#dreamworlds

[fuzzyghost]

[rosey0928]

Just for everyone’s information for whoever wants to marry Snotlout including me this man snores really LOUD 😭

[dreamhubproject]

(note: if you experience delusions related to dreaming, proceed with caution)

DREAMWORLDS

Have you been having strange dreams? Do you find your dreams following strict rules that you must adhere to, or suffer the consequences? Does your mind feel like another world at night?

If you've experienced up to 4 of the of the following:

Frequent lucid dreaming

Dreaming in repeat locations multiple times over the course of six months or longer

Feel like you have no control over these dreams even when you know you're dreaming

Experience nightmares, night terrors, or sleep paralysis in a regular basis

Find it easy to remember these dreams as compared to others

Have trouble staying awake, going to sleep, connecting with others, or remembering where the time's gone

Please contact me through tumblr's dm system, or send an email to [email protected]. This is an entirely serious inquiry.

Here is a link to my website with more information:

>>[The Dreamworld Project]<<

[artfest]

[argentdandelion]

Exactly Why The Wizard of Oz’s Dream Twist Was So Bad

Introduction & Thesis

The Wizard of Oz (1939), while a classic fantasy work foundational to the portal fantasy genre, has a crushing flaw in the form of its twist: Dorothy’s journey was all a dream. This twist makes Dorothy’s entire time in Oz pointless and has almost narcissistic undertones. The “lesson” she learns over the course of the dream is not something that required an adventure at all: she could have gained it with a few hours of contemplation and a reputable self-help book.

Dreams Have No Consequences

Portraying Dorothy’s time in Oz in a dream makes all the stressful things she has experienced, and all the choices she has made (minimal as they were; she is largely passive in Oz) simply meaningless because they were inconsequential. Moreover, the fact her journey was specifically a dream just worsens how inconsequential it was and makes extracting any meaning from it weaker and less believable.

For comparison, consider the alternative of Dorothy’ journey in Oz just being her playing through a video game. When people play video games, they often have agency on the course of events in a game, or at least the order, speed, and style they use to explore its world and meet their goals. A video game also often requires skill (e.g., organized button pressing, memorizing elemental types to maximize damage in RPGs), and so victory is achieved by one’s own conscious effort, and rarely by happenstance. Furthermore, while a dream is a singular experience created from an unconscious jumble of brain activity that usually makes little if any sense and quickly fades away, a video game is something millions of people can experience and appreciate firsthand. Its characters may not be real, but they can be loved, and visited repeatedly, and people may bond with others over a love for the characters.

Dream Characters Don’t Matter

The premise of Dorothy’s journey being a dream re-contextualizes all the people she has met and cared for, and who cared for her in turn, as not real. Of all the ways her companions could have been portrayed as not real, this is the worst: as dream characters, they don’t in any way exist independently of Dorothy, and they exist in some rudimentary, transient state for only a few hours of Dorothy’s life, at that. In contrast, had Dorothy’s companions been, for example, robots, self-aware illusions, or AIs within a virtual world, then at least they would have existed beyond Dorothy, continued to exist after Dorothy’s journey, and so would have had the potential for a purpose beyond helping Dorothy.

The meaningless of Dorothy’s experience as a mere dream is further worsened by the movie introducing three farmhand characters who were clearly remixed into her companions: not only were her companions not real, but they weren’t even original.  In sum, her traveling companions were, at best, mere tools her troubled semi-conscious self generated, all for the apparent purpose of learning the lesson “there’s no place like home”, and it is only by happenstance that her companions appear to be coherent, likable, and believable people.

Self-Centered Premise

The idea of Oz-as-a-dream overemphasizes Dorothy’s importance to Oz to a narcissistic-seeming degree. Dorothy is not simply an especially important, perhaps super-powerful or prophesized protagonist. Rather, the entire world of Oz does revolve around Dorothy, in the sense her semiconscious mind not only created it with ease, but continually generates it, and it cannot be separated from Dorothy herself. By not existing outside of Dorothy’s dreaming mind, Oz appears to exist specifically for the protagonist, the only real, important person within it, to learn “lessons” of some sort.

It’s worth comparing The Wizard of Oz (1939) to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (2005), which has a somewhat similar starting premise, dream elements, and portal fantasy genre. The protagonist, Max, created an entire dreamworld-planet and all its inhabitants by bringing his dreams to life via de facto reality warping superpowers, but understandably others initially doubt his dreamworld is real. However, the planet and its people do exist independently of Max’s dreams and Max himself, and can make their own decisions. This is made especially clear in the film’s climax, where one of the other planet’s villains wreaks havoc in the “real world” in a way that is clear to everyone.

Conclusion

The Wizard of Oz was one of the foundational works of the portal fantasy subgenre: while the movie was based on a book which had been followed by many sequels, the movie has much eclipsed the book it was based on in fame. Many portal fantasy works for the big and small screen have followed in the 83 years since The Wizard of Oz’s release: a few examples from the U.S. alone include Labyrinth (1986), Barbie in The Nutcracker (2001), the DC Nation programming block shorts Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld (2013), the shows Infinity Train (especially its first season, 2019), and Amphibia (2019-2022). By making it clear that that the protagonists’ journeys weren’t mere dreams, delusions, or all pretend, these stories grant the characters agency, and significance to their actions and the worlds of their journeys. The Wizard of Oz (1939) was an excellent work for its time, and fondly remembered today, but its major flaw is best left in the past.

[redqueensang]

Wildest Dreams [Chapter 1/?] {Part 3 of Dreamworlds}

When the Dominators invade Earth-1, Barry Allen knows just the alien to help -- except Kara has been kidnapped by Dominators, and he returns with a green Martian and a small team of trained alien hunting secret agents instead. Barry now has to figure out how to defeat the aliens, save Kara, restore his friendship with Cisco, figure out how Oliver just managed to rattle off a list of aliens that didn't come from sci-fi movies, and probably related, why Kara's sister recognized him.

Chapter One @ AO3

[magicalgirlfumiko]

La noyée

@usagienforcer

Helen was in a dreamstate. A long night of reading the book that she had been given by Hotaru, several on Greek lore, and grading papers until she dozed off. 

Much like her previous venture into the dreamlands, the surreal place appeared to be a twisted ocean of stars rocking between the waves. The wrecked warship was now resting on the moonscape. A grave of someones was off in the far horizon. However, there was something new. 

A Greek temple. Compared to the silverscale of the moon, it was bright and warm like the Sun. As Helen would be drawn to this temple, there were golden swirls on the roof that looked like an ancient doodle of the sun. Random pictographs would show a god figure drawing the Sun across the sky in a flaming chariot. Votive offerings including small clay statues, bronze figurines, and richly decorated bronze tripods rested along the walls. The sound of  Lyres playing in the background, added to the otherworldly feel of this temple.

In the center of this temple was a lone female figure with a large white hat on. She sat on a clay pedestal. Every few moments puffs of smoke would appear . It was an Oracle. 

She appeared to be barely older than any of the magical girls on Helen’s team. Though, it did not seem that she was paying close attention to the fact that she had a visitor. She was busy reading some modern Japanese magazine. However, she soon spoke. 

“Come. You have requested a prophecy, my child. Ask me anything, if you wish.”