween? I'm a big fan, myself. You won't be able to see my costume over the radio, of course, but I'll be certain to post pictures on the blog.

So Congress shuts down America but keeps their own paychecks?

( strong language )

I'm hungry. Really hungry, but nothing tastes good. No, scratch that: everything tastes horrible. Painful, even, like chowing down on socks filled with glass. It just makes me hurl and then I'm hungrier than ever.

I guess I'm changing, and it's no good.

Anyone ever really want to punch someone through a wall? But you can't because it's not really their fault you want to punch them. Or at least they haven't remembered yet.

Asking for a friend.

Well, at least I knew the change was coming.

Those of you who've had physical changes from the dreams - how did they happen? Did you wake up all at once changed, or was it gradual? I think I might ... shift a bit, and I'm scared I'll be at work and then BAM.

These dreams are going to quite literally drive me crazy. I can't wake up and feel this way every day, I just can't.

I'm married.

I'm fucking married.

I've never been crazy about priests or other holy men. But I need somebody who can legally perform a marriage thing.

You weirdos on the net are pretty freakin' diverse, to say the least. Anybody out there able to marry people? To each other, I mean?

This is cheaper than therapy, right?

So the dreams are ... I mean, some of us get qualities from the dreams - powers or our looks change or stuff like that. In my dreams, the high priest of Hell wants me. And I don't mean a cute little guy with a pitchfork.

( Trigger warnings for gore, reference to suicide. )

I wonder sometimes if instead of changing somehow, I'll get my stalker. Like ... I'm not a paranoid person, I'm a damn cop, but I keep looking over my shoulder all the time. Waiting for the toll of a church bell, waiting for the walls to crack open and for him to show up in his leather butcher's apron, saying my name. His voice is ... beautiful in its way, just like him. Symmetry fighting against chaos -

I should sleep. Anyone have any tips on how to sleep even though you don't want to?

Who else dreams of being a vampire? Or is one? I am simply curious. I have not heard of the boy from my dreams, Oskar, arriving, nor my sire, but I could be mistaken.

In my dreams I make a demon human for a moment - just a moment - long enough to escape Hell. And apparently he never forgets it. Twenty years have passed in my dreams, because when I first started having them, dream Me looked like how I did when I was a teenager but now she looks like me and a demon told me that he's still looking for me.

Elliot Spencer still wants me in my dreams and there's nothing I can do but try to fight back until he gets me. It's bad enough I'm fighting shit when I'm awake, but now when I sleep I have to fight too. Has anyone thought of making a Nightmare Before Elm Street type pill that prevents us from dreaming?

I grew up in Portland, Maine, but somehow, I never became aware of the North American Wife Carrying Competition that was annually held in Newry, about two hours away. Apparently a couple wins the wife's weight in beer, and five times her weight in cash.

I do accept that that's a substantial weight of cash. It might be the only sport I can see a point in, though I'm not sure I'd try it myself. ... I mean, I have no wife, but still.

The more I dream, the more I hate these dreams. The feeling of them, the sheer ugliness of the man I am in them. And it only gets worse. The sheer number of time traveling despots, dark overlords, super-villains of every caliber, always threats and destruction, all of that all the time in my dream world. It seems like nothing could possibly get done there. Not really. So many idiots trying to so do many stupid things, including my dream self.

And some of it strikes too close to home. Far too close.

Tell me, Valarnet. What do you do when you dream things that make you want to beat your fists bloody on a wall?

I kind of need somewhere to crash for a few days. I might have done something stupid.

I have officially had it with my dreams.

I wore my crazy dream-aunt's skin to fool a demon and make out with him long enough to kill him. Seriously. Head to toe wearing someone's entire body skin and it was gross and goopy and did I mention giving a demon tongue?

Blah blah need to get out more yadda yadda antisocial. People, who needs 'em!

... kidding.

How are you guys doing? I really should have more friends, so I figured this was a good place to start. Here's hoping I'm right!

Does it seem extremely prideful of me to think I might actually be able to do a better criminal profile than the fool on this television show? I mean, I was a policeman in my dreams, and worked in a crime lab, but I didn't finish graduate school. I don't recall any profiling experience in my dreams. And even if I did, well. They're still dreams.

It just seems ridiculous. ( tw: discussion of criminology and murder/postmortem gore ) Overkill requires personalization and deep rage - how can someone have that deep a rage against someone they've just met?

Maybe I should just stop watching true crime shows.

(ooc: trigger warning: discussion of violence & sexual assault in comments)

Any police types here know the punishment for home invasion? My home was broken into and I want to know if it would be worth pressing charges.


[Filtered to Zelda]
Gonna be later to picking you up than usual for the next couple days. Sorry. I'll try to get everything worked out as soon as possible so this doesn't affect you for longer than it needs to.


[Filtered to Giles Babcock]
I am in desperate need of a drink, and soon. I'm staying at the Hyrule Hotel at [address]. Wanna come raid the bar with me?

Do you think we all end up like our parents? I mean, even if we didn't really know 'em? Maybe we spend so much time trying not to be like 'em, we just end up....not seeing that we are them. I don't know. I've just been thinking about it lately.

Does anyone else dream of almost continually being brainwashed?

It's getting old. Fast.

This is the best day of my rotten life. I found this in a bin.

Anyone else want to punch their dream selves in the face for being stupid? Seriously, dream me runs into Hell on purpose. Anyone else would go "oh, is that a doorway to Hell? No thank you!" but dream me just sort of heads on in.

She also has really bad 80s hair, but real me had that too. Can't fault her for that.

I think I'm gonna start fighting.

Like, as a hobby. Not just picking fights in parking lots or whatever. Not illegal, neither, like fight club. I mean like a hobby thing, a friend recommended it to me. Just not sure if it isn't an accident waiting to happen...

I wonder if I shouldn't go see a therapist for my dreams. I mean, I wouldn't have to tell them about how they're ... too real, right? and how I have the box and I swear it's calling to me

My father's here. Why is my father here? It's been ten years since we saw each other, why couldn't he have just stayed in Massachusetts? I settled on the west coast to get away from him.

I know I have obligations here now, but I'm seriously considering moving. I can't live in the same place as that man.

Fuck.

Holy shit.

I'm engaged. And it's not even April Fool's.

I was born in the wrong damn century. I'd feel right at home on a fucking battlefield somewhere, like in Highlander.

So I beat up some bastard in a bar, get dumped in jail, bail out and that's it. Hell, if that guy couldn't handle himself, he shouldn't have been running his mouth like he was. I was within my American rights.

As a Christian woman sometimes it is hard for me to understand why God does the things he does to us down here on Earth. Why are there plagues? Famine? Fighting? Death? Why do God's people treat each other so horribly? Sometimes even in his name?

And then I remind myself that God gave us free will so we would have a choice to love him, so it would mean so much more. Without the bad there would be no good. The media likes to show us all of the things going wrong with the world, but there is also good out there. People helping each other just out of the goodness of their hearts. We have to remember that.

Ladies in the workplace: this little trick really works. Men are remarkably easy. They won't even question why your tampons are in the fridge.

I just woke up and now I'm sitting in the kitchen. She's sitting here with me, even as I write this. She is talking away, talk-talk-talk and eating all that cigarette smoke. The fat lady squeezed into that kitchen chair with her...cigaretes and her talk. And I want to take a knife to her. I dreamed about so much last night. Was it last night? Just last night? Feels like forever. It feels like I've been dreaming the same dreams forever.

It feels
It feels like my mind is breaking. I was so hungry, in my dreams. I needed to eat, and drink and rip and chew and tear and take millions into me. Millions. Me and my brothers, and my...and my Jude, my Jude Cripp, because he dreams the dream so well. He did horrible things but he dreams so well. He is a son of Babcock.

What was her name? Mother of Babcock? I didn't dream it. I just dreamed her and she's still right here.

I was more than Babcock. But I'm still Babcock. I am Babcock. I am Morrison-Chavez-Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martinez-Reinhardt-Carter. My brothers. Brothers of Babcock.

I don't understand any of this. I just know my dreams are true. I'm not that dumb, I'm not.

I wish she would shut up.

Guess who's got two thumbs and got a promotion?

... me. And everyone else who got a promotion, in theory. Unless they lost a thumb somewhere, in which case, I'm sorry.

I keep getting naked and I swear it isn't my plan. How am I getting home? Someone give me advice or pick me up. I'm trapped in the bathroom of KFC.

I don't even know how this happened. I'm just naked. Completely. And most people don't look kindly on it.

Sometimes it takes every inch of self-control not to throw certain....bar-goers out on their ass. Or into traffic. I hate those guys. The guys who think they're the life of the fucking party when really they're just making a mess for people to clean up. I got limits, though. If those frat boys turn up and start making those comments my employer again, I'm gonna have something to say. Good lady, my boss. I owe her. Same goes for her big guy.

Damn frat boys, though. Never liked their type.

Does anyone else get just exhausted whenever people ask where you're from? I mean, sure, I've got an accent. But isn't it quite obvious I've come from Scotland?

I think all Brits that move to America must be troubled with this too. I feel it's the very first thing I get from people: "Are you from Scotland?" Bloody hell, of course I am. How else would I have gotten the accent? Not exactly the prettiest one, I'd say, so why would anyone just try and learn it?

If the question's just meant to make small talk, it's bad. Small talk is probably evil.

Suppose I've just heard the question so much that I've started to get annoyed.

...And I suppose that introduces me quite nicely. I'm Elissa Cousland, and I'm from Scotland. Where are you from?